Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln in McLean County

12 items

Correspondence

Before telegraph lines connected Central Illinois communities in the early 1850s, most of Linco...

Digital Exhibit

Expansion of Slavery

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 threatened to extend slavery into northern territories. This da...

Digital Exhibit

Friends and Allies

During his years on the Eighth Circuit, Abraham Lincoln came to trust and depend on several lea...

Digital Exhibit

From Candidate to President and Beyond

Lincoln won the presidency in 1860 largely over the issue of slavery’s expansion....

Digital Exhibit

Lincoln and the Eighth Judicial Circuit

For more than two decades, the Eighth Circuit brought Lincoln to McLean County and its seat of ...

Digital Exhibit

Lincoln's Lost Speech

On May 29, 1856, delegates from across Illinois gathered at Bloomington's Major's Hal...

Digital Exhibit

Looking for Lincoln

Bloomington-Normal is one of the richest communities for Abraham Lincoln-related sites—some of ...

Digital Exhibit

National Exposure

In 1858 Lincoln faced Stephen Douglas in an epic U.S. Senate race highlighted by seven debates....

Digital Exhibit

Real or Not Real?

Can you tell the genuine items from the pretenders? Sometimes it is difficult for museum profes...

Digital Exhibit

The Dark Horse Candidate

Led by his Bloomington friends, Lincoln captured the 1860 Republican nomination for president....

Digital Exhibit

The Lincoln Autobiography

Despite his loss to Douglas in 1858, Lincoln’s supporters did not give up on him. In fact they ...

Digital Exhibit

The Varied Caseload of A. Lincoln, Attorney

Lincoln took legal work where he could find it. His cases ranged from murder trials to mundane ...

Digital Exhibit

Articles

7 items

a dirt trail meets water, surrounded by trees and bushes

For pioneers, river crossings sometimes matter of life and death

Of all the hardships faced by pioneers, the danger of crossing swollen rivers and creeks is one...

Article

Harvey Hogg early martyr to Union cause

The Civil War was a brutal, decidedly unromantic slog. By its cruel end, as Ulysses S. Grant an...

Article

Even Mr. Lincoln played marbles! This water color illustration by Rick Tuma appears in the video short “Lincoln: Recollections and Reminiscences,” featured in the McLean County Museum of History exhibit, “Abraham Lincoln in McLean County.”

Marbles popular with young and old alike of 19th century

Dr. Edwin M. Colburn, an early Bloomington physician, recalled the popularity of marbles and ot...

Article

Museum’s newly acquired Lincoln letter window into legal career

The McLean County Museum of History, as part of its Presidents Day activities on Monday, will h...

Article

Phoenix Hall site of Lincoln’s last speech in Bloomington

On April 10, 1860, five-and-a-half weeks before accepting the Republican nomination for preside...

Article

Undertaker’s invoice window into Bloomington’s rich past

As a not-for-profit institution, the McLean County Museum of History depends on the generosity ...

Article

Water-pumping windmills forerunner to wind turbines

Today’s larger wind farms can include hundreds of 280-feet tall turbines and cover thousands of...

Article

Biographies

27 items

Bakewell, Edwin

Edwin Wells Bakewell was born in Wellsburg, Brooke County, Virginia (today located in West Virg...

Biography

Bradner, Judith Ann

Judith Major Allin Bradner was born on May 9, 1814 in Bourbon County, Kentucky to William T. an...

Biography

Cotting, James M.

James M. Cotting was born on March 18, 1825 in North Chatham, New York. He married Katherine M....

Biography

Cotting, Katherine M.J. Vanderpool

James M. Cotting was born on March 18, 1825 in North Chatham, New York. He married Katherine M....

Biography

Davis, Judge David

David Davis was born on March 9, 1815 at Mercer Plantation, Maryland to David and Anne Mercer D...

Biography

Davis, Judge David

David Davis was born on March 9, 1815 at Mercer Plantation, Maryland to David and Anne Mercer D...

Biography

Davis, Sarah

Sarah Woodruff Walker Davis was born on September 4, 1814 in Lenox, Massachusetts. She was one...

Biography

Elder, Mary

Mary Elvira Elder was born in Bloomingburg, Fayette County, Ohio on September 18, 1835 accordin...

Biography

Black and white photograph of an older man, Jesse Fell, wearing a simple suit. He has a nice gaze, looking off into the distance, and a slight upward turn to his mouth

Fell, Jesse Weldon

Jesse Weldon Fell was born on November 10, 1808 to Jesse Fell and Rebecca Roman Fell at his fat...

Biography

Portrait of Linus Graves, a middle-aged man wearing a white collared shirt, vest, and jacket, with full beard and large nose.

Graves, Linus

Linus Graves was born in Williamstown, Vermont on April 2, 1815 one of eleven children born to ...

Biography

Gridley, Asahel

A great deal of the information known about Asahel Gridley is based on reminiscences of his fri...

Biography

Gridley, Mary

Mary Enos Gridley was born in Onondaga Hollow, Onondaga County, New York on March 18, 1818. Whe...

