This story is a collaboration with PopularMechanics.com.
President Theodore Roosevelt’s adventurous spirit brought him nearly everywhere, from San Juan to the Amazon. But if any one place can lay claim to the 26th president of the United States, it’s New York. Roosevelt was born in New York City, died on Long Island, and when fate determined he would ascend to the presidency in 1901, he took his oath of office in Buffalo, the city where his predecessor, William McKinley, had been shot eight days earlier.
These pivotal locations in Roosevelt’s life are now all part of the National Park Service’s system of historic sites, and each displays personal effects of the president for public viewing. At the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace in Manhattan, for example, history buffs can see the folded speech that stopped an assassin’s bullet. Roosevelt’s Inauguration Site in Buffalo houses the desk where Teddy drafted his first address to a worried nation. And at his final home, Sagamore Hill, his robust study is packed with books, taxidermied animals from countless hunts, and even a samurai sword he received for helping to resolve the Russo-Japanese War.
But there’s one personal item from Roosevelt that the NPS hasn’t been able to display for four decades: a pocket watch with an adventurous journey of its own.
Not only did this watch travel across New York, but it spent 40 years passing between improper hands before finally returning to its rightful place among the treasures of the NPS. And ironically, to get the watch back, the NPS needed to partner with a branch of the government Roosevelt himself created over a century ago
A Timepiece at a Pivotal Time
This particular pocket watch arrived in Roosevelt’s life in May 1898, a crucial time for the then-future president.
At that point, his political career had rebounded, having previously stepped away from public life and taken up ranching in the Dakotas after the devastating deaths of both his mother and his wife on February 14, 1884. (Roosevelt’s famous journal entry for the day, now held by the Library of Congress, simply read, “The light has gone out of my life” beneath a black X.)
By spring 1898, Roosevelt was remarried to Edith Kermit Carow and had one child with her and another on the way. He had also re-entered the public sphere, campaigning for President Benjamin Harrison, publishing a book on the history of westward expansion, and accepting the role of New York City police commissioner before becoming assistant secretary of the Navy during McKinley’s first term.
But with the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in April 1898, Roosevelt resigned from his post with the Navy so that he could serve in the conflict. He, along with Army Colonel Leonard Wood, formed the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, more commonly known today as the Rough Riders.
That May, just one week before Roosevelt left Washington D.C. for San Antonio, he received a Waltham-manufactured silver pocket watch as a gift from his sister, Corinne, and her husband, Douglas Robinson. The gift was inscribed with, “THEODORE ROOSEVELT FROM D.R. AND C.R.R.”
Roosevelt wrote to his sister to thank her for the gift in a May 5 letter quoted on the National Park Service website:
“Darling Corinne, You could not have given me a more useful present than the watch; it was exactly what I wished … Thank old Douglas for the watch – and for his many, many kindnesses.”
The future president kept that watch for the remainder of his life, keeping time during his abrupt ascendancy to the White House, his post-presidency African expeditions, his infamous third-party run, all the way through his death at his Oyster Bay home on January 6, 1919. The watch stayed in the family until it was donated to the NPS, which runs the Sagamore Hill National Historic Site, Roosevelt’s famous Long Island home.
TR’s Watch, Lost and Found
In 1971, the Sagamore Hill site loaned the pocket watch to the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site in Buffalo, New York, for what was meant to be a six-year term. However, the watch stayed at the Buffalo site until 1987.
That’s when it was stolen by a still-unknown party and went missing for 37 years (longer than the former president even owned the watch). That is, until recently, when it wound up in the hands of a Florida auctioneer. The auctioneer, suspecting that the modest watch adorned with Theodore Roosevelt’s name in its inscription might truly have belonged to the 26th president, reached out to the National Park Service.
The NPS’s Investigative Services Branch led the investigation, with assistance from the FBI’s Art Crime Team. The involvement of the FBI adds a fitting twist to the story, since it was Roosevelt himself who, in 1908, ordered the creation of the Bureau.
Per the FBI’s press release, the Bureau assisted the NPS in navigating the asset forfeiture process for the watch, which “allowed the FBI to begin the process to return the watch back to the rightful owner, the Sagamore Hills National Historic Site.”
On June 27, the watch finally returned to its home at the Sagamore Hill National Historic Site, complete with a repatriation ceremony attended by members of both government organizations. “The repatriation of the watch would not have been possible without the close collaboration between the FBI and NPS,” special agent Robert Giczy of the Art Crime Team said in the release. “This partnership ensured that this historic treasure could be returned safely for future generations to enjoy.”
Although the watch itself has been recovered, there’s still no answer about where it’s been for nearly 40 years, nor who originally stole the watch from its temporary Buffalo home. The NPS asks that those with information call the ISB Tip Line at 888-653-0009 or email at nps_isb@nps.gov.
Michale Natale is a News Editor for the Hearst Enthusiast Group. As a writer and researcher, he has produced written and audio-visual content for more than fifteen years, spanning historical periods from the dawn of early man to the Golden Age of Hollywood. His stories for the Enthusiast Group have involved coordinating with organizations like the National Parks Service and the Secret Service, and travelling to notable historical sites and archaeological digs, from excavations of America’ earliest colonies to the former homes of Edgar Allan Poe.
