The Lippincott’s in Quincy

 C.E. Lippincott was born in Edwardsville, Illinois, Jan. 26, 1825, the son of Rev. Thomas Lippincott, an organizer of the Presbyterian churches at Alton and Upper Alton, Illinois, and an ardent abolitionist. After attending Illinois College and St. Louis Medical College, Charles located at Chandlerville, Illinois. There, in 1851, he met and married Emily Webster Chandler, but soon tired of medicine as an occupation, leaving for the gold fields of California in 1852.

Following his sojourn in California, which included a two-year term in the state senate, Lippincott returned to Illinois and resumed his medical practice. At the outbreak of the Civil War he was able to recruit nearly an entire company of men, Company K of the 33rd Illinois Volunteer Regiment, of which he became Captain.  

Captain Lippincott may have already demonstrated his strongest military skills when he recruited his Illinois regiment. Of his war service, General Isaac H. Elliott, Lippincott’s superior would later note, “notwithstanding his inability to execute the simplest maneuvers with the regiment, Col. Lippincott proved a valuable officer, brave and generous, and always alive to the welfare of his men. He was a man of fine ability, a rare conversationalist and story teller.” 

Following his war service, Lippincott aspired to political office in his home state. With strong support from his party and fellow veterans, Lippincott went on to be elected Secretary of the Illinois Senate, and later door-keeper of the U.S. House of Representatives. He also served as Auditor of Public Accounts for the State of Illinois. In 1886, in recognition of his Civil War service and continued concern for his fellow veterans, Lippincott became the first Superintendent of the soon to be opened Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Home, in Quincy.  

Emily Webster Chandler Lippincott was born on March 13, 1833 in Chandlerville, Illinois, the daughter of Dr. Charles Chandler. Educated at Jacksonville Female Academy, she married Charles E. Lippincott on Dec 25, 1851. In 1886, she accompanied her husband to Quincy where she took on the social duties expected of her as wife of the Soldiers’ Home’s first Superintendent. When her husband died, Emily was left with no immediate family or means of support. For her, the Board of Directors of the Home created a special position as “Matron of the Home,” and for the rest of her life she remained in residence and continued to minister to the residents of whom she had become so fond.  

The role which Emily played at the home in subsequent years, as the beloved “Mother Lippincott,” is perhaps best summed up by Emily herself. In 1890, the editor of the Chandlerville local paper asked her to describe for his readers how she spent her days. She replied, in part, “I will ask you to see what I see, hear what I hear, yet you will not know what I know, for I have been in and out of these wards day after day, for two years, and have become acquainted with the sorrows, anxieties, and perplexities of many of these sufferers.” She went on to describe instances in which she was able to provide comfort simply by supplying friendship and a listening ear, or “fresh tea,” and in one instance “squirrel soup” which she personally prepared for a resident dying of consumption.  

When she reflected on how she was affected by these ministrations she mused, “I seem to be out of body looking on in wonder and amazement at the Emily Chandler of forty years ago.” None the less, she ended her letter by noting, “There is another side to this life. Some things happen which are very amusing and of which when not so tired and sad as now I will try to write you about.”

 Almost immediately after Mother Lippincott’s death in 1895 a plan was developed by the John Wood Post, No. 47, Woman’s Relief Corp of Quincy, to erect a “handsome stone cottage” on the grounds, dedicated to the memory of the woman who had ministered so selflessly to the home residents. Committees were appointed to mount a subscription drive, and the residents of the home were invited to contribute. The cottage was foreseen as a “temporary resting and stopping place … for visiting women,” a need that had been recognized since the opening of the men-only institution in 1887. Eventually, based on the perceived immediate needs of the home, it was decided that rather than a cottage, “Lippincott Memorial Assembly Hall” would be erected, with a seating capacity to accommodate all the members of the Home for religious services, lectures and entertainments. For many years, this building, located on the old parade grounds northwest of the Home headquarters, was a well-used concert and lecture hall, described in 1919 as “the center of the social and religious life of the Home.”

On January 17, 1905, a fire broke out in the Hall while a motion picture was being shown. The fire, which was apparently started by the open flame used to illuminate the film, quickly jumped to the bunting which decorated the dress circle. Fortunately, in order to avoid a panic, building manager James Green quickly turned on the electric lights, and M.J. Landrum, a “home entertainer,” led the audience in singing “Marching Through Georgia” until the flame was extinguished.  

A second, more disastrous fire in 1938 so damaged the building that it was eventually torn down and replaced with the second Lippincott Hall, also dedicated to the memory of Charles and Emily Lippincott, whose later lives had been dedicated to the veteran residents for whom they cared so much.

Sources

Elliott, General Issac M. 1902. History of the Thirty-Third Regiment Illinois Veteran

    Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War, 22nd August, 1861, to 7th December 1864

    Gibson City, IL: The [Regiment] Association.

First and Second Biennial Reports of the Board of Trustees and Officers of the Illinois

    Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Home at Quincy. 1886, 1888. Springfield, IL: Springfield 

    Printing Co., State Printers.

“A Handsome Stone Cottage.” Quincy Daily Journal, Aug 5, 1896.

Lippincott, Emily. 1890. unpublished letter, dated “Jan 14, 1890 Soldiers’ and Sailors’ 

      Home, Quincy, Ill.” photocopy, in the collections of the McLean County Museum of

      History, Bloomington, Illinois. SC 3138 Lippincott Family.

“Panic in Home Hall.” Quincy Daily Journal, Jan. 18, 1905.

Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Illinois, Vol. II, 1861-1865. Register of

    Enlisted Men from 18th to 35th Regiments. 1900. Springfield, Ill: Phillips Bros.,

    State Printers.

Snyder, J.F. 1907. Dr. Charles Ellet Lippincott. In Historical Sketches, Virginia Ill. 

    by J.N. Gridley. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ilmaga/cass/1907bios/lippincott.html

Wilcox, David F. 1919. Quincy and Adams County, History and Representative Men. 

    Chicago, New York: The Lewis Publishing Company.