Alphonso T. Donn was born in Washington, D.C. around 1836. According to the 1860 Federal census, he was working as a stone cutter prior to coming to the White House.¹ Soon thereafter he joined the DC Metropolitan Police Force.² Donn was assigned to the White House during the Civil War, likely as additional protection for the home and its occupants. By 1865, he was listed as an assistant doorkeeper at the Executive Mansion, where he worked with other staff to maintain and secure the residence and regulate the access of visitors.³ Donn was later promoted to the position of doorkeeper, and he remained in this role for nearly two decades.⁴ After President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, First Lady Mary Lincoln gave the president’s coat to Donn, and it remained in the Donn family for more than 100 years until it was acquired by Ford’s Theatre in 1968.⁵ After President James A. Garfield was shot on July 2, 1881, reporters sought information about the assassin Charles Guiteau, and Donn detailed his observations and recalled an incident where Guiteau attempted to force his way in to see the president.⁶ On August 13, 1886, Donn died at his residence in Washington and was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery.⁷ According to one local newspaper, “With the advent of Lincoln in the White House Donn took his place at the portal and kept it until a year ago. He was the most familiar with the Lincoln household of any of the employees, and was an authority competent to pass upon the genuineness of the current anecdotes of White House life in those days. Mr. Donn’s death was the result of consumption.”⁸

The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M653; Residence Date: 1860; Home in 1860: Washington Ward 4, Washington, District of Columbia; Roll: M653_103; Page: 269; Family History Library Film: 803103.
Official Register, 1861, pg. 97 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t4zg7dd9r&seq=117&q1=alphonso
Official Register, 1865, pg. 144 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t8df7hm1m&seq=164&q1=Dunn
Official Register, 1867, pg. 188 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t4zg7dd9r&seq=117&q1=alphonso ; Official Register, 1883, pg. 19 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t39z9xh7r&seq=9&q1=Donn
“Lincoln’s Clothes,” Ford’s Theatre, https://fords.org/lincolns-assassination/lincolns-clothes/
“Cranks and Tramps,” National Republican, July 5, 1881.
The Evening Star, August 13, 1886, pg. 3.
“Men and Things About Town,” The Critic and Record, August 21, 1886.

Birthplace

Washington, D.C., USA

Mount Olivet Cemetery

Related Workers: Thomas V. Burns
Ushers, Stewards, and Doorkeepers, circa 1857 – 1865; Mary Ann Cuthbert
Housekeeping and Laundry, Ushers, Stewards, and Doorkeepers, 1861 – 1865