Bloomington collector donates 170-year old letter Lincoln wrote to ALPLM

Posted on July 1, 2021
Guy Fraker, a retired lawyer and Lincoln collector from Bloomington, has donated a letter from the 1850’s to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield. (Photo courtesy: Dave Dahl/WJBC)

By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD – When there’s something new at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, it oftentimes is something old.

Collector Guy Fraker of Bloomington has donated a nearly 170-year-old letter Lincoln wrote to a colleague — a letter Fraker bought about fifteen years ago from the family of another collector.

“I knew that I could never sell it, so it was sort of money down the drain, in that sense,” Fraker said, adding that the collector’s daughter-in-law said, “‘You’ll know what to do with it.’

“So this is what to do with it.”

The letter concerns the U.S. Senate election of 1854 and is a response to a Peoria colleague, who informed Lincoln the 1848 Constitution barred state lawmakers from seeking that seat. Lincoln’s letter, Fraker said, makes it appear he knew all along about the new law.

The museum’s Treasures Gallery will display the letter for about a month, starting July 7, before it goes in for restoration.

Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected]. 

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