Making Mary Happy: Recreating Mrs. Lincoln’s Parlor Rug

All photos in this article are provided by Gene Shepherd.

The Lincoln family home, 426 S. 7th St., Springfield, Illinois.

My History

I was seven or eight when my Grandma Shepherd took me on what was, up to that time, the most influential road trip of my young life: to Springfield, Illinois, to visit the only home that Abraham Lincoln owned. In the various compartments of my brain, that visit turned on the light in the mental spaces devoted to history, preservation, antiques, color, design, and even storytelling. I didn’t visit again for ten years. However, shortly thereafter, I moved to Lincoln, Illinois, just thirty miles away from Lincoln’s home. During the next fourteen years, whether stopping by alone for a quick visit or with my family and friends, it was always a comfortable break where I knew exactly what to expect. That all changed about twenty years later, when I stopped in for a long-overdue visit to the house. And during my long absence, I had become a serious rug hooker.

The house was given by Robert Lincoln to the people of Illinois in 1887 and was later designated a National Historic Site and transferred to the National Park Service in 1972. My reunion tour was immediately derailed upon entering the first parlor. I was absolutely flabbergasted to find a hooked rug in front of the elegant parlor stove and another in the more relaxed family parlor across the hall! While hooked rugs meant nothing to me at eight, they did now, particularly presidential hooked rugs. I had even recreated two lost presidential hooked rugs of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s for the National Park Service and researched and written articles about other presidential families who loved and owned hooked rugs.

Therefore, I stopped the tour verbally and began rapid-firing questions at the poor tour guide. Did the Lincolns really have hooked rugs? Who made them? Were these original? If not, why were these chosen? The quick answers were: yes, they had hooked rugs; no, the originals were long gone; and the rugs on display were pre–Civil War–era rugs, chosen mainly because of their age and not their design, as no one knew what the originals looked like. Although I accepted the tour explanation, it did not stop me from seeking more information after the tour ended and I returned to California. Already having had experience with the National Park Service, I knew how things worked and quickly contacted Susan Haake, curator of the Lincoln Home.

Besides several original pieces of Lincoln’s furniture and decorative accents, the formal parlor contains historically correct reproduction wall-to-wall carpet, wallpaper, and curtains. As with the whole house, all other pieces are either pre–Civil War and believed to be as close as possible to those the Lincolns used in this room or are historically correct reproductions. Photo credit: Photo supplied by Lincoln Home.

Primary Source Clues

The curator of the Lincoln Home was very happy to answer my questions, although the answers were not very different from those given to me by the guide. Yes, the original hooked rugs were long gone. They could have worn out, been sold, or been discarded during the time Robert Lincoln rented the house, after the assassination, to a man who offered tours in the home. Historians do know, however, that the home had hooked rugs when the Lincolns lived there, based on detailed interior drawings made before he became president.

These were done by Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper of New York City, which sent an artist to Springfield to make ink drawings of the parlors in time for publication in March 1861, coinciding with his inauguration. There is general agreement that the quality of this unknown artist’s work is so high that curators can both identify known Lincoln items in those drawings and often determine the specific replacement pieces needed to fill empty spaces. That makes these drawings a kind of Rosetta Stone that can accurately convey the authentic look of the home.

That said, the curator also noted that the rug depictions in each drawing, however, were so vague that it could not be determined exactly what they looked like. Because of that, during an earlier renovation, pre–Civil War–era hooked rugs were purchased to fill those spaces. Although the rugs currently on display are from the correct time period, they are not the rugs, nor copies of the rugs, used by the Lincolns.

Previous Replacement Rug. Hooked in a fancy primitive style, this very nice pre–Civil War rug is not the same size or shape as the lost original. It is also a busy and comparatively delicate design that seems to be absorbed by the very overpowering wall-to-wall carpet.

