Abraham Lincoln Home

Figure A--In the spring of 1844, Abraham Lincoln and his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, moved into a one-story Greek Revival-style cottage with the first of their four sons. Lincoln paid $1,500 for the modest clapboard home.

Figure B--The house was small for the 6-foot, 4-inch Lincoln and his growing family. With his law practice thriving, in 1846 he undertook the first of six renovations of his home. When all the renovations were completed, the Lincolns owned a two-story house with five upstairs bedrooms.

Figure C--After supper, the family gathered in the sitting room, where Mary kept her sewing table. The boys sat in fancily painted chairs and played with their stereoscope*. They often got down on the floor and wrestled with Dad.

Figure D--At night, the Lincolns retired to separate bedrooms, as was customary for affluent people of the day. His bedroom is bigger than the entire log cabin that he was born in. To accommodate his gangly frame, his bed is 6 feet, 9 inches long. He often stayed late at his pigeon-holed desk and rose early in the morning.

* stereoscope--an optical instrument with two eyepieces used to impart a 3-D effect to two photographs of the same scene taken at slightly different angles