Lincoln collection draws history buffs in Westfield

By AMY ADAMS
news@readthereporter.com

Last Wednesday evening, Aug. 14, a small crowd including Mayor Scott Willis gathered at the Hampton Inn in Westfield at 17400 Wheeler Road to view a rare collection of presidential signatures and Abraham Lincoln memorabilia on display for one night only.

Westfield resident Christopher Allen invited Mark Fields of Greenfield to bring a portion of his personal collection to help garner attention for a film Allen hopes to make to tell the story of the funeral train that carried Lincoln’s body to its final resting place following his assassination.

For Fields, his fascination with the 16th president of the United States began with attending Abraham Lincoln Elementary School in Perry Township in Marion County. Fields began reading and collecting books about Lincoln.

“I just read and read and read about him,” Fields said.

Those books led to Fields collecting “anything and everything having to do with Abraham Lincoln.” Fields even has hairs from Lincoln’s head the night of his assassination, a piece of the sheet on which he died, and patches of wallpaper from the room where he took his last breath.

Eventually, Fields began collecting the signatures of not just Lincoln, but of other U.S. presidents as well. In fact, Fields now has an authentic signature from every U.S. president, having capped off 45 years of signature collection with a hard-to-obtain George Washington relic.

Fields says his full collection is valued at around half a million dollars. He brought approximately one-third of that collection to Westfield, including a couple of framed items worth around $10,000 a piece. In addition to viewing items displayed behind glass, guests were allowed to flip through scrapbooks of letters, photos, and more.

One guest called the display “fabulous.”

Allen spoke to those present about his motivation for creating a movie that will “take Lincoln out of the museums and into the hearts of the people.”

Allen said that it was a chance encounter with the late Civil Rights activist John Lewis on a flight from Indianapolis to Atlanta that ignited a passion in him.

“I felt swept up in something larger than myself,” Allen said. “The world and the world’s problems are a lot bigger than mine.”

According to a Harvard Kennedy School poll Allen cited, 52 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds believe that the U.S. democracy is in trouble. In fact, 39 percent consider it a “failed democracy.”

“These numbers frighten me because these are the kids we’re handing the keys to,” Allen said. “What I decided to do about this was to rely on my 30 years of film-making experience.”

Having created six films in the past, including one that premiered in Hollywood and another that sold out Indy IMAX, Allen plans to produce a movie called Of Tears and Iron that would share the impact of Abraham Lincoln with audiences of today.

Allen has formed a non-political nonprofit named The Lincoln Special in honor of the train that carried Lincoln’s body from Washington, D.C., to his final resting place in Springfield, Ill. The Lincoln Special aims to raise the necessary funds to not only make the film but to take it on the road in what would be called The Lincoln Roadshow, showing it for free in communities, starting with those along the path of the funeral train. In the donor procurement stage, the project has endorsements from the Lincoln Presidential Foundation, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, and the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site.

“I am asking for a hero to step up,” Allen said.

For more information, visit tearsandiron.com.