Among the many treasured relics of Abraham Lincoln is an old Britannia coffee pot from which he was regularly served while a boarder with the Rutledge family at the Rutledge inn in New Salem (now Menard), Ill. It was a valued utensil, and Lincoln is said to have been very fond of it. It is illustrated on page 690.
The pot is now the property of the Old Salem Lincoln League, of Petersburg, Ill., and was donated to it, with other relics, by Mrs. Saunders, of Sisquoc, Cal., the only surviving child of James and Mary Ann Rutledge. Mrs. Rutledge carefully preserved this and other relics of New Salem days; and shortly before her death in 1878, she gave them into the keeping of her daughter, Mrs. Saunders, advising her to preserve them until such time as a permanent home for them would be provided by a grateful people back at New Salem, where they were associated with the immortal Lincoln and his tragic romance with her daughter Ann.
Turkish Coffee Set, Peter Collection, United States National Museum, Washington
Chapter XXXIV
THE EVOLUTION OF COFFEE APPARATUS
Showing the development of coffee-roasting, coffee-grinding, coffee-making, and coffee-serving devices from the earliest time to the present day—The original coffee grinder, the first coffee roaster, and the first coffee pot—The original French drip pot, the De Belloy percolator—Count Rumford's improvement—How the commercial coffee roaster was developed—The evolution of filtration devices—The old Carter "pull-out" roaster—Trade customs in New York and St. Louis in the sixties and seventies—The story of the evolution of the Burns roaster—How the gas roaster was developed in France, Great Britain, and the United States