I used to think that being a museum curator was a sedate, low-key position that assured the occupant of a lifetime job. Two events that happened about 60 miles apart have changed my mind. In the one instance, the curator of the Everhart Museum in Scranton was fired because he questioned the advisability of selling their most prized possession to pay operating expenses. In the other, it's my understanding that the curator of the Pike County Historical Museum in Milford was dismissed because he questioned the authenticity of their most prized possession.

In the former, a painting by Henri Matisse, "The Pink Shrimps," which had been donated was sent to Sotheby's auction house for sale. In the latter, the authenticity of the museum's most famous item, the "Lincoln Flag" was supposedly questioned by the curator. Apparently, there has always been a lingering doubt about its provenance. The Society relied upon Lincoln scholar Joseph E. Garrera to authenticate the flag in l996. He declared that it was authentic mainly because the blood stains on the flag were "contact" ones and not splatter stains. The Society displays several letters by various Lincoln scholars that seem to give credence to Garrera's research.

If the flag is authentic, how did it get to the museum in Milford? The flag was donated by Paul Struthers in l954. He received it from his mother, Jeannie Gourlay Struthers who was Miss Gourlay on the fateful night and an actress in the play the Lincoln's were attending. She supposedly entered the President's booth after he was shot. As he lay on the floor, she took the American flag that was draped over the railing and placed it under the President's head. She kept the flag when the President was later removed.

I went to Carl Sandburg's Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Lincoln to read his account of the assassination. He acknowledges the presence of Major Henry Rathbone, his fiancée, Miss Clara Harris, and Mrs. Lincoln as being in the Presidential Box when Booth entered from behind through an unguarded door and shot the President. Major Rathbone lunged at Booth who, wielding a knife, severely wounded him on the right arm. As Booth jumped on the railing, the Major grabbed at him and Booth slashed again with his knife. Shouting "Sic semper tyrannis," Booth got his spur caught in the draped Union flag which caused him to land on his left leg, breaking the shinbone.

Back in the Presidential Box, Major Rathbone shouts for a surgeon and with one arm bleeding and assisted by an usher, they allow 23-year old Dr. Charles A. Leale to enter and tend to the President. Dr. Leale with the help of others lifts the President from his chair and lays him on the floor. The actress, Laura Keene, appears in the box and holds the President's head in her lap. A dark stain appears on her dress as four soldiers are called in to assist the doctors with removing the President to the nearby Petersen House.

Sandburg goes into great detail to set the scene and one would think that he wouldn't overlook something as prominent as the placement of the American flag under the President's head by a member of the cast. I checked a more contemporary source, "The Day Lincoln Was Shot" by Jim Bishop. He gives a few more details than Sandburg but the only actress mentioned as being in the booth is Laura Keene.

I'm neither a forensic expert nor a noted Lincoln scholar but I still believe there is some room for doubt. Maybe the blood is that of Major Rathbone, as some suspect. In any event, I enjoyed my visit to the museum, especially the following quote from Charles S. Pierce on display in the museum, "Upon this first and in one sense this sole, rule of reason, that in order to learn you must desire to learn and in so desiring not be satisfied with that you already incline to think, there follows one corollary which itself deserves to be inscribed upon every wall of the city of philosophy:

DO NOT BLOCK THE WAY OF INQUIRY."

I know that at least two museum curators would probably agree with this.