Abraham Lincoln in the Kitchen

by Rae Katherine Eighmey

  Springfield residents Mrs. William Black (“Took Tea at Mrs. Lincoln’s,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Spring 1955) and Caroline Owsley Brown wrote of parties and social activities in town and hosted by the Lincolns. These descriptions, no matter how brief, gave me important insights. I quote from them here and in the chapters that follow.

  Eugenia Hunt Jones provided “My Personal Recollections of Abraham and Mary Lincoln,” published in the Abraham Lincoln Quarterly, March 1945. She recounted Frances Todd Wallace’s description of the wedding.

  CHAPTER 7

  Descriptions of Abraham Lincoln’s speaking style and apparel were reported by the Herndon informants quoted, also by Harold Holzer (2004) on page 408. James O. Cunningham’s recollection appears in Wilson (1943). Lincoln’s genuine amusement in his stories was told by Helen Nicolay (1918), page 17.

  Cunningham recalled the political picnic in “Lincoln on the Old Eighth Circuit” from Wilson (1943).

  Wayne Temple (2004) quoted the Sunday school fire-pit barbecue description, while the Hanks-Lincoln wedding feast is recalled by Louis A. Warren (1926). News of the Jacksonville Fourth of July celebration appeared in the Daily Illinois State Journal of July 7, 1859. The Cultivator explained the economics of fattening a shoat into a hog in February 1860.

  John Egerton (1993), page 276; Lillie S. Lusting (1939), page 6; and Daniel Beard (1920), page 136 all offer perspectives on burgoo; Samuel Corbley’s first-person perspective appears in the Indiana Magazine of History (March 1906) on page 16.

  CHAPTER 8

  The National Park Service staff at the Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Illinois generously answered my questions and reviewed this and the three other Springfield-focused chapters that follow. Curator Susan Haake responded quickly and thoroughly to my e-mail requests and offered helpful perspectives as we visited on the telephone. I am especially thankful for her accurate measurements of Mary Lincoln’s Royal Oak stove (discussed in Chapter 10). Haake and other staff members read and commented on the chapters in progress.

  Along with information from Springfield residents cited in Chapter 6 notes, I found the home-life descriptions of Lincoln from Mary’s perspective in Ruth Painter Randall (1953), where the overcooked chicken saga and “regularly irregular” comment are related on pages 88–89. Phillip Ayers’s telling of his mother’s experience with “The Lincolns and Their Neighbors” appears in Rufus Wilson (1943). Orville Hickman Browning (Pease and Randall 1925) made brief entries in his diary of parties he attended at the Lincoln home and of other Springfield social events during the legislative session.

  The value of Harry Pratt’s work (1943 book and article “The Lincolns Go Shopping” published in the Spring 1955 issue of the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society) cannot be underestimated. His inclusion of the store-ledger entries gave me the data I used to put the family’s grocery purchases into perspective. Additionally the Springfield City Directory for 1857–58 lists twenty-one restaurants. The 1859 listing shows thirty-two restaurants and saloons, and the 1860 directory lists twenty-eight restaurants and saloons.

  I found the delightful description of Abraham Lincoln’s carryout breakfast in Francis Fisher Browne (1995), page 206.

  H. B. Masser’s Patent Ice-Cream Freezer was advertised in the July 1855 edition of Godey’s Lady’s Book.

  Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt wrote of the Lincoln boys’ dog, Fido, and their neighborhood playmates in Life Magazine (February 1954).

  The Daily Illinois State Journal offered a wide view of life in town. The circus was advertised in the July 2, 1856, edition. A porcelain steak maul was advertised in the January 4, 1858, paper. Ice availability was shouted on March 13, 1858.

  Wayne Temple (2004) reported the corned beef and Ruth Painter Randall (1953) the chicken fricassee on page 339.

  Charles Zane wrote of Lincoln and apples in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society in 1921.

  Journalist Thurlow Weed colorfully described his meetings in Lincoln’s home. His accounts can be found in volume 1 of his autobiography (1884) on pages 603–12.

  I found the two additional food-related stories that Lincoln told in R. D. Wordsworth (1908), pages 14 and 41.

  CHAPTER 9

  Springfield newspapers and agricultural journals and magazines from across the nation brought forth a harvest of information on crops, seeds, and growing conditions. Fruit tree planting was mentioned by A. J. Downing in the December 1840 issue of The Gardener’s Magazine, where he noted “Progress of Gardening in the United States.” The pineapple controversy appeared in the September 1854 edition of Valley Farmer. The value of keeping a garden was highlighted in the 1854 Report on the Commissioner of Patents, page 323. That publication also fully described the qualities of beans on pages 323–38. The Tennessee Farmer sang the healthy praises of rhubarb in June 1837 on page 72.

  In a 1982 landscape analysis and report for the National Park Service prepared by Robert R. Harvey & Associates, I discovered information about the Lincolns’ apple trees as well as the copy of Simeon Francis’s Illinois Farmer seed advertisement.

  I found the date for the first canned tomatoes in Alan Davidson (2006). As to cooking the vegetables, in addition to suggestions from cookbook authors Miss Leslie, Mrs. Putnam, and Mrs. Bliss, agriculturalist Daniel Pereira Gardner (1854) suggested several simple preparations on pages 141, 494, and 803.

  Emanuel Hertz (1938) reported William Herndon’s observation of Lincoln, vegetables, and apples on page 166. The president’s White House breakfast of baked beans was recounted by Wayne Temple (2004).

