Sprigg, Ann G.

Born: 1800-XX-XX Virginia

Died: 1870-12-20 Washington, D.C.

Flourished: Washington, D.C.

Alternate name: Thornton

Ann G. Sprigg was a boarding house operator and Abraham Lincoln's landlady during his term in the U.S. House of Representatives. Ann G. Thornton married Benjamin Sprigg, a clerk in the office of the clerk of the House of Representatives, in 1818, and the couple had five children. Benjamin Sprigg died in 1833, and Ann, left as the family's sole provider, opened a boarding house on New Jersey Avenue, south of the U.S. Capitol in 1834. Five years later, she relocated to a house on the east side of First Street east, between East Capitol and A streets, across from the U.S. Capitol. John T. Stuart and Edward D. Baker boarded there during their terms in Congress, and Lincoln did likewise, boarding with eight other congressmen, all Whigs. In 1853, Sprigg was operating a boarding house on the south side of C Street north, between Third and Fourth streets west. Before 1860, Ann left the boarding house business, and in 1860, she resided with her son on Tenth Street west in the Second Ward. In July 1864, President Lincoln endorsed Ann, who was struggling financially, for a job at the Treasury Department.

David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1995), 119-20; Gaither & Addison, comps., The Washington Directory, and National Register, for 1846 (Washington, DC: John T. Towers, 1846), 102; Alfred Hunter, comp., The Washington and Georgetown Directory, Strangers' Guide-Book for Washington, and Congressional and Clerks' Register (Washington, DC: Kirkwood & McGill, 1853), 95; Andrew Boyd, comp., Boyd's Washington and Georgetown Directory (Washington, DC: Hudson Taylor, 1864), 255; Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), 7:454; William H. Boyd, comp., Boyd's Washington and Georgetown Directory(Washington, DC: Taylor & Maury, 1860), 141; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Ward 2, Washington, District of Columbia, 33; "Ann Sprigg," Bytes of History, http://bytesofhistory.com/Collections/UGRR/Sprigg_Ann/Sprigg_Ann-Biography.html, accessed 13 January 2020.