Category: Abe Lincoln

Abe Lincoln, Art, Museums, Presidents

Abraham Lincoln’s Favorite Poem.

Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

Original publish date October 19, 2023. https://weeklyview.net/2023/10/19/abraham-lincolns-favorite-poem/

This was once displayed in Osborn H. Oldroyd’s museum inside the Lincoln Home in Springfield, Illinois. The poem was read aloud on the 15th anniversary of the President’s death, April 15, 1880, at the first memorial service at Lincoln’s Tomb ceremony by Mrs. Edward S. Johnson (wife of Lincoln Guard of Honor member and second Lincoln Tomb custodian Major Edward S. Johnson). Undoubtedly this leaflet was handed out at that ceremony on that day as a souvenir. It is titled “President Lincoln’s Favorite Poem. Copied by F.B. Carpenter while our Lamented Chief was reciting it.”

During the month of October in Irvington, I am near-constantly surrounded by reminders of the dead. While Irvington celebrates Halloween with little door-knocking ghosties and goblins gliding from door to door in search of treats, it does nothing to dispel the fact that Halloween revolves around the spirits of the dearly departed. I write often about Abraham Lincoln, but seldom about Lincoln and Halloween. I thought it might be a good time to examine a mysterious poem that fits the season and has often been referred to as Lincoln’s favorite.

Lincoln developed his lifelong love of poetry while a boy in Southern Indiana. Although by his own admission, Lincoln got his education “by littles” and the total time spent in a classroom by the young rail-splitter amounted to less than a year, he devoured the poetry found in the four school readers historians attribute to his early years in the Hoosier state. Many of those poems were about death. John Goldsmith’s 1766 poem, An Elegy On The Death Of A Mad Dog, Edgar Allan Poe’s 1845 poem The Raven, Oliver Wendell Holmes’ 1831 poem The Last Leaf, and Thomas Gray’s 1751 poem Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. And of course, Lincoln’s love of William Shakespeare is widely known.

These poets in particular capture the gloomy, melancholic poetry of which Lincoln was so fond of as a young man. Lincoln, a capable amateur poet himself, memorized the poems he cherished, reciting them to friends and inserting them in conversations and speeches throughout his life. His favorite poem, which he recited so often that people suspected he was its author, was William Knox’s “Mortality,” alternately known as “O, Why should the Spirit of Mortal be Proud!” Lincoln often opined to friends (and at least once in a letter) that he, “would give all I am worth, and go in debt, to be able to write so fine a piece as I think that is.”

The poem was cut from a newspaper and given to Lincoln by Dr. Jason Duncan in New Salem, Illinois. At the time, its author was anonymous, and attribution was unknown. On at least a few occasions, having committed it to memory, Lincoln wrote the Mortality poem out longhand and sent it to friends, always noting that “I am not the author.” He would spend twenty years searching for the poet. Aptly for the season, one stormy night in the White House, Lincoln recited the poem for a small group of friends including a congressman, an army chaplain, and an actor, noting that the “poem was his constant companion” and that it crossed his mind whenever he sought “relief from his almost constant anxiety.”

General James Grant Wilson (1832-1914)

When the group departed, Lincoln requested that his guests help to discover who had written it. “Its author has been greatly my benefactor, and I would be glad to name him when I speak of the poem…that I may treasure it as a memorial of a dear friend.” Union General James Grant Wilson (1832-1914) would ultimately inform the President that the poem was written by an obscure Scottish poet named William Knox (1789-1825). The poem was first published in his 1824 book Songs of Israel. After Lincoln’s death, the poem experienced a resurgence in popularity.

Osborn H. Oldroyd.

On April 15, 1880, on the 15th anniversary of the President’s death, the poem was read aloud by Mrs. Edward S. Johnson (wife of Lincoln Guard of Honor member and second Lincoln tomb custodian Major Edward S. Johnson) during a ceremony at the tomb in Springfield. A leaflet, handed out at that ceremony and found in my collection, was saved by Lincoln collector and personal muse Osborn H. Oldroyd and displayed in his collection in the Lincoln home for years. It remains important to the Oldroyd story as the impetus for his personal resolve to build a Lincoln Museum of his own.

