Theodore Roosevelt’s pocket watch recovered after being stolen in 1987

Theodore Roosevelt’s pocket watch has been recovered after being stolen nearly four decades ago from a museum exhibit about the former president.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation announced that it had managed to get back the historic watch in a news release published on Thursday.

In the release, FBI agent Robert Giczy said that the bureau worked closely with the National Park Service to set the stage for “the repatriation of the watch”, which he called a “historic treasure … for future generations to enjoy”.

Roosevelt’s younger sister, Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, and her husband, Douglas Robinson Jr, gave him the pocket watch in question.

Giczy said the watch is “fairly pedestrian”, having been made with an “inexpensive” silver case.

But the highly sentimental gift gives it a historic value. It accompanied Roosevelt during the Battle of San Juan Hill in 1898, where he acted as a battle commander prior to his presidency.

Roosevelt also took the watch on trips across the world during his presidency from 1901 to 1909.

“It has traveled thousands of miles over the last 126 years, or about 4bn seconds,” Jonathan Parker, the superintendent of the museum at Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt’s home, said to CBS News.

“The value to its family, the value to our country, because it belongs to the nation, it is a priceless presidential timepiece.”

Sagamore Hill in Cove Neck, New York, inherited Roosevelt’s watch after he died in 1919. The museum there loaned out the watch in 1971 to the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site in Buffalo, New York, as part of an exhibit.

But the watch was then stolen from that museum on 21 July 1987. Earlier investigations led by the FBI and local police failed to uncover the significant artifact.

More than three decades later, in 2023, the watch turned up again – all the way in Florida.

Edwin Bailey, owner of Blackwell Auctions in Clearwater, Florida, received the watch, the New York Times reported, citing an interview with the Buffalo News.

Bailey, who has never publicly shared who gave it to him, ultimately decided not to sell the watch after discovering through independent research that it belonged to Roosevelt.

Bailey instead contacted the Sagamore Hill and Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site, both of which confirmed the pocket watch’s authenticity.

With the watch now back in hand, officials plan to display it at the Old Orchard museum that is affiliated with the Sagamore Hill National Historic Site, according to the Times.