Lincoln Trail State Memorial - Westport, IL - Wikipedia Entries on Waymarking.com

County of Monument: Lawrence County
Location of Monument: IL-33, Illinois side of Wabash River Bridge, Westport

Monument Erected by The Illinois Organization of the National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution
Sculptor: Nellie Verne Walker (1874-1973)
Founder: American Bronze Company
Monument Dedication and Presentation to the State of Illinois: June 14, 1938.
Restoration by: The Illinois State Organization NSDAR, Mrs. Ronald L. Mordhorst, Regent.
Date of Restoration and Rededication: October 8, 1988.

Monument Text:

IN THE LATE WINTER OF 1830 A FEW WEEKS AFTER HIS 21st BIRTHDAY
ABRAHAM LINCOLN PASSED THIS WAY WITH HIS FATHER'S FAMILY
ENTERING THE STATE OF ILLINOIS FOR THE FIRST TIME.

Re-dedication Text:

50th Anniversary
Lovingly restored for the
People of Illinois.

Description of Monument:
A full-length standing bronze figure of Lincoln set against a sculptured limestone wall panel. Lincoln holds a stick in his right hand. The wall relief is composed of several rectangular blocks and depicts the profiles of three adults and two children walking with an ox-driven covered wagon. An angel flies above the group looking back at them.

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"LINCOLN TRAIL MONUMENT (1938) by Nellie V. Walker
(1874-1973) Lawrence, Illinois "Spanning the Wabash River between the city of Vincennes, Indiana and Lawrence County, Illinois, is the Lincoln Memorial Bridge. Just over the bridge on the Illinois side of the river, alongside the highway, is a small park home to Nellie V. Walker's Lincoln Trail Monument, also called Lincoln Led by "The Spirit of Destiny." This monument, on a six-foot granite foundation, combines a twenty-six-foot-long and ten-foot-high bias-relief limestone panel of those in the Lincoln family party who crossed the Wabash River in 1830 in this vicinity, with a bronze sculpture-in-the-round of a twenty-one-year-old Abraham Lincoln in the foreground. The group of six, led by Lincoln's father Thomas, follows behind and includes a Conestoga wagon pulled by a team of oxen. Above the group and toward the forward area of the panel floats a female angelic figure. "Destiny," somewhat reminiscent of the flowing-gown angel above the figure in Augustus Saint-Ganden's heroic tribute to Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, her right arm extended pointing the way. She looks back at Lincoln. Period post cards of the memorial explain the figure as the spirit of Lincoln's dead mother, Nancy Hanks. Lincoln holds in his right hand a long stick, perhaps a goad used as a cattle prod, and a coonskin cap in his other hand. Around his neck, draped and tied, is a long scarf. Walker, an assistant to Lorado Taft, received the commission for the Illinois Daughters of the American Revolution." ~ Summers with Lincoln: Looking for the Man in the Monuments, By James A. Percoco, page 215

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