Newton Bateman House

Newton Bateman, a well-known educator in Illinois in the 1800s and friend of Abraham Lincoln, lived in this Gothic Revival-style house in the 1850s. He was principal of what is believed to be the first free public high school in Illinois -– West Jacksonville District School – in the 1850s. Bateman, while serving as state superintendent of schools, had an office next to President-elect Lincoln in the Illinois Capitol in Springfield, and the two men became friends in the months prior to Lincoln’s departure for Washington, D.C.

Location