State's Lincoln sites schedule events for Abraham Lincoln's 198th Birthday

SPRINGFIELD - Several Lincoln sites administered by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency have scheduled special events February 10 through 12 in honor of Abraham Lincoln's 198^th birthday.

 

            Two annual pilgrimages to honor Abraham Lincoln's birthday will be held Saturday and Monday, February 10 and 12 at Lincoln Tomb State Historic Site in Springfield's Oak Ridge Cemetery.  Both events are free and open to the public.  The 60^th Annual Pilgrimage of the Veterans of Foreign Wars will take place at 2 p.m. Saturday, February 10 at Lincoln Tomb.  A service at the Tomb will feature a eulogy for Lincoln.  Military honors for the 16^th President will follow, and uniformed soldiers will give Lincoln the traditional 21-gun salute.  The 73^rd Annual National Pilgrimage to Lincoln Tomb by members of Springfield American Legion Post 32 will be held Monday, February 12.  Dignitaries will assemble at 10:30 a.m., and wreaths from Legion posts across the state will be placed in the Burial Chamber.  The American Legion National Commander and other officials will address those gathered for the event at 11 a.m.

 

            A Lincoln's Birthday celebration featuring hands-on activities and special tours of the home's hidden spaces will be held Saturday and Sunday, February 10 and 11 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the David Davis Mansion State Historic Site in Bloomington.  The event is free and open to the public, and is suitable for both adults and children.         The Mansion's Lincoln-related interpretation will be highlighted during the tours, which begin every half hour.  Visitors may see areas of the Mansion that are not normally shown to the public, and hands-on activities for children will be featured, along with funny stories about Abraham Lincoln and Judge David Davis.  This Lincoln's Birthday event is part of an ongoing series of new Davis Mansion exhibits and programs examining the relationship between Abraham Lincoln and David Davis.               

 

            The annual Lincoln's Birthday observance is scheduled for Saturday, February 10 from noon to 4 p.m. at Postville Courthouse State Historic Site in Lincoln.  The event is

free and open to the public.  Period music will be provided all afternoon by Postville Express.  Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln impersonators will visit with guests, and volunteers will conduct tours and serve birthday cake and punch.  Award-winning storyteller and musician Mike Anderson will perform at 1:45 p.m., and Bloomington attorney and author Guy Fraker will give power point presentations at 1 and 2:30 p.m. about the Eighth Judicial Circuit that Abraham Lincoln traveled.      

 

            Lincoln's Birthday weekend activities are scheduled at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in downtown Springfield.  Events in the Museum require paid Museum admission, while activities in the Library are free.  Events on Saturday, February 10 include:

Events on Sunday, February 11 include:

 

            The Vandalia Historical Society will hold its annual Lincoln's Birthday observance at 2 p.m. Monday, February 12 in the Supreme Court Room at the Vandalia Statehouse State Historic Site.  Dale Timmerman, president of the Vandalia Historical Society, will present a program called "Lincoln's Congressional Career in Vandalia."  Tom Mathis will have his collection of Lincoln memorabilia on display that day.  Timmerman serves as a historian on the Vandalia "Looking for Lincoln" project.  The February 12 observance is free and open to the public.  It is sponsored by the Vandalia Historical Society and the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.

 

Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site near Charleston will be open on Monday, February 12 from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. in honor of Abraham Lincoln's birthday.  The site is normally closed on Monday and Tuesday.  Volunteers at the site will be engaged in typical daily activities representing 19^th century life on the Illinois prairie.  Visitors may see activities centered on the hearth including cooking the noon day meal and candle dipping.  While Abraham Lincoln was a successful lawyer living in Springfield and only an occasional visitor to his father's Goosenest Prairie farm in the 1840s, his father and step-mother were still living in the manner in which Abraham was raised.  Thus, Lincoln Log Cabin offers visitors the opportunity to see the environment in which Lincoln rose from obscurity to the highest office in the land.

 

            The annual Abraham Lincoln Symposium will be held Monday, February 12 at the Old State Capitol State Historic Site in Springfield.  The Symposium, sponsored by The Abraham Lincoln Association, the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, is free and open to the public.  The day's events will begin at 11:30 a.m. with a book signing by Jon Meacham, editor of Newsweek and author of American Gospel:  God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation.  Meacham will also be the keynote speaker at the Symposium Banquet that evening for which paid reservations are required.  The Symposium sessions begin at 1 p.m. in the Old State Capitol's Hall of Representatives and this year's theme is "Lincoln and Politics of the 1850s."  Speakers include author, Pulitzer Prize nominee and University of Illinois professor Orville Vernon Burton; Nicole Etcheson, author of Bleeding Kansas:  Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era and a professor at Ball State University; Matthew Pinsker, author of Lincoln's Sanctuary:  Abraham Lincoln and the Soldiers' Home and a professor at Dickinson College; and Brooks D. Simpson, professor of history and humanities at Arizona State University and author of several acclaimed books on the Civil War, Reconstruction and Ulysses S. Grant.