Lincoln, Washington Sites Listed as Endangered

A house where Abraham Lincoln spent hot summers and the Valley Forge winter quarters of George Washington’s army were added Monday to the list of endangered sites that the National Trust for Historic Preservation wants to protect from the ravages of time.

The Lincoln family found a stucco-coated brick house with gingerbread trim on a hill about three miles from the White House. Used by presidents in the second half of the 1800s, it is now on the grounds of the Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home, which houses 1,100 veterans.

For the Lincolns, it was a place to escape Washington’s humid heat and to see friends and political figures privately.

In a second-floor room on the southwest corner, with a view of the Capitol, the president is believed to have slept and to have written a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. It now serves as an occasional conference room for the home’s public affairs office.

Richard Moe, president of the trust, called Anderson Cottage--named later for a Civil War hero--”one of the city’s hidden treasures.” He wants the federal government and private donors to contribute to restoring it for use as an educational center. The cost is being studied and will run into “millions of dollars,” he told reporters.

Valley Forge, 24 miles northwest of Philadelphia, is another most endangered historic place for 2000.

Washington chose it for winter quarters for about 10,000 men in 1777 during the Revolutionary War.

Two days before Christmas, he wrote:

“We have this day no less than 2,873 men in camp unfit for duty because they are barefooted and otherwise naked.”

The buildings remained almost as Washington left them until 1893, when the state of Pennsylvania set up a public park.