The chair is a Lincoln Rocker. It was made from mahogany wood in the 1860s. President Lincoln has a similar rocking chair in his office. That is where the name originated.
My dad, Eugene Doherty, found this rocking chair on the street. It had been discarded, waiting for the garbageman. He told me he put the chair on his back and carried it home to his mother, Edna Nason Doherty. That would have been in the late 1920s or early 1930s in Elizabeth, New Jersey. 
My grandmother loved antiques and I’m sure she loved the chair. It was pictured in her living room in the 1940s. I loved sitting in the chair growing up. My parents gave it to me in the early 1970s. It has gone all the way to Alaska and back. For many years, the chair was by the wood stove at our log house in Pennsylvania. As a youngster, my son, Robert, loved to rock in it, too.
My mother, Helen Anderson Doherty, had blue upholstery put on the chair in the 1960s. I changed the upholstery changed to a brown pattern around 2011. My grandson, River, will be the next generation to rock away happily in Gramsey’s chair.
