William R. Rathvon

William Roedel Rathvon, CSB, (December 31 1854– March 2 1939), sometimes incorrectly referred to as William V. Rathvon, is the only known eye-witness to Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, of the over 10,000 witnesses, to have left an audio recording of his impressions of that experience in 1938, one year before his death. A graduate of Franklin and Marshall College in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and a successful businessman, he became a practitioner of Christian Science healing, served as a public lecturer, Church treasurer and director of The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts. He was treasurer from 1911 until he was elected to the Church's Board of Directors from 1918 until his death in 1939.

Early Years

Rathvon was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1854 where he attended grammar school and college. His mother had met his father while attending the Lutheran College in Gettysburg and her entire family, the Forneys, resided in and around Gettysburg.

Rathvon hears Lincoln at Gettysburg

On November 19, 1863, four months after the historic Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, a crowd of more than 10,000 gathered at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania for the dedication of the National Cemetery to the soldiers who had fallen in what was later called decisive battle of the Civil War. At that battle, Pickett's Charge was considered the "high tide" of the Confederacy. Among those thousands was nine-year-old William Rathvon, who with his family had traveled from nearby Lancaster to hear President Lincoln speak.

In 30 minute recording, Rathvon describes searching the battlefield for souvenirs with his friends and finding Confederate muskets thrown into the bottom of a creek. He also describes the experiences of his relatives during the battle, including his uncle’s farm being used as the headquarters for Confederate General Richard Ewell and his grandmother hiding Union soldiers from capture by Southern troops.

Like most people that came to Gettysburg, the Rathvon family was aware that the president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln was going to make some remarks. The family went to the town square where the procession was to form to go out to the cemetery that had not completed yet. At the head of the procession rode Abraham Lincoln on a gray horse preceded by a military band that was the first the young boy had ever seen. Rathvon describes Lincoln as so tall and with such long legs that they went almost to the ground. Rathvon describes a long eloquent speech given by Edward Everett of Massachusetts whom Rathvon accurately described as the "most finished orator of the day," Lincoln stepped forward and in a manner that Rathvon described as "serious, almost a sadness gave his brief address." During the delivery, along with some other boys, young Rathvon wiggled his way forward through the crowd until he stood within 15 feet of Mr. Lincoln and looked up into what he described as Lincoln's "serious face." Rathvon recalls honestly that although he listened "intently to every word the president uttered and heard it clearly, he explains, "boylike, I could not recall any of it afterwards." But he explains that if anyone said anything disparging about "honest Abe," there would have been a "junior battle of Gettysburg." In the recording Rathvon speaks of Lincoln's speech alligorally "echoing through the hills."

Education and Career

Rathvon attended Franklin and Marshall College in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania from 1870–73. By the early 90s he was in Colorado working as a successful businessman. In 1893 Rathvon joined the Christian Science Church in Chicago, Illinois. He attended the Massachusetts Metaphysical College's primary class in 1903 and returned for the normal (teachers) class in 1907. From 1908-1910 he was a corresponding secretary to Mary Baker Eddy. He remained active in the Christian Science church from that time on until his death holding a number of positions: member of the Christian Science Board of Lectureship (1911–18); editor, director, and treasurer of the Mother Church of Christian Scientists (1918); and trustee in the Christian Science Benevolent Association and the Christian Science Pleasant View Home Association. He was an author in the periodicals of the Church including the Christian Science Journal and Christian Science Sentinel. He was a lecturer on Christian Science travelling extensively and taught classes on the subject to a large association of students until his death in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1939.

Marriage and family

Rathvon was married three times. In 1877 he married Lillie K. Stauffer and they had one son. Lillie Rathvon died in 1880 and in 1883 he married Ella J. Stauffer. She died in 1923 and two years later he married Lora C. Woodbury. William Rathvon died

Rathvon's recorded reminicences of Lincoln's Address

As a public lecturer on Christian Science and one of the five top people in the church as a director, Rathvon would have had execellent access to the top quality recording devices of his time. In fact, Mr. Rathvon's reminiscences were recorded on February 12, 1938 at the Boston studios of radio station WRUL. Hence the quality of the 78rpm record.

The term "long lost," really doesn't apply, as the Rathvon audio recollections had been known by an extremely small circle of individuals ever since he made them in 1938. To Rathvon, they were actually incidental to what he felt were his more important church-work responsibilities. He made the recording for historical posterity. He, himself, never promoted them, or even promoted the idea that he had made them nor sold them. Why did he make them? He seems to have wanted to preserve them and it is interesting to note that he died the following year, 1939.

Since he was a church-authorized teacher of Christian Science, he had an association of students to whom he gave an annual address. As is the case of these teachers, their association usually survives them. Indeed, after Rathvon died in 1939, his association of students made and distributed copies of this recording for many years. As tens of thousands of people heard the Gettysburg address and even as late as 1900, significant people in Lincoln's life, the Civil War Federal Army and even Lincoln's private secretary, John Hay, were still very active in government as Secretary of State under McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, for most of Rathvon's life, there were literally thousands of witnesses to the event. Consequently, making a recording happened only a year before his death.

Rathvon's recording resurfaces

In the late 1990s, a copy of Rathvon's recording was sent to National Public Radio, "NPR," during their "Quest for Sound" project. NPR aired it after doing some background research and continues to air it around Linclon's birthday.

After move than half a century, Rathvon's audio recollections remain a moving testimony to Lincoln's transcendent effect on his fellow countrymen and the love which so many ardent unionists held for him.

Notes

External links

6 minute NPR-edited portion of William R. Rathvon's eyewitness audio recollections of the Gettysburg Address and his reading of the address at NPR.org ^*
21 minute recording, ^*
The Longyear Museum in Boston, MA
To obtain the recording on a CD reproduced from the original 78rpm disk by a museum
The Mary Baker Eddy Library in Boston, MA
One of Rathvon's Professional Lectures on Christian Science 1912

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