Lincoln Home National Historic Site - Edward Baker "Eddie" Lincoln (U.S. National Park Service)

The second child of Mary and Abraham, Eddie was born on March 10, 1846, in the Lincoln home on Eighth and Jackson Streets. He was named after Edward Baker, a friend and political ally of Lincoln's. Eddie only lived to be three years and ten months old. After a long illness he died in the family home on February 1, 1850.

Because he died so young, little is known of his still-developing personality, only a few impressions of him have survived. Mrs. Lincoln wrote of an occasion when Robert brought home a kitten. When Eddie "spied it his tenderness broke forth, he made them bring it water, fed it with bread himself, with his own dear hands, he was a delighted little creature over it...."

On the day that Lincoln said farewell to the people of Springfield as he left for the White House, he thought of Eddie. Summing up what Springfield had meant to him, he said: "To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born and one is buried."

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