In 1902, Robert Todd Lincoln, the eldest son of President Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, hired a Boston architectural firm to build this stately home in Manchester, Vt. Below, a bust of Abraham Lincoln and one of three remaining stovepipe hats he wore.

MANCHESTER, Vt. — Just off the portico of Hildene, the grand home built for Robert Todd Lincoln and his family, is a small rectangular patch of lawn framed in brick. The tiny space represents the size of the log cabin where Lincoln’s father was born in Kentucky, the beginning of the legendary rise of perhaps the country’s best-loved president.

Abraham Lincoln is the reason many people visit Hildene, a 24-room Georgian Revival mansion tucked between mountain ranges on 412 acres. But they will likely come away with a deeper respect for the only one of Lincoln’s four sons to live to adulthood.

Robert Todd Lincoln had already served as secretary of war under two presidents and as ambassador to the Court of St. James when he decided to build Hildene in 1902. The younger Lincoln had suffered much tragedy in his life, and perhaps the Manchester area represented a link to happier times when he decided to purchase land abutting that of a partner in his successful Chicago law firm.

Robert, his mother, Mary Todd, and his younger brother Tad visited The Equinox resort in Manchester in the summers of 1863 and 1864. They had planned to visit again in the summer of 1865, but their lives were shattered by the president’s assassination in April 1865.

Robert was not at Ford’s Theatre on that night, and he believed, despite assurances to the contrary, that he might have been able to prevent his father’s death had he been there. The death in 1871 of 18-year-old Tad (born Thomas, but nicknamed “Tadpole” by his father) worsened his mother’s depression and caused Robert to fear for her future.

Mary Todd Lincoln had always had trouble controlling her spending, and her increasingly eccentric behavior concerned her son. To gain control of her finances, Robert had her committed to an asylum in Batavia, Ill., in 1875. Although she was released three months later, she never forgave him. She spent much of the rest of her life in Europe and died in 1882 at 63.

Robert, an 1864 graduate of Harvard, rose to the presidency of the Pullman Co., and his success enabled him to build Hildene on a bluff between the Taconic and Green Mountain ranges, with a spectacular view of the Battenkill Valley below.

Among the highlights of a tour are the Abraham Lincoln exhibit, which includes a cast of his huge hands and one of the three remaining stovepipe hats he wore; the gorgeous restored gardens off the back of the house, originally a gift from daughter Jessie to her mother, Mary Harlan Lincoln; and the 1,000-pipe Aeolian pipe organ in the entrance hall, a gift from Robert to his wife in 1908. It has 242 rolls of music and is played daily.

The sweeping front lawn of the estate became a golf driving range for Robert, and he had a door installed later to allow him to slip out of his bedroom to practice without waking the household.

Robert may have no equal as a witness to U.S. history. He was present at General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Va., and was at his father’s bedside after the president was shot. He was walking with President Garfield in Washington when Garfield was assassinated, and he was stepping off a train in Buffalo as President McKinley was shot by an assassin. He was at the scene of all three shootings within minutes. In an odd footnote, his grave at Arlington National Cemetery is just a few hundred feet from President Kennedy’s.

A Hildene pamphlet also offers conjecture that Robert met John Quincy Adams in 1848, when Robert accompanied his father, a newly elected congressman, to Washington, and may have met a young John Kennedy in 1922, when Joseph P. Kennedy, John’s father, was among the dignitaries at the Lincoln Memorial dedication.

In a life of emotional upheavals, it has been said that Robert’s most devastating loss was that of his son Abraham, nicknamed Jack, who died in 1890 at 18 while Robert was serving as ambassador to Britain. The Lincoln lineage ended in 1985, with the death of Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, son of Robert’s daughter Jessie.

Mary “Peggy” Lincoln Beckwith (1898-1975), Jessie’s other child, lived at Hildene for 37 years. Her interests ranged from painting to farming to piloting her own plane. She deeded the mansion and grounds to the Christian Science Church.

The church had decided against restoring the estate and planned to subdivide and sell it, when the Friends of Hildene interceded and purchased it. The group maintains the estate, and its grounds provide the backdrop for events such as fairs, concerts, children’s camps, and an annual antique auto show, with Jessie’s 1928 Franklin Roadster always the lead car.