854 Guide to the Fay, Herbert Wells. Collection of Lincoln materials Fay, Herbert Wells. Collection of Lincoln materials

© Copyright 2024 Illinois History and Lincoln Collections. All rights reserved.

Main Library, Room 324 1408 W. Gregory Drive Urbana, IL, 61801 URL: http://library.illinois.edu/ihx/ Email: ihlc@library.illinois.edu Phone: (217) 333-1777
This finding aid was encoding in EAD by Archon 3.21 from an SQL database source on March 29th, 2024.
Guide to the Fay, Herbert Wells. Collection of Lincoln materials 1891/1949 Illinois History and Lincoln Collections Overview of the Collection Fay, Herbert Wells. Collection of Lincoln materials 1891-1949 854 Fay, Herbert Wells 0.20 1 oversize folder Illinois History and Lincoln Collections
Main Library, Room 324 1408 W. Gregory Drive Urbana, IL, URL: http://library.illinois.edu/ihx/ Email: ihlc@library.illinois.edu Phone: (217) 333-1777

Other Information:

Additional information may be found at http://www.library.illinois.edu/ihx/inventories/fay-herbertwells.pdf

Access Terms

This Collection is indexed under the following controlled access subject terms.

Corporate Name: Oak Ridge Cemetery (Springfield, Ill.) Genre/Form of Material: Collected materials Geographic Name: Sangamon County--Springfield (Ill.) Personal Name: Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 Topical Term: Lincoln family
Scope and Contents

This collection consists of items gathered by Herbert Wells Fay, a collector of historical portraits. Fay was a custodian at the Lincoln Tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois.

Herbert Wells Fay (1859-1949) was born in DeKalb County, Illinois. He was part owner of the Hinckley (Illinois) Review and later co-owned the DeKalb Review. He was also a DeKalb county surveyor and member of the DeKalb Board of Education. Fay began collecting historical portraits in 1886, particularly of international figures, US politicians, and famous authors and artists. Fay used his collection to illustrate the National Cyclopedia of American Biography, of which he was associate editor. He was the custodian, historian, and tour guide of the Lincoln Tomb at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois, from 1921 to 1948.

This collection primarily contains Lincoln ephemera, such as birthday celebration programs, drawings by Fay, Lincoln Tomb brochures and postcards, and publications and clippings related to the Lincoln family. Also included is a small sample of Fay's photograph collection, the bulk of which is held at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb.

This collection was donated to the Library in 2010 by Vincent Golden. Materials were previously kept by Hebert Wells Fay's son, Earl. A second acquisition, from an unknown source, was added to the collection circa 2015.