Illinois Historical Library Buys
Mary Lincoln Letters
The Henry Horner Lincoln Collection at the Illinois State Historical Library has acquired five newly discovered letters written by Mary Todd Lincoln. The letters were purchased for $34,250 from descendants of her doctor, Willis Danforth.
Believed to have been written in 1874, just months before her insanity trial, the letters provide a rare glimpse into the mind of President Abraham Lincoln’s widow and reveal her obsession with death, following the deaths of her husband and three of her four sons. She was deemed insane in 1875, spent over a year in a sanitarium, and died in 1882.
Although the sellers wished to remain anonymous, the Chicago Tribune reported September 9 that they sold the letters for half their appraised value. Nevertheless, the purchase is one of the largest ever made by Illinois for letters by Mary Todd Lincoln.
The Horner Collection preserves nearly 1,500 manuscripts written or signed by Lincoln, 10,000 books and pamphlets, 1,000 broadsides, and 1,000 prints and photographs relating to Abraham Lincoln and his family.
Posted September 13, 1999.
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