Lincoln Tomb Guard of Honor. John Carroll Power seated front row second from left.

At that time the tomb’s Memorial Hall housed a small exhibit of Lincoln artifacts gathered by custodian John Carroll Power (a subject of my past columns). At that event, Oldroyd decided that his collection might be a bigger deal than he thought it was. “As I gazed on the…resting place of him whom I had learned to love in my boyhood years, I fell to wondering whether it might not be possible for me to contribute my might toward adding luster to the fame of this great product of American institutions,” wrote Oldroyd. It was after gazing upon those priceless Lincoln relics at the tomb that Oldroyd resolved to build a Memorial Hall in Springfield to display his own collection of Lincoln memorabilia. For a decade (1883 to 1893) that museum occupied the front parlors of the only home Abraham Lincoln ever owned at 8th and Jackson. The divider between those two rooms was adorned by a shield-shaped, flag-draped wooden motif adorned with the title “O, Why should the Spirit of Mortal be Proud!” Oldroyd made sure that every visitor to his museum was aware of the poem’s significance in the Lincoln chronology while surreptitiously causing each visitor to cast their eyes towards the heavens to receive the message.

Oldroyd’s Springfield Museum.
A stanza from the poem fashioned into a plaque hangs above the door in the above photo.

The poem is written in Quatrain form with an A-A-B-B rhyme scheme, or clerihew, with all of the dominant words highlighted by the rhyme. The poem resounded in Lincoln’s mind like an echo, its pauses, and connotations framing the beat of the poem. The poem causes its reader to reflect on the inevitable continuity of life; Life is short so why sweat the small stuff? We are but insignificant players in a much grander scheme, so do all you can while you’re here. Here, submitted for your approval in the spirit of Halloween, is Abraham Lincoln’s favorite poem in its entirety.

“O why should the spirit of mortal be proud! Like a fast-flitting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave-He passes from life to his rest in the grave. The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, Be scattered around and together be laid; As the young and the old, and the low and the high, Shall moulder to dust, and together shall lie. The child that a mother attended and loved, The mother that infant’s affection that proved, The husband that mother and infant that blest, Each-all are away to their dwelling of rest. The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye, Shone beauty and pleasure-her triumphs are by: And the memory of those that beloved her and praised, And alike from the minds of the living erased. The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne, The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn, The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave, Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.”

“The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap, The herdsman who climbed with his goats to the steep, The beggar that wandered in search of his bread, Have faded away like the grass that we tread. The saint that enjoyed the communion of Heaven, The sinner that dared to remain unforgiven, The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just, Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust. So the multitude goes-like the flower and the weed, That wither away to let others succeed; So the multitude comes-even those we behold, To repeat every tale that hath often been told. For we are the same things that our fathers have been, We see the same sights that our fathers have seen, We drink the same stream, and we feel the same sun, And we run the same course that our fathers have run.”

“The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think, From the death we are shrinking from they too would shrink, To the life we are clinging to, they too would cling-But it speeds from the earth like a bird on the wing. They loved-but their story we cannot unfold; They scorned-but the heart of the haughty is cold; They grieved-but no wail from their slumbers may come; They joyed-but the voice of their gladness is dumb. They died-ay, they died! and we, things that are now, Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow, Who make in their dwellings a transient abode, Meet the changes they met on their pilgrimage road. Yea, hope and despondence, and pleasure and pain, Are mingled together like sunshine and rain: And the smile and the tear, and the song and the dirge, Still follow each other like surge upon surge. ‘Tis the twink of an eye, ’tis the draught of a breath, From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud-O why should the spirit of mortal be proud!”

