“It’s been said the lost speech of 1856 was Lincoln’s impassioned argument for the abolition of the slave trade and practice in the States.....Others in the audience were witness to a call for a national symbol, a search for an image that could unite all who saw it; it was an almost mystical speech, punctuated with an occasional somber mood descending in short moments of the tall man's silence. Something was brewing, and about to be born of this young country’s common soil.” J.F. Morgan, London, 1868

“ I wasn’t aware of this fact, and I would certainly not take any bets that this ‘Golden Ear’ was ever in America. Alas, the one who could identify it has long passed……. It’s always been difficult to understand the concern and secrecy of Swiss authorities on the subject.” Gerund Haften, Swiss-American Architect In a letter to Mary Gridley Bell, Paris, 1937

 

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An unknown detail of the relationship between our greatest President, Abraham Lincoln and Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas must now come to light in the event of the second century of Lincoln’s birth. In the interests of our great Nation and the eternal preservation of our Union, we direct our energies towards attempting a measured, and devoted closure in the cycle of his munificent life.

In the year 1858, the time of the Lincoln-Douglas debates for the Illinois Senate seat, Stephen Douglas, the incumbent and well-heeled politician from Illinois, presented Lincoln with a six foot sculpted figure of an Ear of Corn. The gesture as it was played out publicly, was partially in fun. Knowing Lincoln to be a scholar of ancient history, Douglas determined to use the gift to make light of his observations that Lincoln was of a similar mind to those of the ancient rulers of Rome:

As a student, Douglas had studied the activities of various Emperors of the Roman Empire, being most impressed by their strange customs of transporting sculpted, full sized representations of Gods, important ancestors, and departed lovers on their various political and military campaigns. In some instances, these likenesses were believed to be direct links to the dead, or particular immortal Gods whose presence might raise and maintain high morale with the emperor/campaigners and their military subjects.

The darker and more mysterious reason for Douglas’s presentation of the Ear would not be brought to light for another 50 years.

In honor of his opponent and as a lighthearted joke, conceived for the sake of the public, Douglas presented Lincoln with this monumental “Ear of Corn” as a good natured reminder of their congenial, and combatant time spent together; hoping perhaps, that Lincoln would adopt the “Ear” as a symbol of his campaign. Douglas’s sense of humor is not well documented in historical texts, and it remains a mystery how the Senator came into possession of the Ear.

Colleagues and supporters of both Lincoln and Douglas camps attended the presentation, given in a small hotel ballroom in Quincy, Illinois. The affair was punctuated by several comic political speeches, with episodes of uproarious laughter. The ruckus could be heard for several blocks. Stephen Douglas gave a lengthy comic speech about the early days spent arguing politics in Springfield with his dear friend. Lincoln, on the other hand, being a gentleman of the first degree in tandem to his possession of an intelligence and wit of unnatural genius said,

“To my gentleman scholar, Stephen Douglas, I accept the honor of stewardship over this grave and noble symbol; so that I may find myself worthy of such a task, I also commend to the American people the same honor at the risk they may find an aforethought message hidden with great skill and subtlety within the symbol and in due course exercise their rights of election in inspired judgment of the incumbent’s future tenure.”

The house roared at this short speech and there was the stamping of feet as the collection of men tried to persuade Lincoln and Douglas to engage in an arm wrestling match. Douglas graciously declined and Lincoln politely waved down the crowd as the party continued into the night.

Later Lincoln was heard to say in private: “Let this Ear of Corn be a symbol of the Fruit of the Union for the public’s good, for in this good and honest land of Illinois, the very Heart of a young nation resides...But as for it’s meaning to myself, it lies as a symbol for the full measure of stuff my ears are filled with after an hour with Douglas!”

The morning of the following day, Lincoln received an urgent note from Douglas requesting a meeting, “of an importance immeasurable in the preservation of all that we know.” Lincoln met with Douglas for over six hours. Several of Douglas’s aids later reported seeing a “fine, shifting amber glow coming from under the door of the meeting room, with a strange muffled roar of what seemed to be large groups of men, along with distant artillery and gun fire.”

