{"id":3667,"date":"2011-01-26T18:35:59","date_gmt":"2011-01-26T18:35:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libraryshenanigans.wordpress.com\/?p=1009"},"modified":"2026-02-11T22:35:02","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T22:35:02","slug":"national-archives-researcher-confesses-to-forging-date","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/2011\/01\/26\/national-archives-researcher-confesses-to-forging-date\/","title":{"rendered":"National Archives researcher confesses to forging date"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.archives.gov\/press\/press-releases\/2011\/nr11-57.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1010\" title=\"1865\" src=\"http:\/\/jessyrandall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/1865.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"140\" \/><\/a>This is a non-cute shenanigan. From the press release: &#8220;Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero  announced today that Thomas Lowry, a long-time Lincoln researcher from  Woodbridge, VA, confessed on January 12, 2011, to altering an Abraham  Lincoln Presidential pardon that is part of the permanent records of the  U.S. National Archives. The pardon was for Patrick Murphy, a Civil War  soldier in the Union Army who was court-martialed for desertion. Lowry admitted to changing the date of Murphy\u2019s pardon, written in  Lincoln\u2019s hand, from April 14, 1864, to April 14, 1865, the day John  Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln at Ford\u2019s Theatre in Washington, DC.  Having changed the year from 1864 to 1865, Lowry was then able to claim  that this pardon was of significant historical relevance because it  could be considered one of, if not the final official act by President  Lincoln before his assassination.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>My researchers sometimes wonder why we don&#8217;t like to have pens in the reading room. Now you know one reason. (There&#8217;s also the problem of <a href=\"http:\/\/media.photobucket.com\/image\/pen%20explosion\/Beautiful_Living\/blog%20images\/Triliner-Explosion.jpg\">pen explosions<\/a>.) Thanks, Leah Davis Witherow!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a non-cute shenanigan. From the press release: &#8220;Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero announced today that Thomas Lowry, a long-time Lincoln researcher from Woodbridge, VA, confessed on January 12, 2011, to altering an Abraham Lincoln Presidential pardon that is part of the permanent records of the U.S. National Archives. The pardon [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":413,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shenanigans"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3q4oW-X9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/413"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3667"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3797,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3667\/revisions\/3797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}