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There has been a 150 year story floating around (so I'm told) that Lincoln's pocket watch, his prized possession that he carried with him everywhere, contained a secret message inscribed within it. This story was proved true when the watch was carefully taken apart by curators at the National Museum of American History.
The inscription was written in cursive by watchmaker Jonathan Dillon, and two parts of the inscription have been revealed to read, "Jonathan Dillon April 13 - 1861," and "Fort Sumpter (sic) was attacked by the rebels on the above date," and finally, "Thank God we have a government." The watchmaker had Lincoln's watch in his hands when he heard that the first shots of the Civil War had been fired in South Carolina. The Irish immigrant later recalled being the only Union sympathizer working at the shop in a divided Washington. The story of the inscription has been passed down in his family, and he claimed in a 1906 article in the NY Times that no one had ever seen the description, not even Lincoln.
The watchmaker's great-great grandson, Doug Stiles, was the one to relay the info on to the Smithsonian curators, and eventually watchmaker George Thomas, who volunteers at the museum, and was the one to get to dismantle the watch to read the description. Stiles comments after it was proved that there was such an inscription were priceless. "My gosh, that was Lincoln's watch," he said, "and my ancestor put graffiti on it!" The graffiti only proved to offer even more historical insight to the already famous relic, a fitting relic that literally marked the changes of the times that were Abraham Lincoln's presidency, and the war that changed us all.