Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum

04/11/2026

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Participants from various organizations helped to open the season by gardening, cleaning, and providing maintenance. It is great fun and a lovely lunch provided too! Please

02/14/2026

On this date, the day before Valentine's Day in 1862, Robert Green Ingersoll and Eva Amelia Parker were married. Ingersoll, a Civil War officer, attorney and spell-binding orator, became the leading advocate of freethought in 19th-century America. The son of a minister credited his freethinking wife...

12/24/2025

https://vimeo.com/1140242498

https://thetruthseeker.net

12/04/2025

The Freethinker is also hosting a seminar by Bob Forder on Charles Bradlaugh coming up soon.....

An invitation to the sixth in our Freethought History Webinar series.

12/04/2025

Bill Cooke, our friend and freethought historian is doing a webinar for The Freethinker:

An invitation to the seventh in our Freethought History Webinar series.

11/04/2025

MAUD INGERSOLL

Maud Ingersoll
On this date in 1864, Maud Ingersoll was born in Peoria, Illinois, second daughter of "The Great Agnostic" Robert G. Ingersoll and Eva Parker Ingersoll. Maud, like her older sister, Eva, was given the middle name "Robert." With Eva, Maud received instruction at home by her parents with extra tutoring in German, French, Italian, music and art. Both girls read before the age of 6, although not pushed into formal education.

As teenagers, they sometimes helped their father research the bible and religious writings for his lectures. "Father had read with us and together we have looked up references, localities and proofs," Eva once wrote, adding that the more they came to be acquainted with Christianity, the less they liked it.

Maud became Ingersoll's special attendant, accompanying him on lecture tours. She once stayed in the courtroom throughout a protracted, six-week trial involving a charge of forgery over a will in Butte, Montana. After Ingersoll's death she continued to refute spurious claims, which she was accused of circulating, that her father had recanted: "At the time of his death — in fact, the very morning of his death — he was working on a new lecture on Jesus Christ to be delivered the next winter and in which he intended saying that Christ was a myth," Maud reported. (D. 1936)

“I wish to say emphatically that there isn't a word of truth in this statement. Neither my sister nor myself is connected with any church in any way. Although our father has always wished for us to study and think for ourselves, we agree with him heartily in his religious belief.”
— Ingersoll, denying her religious conversion in a slander put forth by Rev. W. W. Landrum, First Baptist Church of Atlanta (1883)
Compiled by Annie Laurie Gaylor

© Freedom From Religion Foundation. All rights reserved.

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09/17/2025

Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum continues to preserve and share the legacy of “The Great Agnostic.”

This year, we’ve taken major steps to expand access:
👉 Digitizing nearly two terabytes of Ingersoll’s papers from microfilm
👉 Planning updates to the Ingersoll Chronology, mapping his speaking tours
👉 Preserving the historic museum building with fresh paint and repairs

The Ingersoll Museum is the only museum in the US dedicated entirely to freethought. It also anchors the Freethought Trail, linking over 100 historic sites tied to abolition, women’s rights, and secular history.

You can help keep this unique treasure thriving. Make your gift today: secularhumanism.org/preserve

Together, we’ll ensure Ingersoll’s words and ideas continue to inspire generations.

08/15/2025

Courtesy of Roderick Bradford. Click to view.

https://thetruthseeker.net/

08/10/2025

August 11th 2025 is Robert Green Ingersoll's 192nd birthday. Here is one of my favorite quotes.

05/17/2025

Thanks to Sandy Parker, Tom and Heather from the Central NY Humanists and Allen and Jeffrey from the NY Chapter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation for helping to get the museum ready for its 32nd season opening on Memorial Day weekend.

04/04/2025

The museum will open for its 32nd season on Memorial Day weekend. Please join us for our Volunteer Cleanup Day on Saturday May 17th from 10am to 2pm. Lunch will be served so bring a lawn chair and gardening tools or cleaning supplies. The museum is at 61 Main St Dresden NY 14441. RSVP to [email protected] so we can get a count for lunch.