'■'-1 ?*:r/-- ./, ^i Class J£i=£!7__ Boo k COPreiGHT DEPOSIT. Lincoln in Illinois THE OLD UNITED STATES COURT BUILDING IN SPRINGFIELD, ON THE THIRD FLOOR OF WHICH WAS THE OFFICE OF LINCOLN Gf LOGAN ^:^^^ -^.^j;;^ :itr(ff'-""-''^'5^'"-^-,. THE LINCOLN HOUSE AT EIGHTH AND JACKSON STREETS SPRINGFIELD i LINCOLN IN ILLINOIS / BY OCTAVIA ROBERTS 'drawings by I LESTER G. HORNBY' BOSTON y NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY MDCCCC XVIII COPYRIGUT, I91S, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published February iqjS Slo o THIS SPECIAL LARGE-PAPER EDITION IS LIMITED TO ONE THOUSAND COPIES MAR -6 1918' ©C/.A48J937 ^ Foreword Wh HEN I was a little girl and lived in Spring- field, Illinois, I knew familiarly a large group of older folk, all of whom had known Lincoln. An uncle had stood guard over his bier, an aunt had sung at his funeral. Many of my grandfather's friends had been Lincoln's associates at the bar. Others had played cards with him in a certain old drug store that still remained. The younger of the older men of the town had been "Wide Awakes," and had marched in oilcloth capes in the campaign of '6 1. The women, too, had their recollections of Lincoln. They had been to his house to call upon his wife, to attend receptions. A certain old lady of charming presence had seen him married and, on demand, could give interesting details of the occasion. The oldest of them all had seen him pilot the Talisman down the V Foreword Sangamon, and remembered well that no one dreamed of inviting him to the ball that had celebrated that event. Springfield, one might say, was permeated with the spirit of Lincoln. The house where I went to school with other little Springfield girls was the house in which he had been married. The desk in a corridor of the chief hotel, upon which we did not hesitate to perch at class dances, had been Lincoln's. The house where Lincoln had lived, and where his children had been born, was open to the public. One took, country cousins to see its interior. The monu- ment where he slept dominated the cemetery. The bristling groups of bronze soldiers at the four comers of the shaft were of endless interest. The Springfield children learned to know Lincoln, therefore, from the stories of his neigh- bors and through his association with various places, long before they knew him from the histories. It was, I remember, with a feeling of vi Foreword surprise that I came upon his name in books. It was like coming upon a friend of every day riding in a barouche behind four horses. One preferred the friend and neighbor in a linen duster, a market-basket upon his arm. More- over, the histories had little to say of Spring- field, Lincoln's home for twenty years, — of Springfield, which seemed to us his proper backgrouad. It is of the everyday Lincoln and his Mid- Western home that I shall attempt to write, in the hope that the memories treasured by his townsmen may not be wholly without interest to a wider world. O. R. Boston November 29, 1917 J THE ROAD ALONG THE SANGAMON AT NEW SALEM OVER WHICH LINCOLN WALKED TO BORROW LAW BOOKS Contents I. The Talisman II. New Salem III. Moves to Springfield . IV. Houses Lincoln Knew. V. The Lincoln Home VI. Old State House . VII. Last Days at Home . VIII. The Funeral . I II 29 45 63 7S 91 109 J v-^^N'*^"^ STUART S" LINCOLN'S OFFICE OVER THE FURNITURE STORE, SPRINGFIELD Illustrations The Old United States Court Building IN Springfield, on the Third Floor OF which was the Office of Lincoln & Logan xi Illustrations The Lincoln House at Eighth and Jackson Streets, Springfield . Frontispiece The Road along the Sangamon at New Salem over which Lincoln walked to borrow Law Books . . . . ix Stuart & Lincoln's Office over the Furniture Store, Springfield . . xi A Country Court-House where Lincoln attended Court [Mount Pulaski, Logan County, Illinois') xiv On the Sangamon at New Salem . . i The Bend in the Sangamon at New Salem where the Mill stood in Lin- coln's Time 6 The Tree-shaded Path, New Salem . ii The Little Bridge at New Salem . . 22 The State House Dome from East Cap- itol Street, Springfield .... 29 Old Buildings of Lincoln's Time on the Washington Street Side ok the Green 34 Little Shops of Old Springfield . . 42 The Robert Irwin House on Fifth Street 45 The Owsley House 50 xii Illustrations The Ninian Edwards House, in which Lincoln was married .... 54 The Benjamin Edwards House ... 