One secretary who stood outside the meeting place at the time reported hearing the Senator loudly weeping. Another secretary heard Lincoln shout, “Douglas! damn your hide!...and you have brought the weight of this onto my head?!” No other record of the meeting is thought to exist.


Shortly after the presentation and mysterious meeting, Lincoln lost the election for the Senate seat to Douglas. He did however keep the Senator’s gift in his possession. In his own thoughts, he secretly marveled at the power that resides within objects, and how they can sometimes serve as a dramatic agent for change in difficult times. Although questioned by his associates, Lincoln never disclosed the content of his meeting with Douglas.

 

 

At Lincoln’s house in Springfield, Illinois, the Ear became a permanent fixture over time. It became a silent tenant moved from place to place by the baffled and somewhat frightened house servants. Because of it’s unusual size, the Lincoln children would dress the Ear and imagine it taking on roles of various characters in their childish plays and adventures. The children even went so far as to ask the “Mr. Ear” its opinions about various subjects as they engaged in conversation with their mother, Mary Todd.

 

Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham Lincoln, was insanely jealous of the Ear. She would often complain about the strange light emitted from the object when her husband was in the adjoining rooms. Several servants in the Lincoln’s Springfield household witnessed demonstrations of her rage. One account tells of Mrs. Lincoln’s bold rebuke of the Ear. She was seen redressing the Ear as if it were a bungling, young Army officer.

“You sir, are immeasurably less than an abomination, the manner in which you seduce my children and my husband! You are a vexation to my spirit!”

When the president heard of his wife’s unusual rebuke, he simply said in a characteristically distracted way, “In the matter of coming to know my dear wife better, I am continually blessed. Our Maker has served me with yet another interesting example of her fertile imagination.”

 

With the Ear creating such a stir within the Lincoln household, it was removed and stored away for a short time in a secure Springfield warehouse. The Ear was eventually transported to Bloomington, Illinois, where the incident of sorrow and loss begins.

 

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Lincoln arrived in Bloomington on a brisk morning sometime during the first week of November 1858. Having arrived on horseback, followed by a carriage containing several secretaries along with numerous pieces of baggage, Lincoln set about to take care of some important business, the nature of which is not recorded.

By afternoon he was at the construction site of an extraordinary mansion on Grove Street. The mansion, soon to be occupied by Asahel Gridley, a prominent Bloomington Businessman, would house Gridley’s family in a style most rare in this region of the country. Lincoln’s secretaries recorded the conversation between Lincoln and Gridley:

“Do you want people to hate you Gridley?”

Lincoln always made light of the impressive projects taken on by his friends and associates.

Gridley was always more austere in his regard for his fellow citizens. “I don’t give a hoot about what all the dunces say, I built and own half the town anyway,”

 

 

Lincoln, knowing Gridley to be a just and fair-minded man in spite of his verbal bluster, took note of the crowd that had gathered, then looked back at the building site.

“I have the thing to turn all hearts towards the Gridley Mantel, that gift Douglas gave me a while back, that’s the thing to turn ‘em to a kindly heart and endure the shadow of this Monster House.”

 

With the idea so firmly impressed on Lincoln’s mind, he wasn’t long in persuading Gridley to accept the idea of having a large Ear of Corn displayed alongside the walls of this new, magnificent mansion.

Asahel Gridley, in his preoccupation with his business dealings and the demands of the construction of his new house, found relief in knowing his friend Lincoln was one of a minority of associates who was offering to actually give him something, a gift valued by one of the men Gridley admired most.

The gift was to be well accommodated, and plans were drafted to install the Ear inside a secure mausoleum type structure, in close proximity to the unfinished mansion.

As Lincoln enjoyed dinner with Gridley and his children that evening, the two men discussed the importance of constructing a public monument, housing the Ear in a manner that was accessible for viewing. The two men drew on napkins, with the schematic of the building showing a secure display atrium, adjacent to an anteroom where a small office would be furnished for private visitations.

