Apparently a watchmaker who was repairing President Lincoln's watch on the day gunfire broke out at Fort Sumter, SC (sparking the civil war, for those of you who don't get the History Channel), secretly immortalized the day by engraving a note inside Lincoln's pocketwatch."The engraving, by watchmaker Jonathan Dillon, is dated April 13, 1861,
and reads in part: "Fort Sumpter was attacked by the rebels" and "thank God we
have a government."
"Forty-five years later, Dillon the watchmaker told The New York Times
that he was repairing Lincoln's watch when he heard that the first shots of the
Civil War had been fired.
"Dillon said he unscrewed the dial of the watch and used a sharp
instrument to mark the historic day on the president's watch. He told the
newspaper that, as far as he knew, no one had ever seen the
inscription."
The National Museum of American History agreed to open the watch to see if the inscription was there after being contacted by Dillon's grandson. And lo and behold! There it was!
Apparently Lincoln never knew about it... I assume because he was too busy chopping down cherry trees. Wait? What? What do you mean, "That was Washington?" Carver? I thought he was the peanut guy. Isn't he busy building houses for Habitat for Humanity these days?
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