Stimmel, Smith. Letter and Ephemera, 1910-1926

This collection consists of the personal material of Smith Stimmel, including a copy of an address given at the unveiling of a bust of Abraham Lincoln in Christiana (now Oslo), Norway, in 1914, sent to Albert H. Griffith, a Lincoln collector, in 1926.

From 1863 to 1865, Smith Stimmel (1842-1935) was a member of the Union Light Guard, a mounted group that served to protect Abraham Lincoln by securing the White House and escorting the President whenever he left the White House grounds. After the Civil War, Stimmel returned to his home state of Ohio and studied law at Ohio Wesleyan University. He practiced law there until moving to Fargo, North Dakota, in 1882, where he continued to practice law until the 1920s. In 1914, Stimmel was chosen as a North Dakota state commissioner to visit Norway and formally present a bust of Abraham Lincoln, funded by Norwegian-Americans in North Dakota, in honor of the one-hundredth anniversary of the adoption of the Norwegian constitution. His book, Personal Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln, was published in 1928.

This collection contains personal material sent on November 19, 1926, from Smith Stimmel to Albert H. Griffith, a Lincoln collector from Fisk, Wisconsin. A copy of a typed address given by Stimmel at the unveiling of a bust of Abraham Lincoln in Norway, on July 4, 1914, and a brochure advertising a lecture on Lincoln given by Stimmel in Nebraska in February 1914, were enclosed with the letter to Griffith. The bust of Lincoln was created by Paul Fjelde of Valley City, North Dakota, and was unveiled in Christiania (now Oslo), Norway on July 4, 1914, in commemoration of the adoption of the Norwegian constitution. The Lincoln bust remains at Frogner Park in Oslo, Norway.

The Lincoln Room, a predecessor of the Illinois History and Lincoln Collections, acquired and cataloged this collection prior to 2001. It was previously cataloged as 973.7L63 GSt5a and was moved to a manuscript collection in October 2022.