Penny Lincoln Sitting Canvas

Artist: William Willard 1864 This portrait of Abrham Lincoln is the one used on the Penny.  Excerpt from History Happens Everyday:  The Lincoln Memorial is dedicated by former President William Howard Taft who at the time was the Chief Justice of the U.S Supreme Court.  The ceremony featured a poem written by Edwin Markham “Lincoln, the Man of the People”  His poetry was quite popular and he had a lot of critics including William Jennings Bryan.  His poem “Man with a Hoe” earned him enough popularity to move to NYC where he attended lectures and radical labor groups and socialists.  Edwin Markham grew up in the Lagoon Valley near Pena Adobe in Vacaville California, he then went on to study and teach in schools in Santa Rosa, the Foothills of Sacramento and the Bay Area.  The Lagoon Valley is also somewhat notable for being the location halfway in between Sonoma CA and Sacramento, and on the night of June 14 1846 a group of Americans were transferring Mexican General Mari