Museum finds two Lincoln documents

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SAN DIEGO, Feb. 8 (UPI) -- The San Diego Historical Center discovered recently it has owned two Abraham Lincoln documents for decades without knowing it.

One, signed by Lincoln 23 days before his assassination, is a form appointing Lewis C. Gunn as a federal tax collector for California, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. More than six decades later, Gunn's son-in-law, George C. Marston, founded the San Diego Historical Society.

The other document, dating from 1841 when Lincoln was a lawyer, is a debt-collection letter written on behalf of a client. The letter, while unsigned, is entirely in Lincoln's handwriting.

Jane Kenealy, an archivist at the center, discovered the framed appointment form in a box while she was going through some of the center's un-archived material. When she examined the signature, she remembered seeing the same handwriting on a letter.

Both documents go on display this week at the center.