The Forbes House Museum will sponsor lectures by historian and author, Anthony Sammarco and Rhode Island Chief Justice (retired), Frank J. Williams on 17 September and 19 October in the Keys Room at the Milton Public Library, 476 Canton Avenue, Milton. The lectures are free and open to the public.

The lectures will be offered on conjunction with the exhibit, Mary Bowditch Forbes and the FHM Lincoln Collection, presently on view in the second floor of the library’s Local History Gallery.

Anthony Sammarco will present, “Cocoa with Miss Forbes,” on Wednesday, 17 September at 7pm, exploring the life of Mary Bowditch Forbes (1878- 1962), granddaughter of China trade merchant, Captain Robert Bennet Forbes. Sammarco will delve into the civic life of this prominent Milton resident, whose passion for all things Lincoln led to a major collection on the 16th United States president and the construction of a log cabin on the Forbes estate, a replica of President Lincoln’s Hodgenville, Kentucky birthplace.

Sammarco has created an invitation for this event on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1487267188184948/.

Noted Abraham Lincoln scholar and author, Rhode Island Chief Justice (retired), Frank J. Williams, will present the lecture, “Lincoln’s Melancholia,” on Sunday, 19 October at 2pm.

Lincoln’s melancholy has been the subject of much research and speculation. Lincoln was known to have suffered from clinical depression, having written about suicide as a young man and experienced breakdowns on a number of occasions.

“Abraham Lincoln fought clinical depression all his life,” writes Joshua Wolf Shenk in his article, ‘Lincoln’s Great Depression’ (The Atlantic Magazine, October 2005), “and if he were alive today, his condition would be treated as a “character issue”- that is, a political liability. His condition was indeed a character issue as it gave him the tools to save the nation.”

The exhibit, Mary Bowditch Forbes and the FHM Lincoln Collection, features 27 paintings, prints, drawings, photographs and documents highlighting aspects of the American Civil War and the building of the FHM Lincoln Cabin. The artworks and memorabilia are drawn from the permanent collection of the Forbes House Museum, acquired over a fifty year period by Mary Bowditch Forbes. The exhibit is on view through January 2015.

For more information on programs, exhibits, events and group tours of the Forbes House Museum contact the office at 617.696.1815 or visit the website, www.forbeshousemuseum.org.