In the moments before Lt. Col. Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders charged up San Juan Hill in the 1898 battle that would make him a war hero, he consulted his pocket watch.
A gift to him from his sister and her husband, the watch would remain in Roosevelt’s possession through his presidency and on adventures that would take him around the world.
In the 1970s and ‘80s, the timepiece was on display at the Wilcox Mansion on Delaware Avenue in Buffalo, where Roosevelt had been sworn in as president, following the 1901 assassination of President William McKinley.
But in July 1987, a thief stole the watch from an unlocked, glass-enclosed case, and for 36 years, its whereabouts have been unknown. That is, until now.
The owner of a Florida auction house said he was given the watch to sell earlier this year, but said he was skeptical of its history.
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“For every genuine artifact, a true rarity, we see a thousand pieces of junk,” Edwin Bailey of Blackwell Auctions said. He eventually verified the watch’s authenticity and estimated it could be worth as much as a half million dollars.
As Bailey was conducting his research, federal authorities learned about the reappearance of Roosevelt’s watch, which was produced by the Waltham Watch Co., a company known for high-end timepieces.
A spokeswoman for the National Park Service confirmed the National Park Police are investigating the watch’s reappearance.
“Given that this is an ongoing investigation, I cannot comment further about the specifics at this time,” Tracy O’Toole said in an email.
Bailey declined to say who currently has possession of the watch, and would not name the person who had given it to him to sell.
However, when the watch was briefly available for auction on the Blackwell website in March, the issue of ownership was addressed:
“From a Buffalo, N.Y., private watch collection, obtained in the 1980s. After Theodore Roosevelt’s death in 1919, his wife, Edith, gave away many of his personal possessions to family members and friends. It is unknown, at present, as to who received this watch originally ...”
The theft
After the theft happened, a short 123-word story appeared in The Buffalo News on July 23, 1987, in which Buffalo detectives estimated the watch’s value “at less than $1,000,” adding that its “historical significance and value as a collector’s item are very great.”
U.S. Magistrate Judge Leslie G. Foschio, who was completing his term as president of the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site Foundation’s board of trustees back then, told The News on Thursday that security at the museum at 641 Delaware had not been a major concern in 1987.
“The idea that we needed security was not a priority,” Foschio said. “We’d never had a problem.”
Foschio said it is likely the theft occurred during business hours when the site is open to the public for touring.
“That’s the only time a person would have access without breaking in. The thief must have waited for a moment when no one was around,” said Foschio, adding that the site attracts large numbers of people interested in the nation’s 26th president, who is remembered as larger-than-life.
And while the theft was not big news in 1987, there was a belief at the time that one day the watch would resurface.
“I had immediately informed Dr. John Gable of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, and he predicted because of Theodore Roosevelt’s prominence, a chain of events would ultimately lead to the watch’s recovery, that it would pop up, and the prediction came true,” Foschio said, adding that the auction house owner “acted patriotically.”
The judge said he was informed that the watch is now in the custody of the National Park Service.
Was it Roosevelt’s?
Bailey cited an inscription on the inside cover of the silver watch, “THEODORE ROOSEVELT FROM D.R. & C.R.R,” as a key in helping him trace the history of the watch.
Researching letters and historical books, including one written by the president’s younger sister Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, Bailey said he tried to make a case that the watch had not belonged to Roosevelt.
But as he plunged deeper and deeper into his efforts, he said he realized he had been given the genuine article, and has no doubts that the initials on the inside cover stand for Roosevelt’s sister and her husband, Douglas Robinson.
Describing it as a “national treasure,” Bailey said his research also included emails to national parks and numerous historical organizations in the hopes of learning more about the watch’s history.
One of those emails arrived at the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site – the Wilcox Mansion – which confirmed a watch belonging to Roosevelt had been stolen from there years ago.
During Roosevelt’s life, the watch was not only a keeper of time, but with him for major moments in his life.
Research collected by Bailey at the Clearwater, Fla., auction house found a reference to the watch in Corinne Roosevelt Robinson’s 1924 book, “My Brother Theodore Roosevelt,” which includes letters from him.
In a May 5, 1898, letter to his sister, Roosevelt wrote: “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 kindnesses.”
Throughout American history, there have been only four instances when someone has taken the Presidential Oath of Office outside of the nation’s capital; Buffalo is home to one of them. On September 14, 1901, Theodore Roosevelt took the Oath of Office in the library room of his friend Ansley Wilcox’s house on Delaware Avenue (the present-day Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural
In a 2018 book, “Theodore Roosevelt: A Literary Life,” authors Katherine Joslin and Thomas Cullen Bailey mention the pocket watch and how it would be used “... in battle to gauge precisely what he would call his ‘crowded hour.’”
That is an apparent reference to the July 1, 1898, victory at Cuba’s San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War when Roosevelt and his Rough Riders charged up the hill.
Roosevelt, following his time as president, also referenced the watch in his 1914 book, “Through the Brazilian Wilderness.”
In discussing difficulties crossing a bayou, he writes, “One result of the swim, by the way, was that my watch, a veteran of Cuba and Africa, came to an indignant halt.”
It was on this South American journey that he contracted an infection and nearly died.
Bailey said that the inside lid of the watch had a tiny mark “4/16” from a watchmaker that is “presumed to be April 1916 – corresponding to the repair of the watch.”
It might be worth a fortune
In recent years, items belonging to Roosevelt have sold at auctions for substantial amounts, including a revolver that went for $1.4 million and a hunting knife at $414,000, according to media accounts.
Bailey estimates that the pocket watch, if it had been sold, might have fetched up to $500,000.
And while he is disappointed he will not be auctioning the watch, Bailey said, “It was an enormous honor to handle a national treasure.”
Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site gives presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin a tour of the exhibits, which she says are
But when the police investigation concludes, don’t expect to see the watch back on display in Buffalo at the Delaware Avenue inaugural site. That’s because it was on loan there from Roosevelt’s Long Island home, Sagamore Hill National Historic Site, when it vanished.
The watch is expected to eventually return to Sagamore Hill.
“It will be in the right organization’s hands, and we are delighted that we could play a role in its return to the rightful owner,” said Stanton H. Hudson, executive director of the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site.