Statue Trivia

[L Verge]

I am so confused... I was cheating to find the answer while Bill was posting it. However, I stopped to read the history of Carthage College and found that Lincoln served as a trustee during his first year of the Presidency. It appears that the college was then in Illinois, but now it is in Kenosha, Wisconsin? Did they move the state boundaries, or did the college move to a new campus in a neighboring state? I know that it is on Lake Michigan, but that doesn't help.

Here's the website I was looking on - some interesting details: https://www.carthage.edu/about/lincoln-statue/

John Hay has his name attached to the wonderful Hay-Adams Hotel in DC, near the White House. The hotel was created out of the townhomes of Hay and Henry Adams. I have only been as far as the hotel bar, but it was quite nice.

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I need to correct my error. I wanted to share this hotel's history with you and will do so here. However, I just learned that the townhomes of Hay and Adams were actually razed in the 1920s when a famous D.C. developer by the name of Wardman bought the properties with the intent of constructing what is now the Hay-Adams Hotel.

EARLY DAYS
Centered in downtown Washington, D.C., The Hay-Adams is one of the city's most famous landmarks. Named for the distinguished residents, John Hay and Henry Adams, our historic hotel is now a popular destination among visitors and Washingtonians.

John Hay served as a personal secretary to President Abraham Lincoln, and later as U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, as well as Secretary of State under both William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. Henry Adams was a historian and Harvard professor, and the descendant of Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams. Both men were accomplished writers.

In 1884, the architect Henry Hobson Richardson designed elaborate, Romanesque homes at the corner of 16th and H Streets for Hay and Adams. The site soon became a bustling scene of intellectual activity. Together with their wives, Clara Hay and Marian Adams, as well as noted geologist Clarence King, Hay and Adams formed a close friendship. The group dubbed themselves "Five of Hearts," and even had custom china and a letterhead made to feature the moniker. For years, the homes served as Washington's leading salons, alive with stimulating discussions about literature, art, science and politics. Famous guests such as Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, Henry James and the sculptor August Saint-Gaudens stopped in from near and far.

Hay died in 1905 and, after Clara died in 1914, ownership of the home was passed to their daughter Alice Wadsworth and her husband, Senator James Wadsworth. After Adams died in 1918, the Wadsworths purchased the property and leased it to the Brazilian Embassy.

FROM HOME TO HOTEL
In 1927, Washington, D.C., developer Harry Wardman bought and razed both homes. He replaced them with the Hay-Adams House, an Italian Renaissance-style, 138-room apartment-hotel design by the architect Mirhan Mesrobian. Opened in 1928, the $900,000 structure featured impressive architectural embellishments such as Doric, Ionic and Corinthian orders, walnut wainscoting, and intricate ceiling treatments featuring Elizabethan and Tudor motifs. Wood paneling from the Hay residence was repurposed in the public space now known as the Hay-Adams Room. Many historic details have been carefully preserved to this day.

Guests were drawn to the hotel by its unparalleled proximity to the White House, Lafayette Square and St. John's Church. The hotel played host to prominent out-of-towners and Washington's elite, including Ethel Barrymore, Amelia Earhart, Sinclair Lewis and Charles Lindbergh. They enjoyed the setting and views, as well as the large suites, kitchens, steam heat, elevators, circulating ice water and, in 1930, Washington, D.C.'s first air-conditioned dining room.