Robert Todd Lincoln at Hildene: the president’s son who chose Manchester
Photo: Rolf Müller, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Robert Todd Lincoln was the oldest of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln’s four sons and the only one to live to adulthood. He was at Harvard during much of the Civil War, served briefly on Gen. Ulysses Grant’s staff near the end and was in Washington the night his father was shot.
He built a long career of his own. He was a Chicago lawyer, served as secretary of war under Presidents James Garfield and Chester Arthur and as U.S. minister to Great Britain, and became president of the Pullman Company, the railroad sleeping car manufacturer.
Why Manchester
Lincoln first came to Manchester in 1864 with his mother and brother Tad, staying at the Equinox House. Decades later, he bought land in the valley between the Taconic and Green mountains and in 1905 completed Hildene, a 24-room Georgian Revival mansion. He spent summers there until his death in 1926 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Hildene stayed in the family until 1975, when his last direct descendant to live there, granddaughter Peggy Beckwith, died.
Hildene today
The estate is run by the nonprofit Friends of Hildene as a museum. Visitors can see the house, including a 1,000-pipe Aeolian organ, the formal gardens laid out to resemble a stained-glass window, and a restored Pullman car, Sunbeam, that tells the story of the Black porters who worked on the trains. There is a goat dairy and cheesemaking operation, as well as walking trails on the 400-plus acres.
It has become one of the main cultural attractions in Manchester, alongside the outlet shopping and the ski areas nearby.