Memento homo (remember you are only a man).

So what is the takeaway? Why should you be so proud of what you have, when all you have is so little in the bigger picture? The theme is one of life and death. A bleak and somber contrast reminds us that life is short, and in Lincoln’s case, fame is fleeting. Auriga, the slave charged with accompanying Roman Generals and Emperors through the streets of Rome after triumph in battle, often whispered the phrase Memento homo (remember you are only a man) while holding the golden crown inches above their heads. From a young age, Lincoln was well acquainted with the idea of mortality. So it comes as no surprise that he adored that poem. But it isn’t all gloom and doom. Within its stanzas are found muted messages of hope and the promise that it is not too late for society to change its ways by following in the footsteps of our ancestors. Reading this poem, one experiences the same feeling of reflection as Lincoln did. It explains how, during his entire lifetime, The Great Emancipator remained penitent and humble by simply following the lessons of this poem.

Abe Lincoln, Ghosts, National Park Service, Presidents

Abraham Lincoln’s First Ghost Story.

Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

Original Publish date October 7, 2021. https://weeklyview.net/2021/10/14/abraham-lincolns-first-ghost-story/

There are many ghost stories associated with Abraham Lincoln. Most revolve around his time in the White House, his assassination at Ford’s Theatre, and his death in the Petersen House across the street. But what was the first ghost story that Abraham Lincoln ever heard? Historian Louis A. Warren, whose 1959 book “Lincoln’s Youth. Indiana Years 1816-1830” is considered to be the definitive work on Lincoln’s early life in the state, does its best to answer that question.

In the fall of 1816, Thomas and Nancy Lincoln packed their belongings and their two children, Sarah, 9, and Abraham, 7, and left Kentucky bound for southern Indiana. Arriving at his 160-acre claim near the Little Pigeon Creek sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Thomas moved his family into a hunter’s half-face camp consisting of three rough-hewn walls and a large fourteen-foot space where a fire was almost always kept burning. Lincoln’s earliest memories of this home were the sounds of wild panthers, wolves, and coyotes howling just beyond the opening.

Typical 18th Century half-face hunting camp.

Once the chores were finished, Thomas would entertain his small family with tales of hunters, wild Indians, and ghosts. None of which was more frightening than the ghost of old Setteedown, mighty chief of the Shawnee tribe. The Shawnees were scattered throughout the region with their main settlement of about 100 wigwams located on the Ohio River near present-day Newburgh.

Shawnee tribe – Wigwams

For the most part, the Indians were friendly and peaceful. Tradition recalls that Chief Setteedown (or Set-te-tah) and settler Athe Meeks were the exceptions to that rule. The Chief accused Meeks, a farmer and trapper, of robbing his traps and Meeks accused Setteedown of stealing his pigs. A feud developed between the two men that would ultimately leave both men dead.

Atha Meeks (1820-1913)

The hatred became bitter and Setteedown decided to settle the matter once and for all. Early on the morning of April 14, 1812, Setteedown, his seventeen-year-old son and a warrior named Big Bones lay in wait outside the Meeks family cabin. The warriors were armed with rifles, knives, and tomahawks. When Atha, Jr. stepped out of the cabin to fetch water from a nearby spring, one of the Indians fired at him, wounding him in the knee and wrist.

In 2016, descendent Anthony Dale Meeks detailed the encounter in his family history. The Indians “crept up behind a fodder stack ten or twelve rods in front of the door and when my brother Athe (Jr.) got out of bed and passed out of the house and turned the corner with his back towards them, they all fired at him. One ball passed through his knee cap, another ball passed through his arm, about halfway from his elbow to his wrist. Another ball passed through the leg of his pants doing no injury.”

When Atha, Sr. heard the shots, he ran out of the cabin where Big Bones shot him as he exited the doorway. Margaret Meeks and another son dragged the dying man into the cabin before the Indians could scalp him. Atha, Sr. died without ever knowing what hit him. That 2016 account continues “Meanwhile father jumped out of bed, ran to the door to see what was up, and met an Indian right at the door who shot him right through the heart. He turned on his heels and tried to say something and fell dead under the edge of the bedstead.”

