Artifact from Lincoln Home, Frame Made from Lincoln Bedroom Floor

Description

Offering a frame created from wood from the Lincoln Home in Springfield, with documentation from Custodian Mary Edwards Brown. Both the note and the frame are framed together. 

Lloyd George, Britain’s Prime Minister during World War I, visited Springfield on October 18, 1923. He visited both the Lincoln home and  tomb. The wooden frame was “Presented to Dr. C.M. Service on the occasion of the visit to the Homestead and Lincoln’s Tomb by Lloyd George, wife and daughter / October 18, 1923.” Lincoln Homestead Custodian, Mary Edwards Brown (1918-1924), attests to this on the note. Custodian Brown continues at the bottom of the note, “the frame was made from pieces of wood taken from Lincoln’s bedroom when the Homestead was repaired.” 

Mrs. Brown was a direct descendant of Ninian Edwards, Abraham Lincoln’s brother-in-law, who was married to Mary’s sister Elizabeth Todd.

The 7-3/8″ x 6-1/4″ x 2/4″ frame contains a photograph of the house, with two unidentified people (the Services?) standing in front.  The entire – picture, frame, and note – are themselves placed in a shadow-box frame 21” x 11-1/2” x 1-1/2”. 

The original wood is in excellent condition, as is the black & white photograph; the note is evenly browned with rough edges; the outside frame is fine but bears a few repairable scratches. 

(LINCOLN HOME ARTIFACT) A frame made of wood taken from Lincoln’s bedroom floor during renovation of the Home in 1907.  At the top of the browned paper is a “Homestead” sticker which Mary Brown signs as “Custodian;” two stickers at the top corners had once acted as hangers.