How a Waukegan attorney found a secret message in Lincoln's watch

The phrase "Thank God we have a government" is unlikely to turn up in any graffiti seen these days.

But things were different in 1861, and when Jonathan Dillon got the chance to scribble on someone else's property, the phrase was included in his message.

That we know this, close to 150 years later, is due mainly to some slick detective work by Dillon's great-grandson, and a healthy dose of curiosity by officials at the Smithsonian Institution.

Dillon, you see, was a watchmaker in Washington, D.C., when the opening shots of the Civil War were fired. He happened to have Abraham Lincoln's watch in his hands when he heard the news.

His great-grandson, Waukegan attorney Douglas Stiles, said he remembered his great-uncle telling him years ago that Dillon had left a message about the start of the war inside the watch.

"As it was told to me, the message was on the back of the brass between the dial and the movement," Stiles said. "He claimed to have written 'The first gun is fired. Slavery is dead. Thank God we have a president who at least will try.'"

Although his great-grandfather claimed he closed the watch and sent it back to the White House without telling anyone about the message, Stiles was originally skeptical.

"My first reaction was that that was a lot to write on a watch and it seemed odd that no one had ever seen it," Stiles said. "And I also thought, well, he was Irish and we know how they love to tell stories."

It wasn't until many years later, after another relative sent Stiles a letter written by Dillon in which the tale of the inscription was detailed, that he decided to check it out in earnest.

He called Lincoln scholars and other historians to try to verify the information, but his greatest breakthrough came when he typed "Jonathan Dillon and Lincoln's watch" into the search engine Google.

"And much to my amazement, an article from The New York Times in 1906 popped up," Stiles said. "A reporter was supposed to be interviewing my great-grandfather about being on jury duty at the age of 86, but he decided to tell the watch story instead."

Feeling he had the foundation he needed, Stiles pushed ahead in his search and discovered a watch owned by Lincoln, similar to the one Dillon described in the Times article, had been donated to the Smithsonian in 1959.

His next call was to Harry Rubenstein, curator of the Lincoln collection at the venerable Washington museum.

Now, the keepers of the nation's treasures do not go disassembling priceless artifacts every time someone calls with a hunch, but Rubenstein said he was intrigued by the tale.

"The article described an English lever watch and we were sure that we had the only English lever watch Lincoln ever owned," Rubenstein said. "We talked with some expert watchmakers we know, and they told us it would be possible to take the watch apart to see if something was there."

In a move even Rubenstein admits was a gamble, museum officials decided to have a very public display of the watch opening, with the press, Stiles' family members and others on hand.

"Everyone we talked to warned us that we could wind up with a 'Geraldo moment' if there was in fact nothing there," Rubenstein said. "But the fact of the matter is that you only discover something once, and if we were to discover something, it seemed appropriate to have it properly recorded."

So with the cameras rolling in a crowded hall at the museum on March 10 of this year, a Baltimore watchmaker carefully removed three pins from inside the watched and lifted the dial.

"He stopped and looked out at me in the audience," Stiles said. "I sat there too nervous to move at first, but he finally convinced me to come up on the stage and said 'I thought you might like to be the first one to read this.'"

The inscription was there, except it read "Jonathan Dillon April 13, 1861 Fort Sumpter (sic) was attacked by the rebels on the above date J Dillon April 13 1861 Washington thank God we have a government Jonth Dillon."

The message had been split into three parts to fit around the tiny gears. Dillon had not remembered exactly what he had written when he talked to the Times, but it was close enough for Stiles.

"It was just an incredible moment, something I will remember forever," Stiles said. "Just knowing that my great-grandfather had written something Abraham Lincoln carried around for years and never knew that it was there."

Rubenstein said it was a remarkable moment for the museum as well.

"This is what history is really all about, connecting people with their pasts," he said. "We have on the one hand the story of the watch that was owned by Abraham Lincoln, and on the other hand the story of the watch that was inscribed by Jonathan Dillon."

And there is at least one more story involving the watch.

In the same area where Dillon left his message for the ages, the name L.E. Gross, the date Sept. 1864 and the name Jeff Davis are also inscribed.

Stiles and Rubenstein have the same theory about that passage, and it is rooted in the fact watches of that era had to be taken to the shop about every three years to replace the oil that kept them running.

Watchmakers would frequently scratch their names and the date the watch was serviced in an area of the watch where only watchmakers would go as a kind of repair record for the timepieces.

Not everybody in Washington supported the same side in the Civil War, Stiles and Rubenstein explained, and they surmised Gross was not rooting for the same team as Dillon.

"Jefferson Davis was the president of the Confederate States," Stiles said. "It is my guess that this guy who serviced the watch after my great-grandfather saw his message and decided to put in a cheer for his side."

Now, if only there is a member of the Gross family somewhere trying to check out a legend.