CHARLES CITY - The nation's 16th president is alive and well in the heart and mind and office of Juvenile Court Judge Gerald Magee.

More than 200 books, about 70 photographs and plates, statues and figurines provide the distinct feeling of being immersed in the land of Lincoln.

"It all started with my seventh-grade teacher in Dunkerton, Iowa," Magee says. "Her name was Edna Beam."

He digresses for a moment.

"You know, everyone should have at least one teacher that they remember."

Then, on with the story.

Beam apparently thought her young student looked bored.

"She told me to find somebody I was interested in and then to start reading everything I could find about that person," Magee says. "I chose Abraham Lincoln. And that was the start of it."

Sitting at his desk in the Floyd County Courthouse, Magee spreads his arms as if to embrace the memorabilia collected over nearly 50 years. Many of the items were gifts over the years contributed by family and friends who know of his devout interest in President Lincoln.

Magee has no trouble pointing out his favorite mementos. There is the Norman Rockwell painting of Honest Abe as a young lawyer, dressed in a white suit and holding an almanac.

"Lincoln was defending a childhood friend accused of murder," Magee says. "Witnesses said it happened on a moonlit night. Lincoln produced an almanac which showed there was no moon on the night the person was killed. The man was acquitted."

The judge picks a book from a shelf and thumbs through the pages carefully and reverently. This, Magee says, is one of his prized possessions, a book by John Hay and John Nicolay, Lincoln's two secretaries.

In the volume, Hay and Nicolay share their memories of Lincoln. The book was published in 1866, the year after John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln.

"I try to buy books published before 1920 because they're more likely to have firsthand knowledge of him."

There's a story behind almost every artifact in the office - like the big, black, cement bust of Lincoln, the photo of Lincoln that is an original print and small replicas of the Lincoln Memorial.

But for Magee, a practicing lawyer for 40 years, Lincoln as lawyer appeals the most.

"People think he was a country bumpkin lawyer. Nothing could be further from the truth," Magee says. "He was the premier lawyer in Illinois in the 1850s."

Lincoln wrote 183 appeals to his state's supreme court, Magee notes.

"I practiced law for 40 years and maybe had 10."

The Internet opened another avenue to learn about is favorite legal mind.

"I found all 183 of them online. I was so excited I almost fell out of my chair."

Magee says everything he has read only enhances Lincoln's image. With that, he expounds on another Lincoln story.

Lincoln was once hired as defense counsel in a patent infringement case involving Cyrus McCormick, who man who invented the reaper. Lincoln went to Cincinnati, where the case was to be tried.

The big city lawyers congregated there pretty much ignored Lincoln, and one told him his services weren't needed, in effect kicking Lincoln off the case.

That lawyer, Magee says, was Edwin Stanton. Years later, President Lincoln appointed Stanton as his secretary of war - an indication Lincoln held no grudges.

School teachers often bring students to Magee's office to view the collection and to ask questions about Lincoln. The judge laughs recalling his favorite question, an inquiry from a little tyke looking at all of the books, photos and statues.

"'Who's gonna get all this stuff when you die?'"

Contact John Skipper at john.skipper@globegazette.com