Celebrate Lincoln's 200th birthday at Lincoln Cottage in Washington, D.C.

As 2009 begins, you'll no doubt hear quite a lot about the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln. The year began with President Obama taking the oath of office (the first time) on the same Bible used by Lincoln in 1861. Ford's Theater, where Lincoln saw Our American Cousin the last night of his life, will reopen after a major renovation to celebrate his 200th birthday.

But also consider seeing Lincoln Cottage, just outside of downtown Washington, three miles from The White House. This summer home for the Lincolns from 1862-1864 opened in 2008 after a $15 million dollar preservation effort.

Washington was built on a swamp, and as a result, the summer heat and humidity was especially oppressive. The Lincolns wanted to escape oppression of the heat and the numerous office seekers hounding the President. But they had another more personal reason to escape to the house at the Soldiers Home: they were still mourning the loss of their son Willie.

President Lincoln would ride 40 minutes each day back and forth to the house--unescorted--down what is today Georgia Avenue. He survived an assassination attempt on that route in the summer of 1864.

Before John Wilkes Booth's shots at Ford's Theater. Booth himself designed a plot where he would kidnap the President during his commute, but never carried it to fruitition.

The Cottage was built on property that also held a retirement home for injured veterans of American wars. During his visits, Lincoln could see the Civil War's toll each day as men were buried on the adjoining grounds. He and Mrs. Lincoln would visit injured soldiers in nearby hospitals. But it was also here in 1862 that he wrote the final draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. On January 1, 1863, those slaves became free.

If you visit, advance tickets are recommended, and parking is available on the grounds. The cottage is located, not far from Grant Circle, at Rock Creek Church Road & Upshur Streets, NW.

New Tours In The Works

We've been busy! Fall is here, and that means there are leaves to rake, and elections to win. But the SidewalkGuides team is burying itself in books and internet sites preparing more tours. We'll have details and information as we get closer. Stay tuned....

Smithsonian's Museum of American History re-opens November 21st

After two years and $85 million, the National Museum of American History re-opens next month. The centerpiece of the renovation will be the 30 x 34-foot flag Francis Scott Key saw after the assault on Ft. McHenry on September 14, 1814 that inspired him to write the Star Spangled Banner. A five-story sky lit atrium now will greet visitors as they enter, and walls on the second and third floors have been removed to improve visibility.

The flag will be displayed behind floor-to-ceiling glass on a slight angle to reduce stress on the wool and cotton fabric, and the first stanza of Key's poem will appear above and behind it. The light in the new gallery will be adjusted to avoid further deterioration and replicate Key's view of the flag in Baltimore Harbor from the H.M.S. Tonnant, which had appeared at the Battle of Trafalgar nine years earlier. Smithsonian officials finished cleaning the flag in 2005 after six years (this is not a misprint), where the old linen backing was removed, the flag was vacuumed and a new backing was put on.

The museum will also display an original copy of the Gettysburg Address until January 2009. On loan from The White House, it is one of the few known copies of the address written by Abraham Linoln. The renovated museum will house artifacts ranging from the desk used by Thomas Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence, to the shoes Judy Garland wore in the Wizard of Oz, to a DNA fermenter that played a key role in biotechnology.

The idea for a museum of American history originated in the 1930s but took shape as World War II veterans returned home after seeing the great European museums. Built in 1964 with the same Tennesse pink marble as its neighbor, the West Building of National Gallery of Art, the museum was built in the international modern style. Artifacts like the Star Spangled Banner had been displayed in the Arts & Industries building across the Mall.

We'll keep you posted as the museum re-opens.

The SidewalkGuides team

Addendum March 12, 2009: We viewed the restored American flag recently and were impressed. The display is arranged somewhat like the Constitution and Declaration of Independence at the national Archives, a few doors down on Pennsylvania Avenue. Visitors walk into a darkened gallery with interpretive signs along the walls. As you continue through, the low-light display of the flag spreads out before you.

The exhibit tells the story of Mary Pickersgill, a Baltimore flag maker who was hired to sew the flag that would fly over Ft. McHenry during the British bombardment. Pickersgill had made flags for various military and maritime organizations, but was asked by George Armistead, Commander of Ft. McHenry, to make a 30 x 42-foot flag with 15 stars and 15 stripes that quickly outgrew her house. Armistead said he wanted a flag so large that the British would have no problem seeing it from a distance. They didn't, and neither did Francis Scott Key.