58 The Globe Hotel 63 A Corner of Lincoln's Sitting-Room in the House at Eighth and Jackson Streets 66 Lincoln's Pew in the First Presbyterian Church 73 The Old State House 75 The Room in the Old State House most identified with lincoln . . . • 7^ The Station where Lincoln delivered HIS Farewell Address to Springfield . 91 House of Representatives, State House, where Lincoln delivered his " House- divided-against-itself " Speech . . 94 The Grave of Ann Rutledge, Petersburg 109 The Lincoln Monument in Springfield . 118 A COUNTRY COURT-HOUSE WHERE LINCOLN ATTENDED COURT (MOUNT PULASKI, LOGAN COUNTY, ILLINOIS) I. The 'Talisman ON THE SANGAMON AT NEW SALEM LINCOLN IN ILLINOIS I THE TALISMAN 1 HE month is March in the year 1832. The scene is prairie land in the river bottom of Illi- nois. When the spring shall give place to sum- mer, the prairie will be covered with grass so high that the head of a man on horseback will be barely discernible : but to-day a man on foot can be seen plainly, from the crown of his "coon"-skin cap to the edge of his buckskin breeches, though cap and feet are some six feet four apart. The man who strides along the road is young — twenty-three years, no more. He is lean but wiry, a backwoodsman every inch of him. A man with a set purpose one watching him would say, as he strides on and on over the rough road 3 Lincoln in Illinois that leads to a pioneer settlement on the Illinois River, called Beardstown. Once in this town, he mixes sociably with the young men ; tells them that he has come from the settlement of New Salem, on the bluffs of the Sangamon, to see the landing of the Talis- man, a steamboat hourly expected from Cincin- nati on her maiden voyage into the interior of Illinois. To further questions he answers that he was born in Kentucky, " raised " in Indiana ; and that he has but recently come to Illinois to seek his fortune. When at last the steamer, at four miles an hour, creeps into Beardstown and throws out her gangplank amid much rejoicing, the young stranger is the first on board. He seeks out the captain, explains that he has recently made a voyage from New Salem to New Orleans in a flatboat and knows the Sangamon, the tributary stream up whose waters the Talisman next pro- poses to go, as few men can claim to know it ; 4 The Talisman and he proposes himself as pilot to guide the steamboat up waters that only the hopeful call navigable. The name he gives the captain is an unknown one — Abraham Lincoln. The bar- gain is struck. The pilot's pay for the round trip from Beardstown on the Illinois to Spring- field on the Sangamon is to be fifty dollars. Abraham Lincoln takes the wheel. On and on goes the Talisman, creeping down the shallow stream, picking its way among the obtruding snags of fallen trees, avoiding the shallows. If the young riverman can make this voyage, the promoters of the expedition believe that the markets of the East will be open to Springfield and the adjoining settlements, for freight no longer will have to be hauled over- land to St. Louis. A waterway will be estab- lished, between Cincinnati and Springfield, down a chain of rivers of which the Sangamon is the last. On and on chugs the steamboat in the bright 5 Lincoln in Illinois March weather, past groups of cheering pio- neers, who, lined along the river's bank, use their axes to good purpose to clear obstructions in the way of the first and only steamboat that ever came up the Sangamon. The inspirer of the expedition, one Captain Bogue, a mill-owner on the Sangamon, points out his mill as a likely landing-place ; but the crowd on the shore is landmark enough to the man at the wheel, who has dwelt during most of his twenty-three years in lonely places. He looks with interest at the group of men, women, and children that line the shore, shouting and cheering in their delight to see a steamboat come up the Sangamon. Many are on horseback, but some — and the youth notes it with interest pro- found — are "flourishing in carriages." One equipage has a lemon-yellow body, black leather top, and steps covered with carpet that can be lowered for a lady's descent. Young Lincoln had not seen the like before. 