This jet mourning brooch was purchased by Sally Logan Lamon in Washington D.C. during the 1860s, possibly in the wake of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.

Sally was the daughter of Stephen T. Logan, Lincoln’s second law partner, and the wife of Ward Hill Lamon, Lincoln’s fellow attorney in Illinois. In 1861, Lincoln named Lamon U.S. Marshal of the District of Columbia. The Lamons were personal friends of the Lincolns during his time in the White House.

The brooch passed from Sally to her sister’s daughter, whose husband eventually donated it to the Illinois State Museum in 1967.