HISTORICAL NOTES: Quaker Brown

A few weeks ago the Illinois State Parks Division temporarily closed down one of Springfield’s proudest possessions, the two-story clapboard house in which Abraham Lincoln lived from 1844 to 1861. The time had come when the Lincoln house was to be rendered “authentic in every detail.”

The renovation plans quickly became a hot issue in Lincoln-conscious Springfield. Although the house had been painted white as far back as anyone could remember, there now appeared a vocal group of citizens headed by Archeologist Richard Hagan who argued that when Lincoln lived in it the house was brown.

Caught in a spirited crossfire of editorial criticism and scholarly sniping, State Parks Director Ray Hubbs called on members of Governor Adlai Stevenson’s Lincoln Advisory Committee to settle the issue. When committee members assembled on the Lincoln lawn, they were confronted by Archeologist Hagan and Miss Virginia Stuart Brown, custodian of the house and a leader of the “leave-it-white” faction. Mr. Hagan was armed with a small piece of Lincoln house board which he had scraped down to a basic color described as “hound-dog yellow.” Miss Brown, distressed at the prospect of a hound-dog yellow house, was toting her own piece of the Lincoln house. A discussion (as minutes often note) followed:

Hubbs: “We’re here to decide the original color of this house. Some say one, some say another. I say let’s get down to business and decide what it’s going to be.”

Hagan: “Now here’s a board I scraped—”

Miss Brown: “Your board was put on after the ’70s. Here’s an original walnut board.”

Hagan: “It doesn’t have any white paint on it.”

Miss Brown: “We know it was white part of the time Lincoln lived—”

Hagan: “The only proof of white paint is from people born after 1890 who talked to people born before 1890.”

Apparently impressed by Hagan’s scraping and by an 1860 Cincinnati Daily Gazette description of the house as “a Quaker tint of tan,” the advisory committee members after 90 minutes’ deliberation ruled for “Quaker Brown.” “Quaker Brown” was defined by one committeeman as “just about the shade of Mr. Hubbs’s suit”—a light chocolate. Said Hagan: “If we get within three shades of the original color anyway, we’ll be lucky.”