A Good Design

While I agreed that the hooked-rug sections in the drawings were not as detailed as other areas, my rug hooker/designer eyes discovered several crucial details about both original rugs that non–rug hookers might not notice. I was certain of several things about Mrs. Lincoln’s formal parlor rug:

1. It was a rectangular rug approximately 21″ by 62″+. As I was researching on-site with my tape measure, these were easy measurements to determine.
2. The design appeared to have a bold center of a large flower cluster with some leaves.
3. There was a U-shaped edge border—probably scroll-like on either side of the flower cluster—to complete the design. This framed both the long and short sides around the central bouquet.
4. The drawing suggests a rug design that stood out against the busy carpet beneath it. That original rug did not blend in or get lost like the replacement rug did; it was there to make a design statement. It seemed to have a pop factor.

Working from those four assumptions, it took me only about ten seconds to produce a proportionally scaled, loosely sketched design. As I had a printout of the 1860-line drawing for that room with me, I could immediately judge whether my idea was accurate.

Design overlay: Here is my quickly scribbled initial design placed at an angle to the original drawing for comparison. 

Colorized Design: Back in CA, I took a little more time making a more detailed yet scribbled design, then quickly filled in about half of the design with colored pencils so I could better assess the look.

After texting my initial-colored design to the curator, I was very happy to receive her reply: “I think you are on to something!” With that encouragement, I was ready to get serious about this rug.

Since the Lincoln museum already owned a vintage hooked rug with a floral center motif (the other parlor rug, which is also not the right size or design for that parlor’s space), I drew heavily on that nosegay for the center of the new formal parlor design. After all, it had the provenance of being a very good pre–Civil War flower cluster. That rug also had a couple of very primitive scallop shells, which seemed good candidates for inclusion, since Mrs. Lincoln did use pretty shells as decorations in the formal parlor and other places in the home. Therefore, I tweaked the nosegay and added much more realistic shells to my working design. Although I researched many old rugs from that period, I ultimately designed four long, scrolling leaf motifs of my own, with end rolls to create the U-shaped borders on each side. That done, the design part ended up being the easiest part of the re-creation.

A Happy Mrs. Lincoln

Armed with a reasonable historic design for the rug, its proper coloration was another matter. In fact, many people—both historians and devotees of Mrs. Lincoln—think her color sense is odd, or at least somewhat hard to understand! To solve this riddle, and perhaps even vindicate her, I approached the task as if she had hired me to decorate her parlor. What did she like, and what would make her happy? That led me to make another list:

1. She liked black. Most of the dark furniture in the room, as well as throughout the house, was upholstered with black horsehair fabric. The stove was also a bright black.
2. She liked white, vivid green, and red. The wall-to-wall carpet was a busy lattice design made with diagonal rows of bright green leaves and white flowers. The blank centers formed at the intersections of the diagonals were a vivid, deep, true red. Even with all the green and white, red is a strong influence in that room.
3. She mixed two reds in the parlor. Although the curtains are officially described as red, I found them to be a different brick-red color. That look is enhanced by the frequent yellow-gold pattern threads throughout the historic red fabric, which, particularly on sunny days, make them appear very orange-red.
4. She liked pale green and gold. Although the wallpaper is neutral, it has a celery design with yellow-gold accents.
5. She thought it appropriate to use purple and pink accents. This was accomplished with small amounts of purple and deep pink China pitchers and lustrous pale pink seashells on the two mantels and shelves. They are, at best, a very odd addition to the color scheme, particularly when they appear in such small amounts, like unwanted guests.

Fortunately, Ms. Haake suggested I might also want to study all the original wallpapers, paint, and fabrics safely protected for posterity “in the vaults.” While most of that study simply revealed how well the National Park Service has reproduced worn-out materials, one casual reference by Ms. Haake about another very fragile original piece of furniture got my undivided attention. “Here is an original chair that is so fragile we only bring it out for five minutes every ten years!” It was a Gothic side chair upholstered in a tumbling-block pattern made from pieced velvet fabric blocks in black, browns, beiges, creams, dusty pinks, and deep, dull reds. This lightweight chair originally sat in the entry, right at the spot where people would pivot into the parlor. In fact, it provided the visual color grouping that introduced the parlor. Except for the greens, it contained nearly all the other colors of the parlor in its fabric. In fact, it looked to me like an extra “statement” chair that was intended to be easily moved into the parlor when additional seating was needed. It would be at home in the hall for putting on shoes as well as in the parlor when needed for extra guests. I looked at the curator and said, “Bingo!” In that instant, I had the tools I needed to make a rug that would make Mrs. Lincoln happy.

