Abraham Lincoln's deathbed is part of an unprecedented collection of artifacts that will make up the first temporary exhibit at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum.

Four other collections from around the country also are loaning items, many of which will be leaving their collectors for the first time. They will be shown in the museum's 3,000-square-foot gallery space.

"Some of these items have never been together since the night Lincoln was assassinated," said William Snyder, the museum's registrar.

In 1920, the Chicago Historical Society bought Lincoln's deathbed from the estate of Charles Gunther, a wealthy Chicago candy maker. The bed became a centerpiece at the historical society.

"(The bed) really is one of the really great icons of the Chicago Historical Society," said Lonnie Bunch, its president. When visitors come to tour the society's collections, it's what makes the trip worthwhile, he said.

In fact, it has never left the building. Until now.

The bed will join the six-month temporary exhibit on Tuesday, April 19, when the museum officially opens. The exhibit - about Lincoln's assassination - will run until Oct. 16.

People visiting it will see much more than the bed.

Perhaps the most significant items are being loaned by Louise Taper, a Californian who owns the largest private collection of Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth artifacts. Pieces of Lincoln's jacket and blood-stained shirt, original photographs of John Wilkes Booth, locks of the assassin's hair and an unusual effigy doll of Lincoln, whose head turns black when it is tilted, are among some of the items Taper is sending to Springfield.

Other artifacts making a special appearance include the carriage that took the Lincolns to Ford's Theatre, a canvas hood and iron manacles worn by Booth's co-conspirators, and sketches of the accomplices by Gen. Lew Wallace (who later wrote the novel "Ben Hur").

Other institutions donating artifacts are the Studebaker National Museum, the Indiana Historical Society and the Quincy and Adams County Historical Society. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library also will be contributing pieces from its own collection.

"So much research and detail is being put into (the exhibit)," Synder said. "Especially the graphics. Quite informative and very powerful. There's going to be an almost hour-by-hour timeline throughout about half the gallery, comparing what Lincoln and Booth were doing that day."

Planning for the exhibit began last July, according to state historian Tom Schwartz, who said Taper was one of the first to suggest an exhibit on the assassination.

"One has never been done well," Schwartz recalls Taper saying.

Schwartz added that Richard Norton Smith, the museum and library's director, loved the concept and negotiated a deal with Bunch for the bed. It didn't hurt that the Chicago Historical Society is planning to close its Lincoln exhibit during renovations before its 150th anniversary next year. But Bunch said the timing was irrelevant.

"It's time the entire state got to see the bed. More importantly, it's my way to celebrate the Lincoln museum and library," Bunch said.

In 1865, the bed belonged to William and Anna Petersen, the owners of the boarding house Lincoln was rushed to after Booth shot him in the head at Ford's Theatre on April 14.

"Really, it's an extraordinary collection of material that is being assembled," Schwartz said.

The state is paying for the exhibit, which will cost about $100,000.

The exhibit's title, "Blood on the Moon," shares the title of a book written by Edward Steers about the assassination. It comes from the Old Testament prophet Joel, who wrote that on the day of God's judgment, "The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood."

Pete Sherman can be reached at 788-1539 or pete.sherman@sj-r.com.