Objects are critical touchstones of history. They are critical in ways that some people don’t seem to understand.
Some time ago I wrote about my grandfather’s pocket watch, its significance in my family’s history and how it now rests on a wooden stand on our bookshelves. On Saturday we learn that another, far more eminent pocket watch has found its way Back where it belongs:
The silver pocket watch was a prized possession of Theodore Roosevelt, a memento given to him by his sister and her husband in 1898 before he became president. It traveled with him around the world and eventually ended up in Sagamore Hill – his home on Long Island, New York, which is now a national historic site.
But in 1987, the museum piece became a stolen trophy when someone stole it from an unlocked display case at the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site in Buffalo, New York, where it was housed on loan.
The mystery lasted 36 years until it turned up at a Florida auction house last year and was seized by federal agents. On Thursday, it was put back on public display on Sagamore Hill as the National Park Service and FBI triumphantly announced it was back home during a ceremony attended by Roosevelt’s great-grandson, Tweed Roosevelt.
The Rough Rider has been one of my personal heroes for some time.
See also: Happy President’s Day! Don’t shoot the bearer of bad news
Biden’s comments in Philadelphia are a slanderous, racist mess with insane mental disorders
The man had an impressive career, and although his politics were in many ways left of the mainstream for his time – yes, even as a Republican, since the parties were ideologically somewhat different back then – he was a man of tremendous presence, iron courage and great determination. These are character traits we could utilize more of today:
Roosevelt, who served as president from 1901 to 1909, apparently carried the watch with him at the Battle of San Juan Hill in Cuba during the Spanish-American War and during later exploits, including hunting game in Africa and exploring the Amazon in South America, according to the Park Service.
The watch, made by the now-defunct Waltham Watch Co. in Massachusetts, looks like many pocket watches of its era, with a plain silver exterior and no engravings. But the interior reveals its meaning, with an engraving that reads “THEODORE ROOSEVELT” and “FROM DR & CRR,” referring to Roosevelt’s brother-in-law and sister, Douglas Robinson Jr. and Corinne Roosevelt Robinson.
It is probably a more valuable watch than my grandfather’s, which was a plain senior Westclox Pocket Ben in a tin case. Of course, my grandfather’s watch is a priceless gem to me, but Roosevelt’s watch is an critical piece of all American history.
Such snippets of history are critical. Unlike words in a book, on a screen or spoken by a history teacher, these things are physical. Even though we cannot touch them, we can see them; we know they are there. This watch was once held by a man whose portrait is now on Mount Rushmore. He wore it during the charge of the eminent Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War. He wore it during his post-presidential adventures, and we can imagine Teddy, that hurricane who walked like a man, pulling it out of his vest pocket somewhere on the plains of Africa to see if it was time for lunch.
It’s a good thing Teddy’s watch came home. We can imagine the man himself, somewhere, somehow, taking notice and putting on his eminent broad grin.
