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Two annual pilgrimages to
honor Abraham Lincoln's birthday will be on Saturday and Monday at
the
Lincoln Tomb State Historic Site in Springfield's Oak Ridge
Cemetery. Both events are free and open to the public. The 60th
annual Pilgrimage of the Veterans of Foreign Wars will take place at
2 p.m. Saturday at Lincoln Tomb. A service at the tomb will feature
a eulogy for Lincoln. Military honors for the 16th president will
follow, and uniformed soldiers will give Lincoln the traditional
21-gun salute. The 73rd annual National Pilgrimage to Lincoln Tomb
by members of Springfield American Legion Post 32 will be on Monday.
Dignitaries will assemble at 10:30 a.m., and wreaths from Legion
posts across the state will be placed in the burial chamber. The
American Legion national commander and other officials will address
those gathered for the event at 11 a.m. A Lincoln's Birthday
celebration featuring hands-on activities and special tours of
hidden spaces at the
David
Davis Mansion State Historic Site in Bloomington will be on
Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The event is free and open
to the public and is suitable for both adults and children. The
mansion's Lincoln-related interpretation will be highlighted during
the tours, which begin every half hour. Visitors may see areas of
the mansion that are not normally shown to the public, and hands-on
activities for children will be featured, along with funny stories
about Abraham Lincoln and Judge David Davis. This Lincoln's Birthday
event is part of an ongoing series of new Davis Mansion exhibits and
programs examining the relationship between Abraham Lincoln and
David Davis.
The annual Lincoln's Birthday observance at
Postville Courthouse State Historic Site in Lincoln is scheduled
for Saturday from noon to 4 p.m. The event is free and open to the
public. Period music will be provided all afternoon by Postville
Express. Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln impersonators will visit with
guests, and volunteers will conduct tours and serve birthday cake
and punch. Award-winning storyteller and musician Mike Anderson will
perform at 1:45 p.m., and Bloomington attorney and author Guy Fraker
will give PowerPoint presentations at 1 and 2:30 p.m. about the 8th
Judicial Circuit that Abraham Lincoln traveled.
A number of Lincoln's Birthday weekend activities are scheduled
at the Abraham Lincoln
Presidential Library and Museum in downtown Springfield. Events
in the museum require paid museum admission, while activities in the
library are free.
Events at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum on
Saturday:
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Mrs. Lincoln's
Attic at the presidential museum will host birthday party games
and crafts from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., with the first 198 children to
visit receiving a chocolate penny.
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Musician Dale C.
Evans will perform 19th-century music in the museum plaza from
9:30 to 11:30 a.m.
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Greg Bergschneider
will appear as President Lincoln in the museum plaza from 10
a.m. to 3 p.m.
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"Meet Harriet
Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad" will be presented
by Kathryn M. Harris at the presidential library at 10 a.m.
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A young Abe Lincoln
look-alike contest for boys and girls ages infant to 18 years
will begin at 11 a.m. in the museum's Union Theater.
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A panel discussion
on Lincoln-related books begins at 1 p.m. in the multipurpose
room at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library. Reservations
are recommended; call 217-558-8881. A book-signing will begin
after the panel discussion. Authors expected to participate are
Brian R. Dirck, author of "Lincoln Emancipated: The President
and the Politics of Race"; Richard Lawrence Miller, "Lincoln and
his World"; Rodney O. Davis and Douglas Wilson, "Herndon's
Lincoln"; Douglas Wilson, "Lincoln's Sword"; and Mark E.
Steiner, "An Honest Calling: The Law Practice of Abraham
Lincoln."
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 Events at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum on
Sunday:
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Lee Slider as
Professor Phineas Phairhead in the museum plaza, 11:30 a.m.-3
p.m.
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Mike Anderson with
19th-century music in the museum plaza, noon-3 p.m.
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Randall Duncan as
President Lincoln in the museum, noon-3 p.m.
-
"Evenings to
Remember" with special guest Jon Meacham, editor of Newsweek,
hosted by Myron Marty in the museum's Union Theater, 7 p.m. For
reservations, call the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Foundation
at 217-558-8938. Admission is free.
The Vandalia Historical Society will host the annual Lincoln's
Birthday observance at 2 p.m. Monday in the Supreme Court room at
the
Vandalia Statehouse State Historic Site. Dale Timmerman,
president of the Vandalia Historical Society, will present a program
called "Lincoln's Congressional Career in Vandalia." Tom Mathis will
have his collection of Lincoln memorabilia on display that day.
Timmerman serves as a historian for the Vandalia Looking for Lincoln
project. The Feb. 12 observance is free and open to the public. It
is sponsored by the Vandalia Historical Society and the Illinois
Historic Preservation Agency.
Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site near Charleston will be
open on Monday from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. in honor of Abraham
Lincoln's birthday. The site is normally closed on Monday and
Tuesday. Volunteers at the site will be engaged in typical daily
activities representing 19th-century life on the Illinois prairie.
Visitors may see activities centered on the hearth, including
cooking the noonday meal and candle-dipping. While Abraham Lincoln
was a successful lawyer living in Springfield and only an occasional
visitor to his father's Goosenest Prairie farm in the 1840s, his
father and stepmother were still living in the manner in which
Abraham was raised. Thus, Lincoln Log Cabin offers visitors the
opportunity to see the environment in which Lincoln rose from
obscurity to the highest office in the land.
The annual
Abraham
Lincoln Symposium will be on Monday at the
Old
State Capitol State Historic Site in Springfield. The symposium
is free and open to the public. The day's events will begin at 11:30
a.m. with a book signing by Jon Meacham, editor of Newsweek and
author of "American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the
Making of a Nation." Meacham will also be the keynote speaker at the
symposium banquet that evening, for which paid reservations are
required. The symposium sessions begin at 1 p.m. in the Old State
Capitol's Hall of Representatives, and this year's theme is "Lincoln
and Politics of the 1850s." Speakers are author, Pulitzer Prize
nominee and University of Illinois professor Orville Vernon Burton;
Nicole Etcheson, author of "Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in
the Civil War Era" and a professor at Ball State University; Matthew
Pinsker, author of "Lincoln's Sanctuary: Abraham Lincoln and the
Soldiers' Home" and a professor at Dickinson College; and Brooks D.
Simpson, professor of history and humanities at Arizona State
University and author of several acclaimed books on the Civil War,
Reconstruction and Ulysses S. Grant. The event is sponsored by the
Abraham Lincoln Association, the Illinois Historic Preservation
Agency, and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.
(Text from
Illinois
Historic Preservation Agency news release received from the
Illinois Office of Communication and Information) |