Grant Cottage near Saratoga, NY

Just a few miles north of Saratoga, NY sits Grant Cottage, the last home of Civil War General and President Ulysses Grant. Grant arrived in June 1885, in an effort to finish his memoirs before terminal throat cancer claimed his life . Grant came north to escape the summer heat of New York City. Philadelphia banker Joseph Drexel owned the cottage nestled into the side of Mt. McGregor and lent it to the Grants that summer.

Despite his frail health, Grant was in a hurry. He was rushing to finish his memoirs so that his wife and family would be financially secure after his death. He had lost much of his money after he left The White House when some investments went bad. Mark Twain offered to publish the memoirs, promising 75% profits to Grant's widow.

For much of the time, he dictated his recollections to a stenographer, but as his condition worsened he was unable to speak. On July 16th, he finished. Days later, Grant asked to be taken in his wheelchair to the ridge next to the cottage overlooking the Hudson Valley and the Adirondaks. A marker stands at the spot where Grant last enjoyed the view. You'll see why he wanted one last look before he died on July 23, 1885: on a clear day, you can see north to Lake George, east to Vermont, and south to Albany. Be sure to take the two-minute walk from the house to the overlook.

As the memoir was ready for printing, Twain's company sent salesmen (many of whom were Civil War veterans who made sales calls in their uniforms) around the country to sell the two-volume set. It was a huge success, selling hundreds of thousands of copies in its first printing alone. Julia Grant and her family realized immense royalties from the sales of the memoirs and remained financially secure for the rest of her life.

In Washington, Grant was memorialized atop his horse Cincinnatus, in a prime location just below the Capitol. He anchors the east end of the Mall, just as the Lincoln Memorial anchors the west end. Our Civil War tour is a comprehensive audio guide of Washington during the Civil War. In a strange historical twist, the memorial's designer, Henry Shrady, was the son of Grant's primary physician when he died on Mt. McGregor.

If you visit Grant Cottage: the docents at the cottage give informative tours, and there are several of Grant's personal items still in the house, including his clothes, toiletries and even some preserved floral arrangements sent after his death. Look for the clock on the mantel that Fred Grant stopped at just after 8 on the morning he died. Grant Cottage now sits on the property of a minimum security correctional facility (I am not making this up), so you may have show identification as you drive up the hill to the cottage. Admission, which includes a short film, is $4 for adults and kids are free.

Welcome

Welcome to the SidewalkGuides blog. This is our chance to give you info that you might not get in our tours. Stay tuned here for updates on new tours, excursions we take, and anything else we find interesting in our quest to provide compelling audio tours of Washington, D.C. and beyond.

The SidewalkGuides Team

St. Michaels, Maryland: The town that fooled the British

That's what the sign reads as you drive into St. Michaels, Md., perched out in the Chesapeake Bay. Less than two hours from Washington and Baltimore, it features the usual Chesapeake Bay town diversions: shopping, crab houses, and boating excursions. Several inns dot the town, making it great for a weekend getaway from many places on the East Coast, and a great day trip from Washington or Baltimore.


You'll find lots to see and do when you visit St. Michaels. Start your visit along Talbot Street, where many of the shops and restuarants reside. Continue to St. Mary's Square, where the St. Michaels bell rang at 7 a.m., noon, and 5 p.m. to measure the workday for shipbuilders. Look for the Revoluationary War-era cannon also on the Square.



English merchant James Braddock purchased the land encompassing the town the the late 1770s, and named the town after a local church and river. It got its start building Baltimore clippers in the 1800s and later bugeyes for oyster dredging. More recently, it has become a small, Victorian resort community and exporter of oysters and crabs.



But the town was tested when it faced an assault by the British during the War of 1812. The British attacked St. Michaels twice during the war, in August 1813 and in August 1814.

It was during the first attack, on August 10, 1813, that St. Michaels "fooled" the Britsh Navy . Residents got word ahead of time that the British Navy was coming to St. Michaels to attack the town and its harbor fort. Townspeople placed lanterns into the tops of trees and high on ship masts. They darkened the rest of the town. As a result, the British overshot the town, save for one house hit by cannon fire. The Cannonball House still stands close to the center of town, but is still privately owned.

The British returned a second time to St. Michaels and the Bay a year later, in 1814. No harm befell St. Michaels as the British sailed up the Bay to Baltimore. As they bombarded Ft. McHenry in Baltimore harbor , Francis Scott Key penned a poem that would become the Star Spangled Banner.

More recently, St. Michaels has played host to Vice President Dick Cheney, and the movie The Wedding Crashers.

The SidewalkGuides Team