Watches tell time, but can they tell a story?
An English-made pocket watch that is more than 150 years old and which is currently stored at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History certainly can.
Tucked away and currently out of public view — deep in the museum's vast collection of artifacts — is a pocket watch Abraham Lincoln bought for himself in the 1850s.
Lisa Kathleen Graddy, a curator of American political history at the Smithsonian, said that Lincoln bought the watch as a present to himself to celebrate his rising status at the time.
"I think of it as Lincoln's statement to himself that he's made it," said Graddy as she held the watch and explained its significance to NPR. "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."
On April 13, 1861, Lincoln's timepiece was being repaired by watchmaker Jonathan Dillon — just as news reached the nation's capital that the Confederate Army had begun their attack on Fort Sumter in South Carolina the day before.
For generations, a story was passed down through Dillon's family that he'd inscribed a secret message inside the pocket watch to mark the start of the U.S. Civil War.
Dillon's great-great grandson, Doug Stiles, got in touch with the Smithsonian about the apparent inscriptions.
But questions lingered over the legitimacy of Dillon's secret messages and, in 2009, NPR was there when the Smithsonian decided to open the watch to determine whether the story was true.
As it turned out, Dillon did commemorate the event with an inscription noting the attack, the date the news had reached him and his own name. He also inscribed "thank God we have a government."
Much to the surprise of Dillon's descendants and historians at the Smithsonian, the watchmaker's inscription was not the only one they discovered.
The name of another watchmaker, L.E. Gross, was found on the inside of the watch. There was a third inscription, which read: "Jeff Davis." The latter is regarded as a reference to Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America.
Graddy says the "Davis" inscription could have been intended either as a joke or a statement of support for the Confederacy.
She said, regardless of the intent of that inscription, it explains something timeless about American life.
"You can still see that it is Americans stating their opinions and interacting with their government — sending a message to the president even if he was never going to see it."
Graddy believes that such conflicting passions are a hallmark of American democracy. But it's the inscription of watchmaker Jonathan Dillon more than 150 years ago that moves her to this day.
"It makes me tear up every time I think about it, every time I talk about it," Graddy said. "It is one of the most moving statements of faith in America that I have ever seen. And it gets me through bad days."
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