Good day everyone.
This post is about the trip to Springfield, IL with my brother David. We made a day trip out of it. Problem is we got home late and my dear brother gets up at 0dark30 to go open the restaurant - sorry about that. We had a great time all the same.
We left early to get to Springfield before lunch and as the time zones have it we gained an hour on the trip there so we arrived in time for a late breakfast. I mention because I had the strangest omelet. They had the usual assortment of omelets - Denver, Ham and Cheese etc as well as a Vegetarian. That is what I had expecting fresh veggies like onions, mushrooms, etc. Not on your life. Got to love that Midwestern perspective. Dear old Dave had a Denver omelet with fresh veggies but my veggie omelet had veggies from a frozen bag of mixed vegetables. I had to laugh. At least they are trying, but frozen mixed veggies in an omelet when you have fresh veggies?! Oh well.
On to finding Honest Abe in Springfield. He is everywhere.
We started at the Visitors Center inside of an old train station. Interesting thing is, there are no train tracks where this train station is sitting. Nice that they preserved the old station, too bad they did not preserve the old tracks. The volunteers at the visitor center were knowledgeable and very helpful in spite of the fact they pointed us to the breakfast restaurant.
Our first stop was the Herndon-Lincoln Law Offices. The original building is still standing. They do not have any of the original furniture of their law offices but the floors are original and they have a desk that was owned by Lincoln's brother-in-law that Lincoln did use. Cool to walk on the same floor that Lincoln did. I just hope they were level in his day.
After the Law Office it was off to the only house that Lincoln owned. They bought the house for $1500 and it was originally 1.5 stories. The Lincolns had it built up into a full 2 story home after a couple of years.
They do have some of the original furniture that the Lincolns used when they lived in the home. Mary lived in it after the assassination as well.
The coolest part of the trip for me so far is that the handrail in the house to the second floor from the first is original. Being able to use the same handrail to go upstairs that the family used is very cool! They also have the mirror that Abe used every morning and the stove in the kitchen where Mary learned to cook. Mary was from a well-to-do family in Kentucky and never had to learn to cook until she had a family of her own and not enough money to pay for a cook.
After the tour of the home we were off to the rail station where Lincoln gave his farewell speech on his way to the White House. His funeral train arrived at another station as that train came from Chicago. That station does not exist any more but it stood where the present day Amtrak station sits. The rail station where he left Springfield is not totally original as the original station was badly burned. The local Springfield newspaper paid to have the station rebuilt to its original condition. They did have a nice movie that talked about his trip to the White House.
Next we toured the "Old State Capitol" where Lincoln was a State Representative. They have an original desk from the period and a huge clock above it that they have stopped as of 7:22, the time Lincoln was shot in Ford's Theater in Washington DC. We got an impromptu tour of this part of the Capitol from a sweet lady who did not quite have all of her facts straight. She also liked to talk. Being that she was giving us a private tour we did not complain, and we did not want to be rude, so we let her blabber on, and on, and on some more. We finally rescued when an actual tour entered the chamber and she had to stop giving us our private tour. She was kind and sweet but it was good to be able to move on.
This post is about the trip to Springfield, IL with my brother David. We made a day trip out of it. Problem is we got home late and my dear brother gets up at 0dark30 to go open the restaurant - sorry about that. We had a great time all the same.
We left early to get to Springfield before lunch and as the time zones have it we gained an hour on the trip there so we arrived in time for a late breakfast. I mention because I had the strangest omelet. They had the usual assortment of omelets - Denver, Ham and Cheese etc as well as a Vegetarian. That is what I had expecting fresh veggies like onions, mushrooms, etc. Not on your life. Got to love that Midwestern perspective. Dear old Dave had a Denver omelet with fresh veggies but my veggie omelet had veggies from a frozen bag of mixed vegetables. I had to laugh. At least they are trying, but frozen mixed veggies in an omelet when you have fresh veggies?! Oh well.
On to finding Honest Abe in Springfield. He is everywhere.
We started at the Visitors Center inside of an old train station. Interesting thing is, there are no train tracks where this train station is sitting. Nice that they preserved the old station, too bad they did not preserve the old tracks. The volunteers at the visitor center were knowledgeable and very helpful in spite of the fact they pointed us to the breakfast restaurant.
