Lincoln Home Springfield, Illinois

Text courtesy of the National Register of Historic Places, a program of the National Parks Service. Minor transcription errors or changes in formatting may have occurred; please see the Nomination Form PDF for official text. Some information may have become outdated since the property was nominated for the Register.

This simple frame house, the only one Lincoln ever owned, was home to the Lincolns for sixteen years, from 1844 to 1861, except for the period Lincoln served in Congress from November 1847 to March 1849. The house saw the emergence of Lincoln from a small town lawyer to a figure of national importance, and witnessed some of the most important episodes in the man's life prior to his inauguration as president. From the house Lincoln walked to the law office he shared with "Billy" Herndon, and in his home on May 17, 1860, Lincoln received a committee from the Republican Nominating Convention bearing the formal notification of his nomination as the party's candidate. During the campaign Lincoln received well-wishers at the home and on February 6, 1861, gave a "grand levee" to bid farewell to his friends and fellow citizens on the eve of the departure for Washington, None of the family ever returned to live in the house.

The house was built in 1839 and was originally a one-story cottage with two attic rooms. Lincoln purchased the property from the Rev. Charles Dresser in January 1844, and brought to it his wife and infant son, Robert. Dresser was the clergyman who married Lincoln and Mary Todd in 1842. The Lincolns spent the major part of their married life in the house and in it were born three more sons, the first of whom, Edward Baker, died there.

The house is made entirely of native woods, with a frame of oak, split laths of hickory and oak, and door frames and weatherboarding of black walnut, During the Lincoln occupancy, the original structure was enlarged to a full two stories with twelve rooms. The brick retaining wall and fence along the front of the house were erected in 1850 and five years later was extended along the Jackson street side. Furnishings of the period include some original Lincoln pieces, and an effort has been made to reproduce the interior decoration, including wallpaper, to create a picture of the comfortable home the Lincolns knew. The exterior of the house was for many years painted white with green shutters. The present tinted beige more closely approximates the original paint.

Among the occupants of the house after the Lincolns departed were L. Tilton, president of the Great Western Railroad, pioneer line in Illinois; George H. Harlow, one of the founders of the Union League, and O. H. Oldroyd, who assembled the notable collection of Lincolniana which for a time was exhibited in the house and was later sold to the Federal Government. In 1887, Robert Todd Lincoln gave the house to the State of Illinois as a public museum.

The years which Lincoln spent in Springfield were crucial ones in the development of the man and the growth of his reputation. The simple, comfortable house at the corner of 8th and Jackson Streets is intimately associated with those years of trial and growth. More eloquently than monuments of stone and bronze the house preserves the memory of the man who called it home.