Standing outside the Historic Courthouse (now the D.C. Court of Appeals) in Judiciary Square, this marble figure of Abraham Lincoln is the nation’s oldest extant public monument dedicated to the 16th president.

Unveiled on April 15, 1868—the third anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination—it predates Daniel Chester French’s famous seated statue at the Lincoln Memorial by 54 years. The sculptor, Irish-American artist Lot Flannery, had known Lincoln personally and was actually in the audience at Ford’s Theatre on the night of the shooting.

Flannery portrayed Lincoln in classic oratorical posture as a statesman and lawyer, his left hand resting on a fasces symbolizing the preservation of the Union. Originally erected on a high column to place the president safely above reach, it was moved to this lower granite pedestal in 1923 following courthouse expansions.

Flannery’s statue was funded largely by grassroots donations from local Washington citizens shortly after the assassination. It represents a city’s immediate, localized grief for a president they had seen walking their streets just years before.