Gridley was puzzled about the level of attention Lincoln gave to this project. “Lincoln, this is more fuss than anything I see made about most rich folks.”

Lincoln dropped his head into his hands, alarming the younger children of Gridley, who were still seated at the dinner table. Gridley asked the children to leave. After the two men were alone, Gridley closed the large doors that separated the dining room from the living area.
One of the children, Mary Gridley, could only hear parts of the conversation and later wrote in her diary:

“My father was the first to speak….this gave way to animated argument and seeming hyperbole…I heard my father shout, ‘Damn you Lincoln!, you would now saddle me with this?...are you sure of the function?’”

The children could hear their father moaning…interrupted several times by Lincoln’s consoling voice. When the two men emerged. They saw the children huddled near the large doors. Gridley and Lincoln gave a faint smile to each other, then the tall lawyer departed. The content of the conversation was never recorded, and remains lost.

From the moment Lincoln had taken possession of the Ear, his fortunes took a turn towards clarity and victory in his contests. His mind could produce fine, precise prose, with the words seeming to be recited to him as he sat down to write. His melancholia gave way to a disposition of balance and confidence, with his physical strength and stamina heightened.

Understanding the power of unknowable processes at work on his entire being, with these forces issuing from the Ear, he grew concerned an untenable addiction would develop, so his plan to distance himself from the Ear was carried out.

 

Lincoln’s secretaries along with a large wagon and horse, loaned by Gridley, were dispatched to the Springfield site where the Ear was stored and it was delivered the following week. The journey from Springfield to Bloomington aroused great interest among the local population along the way. A small group of Swedish immigrants, pushing their way westward into the Kansas Territory took particular interest, not knowing “whether this Ear had been made by God or by man.”

 

 

_{"Hadrian", Gridley's extraordinary German Stock Horse used to pull the cargo wagon from Springfield to Bloomington circa. 1898, age 35}

  

On the morning of November 13th, the Ear was placed in a secure storage locker, within close proximity to the house site for safekeeping until the appropriate public building could be constructed. By that time the presence of such an unusual object had aroused a great deal of interest and speculation with the citizens of the Bloomington community. Young men wagered with one another about its weight. Small children trying to gaze at the object through a small space under the secure door poked sticks into the locker.

The following day, at approximately 8:05 am the local constabulary was summoned to the construction site. The Ear was reported missing by an Italian mason, the chief contractor of European bricklayers employed on the construction site.

 

“Vanished with no trace, not even a footprint or any type of incriminating evidence of mischief”, read the Bloomington Chief of Police Report.

A later follow-up search of the site yielded a crudely scrawled note on a partially burnt piece of paper. The note had been written in a foreign language; possibly French or Italian by some accounts (the note was lost before the police could gain possession).

Though the disappearance remains a mystery, several witnesses at the time gave an account of hearing a strange popping sound, followed by a woman’s scream and the rustling of leaves. Shouts from the site, in a language other than English (some witnesses supposed the shouts to be either French or Italian) were heard. The witnesses then gave an account of, “the smell of burnt dust and sulfur wafting past, carried by the moist night air.”

They also reported seeing an eerie and unearthly amber colored light before dawn in the general direction of the building site. Adding to the strangeness of the incident, several European workers left the construction site early on the day before the disappearance and were reported missing the following evening from the boarding house where they were in residence during the construction of the Gridley Mansion. The missing workers, before vanishing, had settled all their boarding house accounts, leaving a balance payment hanging on the inside door latch of their room. Other witnesses had reported seeing two black wagons drawn by two sets of horses, carrying several men and women. One wagon also contained a large coffin. The wagons were setting out in the direction of St. Louis before dawn of November 14th.

Within weeks news dispatches went forth in all major cities of the midwestern United States calling for information leading to the return of this little known, but cherished object. Asahel Gridley’s reaction to the disappearance was calm and measured; he expressed concern over any discomfort the loss might cause Lincoln.

“I can’t say exactly where that Ear may have been spirited off to, but I am now and will continue to remain committed to its safe return.”

