Hildene, The Lincoln Family home

Hildene is formed from two old English words: “Hil” meaning “hill” and “dene” meaning “valley with stream”. Robert and his wife, Mary, gave their Vermont home this name because it is perched on a hill overlooking the Taconic Mountains to the west, the Green Mountains to the east, and the Battenkill River flowing through the southern end of the great Valley of Vermont.

The Lincolns built Hildene as a summer home at the turn of the 20th century. Robert was the only child of Mary Todd Lincoln and Abraham Lincoln to survive to maturity. He first visited Manchester as a young man in the summer of 1864 when he came to the Equinox Hotel to meet with his mother and his brother, Tad. Some forty years later, he returned to Vermont to purchase 392 acres of land to build what he would call his ancestral home. At the time, Robert was president of the Pullman Company — the largest manufacturing corporation in the country. 

After Robert’s granddaughter, Peggy Beckwith, passed away in 1975, she left Hildene to the Church of Christ, Scientist, with the wish that it be maintained as a memorial to the Lincoln family. When the Church attempted to sell the estate to developers, community members intervened and successfully formed The Friends of Hildene LLC to preserve the property.

For more on our history, please explore the sections below.