ABRAHAM LINCOLN was president of the United States during the time of its civil war and undeniably its greatest moral and constitutional crisis. When he was assassinated in 1865 shockwaves reverberated all the way around the world - even as far as a small town in Scotland.

With a population of just 6000, the small riverside community of Dumbarton was a fraction of the size of the bustling town it is today. Its people felt so strongly about the death of the American president that the subject was discussed at a council meeting and a letter of condolence sent from the provost to the US government via the ambassador in the UK.

Now 150 years after Lincoln's death, that letter forms part of the commemoration of the event in the US.

"We were contacted by the Abraham Lincoln Museum in Springfield, Illinois. They had discovered a batch of civic letters from all around the world which they wanted to display," explains West Dunbartonshire Council Provost Douglas McAllister.

"They contacted my office to ask if we would like to do a follow-up letter, which was quite nice to create some symmetry to the whole process.

"It was a really fascinating process to think about my predecessor 150 years ago being given this task to send this letter to the people of the United States.

"It obviously showed the effect it must have had all around the world; people had such high regard for President Lincoln.

"It must have affected Dumbarton society for the local people and their council to discuss it to begin with and then take the view that they wanted to send a formal letter expressing their condolences.

"Obviously it wasn't just a loss felt in the US; it was felt across communities around the world."

In a time log before social media, television or radio broadcasts, news of the president's death was relayed by telegram and read in the local press.

"Lincoln was by then renowned for his abolition of slavery and fighting for equality and liberty and that must have had an effect on everyone," adds Douglas.

"It is incredible to think that civic society in America kept this letter from a small town in Scotland."

The correspondence can now be viewed online at www.citizenlincoln.org

West Dunbartonshire Council archivist Chris Cassells says shipbuilding was the main industry in Dumbarton at that time, with about 40 yards working on the River Leven, including Denny and McMillan.

Only four years later the Cutty Sark was built here, an indication of the stature of shipbuilding in the area.

"If you look at the local newspapers from the time, every week there was a huge update from the American civil war because people from the area were out there fighting," he says.

"They were people who recently emigrated or joined the Union cause. They were sending reports back that were being published and when Lincoln was assassinated it led to huge outpourings of grief and sympathy. There was even an emotional poem penned by a Dumbarton resident published in a newspaper in early May 1865."

The minutes of the council meeting that moved the motion to send a letter of condolence to the US still exists. Beautifully penned script chronicles the decision, held for posterity in a leather-bound ledger.

A portrait of former Dumbarton provost John McAusland, painted around 1870 by Joseph Henderson, has recently been restored and will go on display in an exhibition next year at Clydebank Town Hall. Its frame bears the inscription: "John McAusland, a liberal man who devised liberal things".

"There was a huge amount of interest locally in what was going on in America. It was obviously a major conflict with global implications so it affected everyone," adds Chris.

John McAusland was an interesting character, part of the Dumbarton establishment he married into the Denny shipbuilding family and went into business with Peter Denny setting up a company that went on to become Denny & Co, a huge marine engineering business.

He served the town between 1862 and 1866 and lived to the ripe old age of 82.

The letter sent by today's provost reflects the international recognition of what Lincoln meant to the world.

In it Douglas says it gave him enormous pride that people from Scotland wrote all those years ago to the Ambassador of the US in London to put on record their indignation at Lincoln's murder.

"In doing so they rightfully acknowledged his personal excellence and high endowments and how these characteristics had made him famous throughout the world," he writes.

"Sitting here in Clydebank 15 decades on that judgement seems very fitting. Rarely in history do people make such a significant impression as Abraham Lincoln, and even rarer still are those individuals held with such universal respect."