An employee of the Parke-Bernet Galleries holds an ax handle said to have been used by Abraham Lincoln. The artifact was part of the collection amassed by Oliver R. Barrett. (Courtesy State Journal-Register)
Over a lifetime, starting at age 13, Oliver Barrett amassed an immense collection of documents, relics and source materials related to Abraham Lincoln. When Barrett died in 1950, his heirs offered his entire archive to the Illinois State Historical Library for $220,000.
Gov. Adlai Stevenson turned fundraising over to an ad-hoc private group, the Barrett Lincoln Committee. The committee’s effort failed, but some of the most important pieces from Barrett’s collection ended up in the state’s possession anyway.
Oliver Barrett, undated (Wikipedia)
Barrett (1873-1950) never lived in Springfield. He grew up in Pittsfield and as an adult practiced law in Peoria and Chicago. But his interest in collecting began with a childhood visit to Oak Ridge Cemetery and Lincoln’s Tomb.
Barrett’s own remains now also lie at Oak Ridge, a few hundred yards from the grave of the President whose history Barrett helped preserve.
Carl Sandburg turned to Barrett when Sandburg wrote his six-volume biography of Lincoln, which was published between 1925 and 1939. The two became close friends as well as research associates.
Barrett and the items in his collection were the subjects of another book Sandburg wrote, Lincoln Collector, published in1949. In it, Sandburg quoted another Lincoln biographer, Benjamin Thomas (1902-56):
“The Barrett Collection is so full and basic that a pretty good life of Lincoln could be written from it alone,” Thomas wrote, “whereas no present-day life could be written without it. Barrett’s generosity has enriched the Lincoln story.”
According to the Manuscript Society, which recognizes Barrett as a member of its Hall of Distinction, Barrett once said, “My collection is my real work. I only practice law so that I can do my collecting.”
“He amassed a breathtaking array of Lincoln manuscripts and artifacts,” the society says.
Among the former are the “White Rabbit Letter,” in which Lincoln tenderly expressed his appreciation for a furry gift sent to his son Tad as a means of consoling him over the death of brother Willie; the “Testimony” copy of the Emancipation Proclamation; the series of intimate letters written to his closest friend, Joshua Speed; and the very rare correspondence between Lincoln and wife Mary during his one term in Congress.
(Barrett) also owned such precious relics as Lincoln’s carpet slippers, gold watch chain, and even the “Reserved” sign which was posted to keep trespassers from accessing the presidential box at Ford’s Theatre.
Barrett was more than a passive collector: his familiarity with Lincoln’s calligraphy was often put to use in detecting forgeries, his energetic investigative work helped to save many irreplaceable records from the incinerator, and he opened his collection to many Lincoln researchers.
Barrett also was a longtime director of the state historical library. He played a key role in the library’s 1944 acquisition of a copy of the Gettysburg Address in Lincoln’s handwriting. Illinois schoolchildren donated their “pennies, nickels and dimes,” the Illinois State Journal said, to raise about $50,000 of the document’s $60,000 cost; the rest was contributed by Chicago newspaper publisher Marshall Field.
Barrett’s collecting mania by no means confined itself to Lincoln material. As a boy, he began collecting by advertising in local newspapers, asking postmasters to display his home-printed circulars, and by writing round-robin letters to celebrities; he would ask one recipient to autograph the letter and then send it to another (Barrett conveniently included their names and addresses with the letter).
One such request found its way to President Rutherford B. Hayes, who called it “droll” and passed it along as requested. That letter went through the hands of another 15 recipients before it came back to Barrett.
Some of the signers’ names are obscure today, but others who complied with the cheeky appeal included Oliver Wendell Holmes, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Gen. Wiliam T. Sherman and Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain. According to Sandburg, Clemens signed it “Truly Yours,” and added on the envelope, “Pass the damned piece of impudence on to (Charles Dudley) Warner.”
Despite two years of effort, Illinois’ Barrett Lincoln Collection committee raised only about $70,000 toward the Barrett family’s price tag of $220,000. As a result, the collection was put up for auction piecemeal in 1952 at the Parke-Bernet Galleries in New York City. The 842 lots brought in a total of $273,610; the highest price paid for a single item was $18,000 for the first engrossed copy of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Benjamin P. Thomas with one of the documents the Illinois committee purchased at the Parke-Bernet auction. (SJ-R)
The Illinois committee, represented by Thomas and state historian Harry Pratt (1901-1956), spent its $70,000 strategically, and to a large extent successfully, the Illinois State Register reported.
The most valuable item in the group of collectors’ items … is a series of 14 personal letters which Lincoln wrote to his friend, Joshua F. Speed. Ten of these, dated 1841 to 1843, are intimate letters regarding their love affairs and marriages. These were purchased for $35,000.
The other papers, on which the prices ranged from $35 to $4500, consist of 20 more Lincoln letters and 20 Lincoln documents, plus 87 letters and papers of his Coles county relatives and a collection of 170 newspapers of the Civil War period and earlier.
The items purchased at auction, as well as other pieces from the Barrett Collection that the state of Illinois acquired over the years, now belong to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.
Barrett’s final resting place in Block 32 of Oak Ridge Cemetery sits on a westward slope with a view of the Lincoln Tomb State Historic Site.
It’s probably no coincidence that the graves of Benjamin Thomas and Harry Pratt, the two historians who oversaw Illinois’ bids at the auction of the Barrett Collection, are on the same slope a few yards away.
Benjamin P. Thomas
Benjamin Thomas wrote a half-dozen books related to Lincoln and contributed to several more. He is best known for Abraham Lincoln: A Biography (1952), which is still considered one of the best single-volume biographies ever written about Lincoln.
Harry E. Pratt
Harry Pratt served as executive secretary of the Abraham Lincoln Association from 1936 to 1943 and then as Illinois State Historian from 1950 until his death in 1956. His books included The Personal Finances of Abraham Lincoln (1943), and Concerning Mr. Lincoln (1944).
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