after Pullman's death in 1897. According to Almont Lindsey's 1942 book, The Pullman Strike, Lincoln arranged to have Pullman quietly excused from the subpoena issued for Pullman to testify in the 1895 trials of the leaders of the American Railway Union for conspiracy during the 1894 Pullman strike. Pullman hid from the deputy marshal sent to his office with the subpoena and then appeared with Lincoln to meet privately with Judge Grosscup after the jury had been dismissed. In 1911, Lincoln became chairman of the Pullman Company board, a position he held until 1924. A serious nonprofessional astronomer, Lincoln had an observatory built at Hildene, and a 1909 Warner & Swaseyrefracting telescope with a six-inch John A. Brashear objective lens was installed. Lincoln's telescope and observatory have been restored and it was used by a local astronomy club in the early 2000s. Lincoln was also a dedicated golfer, and served as president of the Ekwanok Country Club in Manchester. Robert Lincoln's last public appearance was on May 30, 1922 at the dedication ceremony for his father's memorial in Washington, D.C. Presence at assassinations Robert Lincoln was coincidentally either present or nearby when three presidential assassinations occurred. Lincoln was not present at Ford's Theatre when his father was assassinated but he was at the White House nearby, and rushed to be with his parents. The president was moved to the Petersen House after the shooting, where Robert attended his father's deathbed. Lincoln was an eyewitness when Charles J. Guiteau shot President James A. Garfield at the Sixth Street Train Station in Washington, D.C., on July 2, 1881. Lincoln was serving as Garfield's Secretary of War at the time. Lincoln was at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York when President William McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz. Though not an eyewitness, he was just outside the building when the shooting actually occurred. Lincoln himself recognized these coincidences. He is said to have refused a later presidential invitation with the comment, "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." Death Robert Todd Lincoln died in his sleep at Hildene, his Vermont home, on July 26, 1926, a week before his 83rd birthday. The cause of death was given by his physician as a "cerebral hemorrhage induced by arteriosclerosis". Robert had long expressed his intention to be buried