6 THE BEND IN THE SANGAMON AT NEW SALEM WHERE THE MILL STOOD IN LINCOLN'S TIME I The Talisman The landing safely accomplished, the pas- sengers, the captain, and the crew ride into town, to Springfield, two miles inland, over roads that test endurance. There they receive a royal wel- come that finds expression in a public ball and private hospitality. Everywhere the occasion is celebrated with toasts and with song. Down the long years the voices float to us from the muddy, straggling street of the town and from the warm interior of the tavern,** Indian Queen." Some local rhymester has set new words to an old tune, and they take the public fancy and are lustily sung during the week in which the Talisman remains : — " Oh, Captain Bogue, he gave the load, And Captain Bogue he showed the road, And he came up with a right good will And tied his boat up to his mill. " Now we are up the Sangamaw And sure will have a grand hurrah. So fill your glasses to the brim With whiskey, brandy, wine, and gin. 7 Lincoln in Illinois " Illinois suckers, young and raw, Were strung along the Sangamaw, To see the boat come up the stream. They surely thought it was a dream." But in one breast the song's invitation to fill the glass meets with no response ; for the pilot, "A. Lincoln," as he signs himself, does not drink. He finds stimulation in other things, above all in talk, for which he often must have been hungry. He mixes with the men, swaps yarns, of which he has picked up an amazing store, widens his acquaintance materially ; meets among others a stripling called « Bill " Herndon. The rustic Lohengrin has no premonition that Springfield is to be his future home, that young Herndon is to be his law partner and biographer. For him the present doubtless is all-sufiicient. He has earned fifty dollars. He is young, strong, and lithe. No man in his set- tlement is his physical equal. Life opens before him. He joins in the nonsense with the rest : — The Talisman " Illinois suckers, young and raw, Were strung along the Sangamaw, To see the boat come up the stream. They surely thought it was a dream." The song reminds him of a story. The crowd guffaws. It likes his mimicry and his humor. "Who is that long-legged fellow, anyway?" some one asks. The answer is : '* A storekeeper from New Salem. He 's just come out for the Legislature." II. New Salem THE TREE-SHADED PATH, NEW SALEM II NEW SALEM IN the autumn of the year that had seen the Talisman come up the Sangamon, the young pilot of that expedition met political defeat. And, as he himself once said long afterwards in a campaign document, it was the only time he was ever beaten by the people. Probably he found what consolation he could in the reflection that during the long summer, when the other candidates were free to cam- paign in their own interests, he was far away from his county, serving as captain of militia in a scrimmage dubbed the Black Hawk War. In one of his few public utterances before his military duties took him from Sangamon, he had said: *«I am young and unknown; I was born and have ever remained in the most humble walk of life. . . . If the good people in their wis- 13 Lincoln in Illinois dom shall see fit to keep me in the background, I have been too familiar with disappointments to be very much chagrined." It was probably in the spirit of these words that Lincoln returned to New Salem and re- sumed his occupation of storekeeper, buying out one of the other merchants and entering into a partnership with a man named Berry. If he had been successful in this venture, he might have remained a country merchant, respected by his customers as a genial, honest man. But Fortune had her eye on this young pi- oneer, with his quick wit, his analytical mind, his dogged perseverance. In spite of many dis- appointments shehad let him suffer in his twenty- six years, she had no notion of forever " keeping him in the background." A copy of Blackstone in a barrel of rubbish was enough for her pur- poses. Young Lincoln came upon it there, turned the pages, cocked his feet above his head and began to read. 14 New Salem Occasionally a customer dropped in, inter- rupting the reading and breaking the dreams that sprang from the perusal of those tattered old pages. When the customer left with his pur- chases of cotton chain and brown calico under his arm, the dreams sprang again into being, re- solving themselves into a persistent question: " Could a man with scant education, no money, in debt, aspire to become a lawyer?" " I was born and have ever remained in the most humble walk of life," the dreamer had said to the voters. He had but to drop his eyes to his toil-worn hands to know how true were his words. With those hands he could pitch more hay than any man in the vicinity. He could lift heavier burdens. His calloused palms and his great strength seemed to say that manual labor was his natural desdny. At this point he would put on his hat and go down the one litde street of New Salem in search of his friend, Jonathan Miller, the blacksmith, to discuss with him the 15 Lincoln in Illinois relative