From his home in Springfield and his many offices across several counties, Lincoln issued statements about the disappearance that were sometimes earnest, yet philosophical. Only one statement survives:

“ The wresting of this beloved symbol from the collective arms of the people of this great Union reveals a need for a humane level of Freedom and Liberty felt with greater urgency, in another part of the world. Though it’s abductors are surely criminals and will be chased to the limits of their criminal aims, we must resolve to understand their motivation in a manner most humane... But are not these mistaken travelers our neighbors, seekers of Truth; do they not also love their children in a like manner to us?”

People were puzzled at the last sentence of the statement. Many critics of Lincoln began public inquiries, encouraging discourse and speculation about Lincoln’s true reasons in wanting the Ear returned.

Lincoln established, with the help of his law office staff, a plan to recover the beloved symbol, which only a few individuals knew to contain great significance and power. Somehow sensing his own destiny in the course of the nation, Lincoln projected the public perception that he was aware of the power of an image or object to unify a nation. Knowing what he did about the Ear, he had doubts that the symbol would be found quickly. Lincoln’s belief that it would be eventually returned lay in an ingenious “trans-generational” search plan that was based partially on his own intuition, and partially on rumors that the Ear had been transported to Europe.

 

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Documents, drafted by Lincoln, with the help of Asahel Gridley, outlining the course of action to find the Ear called for a small fund to be created using money from public and private donations. Gridley, who had suffered the loss of the Ear to the extent that he believed his friendship with Lincoln would be shaken, felt the bulk of this fund should establish a foundation, enabling the use of the fund for future generations. Although Gridley intended the Ear’s recovery to be mostly his family’s responsibility, he determined that a part of this fund would serve as modest stipends for individuals or groups committed to finding the Ear.
Many of Lincoln’s critics thought the plan a waste of time. Years later, during Lincoln’s tenure as president, he was ridiculed viscously in newspapers around the country.

Despite the attacks on Lincoln and Gridley from their critics, publishing of their plan had a positive effect. The plan encouraged will people of all ages and social standings to search every conceivable place where the Ear might be hidden. There was a cash award, the amount promising to be respectable, but only revealed upon the discovery of the Ear. Over the next few years, no accounts, or trace of the Ear was reported. In time, especially after the start of the Civil War, the public lost interest.

 

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With President Lincoln in office, the stakes for the Ear’s safe return were raised. The reward for obtaining or submitting information leading to the discovery of the Ear would be in the form of an issuance of an official statement saying that the discoverer was without question “Instrumental in the salvation and eternal preservation of the Union of the United States.” The award, along with the original promised cash amount, would be signed by Lincoln and various officials of the day. The original certificate has been lost. Lincoln and Gridley were however, aware from the outset that officials from successive generations would make additions and modifications to the award certificate.

 

 

Though the plan was very unusual in its trans-generational character, it was obvious that Lincoln and Gridley would have long since passed on before the Ear could be recovered. Owing to the importance of preserving the Gridley family honor, the elder Gridley had expressed the urgency of finding the Ear to his daughter, Mary (later Mary Gridley Bell).

 

Many years after her father’s death, Mary Gridley Bell made repeated efforts to gather information about the location of the Ear. Through a long series of intrigues, blind alleys and extensive travel, Mrs. Bell was finally able to ascertain the reason for the Ear’s disappearance. This information lead to its identification and recovery, the details of which are either lost, or hidden within the letters and transcripts of Mrs. Bell’s collected materials.

Upon her death in 1944, Mrs. Bell bequeathed the bulk of these well-guarded transcripts and letters to a mysterious secret society known only as “The Providence”. Unfortunately, the location of the Lost Ear was never divulged to anyone, either to authorities, or to the secret society.
Mary Gridley Bell had established an addendum to the original award, for any individual outside the Gridley family who might recover the Ear. This new award, in the form of a trophy commissioned by the Gridley family, expresses the gratitude of a Nation.

The call to recover the Ear, reaching through all generations since it’s loss in 1858 became one of the most urgent tasks of a nation at any time in history. Lincoln was well aware of the fascination with an image or object in its ability to unify a nation, yet great mysteries still lie in the secrets surrounding the object. The importance of the Ear inspired a plan unprecedented in the History of Humanity.

