Mary Lincoln Surprised Abraham with a Home Remodeling Project.

In 1856, Mary Todd Lincoln pulled off the greatest surprise on Abe. Mrs. Lincoln apparently was no exception to the rule of women being admittedly the prime movers in home improvement. In fact, she had the Lincoln home in Springfield, Illinois, completely remodeled from a story and a half to a big two-story house while Circuit Lawyer Abe was out of town. She wanted to surprise her husband when he came home, and she certainly did. She had spent $1,300 ($375,000 today) on her modernization project. That was a lot of money in those days. It was about as much as Lincoln had originally paid for the house. Keep in mind that Lincoln traveled the Eighth Judicial Circuit for nearly six months of the year.

According to the story, Lincoln came striding up to his property at the corner of Eighth and Jackson Streets (413 South 8th Street, Springfield), carrying a beefsteak under his arm, and he didn't know his own house. But he got to like it all right. The family sitting room, which measured 16 by 20 feet, and the adjoining formal parlor that opened through a large double door, soon became a frequent meeting place for Abe's political associates.

Mary Todd Lincoln had that house remodeled because she didn't like it. You've probably heard that reason in connection with modern remodeling jobs. And she seemed to be a woman who could get what she wanted. She always said Lincoln would land in the White House. 

But Mrs. Lincoln had been very disappointed when Abe bought the house in 1844 from the Rev. Charles  Dresser. Even though her husband would show her the solidity of its hand-hewn oak construction, wooden pegs, walnut clapboards, and shingles, she thought the house was ugly and wanted a bigger house.

However, the house had seven rooms and several fireplaces and occupied a lot 50 by 152 feet, which also contained a woodshed, privy and carriage shed. In order to save up enough money to buy the place, Lincoln spent virtually nothing on himself, even giving up his handball games which had cost him 10¢ per game. 

One drawback to the house was that the two bedrooms upstairs had such low ceilings that Lincoln could stand erect only in the center under the ridge of the roof. Mrs. Lincoln fixed that. She raised the roof 12 feet, added several bedrooms upstairs, installed new wood stoves in place of fireplaces, and had bookshelves built for Abraham's law library. 

The exact amount that Lincoln paid for the house is not entirely clear. Carl Sandburg in "The Prairie Years" says the deal involved $750 in cash, plus a lot Lincoln owned which was valued at $300. However, Sandburg notes there was a mortgage for $900 on the 'property which was not mentioned in the deed, Lincoln apparently trusting the Rev. Mr. Dresser to get rid of it.

A contract in Lincoln's handwriting mentions $1,200 as the price, but some historians say the final price was actually $1,500. 

We asked Myron Matthews of the Dow Service Building Reports to give us an estimate of what it would cost to build that house today. He figured that $20,000 might do it, with $5,000 added for the lot. In some ways, this puts a pretty low value on the 1850s dollar.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

The First Statue of Abraham Lincoln and his Wife, Mary in the United States.

In late June of 1867, Mary Todd Lincoln traveled to Racine, Wisconsin. Her sons, Robert and Tad, had been called to Washington to testify in the trial of John Surratt. (Surratt had been an accomplice of John Wilkes Booth. Surratt escaped after the assassination but was later caught and brought to trial.) Racine was the site of an Episcopal secondary school, Racine College, which had been recommended to Mary for Tad. Mary took advantage of her sons' absence to spend time relaxing in Racine and looking over this school.

Many years later a pioneer resident of Racine, Miss Lena Rosewall, who had studied the lives of the Lincolns, felt Mary had done much to further her husband's career. When Miss Rosewall passed away in 1935, she left her entire estate of $20,000 for the construction of a memorial of Abraham and Mary together. The executors of Miss Rosewall's estate chose Frederick C. Hibbard, a well-known artist, and sculptor, to make the statue.

The statue's base is of Minnesota pink granite five feet high. The Lincolns are chiseled from Elberton gray granite from Georgia. Mary stands seven feet high.

Hibbard, who completed the two-year project in his Chicago studio, said he wanted to portray the Lincolns "before Abe became president in 1861, before the president's face became seamed and furrowed in the struggle to save the Union, and while Mrs. Lincoln's future was unclouded." The statue portrays Abraham seated with Mary standing beside him. They are dressed for a formal occasion. The statue was dedicated on July 4, 1943. The work stands in Racine's East Park in front of the Gateway Technical College campus on Main Street.

NOTE: A second statue of the Lincolns together, which was patterned after the Racine statue, is located in Phillips, Wisconsin, at Fred Smith's Wisconsin Concrete Park.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Contributor, Abraham Lincoln Research Site

Abraham Lincoln's Favorite Dessert: Gingerbread with an Apple and Brown Sugar Topping..

Lincoln was extraordinarily fond of gingerbread. A plain man with tastes to match, Lincoln once said, "I don't s'pose anybody on earth likes gingerbread better'n I do—and gets less'n I do." 

This is the kitchen Mary Todd Lincoln cooked and baked for the man who later became President of the United States. Their modest home at Eighth and Jackson Streets in Springfield, Illinois, is a National Historic Site. The Lincolns lived here from 1844 until 1861.

This was in the days before the package mix. Otherwise, Mrs. Lincoln surely would have catered more closely to her husband's food likes. And here is one of the best possible dress-ups for it, a buttery brown sugar and apple topping particularly compatible with the spicy goodness of gingerbread warm from the oven.

If it's for company, or even if it isn't, a puff of whipped cream makes it even better.

A POPULAR EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY GINGERBREAD RECIPE

• Take two pounds and a half of flour
• Mix an ounce of beaten ginger with it, and half a pound of brown sugar
• Cut three-quarters of a pound of orange peel and citron (a citrus fruit) not too small
• One ounce of Carraway seeds
• Mix all these together
• Take a mutchkin and a half (a Scottish unit of capacity equal to a little less than a pint or 14.5oz) of good treacle (treacle and molasses may both be by-products of the sugar refining process, but they are not as interchangeable as many believe) 21.75oz of treacle, and melt it on the fire.
• Beat five large eggs
• Wet the flour with the treacle and eggs
• Weight half a pound of fresh butter, "Scots weight" (8 ounces)
• Melt it and pour it in amongst your other materials
• Cast them all well together
• Butter a frame and put it in the oven. (NOTE: There is no oven temperature given because they used wood to bake and cook.) All these cakes must be fired in an oven, neither too hot nor too cold. 
• This gingerbread won't fire without frames. (not important in today's ovens)
• If it rises in blisters when it is in the oven, run a fork through it. 
• It makes very fine plain bread without the fruit, with a few caraway seeds.

CLICK TO READ ─► What's the difference between Treacle and Molasses?

APPLE AND BROWN SUGAR GINGERBREAD TOPPING

• 1 1/4 cups brown sugar
• 1/3 cup butter
• 1/3 cup milk
• 4 medium apples, sliced very thin
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1 tablespoon cold water

Combine brown sugar, butter, and milk in a saucepan. Stir over low heat until sugar dissolves, then add apple slices and simmer just until tender. Spoon out the apple slices and arrange on baked gingerbread. Combine cornstarch and cold water and stir into syrup in which apples were cooked. Stir over low heat until thickened, then pour over apples and gingerbread. Serve with whipped cream if you like.

Research by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.