Biography

Hobbs, Dr. William C.

Dr. William Hobbs was born in Maryland on December 24, 1800. Very little is known about his lif...

Biography

Hogg, Harvey

The Bloomington lawyer and Civil War cavalry commander, Harvey Hogg (originally from Tennessee)...

Biography

Lewis, Edward J.

Edward J. Lewis was born to Enoch and Lydia Jackson Lewis in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Sept...

Biography

Rectangular headstone that reads: Emily Hanks. Wife of E.J. Loomis. Oct. 18, 1840. Feb. 12, 1941.

Loomis, Emily Hanks

Emily Hanks Loomis was born October 18, 1837 on a farm in Hickory Point Township, four miles no...

Biography

Major, William Trabue

William Trabue Major was born on March 1st, 1790 about three miles from Frankfort, Kentucky. H...

Biography

McCullough, William

William McCullough was born on September 11, 1811 in Flemingsburg, Kentucky. He was the son of...

Biography

Northrup, Rose Whipp

Rose Whipp Northrup was born on September 27, 1850 in Beardstown, Illinois. She was the daught...

Biography

Orme, William Ward

William Ward Orme was born February 17, 1832 in Washington, D.C. William’s parents died when h...

Biography

Prince, Ezra Morton

Ezra Morton Prince was born on May 27, 1831 in Turner, Maine. His parents were Job Prince and ...

Biography

Rogers, Dr. Thomas

No matter one’s opinion regarding Dr. Thomas Pierce Rogers’s professional practice or political...

Biography

Scott, John Milton

John Milton Scott was born on August 1, 1823 in Belleville, St. Clair County, Illinois. His par...

Biography

Stipp, Dr. George Winfield

Dr. George W. Stipp was born on January 27, 1799 near Winchester, Frederick County, Virginia. ...

Biography

Tipton, Judge Thomas F.

Thomas Foster Tipton was born to Hiram and Deborah Ogden Tipton in Franklin County, Ohio, on Au...

Biography

White, William Richard

William Richard White was born on December 22, 1844 in Goosenest Prairie, Coles County, Illinoi...

Biography

Withers, Allen

Allen Withers was born on a farm in Jessamine County, Kentucky about seven miles from Nicholasv...

Biography

Blog

3 items

Museum Dedicating New Mural on 169th Anniversary of Lincoln's Lost Speech

Blog Post

Museum Launches Contest to Color Upcoming Mural of Lincoln's Lost Speech in Downtown Bloomington, Illinois

Blog Post

Special invitation to Abraham Lincoln fans

What a coup for the McLean County Museum of History to have Douglas L. Wilson speak!He is on an...

Blog Post

Exhibits

1 item

Abraham Lincoln in McLean County

This exhibit examines Lincoln's life's work, and explores the lasting connections Lin...

Exhibit

Finding Aids

10 items

Bracken Family

William Kerrick Bracken (1865-1947) was a Bloomington lawyer and Lincoln historian. At his deat...

Finding Aid

Crissey, A Elwell

Arthur “Elwell” Crissey, sometimes called “Cris,” was born February 1, 1899, in Windsor, Missou...

Finding Aid

David Davis Mansion

This collection includes the materials relating to the David Davis Mansion State Historic Site,...

Finding Aid

Davis Correspondence

This collection contains photocopies of correspondence from / to David and Sarah Davis from / t...

Finding Aid

Fraker-Lincoln

Guy Fraker, born in St. Joesph, Missouri, and raised in the New York suburbs, practiced law in ...

Finding Aid

Lincoln Statue Bicentennial Project (1975-1978)

V.L. (“Budd”) Fairfield (1926-2009). Bloomington High School American history teacher, served a...

Finding Aid

Lincolns in Town

The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission of McLean County was formed jointly by Bloomington,...

Finding Aid

Sage, Harold K.

This collection includes consists of two separate subjects. Box 1: Harold K. Sage’s files of co...

Finding Aid

Scott, Judge John Milton

John Milton Scott was born on August 1, 1823 in Belleville, St. Clair County, Illinois. In 1848...

Finding Aid

Second Presbyterian Church Collection

The Second Presbyterian Church was founded in 1855 as The New School Presbyterian Church, and w...

Finding Aid

Publications

1 item

Lincoln in Some of His Unheroic Hours

Publication

Speakers Bureau

1 item

The 'Lost Speech' Found: Abraham Lincoln and the Founding of the Illinois Republican Party

Speakers Bureau

Videos

5 items

Lincoln in 1859: Testing the Waters and Advancing the Cause with Guy Fraker

Video

Lincoln in Downtown Bloomington -- 360 degree video

Video

Lunch & Learn: Lincoln and Ann Rutledge with Guy Fraker

Video

Pitfalls and Promise: Memorializing McLean County's Past

Video

Social Justice History Walking Tour

Video

Websites

1 item

360 degree video tour -- Lincoln in Downtown Bloomington

Join Greg Koos, Executive Director Emeritus of the McLean County Museum of History, on a 45-min...

Website