 

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In the matter of the disappearance, many recently disclosed bits of information accumulated over the last one hundred fifty years may hold the key to not only the fate of Lincoln’s beloved Ear, but also more importantly to that part of a great man that reaches beyond the limits of time. This part of greatness moves through generations, into the heart of every home and abiding institution. The ideas are, and will continue to be delivered with force and grace. The eternal words and sounds that carry the weight of history, the words that pierce the tissue of our culture. It is the hope of all concerned with Lincoln’s Legacy that the Lost Ear is found with this, the last generation of the search.

 

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A later follow-up search of the site yields a crudely scrawled note on a partially burnt piece of paper. The note has been written in a foreign language; possibly French or Italian by some accounts (the note is lost before the police can gain possession).

November 21, 1858 Lincoln issues an urgent call via the local press asking for citizens to help in the recovery of the Ear.

November 23, 1858 The call for a search goes national with every major newspaper in the nation reporting the loss. Offers of awards from vast numbers of anonymous individuals are circulated in every major port city.

December 11, 1858 Gridley dispatches five Pinkerton Detectives to Europe to gather information based on his theory that the Ear might surface during the Christmas Season.

One detective of the five, Mr. Levbridge Stewart is assaulted and arrested by authorities at the boarder between Switzerland and France. Stewart is held in prison at an unknown location in a French town. Efforts to contact, and free the detective fails.

 

December 23, 1858 Lincoln and Gridley announce their trans-generational effort for recovery of the Lost Ear.


March 4, 1861 Lincoln inaugurated as President of the United States.

April 12, 1861 Confederate Troops, under the command of General Beauregard begin firing upon Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, Virginia. The Civil War Begins. The Nation forgets the Lost Ear Controversy. Lincoln’s documents outlining his recovery plan are lost.

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April 14, 1865 After quietly entering box number seven at Ford’s Theater in Washington D.C., the actor, John Wilkes Booth approaches the President and his wife from behind in the darkness and fires one shot into the back of President Lincoln’s head. Booth cries out, “ Sic semper tyrannis” (Ever thus to tyrants) and leaps to the floor from the theater box. Booth’s riding spur catches in one of the flags draped on the outside of the box, causing him to crash to the floor below, shattering his left leg.

The President is taken to the small house of W. Peterson where he is pronounced dead at 7:22 am the next morning.

One witness present at the theater the night of the shooting tells authorities he had seen Booth talking to John F. Parker, the president’s guard. As Parker left his post outside the President’s box he walked across the corridor to the exit.

The witness recalls asking Parker, “What did Booth want?” Parker replied, “I have to see about this ‘Ear Thing’. Mr. Booth said-the wagon……around front!”


April 20, 1865 Mary Gridley, daughter of Asahel Gridley, after hearing of the president’s assassination, pledges to her father that she will recover the Lost Ear. A series of European tours in the company of her Mother begins. Miss Gridley continues the search, collecting information from many sources, including an interview with Levbridge Stewart, who is being held in a Paris jail, awaiting trial on charges of international espionage. Miss Gridley (eventually Mrs. Gridley Bell) continues the search well into the next century.

July 16, 1908 Workmen at the Vanguard Hotel demolition site in Quincy Illinois discover pencil drawings and writing under old wallpaper in one of the original first class suites.

The local authorities, understanding the possible significance of the diagrams, believe them to have been made prior to the Civil War. Androm Scott, chief curator of the Chicago Historical society is notified and he arrives in Quincy on July 18. With him is Mandy Taylor, professor of painting at he Art Institute of Chicago. Both men, whose talents and interests reach well beyond their job descriptions, set about to identify and interpret the diagrams. The handwriting is determined to be of a style typical of the mid nineteenth century. Several diagrams show crudely drawn objects, which appear to be ears of corn. Two of the figures of corn are dived into quadrants; each kernel is marked with a number and astrological symbol. Below the first figure is written, “1879-1904? Hister (Itler)?..the house of Europe” Below the second the writing is less readable: “1964-1975? M Ancolm?_(obamm___US.) to- two thousand twelve…World Storm”
Both unusual phrases are circled and have lines drawn back to the images.


