We hope you aren't tired of looking at pictures related to Abraham Lincoln, because that's what this blog entry is about. Abraham Lincoln bought a house in Springfield, Illinois, in 1844 and lived there with his wife and children until they moved to the White House in 1861. In 1887, their oldest son Robert presented the home and property to the State of Illinois for preservation and care-taking of his father's pre-Presidential home.
The Lincoln Home is a National Historic Site, part of the National Park Service. The site is comprised of the four blocks surrounding the Lincoln Home making up the Lincoln Neighborhood. Many of the homes have been preserved and turned into museum-like exhibits helping to tell the story of not just the Lincolns, but the neighborhood, people, and events occurring during the time the Lincoln Family lived there. The streets through the four-block neighborhood are pedestrian only. The picture above is looking from one end toward where the Lincoln Home is.
It's free to tour the Lincoln Home, but you have to get a timed ticket from the Visitor Center. Tours are guided by rangers and last about 20 minutes. They leave every 5 minutes or so from the Visitor Center. We had arrived at 8:45 AM (Visitor Center opens at 9 AM) so we were in the first group to get tickets to tour the home. Our group had about 14 people (12 adults, two children) but we saw larger groups later in the day.
The tour goes through the house starting in the front parlor, and continues to the back of the house and upstairs. You can take non-flash photos, but you can't touch anything (with one exception), and you must stay on the carpeted areas or the alarms will go off. You can't lean on any of the walls or door-frames. The one exception to touching is the handrail on the staircase. It is the original handrail, and they tell you to imagine how many times Abraham Lincoln had rested his hand on it while going up or down.
Archivists have illustrations from reporters that they have been able to use to present the Lincoln Home as it looked when the Lincolns lived there. These illustrations were made by reporters who wrote a featured story about the Lincolns and made drawings of the parlor / sitting room, and the other front room. Preservationists were able to find reproductions of wallpaper and carpeting to closely match what would have been on the walls in the 1800s.
There are a few original pieces of furniture in the home including an armoire in Mr. Lincoln's bedroom.
Another original piece in the home is the stove that Abraham bought Mary as a gift. He paid $17 for it. By comparison, a few years prior, he had paid $20 for a stereoscope for his sons.
Here are a few pictures from the bedrooms. Like many families during that time, Mr. Lincoln had his bedroom while Mrs. Lincoln had hers; the boys slept in her room for some of the time before the house was expanded.
The "modern conveniences" of the day were either under the bed or in the space between the bedrooms. There was an outhouse outside that was a three-seater!
The floor in this room is original wood. The room was used by the young women who served Mrs. Lincoln.
The Lincoln House is one of the most photographed homes. The National Park Service has even set up a place to tell you where to stand to capture your own picture reminiscent of those made before.
A view of the back of the house, the backyard, and side of the house. Less photographed!
We spent about 2 1/2 hours at the Lincoln Home National Historic Site by the time we toured the home and neighborhood, watched the film, and did our souvenir shopping. The author of Young Lincoln and Lincoln in Springfield was there autographing books, so we bought one. His name is Jan Jacobi and he's a middle school teacher. We really enjoyed talking with him. Especially as when we were in Hannibal just a few days earlier, we had talked with a retired elementary school teacher who owns and operates a local bookstore, and a retired high school history teacher who was scooping ice cream in Becky Thatcher's Ice Cream Parlor.
There's just one more Lincoln thing we did in Springfield that I'll save for another post - but by the time we get to Indiana and Kentucky, we'll have a few more. It seemed like we couldn't go anywhere without there being a Lincoln reference!
~ Cindy D.
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