DEBBIE ELLIOTT, HOST:
In honor of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, our series, America In Pursuit, explores culture, history, and objects in American life. For this morning's installment, we visit the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History here in Washington, D.C., deep in the vaults that store some of the nation's most precious artifacts.
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LISA KATHLEEN GRADDY: I can't tell you where exactly we keep it. Obviously, that's a security issue.
ELLIOTT: My guide is Lisa Kathleen Graddy, a curator of American political history. We're in a back room with a noisy ventilation system, where she gently removes the precious object from a small storage box.
GRADDY: This is a gold pocket watch. And this watch belonged to Abraham Lincoln. It's got some weight to it. It's a good English pocket watch. And it would have been exported to the United States.
ELLIOTT: It's a beautiful watch.
GRADDY: A colleague of mine used to call it the Rolex of the 19th century.
ELLIOTT: Whoa.
GRADDY: This is a statement piece. This is - I think of it as Lincoln's statement to himself that he's made it. He is no longer a day laborer. He's a successful lawyer. He is going to be a successful man. And this is the watch that he has when he comes to Washington, D.C., as president of the United States.
ELLIOTT: And the watch closes and opens?
GRADDY: The watch closes and opens with a little button at the top, by the round - the circular piece that then holds the chain. Now, these watches run on whale oil. Keeps it lubricated, because, of course, it's a mechanical works. It has to be wound, and whale oil apparently will gunk up if it's not cleaned. So this watch had to go in periodically to be cleaned.
ELLIOTT: And in 1861, it was being cleaned by a watchmaker named Jonathan Dillon. On the same day, news broke that Confederate troops had attacked Fort Sumter, the first shots of the U.S. Civil War. Decades later, Dillon's relatives passed down the story that he'd inscribed a secret message inside the watch to mark that historic moment. Was it just family lore or for real? In 2009, the Smithsonian decided to open up President Lincoln's pocket watch to discover the truth, and NPR was there.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: We have a case opener here which we will need to open the back of the case. I'm having somewhat of a problem getting the pins out. No, that won't work. There we go. The moment of truth has come.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: There is an inscription.
ELLIOTT: What did he write?
GRADDY: He wrote his name, Jonathan Dillon, April 13, 1861. Fort Sumter was attacked by the rebels on the above date. And then, on a different portion, he wrote, thank God we have a government.
ELLIOTT: Wow.
GRADDY: Is that amazing? He wrote a testament of faith in Abraham Lincoln, in the country, in the union, in the government of the United States. And Lincoln had that in his hand. We talk about how this political history and the museum collects the ways in which the American people interact with their government, interact with their democracy, and how they affect their democracy and are affected by their democracy. That's all summed up in this watch.
ELLIOTT: But in a stunning twist, it turned out that wasn't the only secret message inscribed inside the pocket watch.
GRADDY: Somebody wrote Jeff Davis on the watch. Is it a joke? Is it a Southern sympathizer?
ELLIOTT: Jefferson Davis being the president of the Confederacy.
GRADDY: Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy. Unclear on why that is there.
ELLIOTT: Maybe this watchmaker considered Jefferson Davis his president, as opposed to Abraham Lincoln.
GRADDY: Very possibly. And even in that unfortunate conclusion that you decided to carve that in the watch, you can still see that as, again, being American - stating their opinions and interacting with their government, sending a message to the president, even if he was never going to see it.
ELLIOTT: Graddy believes that such conflicting passions are a hallmark of American democracy. But it's the inscription of watchmaker Jonathan Dillon from more than a hundred and fifty years ago - thank God we have a government - that moves her to this day.
GRADDY: It makes me tear up every time I think about it, every time I talk about it. It's just - whether Mr. Dillon meant it precisely that way or not, it is one of the most moving statements of faith in America that I have ever seen. And it gets me through bad days.
ELLIOTT: It's doubtful that President Lincoln knew of the secret messages inscribed on the watch he carried in his coat pocket.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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