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 purported 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. Bateman is said to have been the last person to shake hands with Lincoln as the train pulled away from the Springfield depot.