Miami student discovers rare Abraham Lincoln fingerprint

Washington, Feb 23 (ANI): A student at Miami University has found a fingerprint, belonging to Abraham Lincoln, while working on a class project.

Lydia Smith is a first year psychology major from Granville, Ohio.

She was transcribing a letter written by Lincoln on October 5, 1863 for a class project when she noticed a smudge, which she suspected, could be the 16th president's thumbprint.

The 1863 letter was among hundreds of miscellaneous letters stored in Miami's Walter Havighurst Special Collections section of King Library and uncovered this fall.

The Papers of Abraham Lincoln, a project of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency and Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, reviewed and confirmed the print, making it the second rare fingerprint of the 16th president housed at Miami's libraries.

The collection at Miami includes the first authenticated fingerprint of Lincoln with a signature known to historians since it was first verified in 1957.

Lydia Smith's discovery of the second fingerprint has historians taking notice.

"Miami's collection includes the first certified document that provides a critical comparison for us," Science Daily quoted John A. Lupton, associate director of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln project, as saying.

"I have seen a number of fingerprints that I assumed to be Lincoln's, but never more than one in one repository. The fact that Miami has two makes it fascinating," he added. (ANI)