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Bids will open for chair with pedigree

Oldsmar's mayor, who owns the chair, says it had a brush with greatness: Abe Lincoln.

By TERRI BRYCE REEVES
Published September 3, 2005

CLEARWATER - You may want to sit down for this.

A wooden chair said to have belonged to Abraham Lincoln will be auctioned off Sunday. Auctioneers expect the chair will go for several thousand dollars.

The chair has turned legs and a carved floret motif at the shoulders. Among the family members, dignitaries and others who may have sat on it could have been honest Abe himself.

"This is the best piece of American history we've run through this house," said Nels Gullerud, one of the three owners of Granny's auction house at 5175 Ulmerton Road. Granny's has been operating for more than 30 years, he said, and the partners are in their eighth year of operation.

The chair, owned by Oldsmar Mayor Jerry Beverland and his wife, Wanda, is one of a set of 14 dining room chairs the Beverlands purchased in the mid 1970s. This particular chair belonged to their son Robyn, who died in 1998 after battling a rare genetic disorder.

The chair is just another painful reminder of a son who enjoyed volunteering and painting faces on plywood, Beverland said.

Over the years, the set, which included two armchairs, was divvied up by the Beverlands. The chairs have been sold, donated to museums, or given to friends and family members, he said.

Beverland remembered the thrill he felt when his wife told him she had bought them. He doesn't remember the exact price, but said it was more than $17,000 for the set.

"We can't afford those," he remembers telling his wife after seeing them in an antiques magazine. He sulked for a few days until she told him, "The chairs are yours."

Beverland provided the auction house with copies of letters and news clippings that he says prove the chair's pedigree. Photographs from Lincoln's White House Web site, www.mrlincolnswhitehouse.org show Lincoln and family members seated in or near chairs that appear to be of the same design as Beverland's, although armchairs were used in the portraits.

According to Beverland's documentation, Mary Todd Lincoln purchased the chairs for use in the dining room. After Lincoln was assassinated, she took the chairs with her when she left the White House. They then went to son Robert Todd Lincoln after she was declared insane. At that time, he had them reupholstered in a brown French silk with an acorn pattern. Along the way, the chairs and table became separated.

Beverland said he searched for the table but wasn't able to locate it. He thinks it may be in a museum in Vermont.

The chairs were sold to a farm, then a school. At one point, they were offered to the White House, which declined because, according to the letter, "it is not possible at this moment to display them appropriately in the White House, where there is already a fine collection of Lincoln furniture." The letter from the then-White House curator, Mrs. John N. Pearce, suggested that they be donated to the one of the Lincoln museums as a patriotic gesture.

But the owner, Edward Hincks of New Hampshire, elected to sell them in the early 1960s to Pearl Williams, an antiques dealer in New Hampshire. She resold them to Roberta Carr for $7,000 in 1976. Shortly after, the Beverlands became the owners.

Walter Hodgdon, one of the partners at Granny's, pointed out the chair's attributes.

"It has a nice dark patina and seems to have not been refinished. There is some alligatoring on the finish from being stored for a while, and the style is typical of the time period. It is a Sheraton style with touches of Hepplewhite design."

There is no doubt in his mind that the chairs belonged to the Civil War president.

"I wish we had all 14," Hodgdon said. "It would make for an even more exciting sale."

The chair, along with other items, will be auctioned Sunday at Granny's Antique Auction House, 5175 Ulmerton Road, behind Central Music in Clearwater. The auction begins at 1 p.m. The chair may be previewed today between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. and Sunday beginning at 10 a.m. Call 572-1567.

[Last modified September 3, 2005, 01:20:24]