'Lincoln window' tradition continues

It started when Raue Hardware occupied the space at 69 N. Williams St. Every February Lucile Raue would hang a picture of Abraham Lincoln in the front window. It caught the eye of Dave Warren of Crystal Lake, a craftsman and Lincoln scholar, whose license plate was OLD ABE 1.

"I went in and asked her if she'd like some other stuff," Warren said. "So we'd fill up the window each year."

What they filled the window with were reproductions of Lincoln furniture and furnishings made by Warren.

Years later, Raue gave Warren the Lincoln picture. "I told her it would be back here every year," said Warren, 85.

When Raue Hardware closed after the death of Lucile Raue in 1994, The Flag Store picked up the tradition of honoring Lincoln, said Edna McCall, owner of The Flag Store.

Among the items on display this year are a reproduction of a rocking chair and spring-wound clocks, copied from items that once belonged to Lincoln.

One of the items is a boot jack. "Lincoln, of course, knew woodworking. He'd help his father, and he needed a boot jack to pull off his boots," Warren said. "The boot jack has the same cut nails that were popular at that time," Warren said.

The Lincoln rocking chair "was the chair that Mary Lincoln came back from Washington and said, 'Oh, that's the chair that I rocked all my babies in,'" Warren said. "All the chairs were lower then, because he people were lower," he said.

Also in the display is a Popular Mechanics magazine featuring some of Warren's Lincoln clocks – and plans on how to build them.

Warren has sold some reproductions for as much as $10,000. Who buys them? "Various woodworkers and sometimes Lincoln scholars want some of the furniture," Warren said.

For information about plans for Lincoln furnishings, email planmandw@gmail.com.

Warren's interest in reproducing Lincoln furnishings got a boost in 1969 when he was allowed to go into the Lincoln home in Springfield to photograph items and take measurements. From there he was able to develop detailed plans to build Lincoln furniture. Thomas Lincoln, Abe's father, was a woodworker and cabinet maker who tried to pass the craft on to his son. However, Abe was interested in other things.