Ann G. Sprigg

Ann G. Sprigg ran a boarding house at the present-day site of the Library of Congress Jefferson Building, where Abraham Lincoln lived while serving as a U.S. Representative from Illinois from March 4th 1847 to March 3rd, 1849. Her boardinghouse became a favorite lodging place for radical abolitionists in Congress and for national leaders of that movement visiting the federal capital, earning it the nickname "The Abolition House." Lincoln later expressed lasting affection and respect for his former landlady in a letter to his Secretary of Treasury, calling her a most estimable widow lady, recalling that he had boarded at her house many years earlier when a member of Congress, and saying that any employment suitable to a lady could not be bestowed on a more worthy person. She was born circa 1800 and died December 20, 1870.

Washington, District of Columbia · United States