BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Buffalo Presidential Center is displaying a collection of Abraham Lincoln’s possessions and relics until June in honor of the 159th anniversary of the president’s death.
The memory of Abraham Lincoln lives on in Buffalo in the form of relics like pictures, casts of his face, and perhaps most impressively his own glasses.
“It would have to be the glasses for sure, they are a big piece of history,” Ethan Afshani said. “They saw a lot, and they were the ones he used when he was president, which you can’t get better than that.”
Ethan is not your typical history buff. He is just 21 years old and a junior at Canisius University.
He is a collector of all things American history, but more specifically Abraham Lincoln, and for the next two months, parts of his personal collection can be seen at the Buffalo Presidential Center.
“They don’t have a use being in an archival box, just being stored away,” Ethan said. “In my opinion, they deserve to be seen by anyone who wants to see them.
Other artifacts come from the collection of Bren Price Sr., the vice president of the center.
“It’s the 159th anniversary of Lincoln’s funeral train arriving in Buffalo,” Bren said. “We want to help the community understand what that was like here.”
159 years ago this week, President Lincoln was assassinated. The weeks after his death, his body went on a funeral tour, that stopped in just ten cities, Buffalo being one.
The city hosted a parade of tens of thousands of people marching down Main Street.
“He’s one of our most revered presidents, and he was here four times in life and death,” Bren said.
This collection reliving Lincoln’s connection to Western New York will be here for a short time.
The Presidential Center is located on the top floor of the Buffalo Erie County Public Library and is open Saturday’s from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free.
