“Would you like to try one of Lincoln’s favorites?” a red-vested waiter asked. “These are chicken fricassee bites. We know he loved fricassee.”
At Keens Steakhouse, a fabled chop house in Midtown Manhattan, history buffs and regulars gathered on Thursday night to celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s birthday.
In addition to the fricassee, the guests were served mutton hunks, fried oysters, crisp red apples and other foods that might have appealed to the 16th president. The signature beverage was a milk-bourbon punch, which would have only partly pleased Lincoln: He liked milk but rarely drank alcohol.
The party took place in the restaurant’s dark-wood-paneled Lincoln Room, a longtime shrine to Honest Abe. It contains a draft of the Gettysburg Address, a wanted poster for John Wilkes Booth and other artifacts from a collection started more than a century ago by Albert Keen, who founded the restaurant as a men’s only steakhouse in 1885.
“I’ve always found the history in this room at Keens to be enjoyable, even patriotic, to be around,” said Michael Jacob, an engineer. “Lincoln always strove for peace. We’re still trying to get there.”
Behind a crimson curtain, there was a noteworthy piece of Lincolniana to be unveiled that night: an 8-foot-long, 37-star American flag that covered his casket during the funeral train tour after his assassination in 1865.
Millions of mourners turned out to pay their respects as the train made its way from Washington, D.C., to Springfield, Ill., where Lincoln was interred. Afterward, Maj. Lewis Applegate, an Army doctor, took possession of the flag.
The Applegate lineage kept it for more than a century, and it was eventually turned over to the Museum of Southern History in Florida. In 2024, the flag was put up for sale at a Guernsey’s auction. Tilman Fertitta, the Texas billionaire and owner of Keens, pounced, buying it for a reported $656,250.
Before the unveiling, Michael Hennes, a lighting designer, and Shawn Brennan, an antiques consultant, studied a wall covered in ephemera pertaining to Lincoln’s assassination that included illustrations of Booth firing his gun at Ford’s Theater and Lincoln’s deathbed scene. They appreciated one artifact in particular.
“That’s it, the playbill from April 14, 1865, at Ford’s Theater,” Mr. Hennes said.
“That Keens has the program from that very night only makes it a fitting conclusion the flag will be here now, too,” Mr. Brennan added.
Jaiden Gomez, a young man working the coat check, chimed in: “They say it’s the one he was holding, and that there’s a bloodstain on it.”
Sipping a martini, Mr. Hennes considered the collection of death-tinged objects beside him. “I don’t find it macabre Keens will be showing this flag in a dining room,” he said. “I think it’s patriotic and beautiful. It won’t put me off my lunch.”
Soon, the ceremony began. Julia Lisowski, the steakhouse’s general manager, stood beside the curtain and faced the guests. “We are thrilled you are able to join us in the Lincoln Room as we confer the Abraham Lincoln Casket Flag of 1865 to its permanent home,” she said.
She recounted how it was made by the nation’s oldest flag maker, Annin & Company, noting that its 37th star existed in anticipation of Nebraska’s statehood. She told of a curator, Rhonda Hiser, who three years ago discovered the flag languishing behind a bookshelf at the Museum of Southern History.
She went on to thank Mr. Fertitta, the restaurateur and casino magnate who bought Keens two years ago, adding it to a portfolio that includes Rainforest Cafe and Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Mr. Fertitta, who was not present for the party, also owns the Houston Rockets basketball franchise and serves as the United States ambassador to Italy and San Marino.
Finally, when the curtain was pulled back, the crowd cheered as the majestic hand-sewn flag was revealed. Along its hoist was Major Applegate’s signature and a marking indicating the date of Lincoln’s assassination.
As more rounds of punch were served, the cardinal rule of no politics at the table seemed to loosen up.
“I don’t want to get too political, but our country feels pretty fractured right now,” Brian Cox, an insurance broker, said. “So I think having this flag here, that connects back to Lincoln, might make people look back to another time when our nation was fractured, and come together over it.”
“People are now going to sit in this room with this flag, and it’s going to open up dialogue,” said his father, Jeff Cox. “Positive dialogue.”
Maria Fontoura, an editor at Rolling Stone, stood near a tray of gingerbread cookies, all in the shape of Lincoln’s head.
“I think we’re always looking for moments that renew our faith in the American experiment,” she said. “So, yes, it’s just a small thing, to be here tonight, and it’s just a flag, but it’s an object that corresponds to so many ideals Americans have always aspired to.”
As the night wound down, a waiter carried one last serving of freshly made apple fritters into the room. Deric Dickens, a jazz musician, and his husband, Gregory Scott Angel, a fashion designer, noted that they were married at Keens five years ago.
“Lincoln saw one of the worst and most divided eras of our history, but our nation prevailed,” Mr. Dickens said. “I think he’d be happy to learn that two guys got married right here in this room.”
Alex Vadukul is a features writer for the Styles section of The Times, specializing in stories about New York City.
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