LINCOLN LOG CABIN STATE PARK
Charleston, Illinois, USA:
A Perfect Way to Absorb Local History, even for kids who say they don’t like history.
This is the 1840s farm and home of President Abraham Lincoln’s father and stepmother, Thomas and Sarah, set in a beautiful quiet park. We visited with our grandson, AJ, one Saturday in summer.
Start at the Visitors’ Center and its small museum with interactive displays illustrating life at that time. AJ and other kids gravitated to the computers set up with programs showing the neighbors and neighborhood (called Goosenest Prairie) of the time. We learned how many could read and write (not many); how fields were tilled; what “women’s work” was; how much of the pig they used (everything but the squeal) and what for; how to go from sheep’s wool to warm clothing. One section shows kids at school and play, where kids can dress up in period costume and try toys of that time.
We discovered that the Lincolns were quite poor, that Thomas Lincoln also did carpentry to earn a bit extra, and that their neighbors, the Sargents, were more progressive and well-to-do farmers.
The display is nicely set out with wax figures making it look more authentic; quizzes; and buttons to press for audio recordings, which are often ‘narrated’ by Abe. He came to visit as often as he could from the capital, Springfield, especially when riding the rural circuit court as a rising lawyer and state legislator. The Lincolns lived on 22 of the 40 acres Abe owned, so they were securely set up.
Then wander around the working living history farms---on the Lincoln side, a pen with two new calves, a large barn with another paddock for three enormous carthorses, many chickens running freely. All the fencing and buildings are made of logs, now very weathered. The actual farmhouse and small simple outbuildings have been reconstructed and furnished: two rooms downstairs and a loft bedroom up a ladder. Beyond, a kitchen garden with many vegetables, and another paddock with two spotted pigs, literally wallowing in a pool of muddy water---hog’s heaven!
Local people in period costume, as part of the Living History Program, portray a real person from that time, and they’ve obviously done a lot of research as they are very knowledgeable. A costumed family group was sitting outside the farmhouse at a big wooden table, one woman quilting and stitching. We had fun chatting to them, as they try to keep in character and period, and we couldn’t trick them with questions like, “How did they manage without a telephone?” The reply, “Sorry, we haven’t heard of a telephone”.
AJ fed one of the calves with a bottle, feeling the great suction as it pulled on the teat. In his words, “At the Log Cabin the animals are cool. I got to feed the calf. He was playing with me, sucking and pulling the bottle, and butting his head into my stomach.”
Then we wandered across to the bigger Sargent Farm, where a lady in costume was ‘acting’ a neighbor of Mrs. Sargent’s. She had just baked three loaves of bread in the fire in Dutch ovens (big iron pots), as “we can’t do it on the Sabbath tomorrow”. The kitchen had a large loom, with surprisingly soft cloths, plus drying herbs, green beans, and bunches of broomcorn. Later we saw broomcorn growing in the vegetable garden---it’s very tall with different seeds to regular corn. Many chickens, mostly white ones, run around and AJ spotted an egg in the hen house. He and the lady went to get it and the chickens all followed, expecting to be fed. AJ was a bit worried about being followed, but was very excited about actually collecting the egg.
Just beyond the vegetable garden is an old “Prairie Schooner” (a covered wagon of the sort used by the early settlers) with an election sign railing against slavery and recommending Abe Lincoln as president, all painted on a white sheet.
As you wander around the site you begin to get a sense of the rhythm of life at that time: Simple in a way, without modern technology, but hard work. What brave, hardy people.
Abe didn’t come from a rich family, but this farm is not really even about Abe: It’s about his family and the times, 1845-46. It’s interesting to see how this country was put together in early years with various piece-meal land purchases, and how people moved out west, including the movement of Abe’s family. It makes you ponder the past and how it shaped the present, and makes you speculate on what the future may hold for those of us who are forever seeking uncharted territories.
F YOU GO:
Location: On the Lincoln Highway, 8 miles south of Charleston
Hours: daily 8:30am to dusk, Wed-Sun. Living History Program 9am-5pm, Wed-Sun, May-Oct
Entrance is free.
Goosenest Prairie Gift Shop in a building by the car park.
More information: www.lincolnlogcabin.org
Accommodation: nearby Fox Ridge Campground in a small forest area on a glacial moraine with a river running through it.
Charleston has many chain hotels, motels and restaurants.
Also see Camping in Fox Ridge SP