Original Gothic Chair: So fragile it’s rarely shown, this original piece of furniture would have been personally chosen by Mary Todd Lincoln. So many small, odd color accents in the parlor suddenly made sense when I looked at the variety of colors in this intricate fabric design. Out of all the home’s black furniture, this is the only piece that makes a real statement. It’s the only piece with a Wow factor.

More Is More

Since Mrs. Lincoln did not seem to be shy about mixing the colors of her statement chair in either the hallway or the formal parlor, I decided to follow her lead. I designed a rug that boldly added many more of those soft beiges, plum, and pinks, along with much stronger reds and greens. Using more pinks would make them look like intentional members of Mary’s palette instead of an afterthought placed on the mantelpiece. Instead of the red carpet and curtains looking as though they did not quite match, I also intended to add more red variants. More variants of any single color help them appear coordinated, creating a more cohesive look. Thus motivated, I went to the dye pot to make more of everything I might need.

White-to-Red Collection: This was my first attempt at dyeing small pieces of whites to beiges to reds for this project. During repeat sessions, I continued to recycle various white, natural, beige and light valued scraps of various other colors in the dye pot to make more similar, yet different collections. More options are always better!

Central Floral Nosegay: The central multi-flowered nosegay boldly mixes scraps from dozens of different whites, beiges, pinks, plum, reds and anything close in much the same way that rug hookers in the 1800s did. While today we might call it painterly or fancy primitive, it’s an artistic way to make all sorts of colors and values work together in a big way.

Two yards of hanging greens, plum, and reds. Most of the leaf and scroll colors were dyed in two-yard batches like this. Each of the eight pieces start with 9”, bolt-wide pieces of natural and textured fabrics. Dyed together in one very large pan, each batch can provide a tremendous amount of familial, graduated variations. However, for even more options, I dyed three other batches using other combinations of yellows, deeper greens, and reds.

Although I followed a general hooking plan of light to a darker gradation plan for these scrolls, I didn’t hook any of them with the exact same wool. They are similar but not identical. I also added in all sorts of pinks, oranges and red for definition and accent. This sort of scrappy variation is both visually satisfying and the way hookers from earlier times made their rugs. This photo also clearly shows how the stripped red and black center wool anchored the rug to the rest of the room. The outside black border was made with Antique Black, an old overdye technique used to turn mixed colors into a much more interesting black.

Mrs. Lincoln–Full finished rug, the formal Parlor rug 21” by 63” on primitive bleached linen, with hand dyed wool fabric and whipping yarn. Designed, dyed and hooked by Gene Shepherd, Anaheim, CA, based on drawings published in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 1861 and research with the Lincoln Home Museum, Springfield, Illinois. Completed January 2026.

Just in time for the USA’s 250th Anniversary Celebration, Mrs. Lincoln finally has a rug on permanent display in her best parlor that contains the right colors and is the same size and general design of that which she left behind in 1861.

Conclusion

Although this project started as a personal research project to satisfy my own curiosity, it’s ended with my re-creation going on permanent display in Mrs. Lincoln’s formal parlor.  Additionally, I have been authorized to begin recreating the other lost rug from the much more informal family parlor.  Once again, I’ll analyze the Leslie drawings, as well as all original fabrics and furnishings from the room where Lincoln, most assuredly, stretched out his long frame on a hooked rug to shoot marbles with his boys.  As an aficionado of both Lincoln and hooked rugs, nothing would give me greater pleasure.  Of course, I’ll still have  to do so in a way that would make Mary Lincoln happy!