When Linda Murch Leiva’s parents cleaned out the attic of their family home in 1968, one of the many treasures they found was an old newspaper, The New York Herald, dated April 15, 1865.

The headline: “Important. Assassination of President Lincoln … J. Wilkes Booth, the Actor, the Alleged Assassin of the President.”

The paper had been folded up for years and stowed in an envelope. Leiva found the copy after her father, Thomas Murch, died in 1999. She carefully unfolded the brittle paper to read it, just as her ancestors had done.

It was interesting to note the reporting of the time, the style of language and the obvious lack of photography, she said. Instead, there is a drawing of Lincoln.

A dispatch reported the day before read as follows: “Assassination has been inaugurated in Washington. The bowie knife and pistol have been applied to President Lincoln and Secretary Seward. The President died this morning at twenty-two past 7 o’clock. Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War.”

Leiva said that when considering President Lincoln’s death, it is important to recognize the setting in which the events occurred.

“Of special interest is, not only the news of the assassination, how fresh and raw the events of the war still had been. The paper carried many articles of the news of battles of the Civil War still being reported under the title, ‘The Rebels.'”

Mention was made of “Rebel Particulars of the Battle of Petersburg.” Also recorded was news of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, “His Latest Appeal to his Deluded Followers … He thinks the Fall of Richmond a Blessing in Disguise, as it Leaves the Rebel Armies Free to Move from Point to Point.”

Leiva considers the paper a treasure because her ancestors, who included Civil War soldiers, had to have had a close and personal interest in the war and its events. Among some of the family heirlooms are a few tintypes that survived and a photo of what might have been a child in the Underground Railroad.

Her family was known for keeping artifacts, some of not more than passing interest. However, the Lincoln newspaper remains her contact with her family’s roots. She hopes to get it preserved so that her heirs will reach into the past, as well.

Linda Leiva is the wife of Sun Journal photojournalist Jose Leiva.