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Summer White Houses: Lincoln's Cottage at the Soldiers Home

Today when the heat of summer strikes, many of us head for the beach to soak up the sun. But in the days before air conditioning, the practice in Washington D.C. was for Presidents to look for cooler climates during the summer. When the Civil War was on, Abraham Lincoln realized that he could not travel too far from home. To escape the White House, but not stray too far from the duties of his office, Lincoln went to a venue known as President Lincoln's Cottage at the Soldier's Home. It is a national monument on the grounds of the Soldiers' Home, known today as the Armed Forces Retirement Home. It is located near the Petworth and Park View neighborhoods of Washington, D.C. President Lincoln's Cottage was formerly known as Anderson Cottage.



Lincoln and his family resided on the grounds of the Soldiers' Home to escape the heat and political pressure of downtown Washington. He was not the only President who used this facility. James Buchanan did so before him, and the Cottage also served as the Summer White House for Rutherford B. Hayes and Chester Alan Arthur.

The historic Cottage is built in the Gothic revival style. It was constructed from 1842 to 1843 as the home of George Washington Riggs, who went on to found the Riggs National Bank in Washington, D.C. Lincoln lived in the cottage June to November of each year from 1862 through to 1864. It was during his first summer living there that Lincoln penned the preliminary draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. Mary Todd Lincoln had fond memories of the cottage. She later wrote "How dearly I loved the Soldiers' Home."

The Soldiers' Home stands on 251 acres of land. It is located on the third highest point in Washington. The Home was designated as National Historic Landmark on November 7, 1973, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 11, 1974. In 2000, the cottage was placed on the National Trust for Historic Preservation's 11 Most Endangered list. About 2.3 acres of the Home was proclaimed a National Monument by President Bill Clinton on July 7, 2000. A restoration of the home was completed in 2007. The Cottage exterior was restored to the period of Lincoln’s occupancy in the 1860s by the Philadelphia firm J. S. Cornell & Son. Today it is managed through a cooperative agreement between the Armed Forces Retirement Home and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.



President Lincoln's Cottage opened to the public on February 18, 2008. A reproduction of the Lincoln desk on which he wrote the Emancipation Proclamation was commissioned by the Trust for use in the Cottage. The original drop-lid walnut paneled desk is in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House. The adjacent Robert H. Smith Visitor Education Center features exhibits about the Soldiers' Home, wartime Washington, D.C., Lincoln as Commander-in-Chief during the Civil War, and a special exhibit gallery. President Lincoln's Cottage and Visitor Education Center is open to the public for tours seven days a week.