William Meeks (1815-1877)

Setteedown and his son then ran to the wounded younger man and attacked him with their tomahawks. Meeks Jr. managed to fight his attackers off until his uncle William arrived from his adjacent cabin. William Meeks fired his rifle at the tribesmen, killing Big Bones and chasing the other two away.

Some accounts report that the attack on the Jr. Atha was more of a contest of humiliation than a duel to the death. Chief Setteedown and his son were toying with their prey like a cat with a mouse, throwing tomahawks and knives at the wounded young man from a close distance.

1880s drawing of a mounted Cheyenne warrior counting coup with lance on a Crow warrior.

Among the Plains Indians, counting coup is the warrior tradition of winning prestige in battle by showing bravery in the face of an enemy. It involves shaming a captive with the ultimate goal being to persuade the enemy combatant to admit defeat, without having to kill him. In Native American Indian culture, any blow struck against the enemy counted as a coup. The most prestigious acts included touching an enemy warrior with a hand, bow, or coup stick and escaping unharmed; all without killing the enemy. The tradition of “counting coup”, if true in this instance, ultimately cost the great Chief his life. The gruesome practice allowed armed avengers to bring this “game” to an end by precipitating a hasty retreat.

Some eight hours later, a group of settlers arrived at Setteedown’s village seeking revenge. The vigilantes captured Setteedown, his wife, the son who participated in the attack, and two or three other children. The posse confined them in the cabin of Justice of the Peace Uriah Lamar near Grandview. They were guarded by three men, including the deceased brother William Meeks. Sometime during the night the old chief was shot and killed, presumably by Uncle William Meeks.

Tecumseh.

The remaining family members were banished from the region. Legend claims that they left a treasure behind buried somewhere near Cypress Creek and the Ohio River. Setteedown’s tribe disbanded and reportedly joined Tecumseh to fight in the War of 1812.

And what became of Chief Setteedown’s body? Author Louis Warren notes, “Setteedown was buried in his Indian blanket in a shallow grave close to the Lamar cabin. Mischievous boys were reported to have pushed sticks down through the soil until they pierced the old blanket. (thereby releasing his vengeful spirit) And for many years old Setteedown’s ghost was supposed to be visible at times in the vicinity.”

Local lore claims that old Chief Setteedown roamed the hills, dales, and waterways of Spencer and Warrick County looking for scalps to add to his war belt. Frontier children were warned that Setteedown’s playful spirit was a ruse with deadly intentions. Chief Setteedown was searching for souls to repopulate his lost tribe in the afterlife. In an age when children were often in charge of refilling the household water trough, gathering firewood, or collecting nuts and berries to supplement every meal, it is easy to imagine how ghost stories about bloodthirsty Indians may have sparked young Abe Lincoln’s imagination. The setteedown legend had every element that would have sparked a child’s imagination: Indians, murder and lost treasure.

1870 Century Magazine print titled: “The Killing Of Abraham Lincoln, The Pioneer, 1786.”

The legend takes on added significance when it is remembered that Abraham Lincoln’s namesake grandfather was ambushed and killed by Indians. In May 1786, Abraham Lincoln, Sr. (his Kentucky tombstone lists his surname alternatively as “Linkhorn”) was putting in a crop of corn with his sons, Josiah, Mordecai, and Thomas, when they were attacked by a small war party. He was killed in the initial volley. In referring to his grandfather in a letter to Jesse Lincoln in 1854, Lincoln wrote that “the story of his death by the Indians, and of Uncle Mordecai, then fourteen years old, killing one of the Indians, is the legend more strongly than all others imprinted upon my mind and memory.”

Nancy Hanks Lincoln by Lloyd Ostenddorf.

