Lake County museum sells Civil War newspaper collection to Cantigny estate

In a small attic room at the Lake County Discovery Museum near Wauconda, Diana Dretske and Katherine Hamilton-Smith carefully open a large hardcover book and turn pages that are nearly 150 years old until they find the one they want.

The tome is a collection of authentic Chicago Tribunes from 1865, one of 34 bound volumes of the newspaper from the American Civil War period at the museum.

The edition Dretske and Hamilton-Smith seek is April 15, 1865, — the day after President Abraham Lincoln was mortally wounded by John Wilkes Booth.

Anticipation builds as they get closer to the date. Pages turn.

Suddenly, it appears.

“TERRIBLE NEWS,” a surprisingly small headline in a center column reads. “President Lincoln Assassinated at Ford's Theater.”

Dretske, the museum's collections coordinator, and Hamilton-Smith, the Lake County Forest Preserve District's cultural resources director, smile at their find.

“When you think of the people who picked up their morning paper and saw that,” Dretske says.

These volumes have been in the museum's collection for decades, but they've never been publicly displayed.

That, however, could soon change.

The Lake County Forest Preserve District board, which oversees the museum, has agreed to sell the newspapers to the Robert R. McCormick Museum at Cantigny Park in Wheaton.

There, they will be added to a collection honoring McCormick, who served as editor and publisher of the Tribune in the early 20th century.

Eventually, history buffs and researchers will be able to view the newspapers in display cases at the museum, which once was McCormick's home.

The museum may even make high-quality reproductions for people to handle, said Will Buhlig, the facility's assistant director.

“I'm ecstatic about getting these,” Buhlig said. “There are a lot of possibilities.”

Mysterious origins

Neither Hamilton-Smith nor Dretske knows how the museum acquired the newspaper collection, which runs from January 1861 to December 1865.

Dretske suspects the books were part of a private collection acquired by Lake County in the 1960s. She doesn't know who bound them, or when, or why.

“There's nothing in our records,” she said.

The bindings are faded with age. The name of the newspaper and the dates included are on each spine.

Although yellowed in spots, the pages remain white and crisp. Most are still intact, too — only a few have holes or tears.

Not very valuable

And yet, despite the newspapers' age and the historical nature of the reporting, they're not particularly valuable.

The McCormick Museum agreed to purchase the books for $200. Discovery Museum officials said the price, based on an auction estimate, was so low because the newspapers aren't rare.

Other examples of these same editions can be found in libraries and other museums, Hamilton-Smith explained.

The stories in the newspapers also are accessible online.

“You can find this information in lots of other collections,” Hamilton-Smith said.

The McCormick Museum's Buhlig said he first heard about the collection from a forest district employee. He called the $200 purchase price “an amazing bargain.”

“This is primary source material,” Buhlig said. “It's the real thing.”

The collection may not be rare, but a set of Civil War-era newspapers in good condition “sounds like a wonderful resource,” said Roger Boye, an associate professor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing Communications.

“To have a set through the entire Civil War years is really quite an item,” Boye said.

Battlefield reports

Typical for newspapers of the day, the large pages consist nearly entirely of text, with few illustrations and no photographs.

Stories appear in long, single columns — not the multiple-column layouts common in today's newspapers. And the headlines are barely larger than the story type.

Even if the headlines aren't eye-catching, the news contained in the pages will amaze any history aficionado.

“Good News From Sherman — Rebel Cavalry Routed” a June 1864 headline reads.

On another day, preparations for a critical Civil War battle are reported under the headline “The Movement on Richmond.”

In the days after Lincoln's assassination, stories concerned the hunt for Booth, the president's funeral procession and the plans for Lincoln's interment in Springfield.

One article detailed the appearance of Lincoln's catafalque, the platform that supported his casket in public. The writer described black cloth, tassels and other decorations — pieces of which are pressed in a small picture frame in the Discovery Museum's collection.

Dretske held the framed artifacts as Hamilton-Smith read the Tribune report aloud. It was a poetic moment.

“I had never read a description of it before, or heard one,” Dretske said. “It's remarkable the detail that they had in the paper. I could picture what it looked like as the reporter saw it 149 years ago.”

Dretske is happy the newspapers finally will be available for public viewing. The McCormick Museum's connection to the history of Chicago journalism makes the sale seem even more fitting.

“We're confident (this) will provide the highest level of access to the public,“ Dretske said. “They'll take good care of them.”