‘Answer Man’ telling truth about Honest Abe : Lincoln expert in Springfield, Ill., handles fourscore--and more--queries a month from scholars, students and history buffs.

Got a term paper coming due on Abraham Lincoln? Trying to track down a coy little Lincolnism to spice your Kiwanis Club speech? Think that yellowed document in the back of grandpa’s steamer trunk could be an authentic Lincoln letter worth millions?

Need help? Call 1-800-HONESTABE.

Just kidding, at least about the toll free number. But here in Lincoln’s hometown, buried in a basement office beneath the Old State Capitol building where he gave his famous “House Divided” speech in 1858, works a scholar who fields such queries on a daily basis.

He is Thomas Schwartz, the 36-year-old curator of the Illinois State Historical Library’s Lincoln Collection, the most extensive accumulation of Lincoln artifacts in the nation and a key resource center for anyone researching the 16th President.

Officially, Schwartz’s job is to care for some 10,000 books and manuscripts on Lincoln, as well as hundreds of personal items such as Lincoln’s traveling shaving mirror and even some modern day kitsch like a Lincoln on black velvet.

Unofficially, however, Schwartz has come to be known as the “Lincoln Answer Man,” a kind of a one-stop reference guide to Lincoln arcana. Each month, scores of people contact Schwartz with questions about Lincoln.

An aide to Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) phoned a few weeks ago seeking background on Lincoln assassination conspiracy theories. Likewise, an assistant to a leading national political consultant called recently to check out whether Lincoln, as is often claimed, frequently fell to his knees in prayer. White House speech writers even call on occasion.

“It’s amazing how people think they can just ask anything,” Schwartz marveled. “Just today, somebody called up and said they had purchased a site in LaSalle County (Ill.) and the locals claim that there used to be an inn there and that Lincoln always stayed in room 13. Could I verify that?” He couldn’t.

Interest in Lincoln usually peaks around this time of year, especially with the annual onslaught of inquiries from reporters seeking trivia for the anniversary of his birth on Feb. 12, 1809. But there really is no off-season for those in the Lincoln business, Schwartz explained.

Nearly 127 years after Lincoln’s death, more than 6,000 people still subscribe to a monthly journal about his life. And not only Americans have the Lincoln bug. Taiwan has a Lincoln Society, schools in Canada, Australia and England offer Lincoln study fellowships and Tokyo’s Meisei University even has an entire Lincoln Center.

Years back, the Library of Congress did a survey of the most written-about figures in world history. Lincoln came in third behind only Jesus and Shakespeare. “He’s more or less an American patron saint,” said Mark Neely, director of the Lincoln Museum in Ft. Wayne, Ind.

Lincoln studies have been published by the thousands, but authors keep grinding them out at the rate of three to four dozen new ones a year--although the scholarship of some might be debatable. Schwartz recently received one unsolicited volume that purported to be a study of Lincoln’s descendants and dwelt graphically on the wedding night of a Lincoln granddaughter.

Because Lincoln is most closely associated with Springfield, questions about him tend to find their way to some office or other here. Eventually, they get funneled to Schwartz.

Many come from students working on school projects. “They’ll write to me from California or Florida and say, ‘I am in 8th grade, please send me everything you have on Abraham Lincoln,’ ” Schwartz explained. “ ‘My report’s due next month so please hurry.’ ”

Periodically, Schwartz gets called from people trying to win radio quizzes. A prominent sculptor wanted Lincoln’s hat and shoe size.

When actor Sam Waterston was preparing to play Lincoln in a television miniseries a few years ago, he called on Schwartz to find out what kind of a speaking voice would be most authentic. (A high, reedy-pitched southern Indiana twang.)

The most frequent variety of question has come from people who hope Schwartz can authenticate an old picture, letter or document that they contend is linked to Lincoln and therefore worth a small fortune. Many are souvenir copies of the Gettysburg Address or the Emancipation Proclamation. Virtually none turn out to be real.

One man drove all the way from Colorado to find out about a picture he had found in an attic that he claimed was of Lincoln, his wife and two of their sons. “It was really just a thin man with a beard and an emaciated looking woman and these two very sad looking children,” Schwartz recalled.

Perhaps the oddest request came, as so many things do, from New Jersey. A caller insisted that he had found an original drawing by Lincoln, an assertion that struck Schwartz as a bit far-fetched because Lincoln was never known to have produced anything more artistic than doodles in his school books.

The man agreed to send a photocopy to Schwartz but then added a cautionary note. “There’s just one problem,” he confided. “He (Lincoln) did them in invisible ink. How can I get the ink to appear so I can see what he drew?”

Clearly, a question that belongs to the ages.