On the morning of July 19th, local authorities discover the entire wall missing from the demolition site. In spite of the efforts of a special team of investigators, no traces or clues are found. Later that day, an inquiry is made as to the whereabouts of Scott and Taylor. It is assumed they have gone back to Chicago, however, one week later the families of the two men file missing person reports with Chicago authorities. The men are never found.


August 12, 1916 In a photograph taken by Jean Cocteau on a Paris street near the Café de la Rotonde in Montparnasse, the Ear is accidentally captured in the background of a portrait showing the great Spanish artist Pablo Picasso and his friend Max Jacob. Later that same year, Cocteau remarks in a letter to Andre Salmon, “I fail to see the reason behind this Swiss preoccupation with odd American imports of an agricultural nature.”

April 4, 1937 While reviewing documents among his stored items in a large warehouse in Paris, the Swiss-American Architect, Gerund Haften discovers a man-size shipping crate, partially opened, and an unusual Swiss cargo manifest which lists an extraordinary object. The description reminds him of a family story related to him by his friend Mary Gridley Bell, daughter of Asahel Gridley. He writes to Miss Bell declaring his doubts about the object.

By the time word has reached Mr. Haften, instructing him to procure the object, the crate and its contents disappear.

 

 

May 10, 1937 Levbridge Stewart dies in Paris at the age of 94. His son Coldridge Stewart writes in a letter to Mary Gridley Bell about his father’s efforts to prevent the current hysteria from happening in parts of Europe. The letter gives no specific description of the elder Stewart’s activities. On May 29th, a box of documents arrives at the home of Mary Gridley Bell. The box contains documents and letters authored by the elder Stewart. There is no return address.

 

November 9, 1944 Mary Gridley Bell dies at the age of 93. She bequeaths the bulk of her documents and letters pertaining to the Lost Ear to a mysterious secret group known as “The Providence”. Mrs. Bell tells many friends and associates that the Ear will be located in Bloomington, “Most definitely close and in plain sight!”

September 4, 1952 The Parisian Press publishes a photograph of the Ear in the studio of the great Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti. It is assumed Giacometti acquired the Ear from an individual on a contract to repair it for a small fee, however, rumors at the time claimed Giacometti had been given the Ear in lieu of payment for a work of art commissioned by the Swiss government.

 

Reports are also circulated that the artist would place various hats on the Ear and keep it in plain sight in his studio, purposely irritating his wife and brother who both complained about it unceasingly. The Ear is stolen during the evening of November 16th of that year.

September 21, 1958 An object, about the size of a man is reported floating in international waters off the coast of Southern England. A passing plane reports, “a golden, reflective, conic shape” to the English Coast Guard. Before the Coast Guard boat can make any visual contact, a commercial Swiss liner picks up the object. Radio inquiries to the Swiss liner go unanswered. Records show the Coast Guard does not pursue the matter any further. All records of the incident are destroyed.

December 21, 1967 Ellis Island, port of entry: Several U.S. Government agents, accompanied by a representative from the French Consulate enter the American Customs office and seize several cartons of documents.

An U.S. Government truck is later seen loaded by crane onboard an unmarked and undocumented freighter.

 

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August 14, 1980 A leather bound folio containing documents and shipping manifests are found buried in a yard on Grove Street in Bloomington, Illinois. The documents, dated December 3, 1860, are severely deteriorated, and are written in both French and English. The manifests are Swiss in origin. The legible parts of the documents refer to “a part of the human anatomy, large and with an impressive girth.”

In an astonishing parallel to the discovery of the buried folio, a collection of letters are discovered in the basement of the First Christ Scientist Church at 219 Monroe (demolished in 1994 to make room for a parking lot).

The letters are dated January 1908 and written in English by Levbridge Stewart, the Pinkerton Detective who had been imprisoned in 1858 by French authorities.

