Thursday, March 12, 2009

An Almost Forgotten Story...the Secret Message in Lincoln's Pocket Watch...

If you know me or have read my profile, then you know that I love old things. I find security in feeling like I am surrounded by objects with previous lives, previous stories...the knowledge that life is bigger than I am and anything I'm facing has been faced before. It's just a great feeling.

In my jewelry and art I like to try to bring forgotten objects and their stories back...give them another opportunity to be something beautiful and collect new tales. I like to think that the recipients of my jewelry reflect on who might have previously owned them...an ornate pocket watch held as a prized possession by someone almost two centuries ago...what was their life like?

I like the romantic notion that objects absorb and become the sum of their past.

In the idea of this notion, the story below was forwarded to me. It is quite a great example of the idea of 'almost forgotten stories retold' in a very literal and tangible way. It is the story of a man experiencing a moment that he knew would be life altering for him and his country. In that moment he inscribed his thoughts on the internal plates of an antique pocket watch he was repairing; a pocket watch that just happened to belong to Abraham Lincoln. A century and a half later, the story of the existence of this inscription was almost nothing more than myth until a driven ancestor and willing museum curators were able to come together and bring to light this story...almost forgotten.

Please enjoy the story of Abraham Lincoln's pocket watch:
http://tinyurl.com/dceu58


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