It was a cold January day when Lincoln journeyed from Springfield to this quaint little house near Charleston, Illinois, to visit for the last time with his beloved stepmother, before leaving for Washington and his inauguration.
While sitting before the glowing fireplace, Lincoln and his stepmother must have reminisced about those formidable days in the forests of Indiana and the first few years on the prairies of Illinois.
“How slowly, and yet by happily prepared steps, he came to his place,” said Emerson. This statue is in Chicago’s Lincoln Park.
At the dedication of the memorial and tomb to the Great Emancipator in Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, Illinois, Governor Richard Oglesby spoke these words: “And now under the gracious favor of Almighty God, I dedicate this monument to the memory of the obscure boy, the honest man, the illustrious statesman, the great liberator, and the martyr President Abraham Lincoln, and to the keeping of Time.”
The LINCOLN COUNTRY:
IN PICTURES
by Carl and Rosalie Frazier
Perhaps no man in American history has been viewed with such respect and reverence by the American people as has Abraham Lincoln. School children and scholars alike have been moved by the humanity of his deeply lined face, have marveled at his rise from poverty to the Presidency, have sorrowed anew at the tragedy of his death, have read his words and been unable to erase them from their memory. If there is one historic person most of us would like to know, it is Abraham Lincoln.