Everywhere you go in Illinois you’re reminded on streets signs and number plates that this is the home state of Abraham Lincoln, and Springfield was Lincoln’s home town prior to becoming President so today was all about Honest Abe.
The drive from St Louis to Springfield is only quite short ( about 1 /12 hours) but we went first a little north of Springfield to the New Salem State Historic Sight. When Abe Lincoln was a young man of only 22 he left his family home and worked on a float boat, taking supplies down the river towards New Orleans. On the way he encountered the tiny village of New Salem and after he delivered his supplies he returned to New Salem to work in a variety of jobs while he was still deciding what to do with his life. He did odd jobs and worked as a postmaster and even tried running a store ( a business that failed!) but eventually he started to read Law books and so started on his path as a Lawyer. He spent about 6 years in the town and only left it when he was elected to the State Legislature.
The entire little village has been faithfully reconstructed on it’s original foundations and is manned by volunteers dressed in period costume. It was a lovely walk around the tiny cabins under the trees, reading and hearing about the village life that Lincoln was a part of.
In one store a gentleman played a Civil War era tune on an Mountain Dulcimer for us and showed us where Abe worked as the Postmaster.
From New Salem we drove downtown into Springfield to the Oak Ridge cemetery where Lincoln was buried under a massive Tomb. There is a bronze statue of him out the front and Abe’s nose was very shiny, because the story goes that you’ll have good luck if you rub his noes. We duly rubbed his nose!
Under the huge memorial is a cool series of corridors that you pass through before you reach his final resting place. As it said above the tomb, “He Now Belongs to the Ages”
It was stinking hot again today but we still had more to see on the Lincoln trail so we drove into town to visit the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum. I wasn’t really expecting much, just the usual “Things in Glass Cases” experience but I couldn’t have been more wrong. The museum was fabulous! There were two main areas, one covering his early life and to reach it you walked into a life size replica of his chldhood, log cabin home.
After only 9 months of formal schooling, Abe taught himself everything he needed to know in life by exhaustive reading.
Neil reading the diaply about Abe’s courtship of Mary Todd
The second area of the museum was devoted to his later life as President, the Civil War and his assassination. To reach that we walked through the doors of a life size replica of the main entrance to the White House with Lincoln and family standing out front.
This video was amazing, it showed the progress of the war ( via an animated map) 4 years in 4 minutes.
The displays in both areas were extremely well done, a cross between Madame Tussauds and Disney-style, with lifesize mannequins and fascinating, informative video productions. It really made the history come alive. I really think it’s one of the best museums I’ve ever visited. We really learned a lot we had not known about the man , his family, his work and the United States at the time.
Our final stop for the afternoon was a few streets away at the Springfield Home National Historic Sight. Here the national Park services maintains an areas of about 6 blocks around the home that Lincoln lived in prior to becoming President. The home and it’s neighbours and the streets have been restored to appear as they would have done in Lincoln’s day. We had a tour through the home and although it was still a modest home by modern day standards, it was a world away from his original log cabin boyhood home and the tiny cabins he lived in at New Salem.
The home of a prosperous lawyer
In this room he wrote the letter accepting the nomination as republican candidate for the Presidential election.
Our day with Lincoln was wonderful, he was one Republican I would have been glad to support!