The Time Capsule: Returned Home to Springfield, Illinois

by Abraham Lincoln: His 1858 Time Capsule’s story begins in Springfield, Illinois. 1858’s election day is barely three weeks away. To help friend and fellow candidate James N. Brown stump on “Negro Equality” – the “Paramount Issue” of the day – Senate candidate Abraham Lincoln creates a campaign “scrapbook”.

The Huntington Library

Huntington Library

Kept in Brown’s family, in 1901 Abraham Lincoln His Book; A Facsimile Reproduction of the Original is published.

In 2021 a battered Facsimile surfaces and the original 1858 scrapbook is traced to the Huntington Library in San Marino, California; scan-able and filled with 29 more pages of notes, news clips and ephemera added by campaigner Brown but omitted in 1901.

Later, a further discovery, a 1901 First Edition with “some letters.” Dated, descriptive, handwritten correspondence by the Facsimile’s key players; authoritatively telling its detailed publishing history.

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum

This singular Facsimile has been donated to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Thus, in 2022 at journey’s end the nation’s most valuable Facsimile has returned home to Springfield. And all of Lincoln and Brown’s words are now available in by Abraham Lincoln: His 1858 Time Capsule.