Wikimedia Commons, public domain image History of the Petersen HouseThe house where Abraham Lincoln died, located at 516 10th Street NW, Washington, DC, was the home and business of William and Anna Petersen. The Petersens, immigrants from Germany, constructed the handsome four-story dwelling around 1849. At the time of the Lincoln assassination, the Petersens and their children lived in the basement of the house. The upper stories were operated as a boarding house. This form of accommodation became very popular during the Civil War, as the population of Washington tripled in just four years. There were likely at least a dozen people renting rooms in the Petersen House when Lincoln was assassinated. On the night of April 14, 1865, one renter at the Petersen House was Henry Safford, a young War Department clerk from Massachusetts. Safford was preparing for bed when he heard a commotion in the street outside. Walking out onto the front steps of the house to investigate, he saw a large crowd. In the middle of it, he saw a group of soldiers struggling to carry the stricken figure of Abraham Lincoln. Henry Safford decided to act in that moment. He waved and called out “bring him in here!” The soldiers took heed, and they carried the president into the Petersen House. 
Library of Congress Abraham Lincoln was taken to a small bedroom at the back of the first floor. The soldiers and doctors had to lay him diagonally across the bed there, as his 6-foot 4-inch frame was too tall for it. For the next nine hours, the president clung to life, unconscious but still breathing. In the front parlor, Mary Lincoln grieved, surrounded by friends and family including her eldest son, Robert. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, one of Lincoln’s top Cabinet members, arrived on the scene not long after the president was carried inside. He set up a temporary office in the back parlor. There, Stanton interviewed witnesses from Ford’s Theatre, began the manhunt for John Wilkes Booth and his conspirators, and held meetings with fellow Cabinet members to plan the transition of power to Vice President Andrew Johnson. Family members, friends, generals, and government officials came to the house throughout the night to pay their respects and say their goodbyes. At 7:22 am on April 15, 1865, Abraham Lincoln died at the age of 56. A silence fell over the room. Stanton finally broke it, saying “now he belongs to the ages.” Stanton knew that the president had passed into the pages of history, where he would remain for all time. Lincoln’s body remained in the room until later that morning, when a simple pine coffin arrived to transport the president’s remains back to the White House. After the body’s removal, two residents of an upper room in the boarding house, Henry and Julius Ulke, were allowed to enter the place where Lincoln had died. The Ulke brothers, German immigrants like their landlords, were Renaissance men of art and science. Their upstairs room was full of collected insect specimens for scientific study, and they also operated a portrait studio of paintings and photographs in Washington. The Ulke brothers brought a camera into the room and captured the only known images of the inside of the Petersen House in 1865. After the Lincoln assassination, crowds of visitors wanted to see the house and the room where the 16th president had taken his final breath. Many of these visitors wanted to take home a souvenir from their experience as well. Before long, the wallpaper and carpeting of the house had been stripped by curiosity seekers. The Petersen family hoped that things would return to normal, but sadly, this was not to be. With their boarding house business ruined by the attention focused on the home, William and Anna Petersen both died in 1871. Their children emptied the house of all its original furnishings and sold the structure in 1878. The bed on which Abraham Lincoln died is now in the collection of the Chicago History Museum. The Petersen House changed hands multiple times over the next several decades. Washington, DC attorney Louis Schade bought the building from the Petersens and sought to use it as a home for his young family. The Schades remained in the home for approximately 15 years, until they could no longer stand the repeated requests from visitors to see the room where Lincoln had died. The house was next occupied by Osborn Oldroyd, a Civil War veteran and Lincoln enthusiast. Oldroyd turned the building into a museum and displayed his collection of thousands of Abraham Lincoln artifacts in the house. The United States government purchased the house in 1896. This marked the first time the federal government bought a historic house for preservation purposes. Oldroyd was allowed to remain in the building, and he ran his museum until his retirement in the mid-1920s. The National Park Service took over the stewardship of the Petersen House in 1931. It has remained under the management of the NPS ever since. 
NPS Photo/Bilger Visiting the Petersen HouseThe Petersen House is open to the public every day except for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Operating hours are 9:30 am to 4:45 pm. A ticket to visit Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site also grants entry into the Petersen House. You do not need to purchase an additional ticket to visit the Petersen House. To purchase tickets to visit Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site, please visit the Ford’s Theatre Society website Visitors to the house today will tour three rooms on the main floor of the building. They are the room where Mary Lincoln spent much of the night grieving, the room where Secretary of War Edwin Stanton temporarily led the federal government, and the final room where Abraham Lincoln passed away. The rooms include 1865 period piece furnishings, though none of the furniture is original to the house. After touring the house, visitors will cross the back porch to enter the Ford’s Theatre Society Center for Education and Leadership building. This building is home to a series of exhibits about the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln’s death. Topics include Lincoln’s funeral train home to Illinois, the manhunt for John Wilkes Booth, the trial of the Booth conspirators, and Lincoln’s enduring legacy.
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Last updated: January 15, 2025