TOP ROW - Lincoln Desk

Drop-Front Desk, 1850s

Donor: Mary E. Walbridge LaCrone, 1928

Who used this desk?

According to local legend, Abraham Lincoln used this desk to write several letters during his only visit to Michigan in 1856.  The desk was in the Kalamazoo home of businessman and political activist, David S. Walbridge. His granddaughter donated it to the Museum in 1928.

The Republican Party

A major political issue of the 1850s was the expansion of slavery into the West. When the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 opened those territories to the possibility of slavery, Michigan opponents took the lead in organizing the new Republican Party. Local activists invited Lincoln, then a relatively unknown lawyer from Illinois, to an 1856 rally in Bronson Park in support of their first presidential candidate, John C. Fremont.

David S. Walbridge

Arriving in the 1840s, David S. Walbridge became one of Kalamazoo's leading businessmen. An ardent opponent of slavery, he chaired the 1854 convention in Jackson that founded the Republican Party.

The Drop Front Desk

This space saving desk was designed for small rooms. The front panel lifts up and fastens vertically, protecting the drawers and cubbyholes from dirt and dust. When the front is lowered to the horizontal position, it becomes a writing surface. 

Lincolnania

Abraham Lincoln memorabilia has been collected since the President’s assassination in 1865. The Museum has over 100 items of Lincolnania from paintings to campaign flags to newspapers. The collection includes the letter that Lincoln wrote to Hezekiah G. Wells accepting his invitation to speak at the Fremont rally in Bronson Park.