A carriage that belonged to President Abraham Lincoln will begin its journey from South Bend’s Studebaker National Museum to Washington, D.C., today. The Lincoln carriage will be on display at the Smithsonian as part of an exhibit about Lincoln’s assassination this spring.

President Lincoln was shot April 14, 1865, at Ford’s Theatre. After the assassination his son, Robert Todd Lincoln, inherited the carriage that the president and his wife had ridden in that fateful night. It was sold to a doctor in upstate New York and then to Clement Studebaker in 1889, when it was added to the company’s collection of historical vehicles.

The carriage, made of wood, leather and iron, is extremely fragile at 150 years old and had to be packed very carefully for the trip. It will be on loan to the Smithsonian from March 23 to May 25, and then will be returned to South Bend.

Source: South Bend Tribune