MANCHESTER, Vermont — Robert Todd Lincoln (1843-1926) — Abe’s son — was a self-made man. His father had little time for him and was murdered when he was just 21. Yet he became a very successful lawyer and a captain of industry who built two grand mansions — one in Chicago (torn down in 1960) and one in rural Vermont, which still stands as a monument to the Lincoln family and their times.
The Lincoln family’s Vermont estate, Hildene, is a fascinating place to spend a half-day or more. Robert’s granddaughter lived at Hildene until 1975. The last of Abraham Lincoln’s direct descendants died in the 1980s.
Robert Todd Lincoln took great pride in the fact that in two generations, his family ascended from his father Abraham’s log cabin in Kentucky to this estate, made possible because Robert became the well-compensated president of the Pullman Company, which made luxury train cars for cross-country travel.
In 1978 a non-profit organization, the Friends of Hildene, purchased the property and began restoration of the house, outbuildings and gardens. Hildene is furnished almost entirely with Lincoln family furniture and contains artifacts belonging to Robert Todd Lincoln and his parents. In 1908 an Æolian pipe organ was installed for $11,500. In 1980 the Friends of Hildene restored the organ. My video clip of the organ playing.
No doubt, Abraham Lincoln’s political connections and reputation helped Robert. Political figures for decades sought him out for advice and even tried to draft him to run for vice president. He knew Republican Presidents U.S. Grant, James Garfield, Chester Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, and Teddy Roosevelt. He served as Secretary of War in the Garfield-Arthur administration and as Ambassador to Britain during Harrison’s administration.
Tragically, he was nearby when three presidents were shot — his father in 1865, Garfield in 1881, and McKinley in 1901. Days after Garfield’s assassination, he exclaimed to a reporter, “My God! How many hours of sorrow I have passed in this town.”
When he was 19 or 20, on a study break from Harvard College when his father was president, another striking coincidence occurred. Standing on a crowded railroad platform in Jersey City, NJ, he was pushed onto the tracks next to a moving train. Only the fast actions of a nearby bystander saved him. Robert reported that his life was saved by a well-known actor of the time, Edwin Booth — the elder brother of Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth.
Robert’s mother and Abe’s wife, Mary Todd Lincoln (1818-82) even as a girl was high-strung, passionate, or even operatic in temperament. She suffered unimaginable losses in her life, not just the murder of her husband Abraham in 1865. The Lincolns lost one son, Edward, at age 3 to tuberculosis; and a second son, Willie, at age 11, while they were living in the White House. Mary lost a third son, Tad, at age 18 in 1871.
Her oldest, Robert, wanted to serve in the Civil War, on the Union side, of course, but Abe delayed his entry until the last months of the war to spare Mary worry over her son’s fate.
One learns on a tour of Hildene in VT. that Robert had his mother committed to an asylum due to delusionary behavior. They were estranged for years afterward but did reconcile in the months before her death. She may have suffered from pernicious anemia (now curable) or a mood disorder, such as bipolar or manic depression, or she may have simply been grief-stricken. A video from Mad Traveler explained:
The Hildene website is
https://hildene.org/
“Last descendant of Lincoln, 81 Years Old, Dies in Virginia”. The New York Times. Associated Press. December 26, 1985. p. D12. Abe’s great-grandson, Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, was married three times but was childless.
A Sunbeam luxury Pullman sleeping car is an exhibit piece at Hildene. Through rapid late-19th-century development of mass production and the takeover of rivals, the company developed a virtual monopoly on the production and ownership of sleeping cars.
Slideshow of my visit to Hildene, including the Pullman railroad car exhibit. Click.
Video Biography:
History In Focus: The story of Abraham Lincoln’s only surviving son, Robert Todd Lincoln, is largely unknown. The first part of this documentary is less than nine minutes. Watch on YouTube.
Part two, also 8 minutes:
‘Giant in the Shadows’: The Life of Robert Todd Lincoln
Award-winning journalist and historian Jason Emerson wrote the definitive biography of Robert Todd Lincoln, spending nearly 10 years on the book. As he explained in a lecture before the Library of Congress in 2014, Robert lived “during one of the most progressive and dynamic eras in U.S. history,” he said.