Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination Doctor’s Wife Received Check For $600 From The Secretary of Navy “Gideon Welles”


GIDEON WELLES (1802-1878). Lincoln and Johnson's Secretary of the Navy, known as “Old Neptune,” a man of great integrity, who wrote an incisive diary of his time in Abraham Lincoln's Cabinet.
March 5, 1868-Dated, Partly-Printed Check Signed, “Gideon Welles,” drawn on Riggs & Company, Washington, D.C., payable to Mrs. Dr. Stone for the huge amount of $600, Choice Extremely Fine. Interestingly, it was Dr. Stone who was the Attending Physician at President Abraham Lincoln’s bedside, the night of his assassination. With original 2¢ Revenue Tax stamp, hand dated inscribed by Welles: “GW my hand (?) - 1868” and has a bank cut cancel well away from the bold, clear signature. Endorsed on the blank reverse by Mrs Stone. A quite remarkable, historic Abraham Lincoln Assassination related item... twice over!
On the evening of April 14, 1865, according to Lincoln scholar Harry Read, Dr. Stone arrived at Peterson House shortly after the assassination at Ford’s Theater. The presiding physician, Dr. Charles A. Leale, “was presented as the doctor who had been in charge since the shooting. Leale showed Dr. Stone the wound and described his treatment. Dr. Stone approved.

In his report to Gen. Butler, Leale said he asked Dr. Stone if he would take charge and that Stone said ‘I will.’ (Other sources say Surgeon General [J.K.] Barnes assumed responsibility when he arrived.)” It’s not clear that Dr. Stone did much for the patient since the other attending physicians had already probed the head wound with their fingers and the President was clearly dying. Another examination was made by Dr. Barnes with a porcelain probe around 2 A.M. At regular intervals, President Lincoln’s pulse was checked by Dr. Barnes. Apparently, Dr. Stone was given the job of telling Robert Todd Lincoln of his father’s fatal condition. He kept watch from the foot of the President’s bed.

Stone also watched over the distraught Mary Todd Lincoln although another family friend, Dr. Anson Henry, was in attendance in the weeks after the murder. (Dr. Henry had been the family physician in Springfield before moving his family to Oregon.) Security guard William Crook recalled: “The shock of her husband’s death had brought about a nervous disorder [for Mary Todd Lincoln]. Her physician, Doctor Stone, refused to allow her to be moved [from the White House] until she was somewhat restored.” The migraine-prone Mrs. Lincoln was probably more dependent on Dr. Stone’s services than her late husband. In May 1864, President Lincoln wrote the doctor: “Will Dr. Stone please send Mrs. L. prescription for one of her cases of bilious headaches?” But historian Michael Burlingame noted that the Stones had an unfavorable opinion of the President’s wife. Dr. Stone “believe that “Mrs Lincoln was a perfect devil,’ and Stone’s wife thought that ‘Mrs. Lincoln was insane on the subject of money.’”

Dr. Stone had a better opinion of Mr. Lincoln, saying: “Lincoln is the purest-hearted man with whom I ever came in contact.” The President himself probably needed Dr. Stone’s services in the last two years of the war when he fell victim to headaches, chills and in November 1863, variloid. An undated note from President Lincoln asks: “Will Dr. Stone please make me a prescription for a ring worm?” Dr. Stone’s services must also have been employed by the White House staff since John Hay complained that he “doses me remorsely to keep [the chills] away.”