Land of Lincoln – Literally!

With perfect blue skies and temperatures to write home about, we had the pleasure of visiting the Illinois State Capital of Springfield, and home of President Abraham Lincoln.  Speaking of “home”, Lincoln purchased the home shown in the above photo in 1844 for $1,200.  He and his wife (Mary) lived there for 17 years.  They had four children (all boys), but only one child survived until adulthood.  This is the one and only home Lincoln ever bought.

I love the fact the National Park Service allows the public to go into Lincoln’s home, because it really does provide a sense of connection to this iconic and cherished President.  Park Rangers guide the tours, which last about 15 minutes.  I wanted so desperately to break away from ‘the pack’ and take it all in for myself.  Yes, a selfish sentiment on my part, but perhaps you might feel the same should you ever visit, “Honest Abe’s” home (he was called, “Honest Abe” in the truest sense).

Photographs were allowed to be taken inside the home; however, no flash and the group moved so quickly it was difficult to get any really good pictures.  Here are a couple I wanted to show you, even though I wish I had more:

This is Lincoln’s actual desk! I know the quality of the photo is not the greatest, but I hope you get a sense of the historical significance and pretend you just woke up and your eyes are a bit fuzzy! Ah, yes, now you’ve got it!

This is a photo of the Lincoln ‘informal’ livingroom.  Apparently Mary Lincoln spent a lot of time in this room, probably catching up on a sewing project or two! Someone on the tour asked if all the furniture was Lincoln’s; apparently quite a bit of it is the real Lincoln deal, although some pieces of furniture are not.  I figured you would be thinking the same question, but unfortunately the tour guide did not identify every aspect of each room.

What’s going on? We are back outside and it’s curiously cloudy? No, I took this photo last year when we visited Springfield! The other photos are of a recent trip, but I wanted to show you something in the, “now and then” category.  The angle of this photo of Lincoln’s home has been taken gazillions (not a word, but darn it I like it!) of times over many decades.  Here’s what it looked like once upon a time in the, “Land of Lincoln”:

[photo courtesy of ironbrigader.com]

Although I couldn’t find the exact year this photo was taken, I think it was circa 1855.  Do you see who is hanging around in the front yard? *grin*

For reasons unbeknownst to me, I have strong affection and appreciation for Abraham Lincoln.  It’s rather strange; and yet, I feel somehow as if I understand how ‘ahead of his time’ he seemed to be in his actions and words.  I don’t think I have done a decent job at explaining this very well, so I will simply have to hope you understand it on a level of feeling, despite my lack of accurate explanation!

Lincoln was quoted many times with what I consider, “gems for the ages”.  I shall finish this post with two of my favorites:

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”