George Day was the Chief Justice of the Nebraska Supreme Court in 1922. That year he wrote the letter below to William inquiring about a story told to him by William Pitt Kellogg regarding Kellogg and Samuel being present at Lincoln's assassination, and Samuel getting Lincoln's blood on his hankerchief.
Day says the prominent Nebraska historian Alfred Sorenson wanted to verify the story so that it could be included in the the book "The Story of Omaha." There is no evidence of William's reply, but in the 3rd edition of the book, Sorenson states he verified the story with Samuel's son, William Daily who was a doctor in Peru.
Below Day's letter is a reproduction of the story told in Sorenson's book. It did not appear until the 3rd Edition.
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The Story of Omaha - by Alfred Sorenson - 1923
358 THE STORY OF OMAHA
to resign from the army, owing to poor health. While a resident of Omaha he invested in several pieces of real estate, which he held for many years. Colonel Kellogg was appointed collector of the port of New Orleans immediately after the close of the war and served three years. . . . Colonel Kellogg was an interesting character and was a most fearless man. An attempt was made to assassinate him while he was collector of New Orleans.
In 1912 Judge Day received a letter from Colonel Kellogg regarding some business matters in connection with his Omaha property, . . . In this same letter Colonel Kellogg said that he happened to be in the Ford theater on the night that Lincoln was assassinated, and with a friend [Samuel G Daily] from Peru, Nebraska, went to the house to which the president was carried. This friend accidentally dropped his handkerchief upon the corpse, and when he picked it up it was saturated with blood. “I’ll keep that handkerchief as long as I live,” said the friend. Colonel Kellogg long afterwards met this friend’s son and related this incident. “Yes,” said the son, “we have that handkerchief in our family now.”
Samuel had only one child - William - who was a doctor in Peru, Nebraska at that time. An attempt trace his family has yeilded only the following:
www.rootsweb.com/~neresour/andreas/nemaha/nemaha-p12.html
WILLIAM M. DAILY, M. D., of Peru, is a son of Hon. S. G. Daily, deceased, and was born April 17, 1847, in Madison, Ind. During the early years of the civil war, he was in school at Georgetown, D. C.; later, a student in the United States Naval Academy at Newport, R. I., and, still later, a United States quarantine officer at the mouth of the Mississippi, and in New Orleans. In 1866, he began the study of medicine with Dr. Tingly, whose sudden death, at Ogden, W. T., was so much deplored. Graduating with honors from the Cincinnati Medical College in 1870, Dr. Daily practiced eleven years at Corning, Mo., coming from there to Peru in the summer of 1881. He married Jennie Williams, of Virginia, by whom he has a daughter, Grace L., born in Corning, Mo.
Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC in 2011
Peterson House where Lincoln died.