  Temple also wrote extensively of Mariah Vance’s relationship with the Lincoln family in two articles in For the People, the publication of the Abraham Lincoln Association (Winter 2004 and Spring 2005). I have called upon his work here and in Chapter 11.

  CHAPTER 10

  In addition to finding inspiration from the Red Bourbon turkey, much of this chapter relies on the kindness and inspirational work of the staff of the National Park Service. Timothy P. Townsend’s essay “Almost Home” in Abraham Lincoln: A Living Legacy, published by the Eastern National Division of the Park Service, added depth and insights to my understanding of the family’s life in their home at Eighth and Jackson. Floyd Mansberger’s report of his archaeological findings not only of the Lincoln house yard, but of the neighbors’ yards added depth to my analysis. Lincoln Home curator Susan Haake generously answered my questions and considered my theories. Once again, Caroline Owsley Brown in her article “Springfield Society before the Civil War,” printed in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society (April–June 1922), and the Springfield newspapers provided key details. I took the closing image of the grief-stricken parents from David Herbert Donald (1995).

  CHAPTER 11

  Erica Holst told Springfield’s telegraphic history in the Quarterly Newsletter of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln, the April–June 2009 issue.

  David Herbert Donald (1995) set the stage for the Lincoln quotations that follow. The railroad quotation is from Lincoln’s speech to the jury in the Rock Island Bridge case trial in Chicago in September 1857. The Rock Island Railroad hired Lincoln to defend them against the steamboat company who sued when their boat, the Afton, crashed against the pillars of what was the first railroad bridge across the Mississippi River and burned to the waterline. Lincoln argued that the rights of rail travel were the same as those of river travel. Nine of the twelve jurors agreed with him. The full text of Lincoln’s argument can be found in volume 2, page 415, of his collected works (Basler 1953). Lincoln’s expression of the value of his participation in the 1858 campaign is found on page 339 of volume 3, while his letter to Judd regarding expenses is also in volume 3 on page 337.

  Paul Angle’s comprehensive history of Springfield’s early years (1935) provided details of that business community’s growing and diverse population.

  Two web sources yielded key information about William Johnson. Ronald Reitv
eld’s article can be found on Abraham Lincoln Online and Michael Burlingame’s article on President Lincoln’s Cottage Blog, October 31, 2007.

  As to oysters, Mark Kurlansky (2006) and Maria Eliza Ketelby Rundell (1823) expressed the same strategy for keeping oysters alive. Wayne Temple (1997) related the stories of Lincoln preferring his oysters cooked and serving fried oysters.

  I found the details of Lincoln’s New York experiences in Harold Holzer’s reporting of Lincoln at Cooper Union (2004).

  CHAPTER 12

  Julia Taft Bayne’s charming history of the time she and her brothers spent in the White House playing with Willie and Tad Lincoln gave me the descriptions I needed to develop a child’s view of life in the White House.

  For the inaugural journey, Victor Searcher (1960) detailed the trip and the only meals that were documented. Two New York Times articles offered views of the Astor Hotel: Christopher Gray’s “Where Lincoln Tossed and Turned,” September 24, 2009, and the anonymous “How We Dine,” January 1, 1859. I read both articles online at the Times article archive.

  Mary Lincoln’s cousin Elizabeth Todd Grimsley relayed not only some of the events, but Mary’s care and concern for her husband during her “Six Months in the White House” in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society (October 1926–January 1927).

  British journalist Sir William Russell described a White House reception on page 64 of the first volume of his published diary.

  Lydia Barker Tederick’s “A Look at the White House Kitchens” from White House History, Collection 4, no. 20 (2010), offered valuable information on the below-stairs kitchens. The website Mr. Lincoln’s White House detailed the employees. Mrs. Frances Seward’s letter is quoted from Goodwin (2005) on page 405.

  CHAPTER 13

  I discovered Bohn’s Hand-Book of Washington by Charles Lanman (1861) listed in an online auction of Lincoln and Civil War ephemera. When my not-so-high bid won, I was delighted to discover that this prewar tourist guide described not only the streets and sights, but also the cultural practices of the White House. It was just the thing I needed to guide me through Lincoln’s Washington. I found the mounds of food description in David Herbert Donald (1995), page 336.

  I could not have written about Lincoln’s years in the White House without visiting the Lincoln Cottage and I am indebted to director Erin Carlson Mast for her generous support. She and her staff provided copies from their document collection, answered questions, and read the manuscript in progress. Matthew Pinsker (2003) and Elizabeth Smith Brownstein (2005) provided additional information about the Lincoln’s time in this treasured retreat.

  I relied on four writers’ personal reminisces of Lincoln as they saw him in a relaxed setting: William Crook’s descriptions were edited by Margarita Spalding Gerry in Through Five Administrations (1910); Mrs. Anna Byers-Jennings, in Victoria Radford’s Meeting Mr. Lincoln (1998); Allan Thorndike Rice (1886), pages 418–19; and reporter Noah Brooks in P. J. Staudenraus’s Mr. Lincoln’s Washington (1967), pages 186–87. I found the description of the army bakery on pages 139–41 of Staudenraus.

  CHAPTER 14

  Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt and Phillip Kundhart, Jr., wrote of Abraham Lincoln’s final journey home in Twenty Days (1965). The pictures and descriptions of the communities’ actions helped me bring this work to its poignant ending. Mary Lincoln’s final days are conveyed in Ruth Painter Randall (1953).

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