Our first stop was the Herndon-Lincoln Law Offices. The original building is still standing. They do not have any of the original furniture of their law offices but the floors are original and they have a desk that was owned by Lincoln's brother-in-law that Lincoln did use. Cool to walk on the same floor that Lincoln did. I just hope they were level in his day.
After the Law Office it was off to the only house that Lincoln owned. They bought the house for $1500 and it was originally 1.5 stories. The Lincolns had it built up into a full 2 story home after a couple of years.
They do have some of the original furniture that the Lincolns used when they lived in the home. Mary lived in it after the assassination as well.
The coolest part of the trip for me so far is that the handrail in the house to the second floor from the first is original. Being able to use the same handrail to go upstairs that the family used is very cool! They also have the mirror that Abe used every morning and the stove in the kitchen where Mary learned to cook. Mary was from a well-to-do family in Kentucky and never had to learn to cook until she had a family of her own and not enough money to pay for a cook.
After the tour of the home we were off to the rail station where Lincoln gave his farewell speech on his way to the White House. His funeral train arrived at another station as that train came from Chicago. That station does not exist any more but it stood where the present day Amtrak station sits. The rail station where he left Springfield is not totally original as the original station was badly burned. The local Springfield newspaper paid to have the station rebuilt to its original condition. They did have a nice movie that talked about his trip to the White House.
Next we toured the "Old State Capitol" where Lincoln was a State Representative. They have an original desk from the period and a huge clock above it that they have stopped as of 7:22, the time Lincoln was shot in Ford's Theater in Washington DC. We got an impromptu tour of this part of the Capitol from a sweet lady who did not quite have all of her facts straight. She also liked to talk. Being that she was giving us a private tour we did not complain, and we did not want to be rude, so we let her blabber on, and on, and on some more. We finally rescued when an actual tour entered the chamber and she had to stop giving us our private tour. She was kind and sweet but it was good to be able to move on.
The "Old State Capitol" also was a place that US Grant worked as well. Grant was made head of the State Militia and started off with an office under the stair case. He eventually moved to a regular office. It was interesting that they were both in the Illinois State Capitol at the same time and were of course later well intertwined in the Civil War.
The last building in this part of town that we visited was the Lincoln Museum. There is also the Lincoln Library that we did not visit. It is mostly used by scholars to do research. I would love to have the time to research some of the original manuscripts in the library. But that is for another day.
The museum takes you from his boyhood through his work in Illinois and then on to the White House. They have one of his original hats, which was cool to see, as well as other original artifacts. It was just the right size and had good exhibits well presented. We were able to do a meet and great with the family as you will see by the picture I have included.
The final Lincoln stop was the tomb. It is in a cemetery in another part of town. It is a nice memorial. Mary and his sons are buried there as well except for his oldest - Robert - who is buried in Washington DC in Arlington National Cemetery at the request of his wife.
Interesting side note: Arlington National Cemetery was Robert E.Lee's home before the Civil War. They started to use it as a cemetery during the Civil War to create some anguish for Robert E. Lee and his family. It worked. Robert E. Lee never went back to his former home after the war.
Our final stop in Springfield was to the existing State Capitol building. There is a statue of Abe on the grounds but what I found interesting is that the main statue heading to the front door of the Capitol is of Stephen Douglas - arch nemeses of Abe's. I find it interesting in that the Lincoln Douglas debates were basically over slavery. Douglas was selected to be the US Senator for Illinois over Abe by the State Legislature as the US Senate positions were not an elected position in those days. But they did give Abe some excellent exposure as Douglas may have won the battle but Abe won the War!
As I have mentioned in other posts, the weather on my trip has not been the best. The first four days in Indy were all very hot and muggy and led to severe weather by the evening as the clouds would build and thunder and lightening would come with a vengeance. On our trip back from Springfield, we drove right into a storm that was raging over Indy. We did get to see some cool lightening as we got close to the edge of the storm. Usually if you are not at edge of the storm you do not to get to see the actual lightening bolts - you only see the clouds light up. Driving into the storm as we did, we had a great view of the light show. The lightening was not only striking from the clouds to the ground but it appeared to be going sideways as well. Some very interesting visual affects.
The next stop will be Kentucky and Southern Indiana in search of Abe's birth and boyhood homes. And what has become the best part of the journey, an unexpected pleasure find in Kentucky.
Thanks for coming along for the ride.
Michael
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