Seth Kinman's gift for President Andrew Johnson: The Grizzly-Bear Chair

By Jack Brummet, History Editor

A wild and woolly fur trapper from California—Seth Kinman—shot the bear and made this "Grizzly-Bear Chair" and gave it to President Andrew Johnson in 1865.  

As a side note, Andrew Johnson is a far distant relative of mine on my father's (Brummet) side.  Of course, if I was related to a President, it had to be the first one who was impeached.  He became President following Lincoln's assassination, and was a controversial, and probably incompetent President.  He was also one of the sourest looking Presidents of all time.  Like his brother-in-history Bill Clinton, he was impeached in the House, but acquitted in the Senate.    One of President Johnson's last important acts as President was granting unconditional amnesty to all Confederates on Christmas Day, December 25, 1868, just after after the election of Ulysses S. Grant.

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