Lincoln portrait returns to Batavia

Abraham Lincoln will now be able to watch over the highway that bears his name.

The Batavia Public Library received a donated oil portrait of the president from the painter’s great-granddaughters last August. The library will unveil the portrait to the public and the library’s board of trustees at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday.

“Making sure he faced the Lincoln Highway was the driving force to where we would place him in the library,” Library Director George Scheetz said. The coast-to-coast highway, which is now known in Batavia as Route 31 or Batavia Avenue, was created in 1913 and was named to honor the 16th president.

The portrait was painted in 1876 by Ellen Sibley Fuller in West Springfield, Mass. It was passed down through her family, ending up with Fuller’s granddaughter, Virginia Douglas, a Batavia resident, from 1957 to 1992.

The great-granddaughters then offered the portrait to the library stating in a news release, “Aunt Ginny loved to spend time at (the Batavia) Library and would have wanted this painting to be returned to the Land of Lincoln.”

After receiving the Lincoln portrait, the library had it restored at the Chicago Conservation Center. The painting was appraised at $6,500. It measures 37.25 inches by 32.5 inches.

The head and shoulders portrait and bearded face of Lincoln was painted 11 years after his assassination. It will hang in the Library Leaders Reading Room above a fireplace. The room was closed since mid-March to add additional study rooms and will reopen on Tuesday.

Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, spent some time after his death in a sanitarium a few blocks south of the library that since has been turned into condos.

The opposite wall of the fireplace has another donated portrait. It depicts Sarah Gammon, daughter of the man who built the Queen Anne Victiorian now known as Gammon Corner in Batavia.

The unveiling of the portrait also will allow the library to show off some of the new features that have been constructed since mid-March.

Residents will get a community focused display area as they walk into the library, a redesigned checkout area and a book sale corner sponsored by the Friends of the Library. The books are underused books from the library that are then given to the Friends group.

Two stained glass windows have also been moved from the reading room to the library.

The additions are part of a master plan for how library officials want to use the space going forward. “We have a whole laundry list of things we want to accomplish,” Scheetz said.