Although life was generally good for the Lincoln family during their first couple of years in Indiana, like most pioneer families they experienced their share of tragedy. In October 1818, when Abraham was nine years old, his mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, died of “milk sickness”. The milk sickness ensued after a person consumed the contaminated milk of a cow infected with the toxin from the white snakeroot plant ( or Ageratina altissima). Nancy had gone to nurse and comfort her ill neighbors and became herself a victim of the dreaded disease.

Lincoln Boyhood Home Marker Indiana.

Thomas and Abraham whipsawed Hoosier Forrest logs into coffin planks, and young Abe whittled wooden pegs with his own hands, pausing only briefly to wipe the tears away that were flowing down his cheeks. Ultimately, Abe’s hand-carved pegs fastened the boards together into the coffin for his beloved mother. She was buried on a wooded hill south of the cabin. For young Abraham, it was a tragic blow. His mother had been a guiding force in his life, encouraging him to read and explore the world through books.

Lincoln with his “Angel Mother” signed by Dayton, Ohio artist Lloyd Ostendorf.

His feelings for her were still strong some 40 years later when he said, “All that I am or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” Lincoln’s fatalistic countenance, his famous bouts with melancholy, and his overall sad-faced demeanor could easily be traced back to those “growing-up” days in Southern Indiana. It is easy to imagine that, although terrifying to most children, the Setteedown ghost story was welcome entertainment to the hard reality of life on the Hoosier frontier for young Abe Lincoln.

Abe Lincoln, Uncategorized

BOOK LAUNCH ANNOUNCEMENT! SUNDAY FEBRUARY 16, 2025 10 AM (CST) SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS.

Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

On Sunday, February 16th, 2025, the official book launch for both of my latest books, Thursdays with Doc. Dr. Wayne C. Temple’s Recollections of Springfield & Lincoln and Osborn H. Oldroyd: Keeper of the Lincoln Flame, will be held in Springfield, Illinois. 10:00 am (Central Standard Time) at Books on the Square 427 E. Washington St. Springfield, IL 62701. (217) 965-5443
https://www.booksonthesquare.com/

bksonsqr@royell.net 

The author will speak about Doc and Oldroyd, their connection to each other, and Springfield, the day after the Abraham Lincoln 216th Birthday Event: Symposium & Banquet in that historic building across from the Old State Capitol Building where Lincoln served. A book signing will follow the talk. All purchases of Doc’s book that day will include a limited edition, hand-numbered bookplate signed by Doc, Dr. James Cornelius, and the author.

Osborn H. Oldroyd devoted his life to acquiring everything relating to Abraham Lincoln. For nearly half his life, Osborn Oldroyd made his home and displayed his collection in two houses directly associated with the 16th President: the Lincoln Homestead in Springfield, Illinois, and the House Where Lincoln Died in Washington, D.C., a feat that will never be surpassed. Oldroyd guarded a gateway between two worlds. On one side was the world of the now and on the other, the world of the past. When Lincoln passed from life to history, the nation’s grief gave way to reverence; sorrow gave way to esteem. Oldroyd, the loyal log cabin Republican and veteran soldier, did his best to ensure no one forgot. Oldroyd had the institutional memory gained from walking in Lincoln’s footsteps, talking with Lincoln’s contemporaries, and examining the objects associated with his idol. Oldroyd was never trained as a curator. He was a born collector whose experience in handling and researching objects while building his personal collection was his curatorial education. His ability to recount the story behind the object and inject it with enthusiasm, humor, and believability, made him a folk hero to the common man. Just as Oldroyd’s museums can be considered the first of their kind in American museum history, Oldroyd himself can be labeled as America’s first folk curator. To the collection and study of Lincoln, Osborn Oldroyd’s name is unavoidable, particularly in the study of his assassination. It could easily be said that without the efforts of Osborn H. Oldroyd, we may have lost the Lincoln Home in Springfield, the House Where Lincoln Died, and Ford’s Theatre itself. Oldroyd’s obsessive, idiosyncratic devotion to Abraham Lincoln brought the martyred President down from the fog of intellectualism and back to earth for everyone to rediscover in object form. Oldroyd was the last of his kind and the first of another. He arrives by adoration and departs by dedication, opening doors for every Lincoln collector, admirer, and scholar that followed. Born in an age of covered wagons and canals, Oldroyd lived to see the age of the automobile and the airplane. And, thanks mainly to Osborn Oldroyd, visitors to the Petersen house today can walk through the first floor, down the long hallway to stand inside the tiny, dimly-lit otherwise insignificant room with the slanted ceiling where the last, best hope of a nation was lost.

