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Historian To Donate Notes On Famous Lincoln Photo

Last updated on Tuesday, October 7, 2014

(SPRINGFIELD, Ill.) - A retired historian will donate original notes he took about a photograph of a dead Abraham Lincoln that nobody knew existed until he discovered it.

Today, Ronald Rietveld will discuss the only known photograph of Lincoln in his open coffin when he hands over his notes to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield. He took the notes when he was a 14-years-old in 1952.

The photograph is of Lincoln in his coffin in New York before his remains were returned to Springfield for burial. The teen discovered it when a state historian allowed him to look through a collection of Lincoln items in Springfield.

Rietveld had met the historian at a dedication of some other Lincoln items in Iowa.

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