Abraham Lincoln's eldest son was at his father's deathbed, feet away when Garfield was shot, and near McKinley moments after — then he stopped going near presidents.
Robert Todd Lincoln, born in 1843, was the eldest son of Abraham Lincoln and the only one of the four Lincoln children to live past his teens. He graduated from Harvard, served briefly as a captain on Ulysses S. Grant's staff at the end of the Civil War, and was at Appomattox for Lee's surrender. He went on to a formidable career of his own — U.S. Secretary of War, Minister to Britain, and president of the Pullman railroad-car company.
Sometime in late 1863 or early 1864, Robert was standing on a crowded train platform in Jersey City when the train lurched and he slipped into the gap between the car and the platform. A hand seized his coat collar and hauled him back to safety. His rescuer was the celebrated Shakespearean actor Edwin Booth — the older brother of John Wilkes Booth. Edwin only learned months later whom he had saved, and the knowledge reportedly gave him some comfort after his brother murdered the president.
On the night of April 14, 1865, Robert was invited to join his parents at Ford's Theatre but begged off, worn out from the war. He was at the White House when word came that his father had been shot. He ran to the Petersen boarding house across the street and was at Abraham Lincoln's bedside when he died the next morning.
Sixteen years later, Robert was Secretary of War in James A. Garfield's cabinet. On July 2, 1881, he walked into the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington to see the president off on a trip, and was only a few feet away when Charles Guiteau stepped forward and shot Garfield in the back. Robert was an eyewitness. Garfield lingered for eleven weeks before dying.
On September 6, 1901, Robert traveled to Buffalo at President William McKinley's personal invitation to visit the Pan-American Exposition. He had just arrived and was near the Temple of Music — accounts differ on exactly how close — when Leon Czolgosz shot McKinley in a receiving line. McKinley died eight days later. Three American presidents had now been shot, and Robert Lincoln had been present or nearby for all three.
He was uncomfortably aware of the pattern. Asked years afterward to attend a presidential event, he is said to have replied: 'No, I'm not going, and they'd better not ask me, because there is a certain fatality about presidential functions when I am present.' For the rest of his life he was reluctant to be anywhere near a sitting president.
Historians note that the McKinley connection is the weakest of the three — Robert may not have actually seen the shooting, and some accounts have his train still arriving — so the 'witness to three assassinations' story is partly polished legend. The Lincoln deathbed and the Garfield shooting, though, are solid. Robert died in his sleep at his Vermont estate, Hildene, in 1926 at age 82; the direct Lincoln line ended with his last grandson in 1985.