KA series of informal discussions with Springfield Illinois Lincoln scholar and author Dr. Wayne C. Temple, known affectionately as “Doc”. Who, for over 56 years, worked for nine different Illinois Secretaries of State and ten different Governors representing both parties, a remarkable feat of its own. It is a record unlikely to be equaled. Doc was with the Illinois State Archives from 1964 to 2016, much of that time as the Chief Deputy Director. Before that, Doc was editor-in-chief of the Lincoln Herald and in charge of the Dept. of Lincolniana at Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee from 1958 to 1964, remaining in that position remotely from Springfield until 1973. Doc was an honorary member of the Lincoln Sesquicentennial Commission, 1959-1960, and served on the advisory council of the  United States Civil War Centennial Commission, 1960-1966. Doc served in the U.S. Army from 1943 to 1946, and during that time he helped to establish General Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower’s communications in Europe. Doc has authored over 20 books, mostly on Lincoln, and has written over 600 articles, poems, reviews, and papers during his career. Doc graduated from the University of Illinois in 1949, studying under his mentor J.G. Randall, the “Dean of Lincoln Scholars.” Doc’s accomplishments are well covered in this volume. This book spans almost three years of interviews with Doc, James Cornelius (former Curator of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum), and author/newspaper columnist Alan E. Hunter. The topics cover Abraham Lincoln, the little-known history and colorful personalities of Springfield, Illinois, the Indigenous Peoples of Illinois, and the life and times of Springfield’s preeminent Lincoln scholar. Now over 100 years old, Dr. Wayne C. Temple has seen it all.

I was just informed & consulted about an upcoming program at the Knox County Public Library in Mt. Vernon, Ohio (Osborn H. Oldroyd’s birthplace). They have promised not to play up the “scoundrel” angle. The word is getting out!

Abe Lincoln, Museums, Presidents, Travel

A Gift from a Friend. Abraham Lincoln, Art Sieving, and the Long Nine Museum.

Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

Original publish date October 3, 2024. https://weeklyview.net/2024/10/03/a-gift-from-a-friend/

Art Sieving’s Long Nine Museum Plaque.

Rhonda and I strolled through Irvington last week to reconnect with some old friends. We visited Ethel Winslow, my long-suffering editor at the Weekly View, and then stopped in to see Jan and Michelle at the Magick Candle. From there we went down to see Dale Harkins at the Irving and then popped into Hampton Designs to check in with Adam. After that, we tried (in vain) to track down Dawn Briggs for a stop-and-chat, then traveled over to see Randy and Terri Patee for a 3-hour porch talk over a fine cigar. Why do I retrace our visit with you? Simply because I hope that anyone reading this article either is, or will, make a similar stroll through the Irvington neighborhood this Fall season and visit their old haunts as well.

Hampton Designs & Irving Theatre Irvington Indianapolis.

I am blessed to know these folks and every one of them has been kind, giving, and thoughtful to us over the years, particularly lately as Rhonda has faced some difficult health challenges. The gals at the Magick Candle have gifted me treasures over the years connected to the people and places they know I love (Disney’s Haunted Mansion and Abraham Lincoln come to mind), the Patees have given me relics from the pages of history, and yesterday, Adam stopped me in my tracks by stating, “Wait, Carter found something for you.” Adam fumbled around gracefully behind the counter before finding the object of his search. As he handed it to me, I felt certain that he believed it to be just another Lincoln item, but I knew immediately what it was.

