As a young lawyer, Abraham Lincoln made $1,500 to $2,000 a year for about a dozen years.

In the 1850s, his income rose to about $3,000 a year, and he had more than $9,000 invested in interest-bearing notes and mortgages.

He sued at least six times to collect his legal fees.

His net estate at death was $111,000.

By 1869, President Lincoln’s face graced a U.S. $100 note. The Lincoln penny debuted in 1909, with strong reaction from surviving Confederate veterans. Versions of the Lincoln $5 bill appeared beginning in 1914.

Sources: “The Personal Finances of Abraham Lincoln” by Harry E.Pratt, The Abraham Lincoln Assoc. , Springfield, Ill.  1943

The Chicago Tribune’s  April 15, 1865 edition topped its lead Lincoln assassination story with eight headlines, stacked atop one another:

Terrible News

President Lincoln Assassinated at Ford’s Theater

A Rebel Desperado Shoots Him Through the Head and Escapes

Secretary Seward and Major Fred Seward Stabbed by Another Desperado

Their Wounds Pronounced Not Fatal

Full Details of the Terrible Affair

Undoubted Plan to Murder Secretary Seward

Very Latest … The President is Dying

When investigators arrived at the National Hotel at 2 a.m. on Saturday, April 15, and asked to search Room 228, the night desk clerk was taken aback.

Walter Burton couldn’t figure out why in the world they’d want to search John Booth’s room. When they told him Booth shot the president, Burton laughed in their faces.

So did the other regulars gathered around.

“We all laughed at the absurdity of such a thing,” Burton told a reporter.

Booth was a genial fellow who lived at the hotel whenever he was in town. He and Burton  often sat behind the front desk talking late into the night, smoking 12-cent cigars and drinking while they waited for the newspaperman who stayed at the hotel  to wander in with the latest news.

There’s no report of whether Burton stopped laughing when officers found these items inside Booth’s room: handcuffs, a gag, a military dress coat and a pack of letters, including one from a woman who begged Booth to quit his perilous plan.

Sources: Washington, D.C. and Louisville, Ky. newspapers

The Surratt Society’s annual conference is scheduled March 14-16 in Clinton, Md., site of the Surratt House.

“Lincoln’s Assassination: Collateral Damage” will feature KIm Matthew Bauer, Jason Emerson, Thomas Bogar,  Jim Garrett, Richard Smyth, John Elliott, Caleb Stephens and Barry Cauchon.

Attendees may also take two optional tours — one to Mosby’s country in Virginia and one to Washington, D.C. to view the restored conspiracy trial room at Ft. McNair, the restored Clara Barton office and a Civil War exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery

For more information, call 301 868 1121.