Robert Todd Lincoln (Delta Kappa Epsilon)
Son of President Abraham Lincoln (Assassinated). Republican. Politician. Lawyer. Businessman. Philips Exeter Academy. Harvard University (BA). Delta Kappa Epsilon. Northwestern University (LL.B). Serious amateur astronomer.
25 May 1889 to 4 May 1883 - United States Minister to the United Kingdom by President Benjamin Harrison
5 Mar 1881 to 4 Mar 1885 - 35th United States Secretary of War by President James Garfield and Chester A. Arthur
Feb 1872, Edward Swift Isham admitted Robert Todd Lincoln, the son of Abraham Lincoln, as a junior partner. Isham’s son Edward Swift Isham Jr was Skull and Bones (1891).
1865 - United States - Union Army - American Civil War - Captain. His joining earlier was prevented by Mary Todd Lincoln.
1864 - Initiated Delta Kappa Epsilon. Graduated Harvard.
Died 26 Jul 1926, from “cerebral hemorrhage induced by arteriosclerosis”. Age 82.
Note: Last suriving member of both the Garfield and Arthur Cabinets.
Son died 5 Mar 1890 at the age of 16.
Robert Lincoln and Edwin Booth (Brother of Lincolns’ assassin John Wilkes Booth)
Robert Lincoln was once saved from possible serious injury or death by Edwin Booth, whose brother, John Wilkes Booth, was the assassin of Robert’s father. The incident took place on a train platform in Jersey City, New Jersey. The exact date of the incident is uncertain, but it is believed to have taken place in late 1863 or early 1864, before John Wilkes Booth’s assassination of President Lincoln (April 14, 1865).
Robert Lincoln recalled the incident in a 1909 letter to Richard Watson Gilder, editor of The Century Magazine:
The incident occurred while a group of passengers were late at night purchasing their sleeping car places from the conductor who stood on the station platform at the entrance of the car. The platform was about the height of the car floor, and there was of course a narrow space between the platform and the car body. There was some crowding, and I happened to be pressed by it against the car body while waiting my turn. In this situation the train began to move, and by the motion I was twisted off my feet, and had dropped somewhat, with feet downward, into the open space, and was personally helpless, when my coat collar was vigorously seized and I was quickly pulled up and out to a secure footing on the platform. Upon turning to thank my rescuer I saw it was Edwin Booth, whose face was of course well known to me, and I expressed my gratitude to him, and in doing so, called him by name.
Presence at assassinations:
Lincoln was not present at his father’s assassination. He was at the White House,[46] and rushed to be with his parents.[47] The president was moved to the Petersen House after the shooting, where Robert attended his father’s deathbed.[48]
At President James A. Garfield’s invitation, Lincoln was at the Sixth Street Train Station in Washington, D.C., when the president was shot by Charles J. Guiteau on July 2, 1881, and was an eyewitness to the event. Lincoln was serving as Garfield’s Secretary of War at the time.
At President William McKinley’s invitation, Lincoln was at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, where the president was shot by Leon Czolgosz on September 6, 1901, though he was not an eyewitness to the event; he was just outside the building where the shooting occurred.[49]
Lincoln himself recognized these coincidences. He is said to have refused a later presidential invitation with the comment, “No, I’m not going, and they’d better not ask me, because there is a certain fatality about presidential functions when I am present.”[50]
[1] - Wiki - Robert Todd Lincoln
[1,1] - Robert Todd Lincoln: A Man in His Own Right by John S Goff
[1,2] - What They Didn’t Teach You in American History Class by Mike Henry
[1,46] - Assassin Would Have Failed Had Son Been at Theater with Abraham Lincoln
[1,47] - Crime Buff’s Guide to Outlaw Washington, DC
[1,48] - Robert Todd Lincoln on Presidential Assassinations
[2] - Find a Grave.com - Robert Todd Lincoln
Comments