Lincoln plaque in its barest form.

The object is a ceramic plaque about the size of a paperback novel picturing a young, beardless Abraham Lincoln with his birth and death dates inset in raised / relief lettering on the front. It is painted in bright Victorian Era colors that teeter on the edge of being gaudy but are always irresistibly attractive. Rhonda was standing by my side (as always) and when I showed it to her she oohed and aahed at it simply because she understands what such things mean to me. When I told her that it had a secret surprise attached to it, she looked closer at it. Knowing what was in store, I turned the plaque sideways in my hand to reveal the artist’s name, Art Sieving, on the right edge and then turned it over to the left edge to show the town name of Athens, Illinois. Since she has listened patiently to my historical ramblings for 35 years now, she wisely responded, “Oh, the Long Nine Museum.” Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner!

Carter and Adam had no idea, since, unlike me, they have lives outside of history books and museums, but with this gift, they had hit me in my sweet spot. I knew what it was because I already have a version, but mine, while still interesting to me, is a bland matte-finish version that pales in comparison to this one. These plaques were created by Arthur George Sieving (1902-1974) from Springfield, Ill. He was a wood carver, magician, sculptor, and ventriloquist who created many fine architectural carvings, clocks, and ventriloquist figures. At the time of his death, Art was working on the diorama displays at the Long Nine Museum in Athens. He is buried in Springfield’s Oak Ridge Cemetery final resting place of Abraham Lincoln. I was introduced, unknowingly, to Sieving’s work when, many years ago, I purchased a stunning metallic gold plaque depicting the Abraham Lincoln Tomb. About the size of a college diploma, like Carter’s plaque, it depicts the Tomb in a raised/relief style so realistically that it casts its own shadow depending on the lighting.

The Long Nine Museum Athens, Illinois.

I had no idea who created the piece until I traveled to Athens (Pronounced Ay-thens) just a stone’s throw north of Springfield. I ventured there to meet with Jim Siberell, curator of the Long Nine Museum, who travels from his home in Portsmouth, Ohio during the summertime months to keep the museum open. Jim and I share a mentor in Dr. Wayne C. “Doc” Temple, the subject of my upcoming biography. As Mr. Siberell toured me through the museum, I spotted the exact plaque on display there. Of course, I asked for the history and Jim explained the artist’s connection to the museum. For those of you unaware, the Long Nine building is an important waymark of Illinois history. It was in this building, on the second floor, where Abraham Lincoln and six other state legislators (two of the members did not attend) decided to move the Illinois state capitol from Vandalia (near St. Louis) to the more centralized location of Springfield.

In 1837, a dinner party was held in the banquet room on the second floor to honor those legislators who were effective in passing a bill to relocate the capital. They earned the sobriquet of “The Long Nine” because together their height totaled 54 feet, each man being over 6′ tall or taller. Among the attendees was Abraham Lincoln, who at age twenty-seven was the youngest of the group. Lincoln gave the evening’s toast by saying, “Sangamon County will ever be true to her best interest and never more so than in reciprocating the good feeling of the citizens of Athens and neighborhood.” What this Hoosier finds most interesting is that when the delegates carved out the boundaries of Sangamon County, the home of the new state capitol, they left Athens out. Athens became a part of Menard County as did their neighbor, Lincoln’s New Salem.

Dayton Ohio Artist Lloyd Ostendorf’s massive Long Nine Banquet painting in the museum.

