History of the Petersen House

William Petersen, a German tailor, purchased the lot in 1849 and built a four-story house. He lived here with his family but rented extra rooms to lodgers. During the Civil War, up to 21 people at once lived in its rooms. This image looks east from the White House toward the Capitol.

Born in Germany in 1816, William Petersen immigrated to the United States with his wife, Anna, on June 23, 1841. A tailor by trade, he earned a substantial fortune during the Civil War by making high-quality uniforms for officers. He and his wife remained in the house until their deaths in 1871.

Born in Germany in 1819, Anna Kloman[n] Petersen immigrated to the United States alongside her husband when she was 23. She and William had 10 children together, five of whom survived to adulthood. She was away at the time of the assassination but returned the next morning to find that the President had died in her home. She and William died within months of each other.

Doctors present decided that President Lincoln could not die in a theatre, and knowing he could not survive the journey back to the White House, asked audience members to carry him outside, ultimately bringing him into the Petersen House.

This photograph, taken by boarders Henry and Julius Ulke the morning of April 15, 1865, captures the bed and room in which Lincoln died. In a touch of irony, rumor has it that John Wilkes Booth rested in this very bed a month earlier when he visited friend and fellow actor Charles Warwick, who was renting this room at the time.

A former private in the 13th Massachusetts, William T. Clark spent the night of April 14 out celebrating the end of the war and was not at home when President Lincoln was shot. Clark returned the next morning after Lincoln’s body was removed and climbed into his bloodied bed to sleep. He later wrote a letter to his sister describing the constant influx of tourists and souvenir hunters, who often stole mementos from his room. Clark himself kept a lock of Lincoln’s hair.

Henry Safford was reading at home at the time of the assassination, but the commotion outside attracted his attention. Upon seeing the group of men carrying Lincoln and searching for a place to go, Safford shouted, “Bring him in here!” and led the men into William Clark’s first-floor room.

An accomplished painter, Henry Ulke operated a popular portrait studio on Pennsylvania Avenue and rented a room in the Petersen House in 1860. It is believed that he helped his brother Julius take a photograph of the death room after the removal of President Lincoln’s body.

Julius Ulke, with the aid of his brother Henry, took a photograph of the room in which Lincoln died.

Thomas Proctor was 17 years old at the time of the Lincoln assassination. He was working as a clerk for the War Department.

A well-known German-American attorney, Louis Schade, purchased the Petersen House in 1878 for $4,500. He used it as his home and as office space for his newspaper, The Washington Sentinel. While he and his family initially enjoyed living in the home, they eventually tired of the constant curious visitors and sold the building to the federal government in 1896.

Osborn Oldroyd, a Civil War veteran, became entranced with Abraham Lincoln during the 1860 presidential election. He dedicated the rest of his life to collecting as many Lincoln-related objects as he could. He created and operated his own Lincoln museum in the Petersen House until his death in 1930.

The Interior Department decided to renovate the Petersen House to its appearance on the night of the assassination. Using photographs and drawings from Lincoln’s last night, those involved were able to produce a historically accurate restoration. Oldroyd brought the sofa at left from Lincoln’s family home in Springfield.

While standing in the death room, Dorothy Kunhardt, a Lincoln photograph collector (and author of the children’s classic "Pat the Bunny") holds a framed copy of Julius Ulke’s photograph of that very room from nearly a hundred years earlier.

Ford’s Theatre Society purchased the 10-story building next to the Petersen House and in 2012 opened the Center for Education and Leadership, which explores the aftermath of the assassination and Lincoln’s impact on the world. Museum exhibitions focus on Lincoln’s funeral, the capture and prosecution of his killers, and his evolving legacy.