Honest Abe visits Lynn’s Harrington School

LYNN – Looking spry for 200 years of age, former President Abraham Lincoln paid a visit to the Harrington Elementary School Thursday morning, delighting students with stories from his childhood and even giving an impromptu line-dancing lesson to a few willing participants from the audience.Lincoln, played by actor Casey Preston of Historical Perspectives for Children, took the students on an hour-long journey through his life both as one of the country’s most accomplished and respected leaders and his time as a young boy sneaking glimpses at poetry and literature in between swings of the ax on his family’s farm land in Indiana.Dressed in a variety of costumes, Preston’s performance was both entertaining for students and historically accurate down to the smallest detail.After taking students through his childhood upbringing and the painful death of his mother, Lincoln brought students along on his journey to the military and odd jobs, such as postmaster and eventually to his spot in history as the 16th president and the man who led the movement to abolish slavery in the United States.With students studying biographies and history in the school library this month and the celebration of Lincoln’s 200th birthday in the not-too-distant past, Library Media Specialist Carole Shutzer was able to bring Lincoln to the school thanks to help from the Masonic Lodge and the Mt. Carmel Damascus Angel Fund, who paid for the appearance.”We are studying biographies and since it is Lincoln’s 200th birthday it seemed appropriate to have a performance by Abraham Lincoln,” said Shutzer.The Historical Perspectives for Children actors are not new to the Harrington stage, as Benjamin Franklin came to visit the students last year at this time, also when Shutzer was covering biographies in the library.While Lincoln was entertaining the Harrington students, Franklin was leading students from the Aborn School on a journey through his life Thursday.