Mr. Siberell toured me through the building and explained how Art Seiving had created the dioramas in the museum that recounted the stories of the men of The Long Nine in hand-carved wooden miniature displays. Each diorama’s characters were created by Seiving and the backgrounds were painted by artist, Lloyd Ostendorf. Siberell escorted me up the original stairway to the second-floor banquet room which features a stunning, massive oil painting by the late artist Lloyd Ostendorf showing Lincoln in formal dress toasting his colleagues. The mural covers an entire wall and is set against a table arranged much the same as it would have been on that fateful night. The visitor stands upon the original flooring of the banquet room where Lincoln gave his famous toast. The history room downstairs is a researcher’s dream. It contains many copies of Lincoln’s handwritten letters, documents from the history and restoration of the building, newspapers from the era, and historic photos. A trip to the basement reveals the building’s original fireplace, an arrray of period artifacts, and a scale model of Lincoln’s Tomb so big that it required the construction of a special pit to accommodate its massive size.

Lincoln Tomb model at Long Nine Museum.

The March 23, 1973, Jacksonville (Illinois) Journal Courier reported. “Seiving has been working hard since January making the “Lincoln Head” plaques in his basement. He used a rubber mold taken from a carving…he pours into it the powdered molding material and fashions a Lincoln head of great exactness and beauty. During the past weeks, he has made enough of them to fill every available space in his basement. When he makes a few hundred more they will be delivered to a central point for use in Athens; he will then start on larger statues. The plaques being furnished are in white plaster material, but will be finished into a walnut appearance with a high polish and most attractive “feel” and “look”.

Art Sieving’s Lincoln Tomb bas relief plaque.

The article continues, “The classic dioramas made by Art Seiving will present all of those documented events which presented Lincoln in Athens, including hand-carved wooden figures, utensils, tools, buildings, and animals carved from wood.” One of Art’s carvings was titled, “Lincoln goes to school in Indiana”…It takes two people (himself and his wife) three nights to cut out 800 little paper leaves, and it’s no short job, either, to glue them to the branches, one by one. Others have taken longer. Mr. Seiving was five or six days just putting in 3,000 “tufts” of grass in his last completed scene. The grass is frayed rope strands, cut and dried and then glued down…And while you’d swear that the miniature pots and pans were made of metal, in actuality, most are simply wrapping paper glued to metal rings.” Sieving stated that it took him five to seven days to carve each figure, and one diorama alone featured 11 figures. His preferred medium was walnut with augmentations of birch wood.

Seiving is described as an “internationally known magician, sculptor and ventriloquist” whose “dummy” partner was known as “Harry O’Shea.” Of course, Art carved all of the ventriloquist dummies used in his acts himself. Art’s magic act was called the “Art Seiving and his Art of Deceiving.” Aside from the Long Nine Museum, he is best known for his dioramas at the Illinois State Museum, ‘Model of New Salem Village’ and wood sculptures including the ‘Egyptian Motif Clock’. Seiving’s George Washington carving is in the Smithsonian Institution’s collection.

Sieving’s Lincoln plaque in walnut finish.

Art’s Lincoln plaques are by no means rare but cannot be classified as common in the “collectorsphere”. I believe the Long Nine Museum still has a few for sale if memory serves, and one would set you back about the cost of a Starbucks coffee nowadays. To me, the value is not a monetary one, but rather the story the item tells. The version that Carter discovered (and so kindly gifted to me) is signed “Love, Laurie” on the back, making it all the more special to me. I tend to love these little travel souvenirs from the 1960-70s. I’m a space race Bicentennial kid who enjoys discovering these little treasures. They represent a vacation, a trip, a moment in someone’s life. Usually a kid, they are never confined to age, race, or gender. I appreciate that, in this age where everything handmade seems to come from China, most of these old travel souvenirs originate from where they were being sold. At that moment, they were the most important thing in that person’s life. Hand-picked with a smile and a “wow” to be taken home and enjoyed long after the trip concluded. A physical manifestation of a cherished memory. So thank you “Laurie” whomever or wherever you are for saving this little treasure for a history nerd like me. And most importantly, thank you Carter for thinking of me.