Almost all the correspondence, totaling 12 letters is addressed to Arthur Pillsbury, Bloomington’s well-known Architect of both the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.

The writing, owing to the creative penmanship of Mr. Stewart is difficult if not impossible to read, however parts of the letter are determined to refer to “Lincoln’s issue” and the sentence, “…..When all the chickens come home to……In plain sight.” Also, the letters yielded other parts of the sentence. “Mary Bell’s efforts were timely and precise, the Swiss were complicit in every way, and have taken precautions and are talking to the Germans…..The secrecy in this…All of Europe___ …The____and____will have egg on its face!”

No other mention is made of this correspondence in the estate records of Arthur Pillsbury.

September 6, 1980 A mysterious secret society calling themselves “The Providence” files joint lawsuits against the estates of Alberto Giacometti and Arthur Pillsbury in an effort to obtain financial documents and missing Stewart Letters of 1908.

The suit against Giacometti is nullified because of international laws limiting transcontinental jurisprudence. Around the same time, the Swiss government takes action in an attempt to extradite the Stewart Letters from the Pillsbury Estate. The attempt fails.

The Pillsbury suit is settled out of court. No statement is issued to the press.

November 28, 1982 Bloomington,Illinois Police are baffled by a burglary of the office of “The Providence” a mysterious local research organization who’s policy of secrecy has aroused interest in local authorities for some time. Police investigations turn up little evidence, except for several footprints left by both a large and an unusually small intruder (possibly that of a woman). The footprints, visible through traces of soil and animal blood display a shoe sole pattern not in use since the mid 19th century.

Horse manure is found at the rear entrance to the office, however, no hoof prints or vehicle tracks are detected.

Articles from the office, their contents made known only to government officials, are never recovered. No suspects are ever apprehended.

April 4, 2000 Anonymous informers in and around the Bloomington, Illinois community reveal an effort currently underway to decipher the Bell documents and the remaining parts of Stewart’s letters. The location of the project and the identity of the investigators are unknown although speculation suggests the project is controlled by the mysterious research organization, “The Providence”. Stories of the activities being located in the city limits of Bloomington remain speculative. Rumors have been circulated in the Bloomington community about this secret group’s efforts to forestall information leaks concerning the final location of the Lost Ear.


July 1, 2000 The final public phase of the search for The Lost Ear is initiated by public announcement in downtown Bloomington, Illinois. The announcement coincides with the city’s Sesquicentennial Celebration, in the hope that excitement about the search might generate more participation.


July 6, 2000 On the afternoon of July 6, at 2:33 PM the Ear is discovered inside the basement floor of the McLean County Historical Society Museum in Bloomington, Illinois. Members of the Tim and Michelle Maurer family of Bloomington made the discovery with the three children, Luke, Hannah, Claire and their mother Michelle being the primary investigators. The family receives the Mary Bell Gridley trophy, with an undisclosed cash amount, and a leather case, assumed to hold the Lincoln and Gridley award documents.

The Lost Ear is cleaned, restored, and displayed outside on the grounds of the Museum for a brief photo session.

 

 

 

September 2, 2000 Lincoln’s Lost Ear is stolen from the McLean County Historical Society. Filed police reports describe burnt paper and mud at the scene in the Museum’s basement. Historians and police discover a small note pad containing a single paper sheet with the words, “Beware commerce” written in an old style of cursive handwriting.


August 28, 2008 A color photograph of The Lost Ear is sent anonymously to the McLean County Historical Society trustees. The photograph is reproduced in the Daily Pantagraph the following day. The location is not known, and any other information about the photograph is not disclosed by Bloomington Police.

 

 

A suit is filed against the Bloomington Police by the descendants of Asahel Gridley for the public disclosure of any and all documents pertaining to the Lost Ear controversy. In the week before the trial, the offices of the Bloomington Police department are destroyed by arson. All leads used in finding the arsonist are exhausted, yet the case is still active…..

The whereabouts of The Lost Ear remains a mystery. The search continues for the elusive object; the mysteries contained within it's golden body, and magical, corporeal beauty......