advantages of blacksmithing and the law. While they two sit before the forge, debat- ing the momentous question, let us look down the straggling street of cabins and make the acquaintance of some of the good men and women who were the early friends and neigh- bors of young Abraham Lincoln. In the last cabin of the line, a double log house, we find Jack Kelso and his wife. Lover of the woods and streams is Kelso. He knows the spots where the black perch bite best, the trees where honey is stored. He can sit all day with his fishing-rod in hand and quote Burns and Shakespeare. Lincoln learns these poets from his lips. To the right, near the Springfield road, the good doctor lives. A stern believer in temper- ance is Dr. Allen, an earnest religious zealot in a community that had none too much of religion. Near Dr. Allen lives Alexander Ferguson, the i6 New Salem shoemaker ; Martin Waddle, the village hatter ; Henry Onstot, the cooper. A stone's-throw away stands the two-story log cabin where Lin- coln boards and lodges. The landlord, James Rutledge, and his wife and many children treat Lincoln more like a member of the family than a boarder. One of the daughters, Anne May, is destined to be im- mortalized in song and story as the beloved of Abraham Lincoln. A graceful young figure she makes, in her homespun dress and moccasins, moving to and fro in the dim interior of the log house or bend- ing over the open fire baking the cornbread for the tavern's guests. She had auburn hair and blue eyes and a sweet, fresh young voice. Often Lincoln and the other young men must have heard her singing at her work. On the bank below New Salem, near where the mill grinds the grain, the schoolmaster. Men- tor Graham, lives. He is destined to lend a help- 17 Lincoln in Illinois ing hand to ambition. Under his charge, Lincoln studies Kirkham's Grammar, learns how to frame sentences — knowledge that shall one day bear fruit in a Gettysburg address. A mile down the river dwells another good friend. Boiling Green, the squire, great of girth and great of heart. His buckskin latchstring is always ready to Lincoln's hand ; a place awaits him at the hospitable board. Two years pass, in which Abraham Lincoln slowly makes his way. In his twenty-fourth year he is appointed postmaster and thereafter he distributes New Salem's mail twice a week. He is dressed usually in flax and tow-linen panta- loons " about five inches too short in the legs," upheld, frequently, by one suspender. A cal- ico shirt, coarse brogans, and blue yarn socks complete his costume. The salary of the postmaster is as much too short for his needs as the tow and flax panta- New Salem loons for his long legs. He therefore welcomes a chance which presents itself to assist the county surveyor, John Calhoun. The pay promised the assistant, if he can master the principles of sur- veying, seems colossal — three dollars a day, the price of three weeks' board or of an acre and a half of rich land I In his need of instruction, Lincoln well knows where to turn. He takes his problem to that good Yankee school-teacher. Mentor Graham, who had helped him master Kirkham's Gram- mar. The pupil and the teacher for weeks bend over the books far into the night. The only time they look up from the work is when Mrs. Gra- ham reminds them that the wood is running low. In the mean time Lincoln & Berry's general store has been rapidly sinking to extinction. Its collapse leaves Lincoln stranded in debt, the obligation of which he is doomed to bear alone, as Berry, his worthless partner, dies soon after 19 Lincoln in Illinois the failure. And the burden is added to, in the beginning at least, by the necessities of the new position ; for to be a deputy surveyor — although the new profession will yield three dollars a day — will entail fresh expense: a horse will have to be bought, instruments will have to be pur- chased ; and, as yet, Lincoln can pay for these things only in promises. His promises seem to be good, however. He obtains the necessary equipment, and from this time on works under Calhoun, enjoying, we can safely guess, the society of the man as much as he did the work in his new profession. For Calhoun, like Mentor Graham, is a person of some culture. He has studied law, taught school, and is quick and able in debate. Long years after, when Abraham Lincoln was measuring wits with Stephen A. Douglas, — the idol of Il- linois, — he told a friend that he was less afraid of debating with Douglas than he was of doing so with the comparatively unknown John Cal- 20 New Salem houn. " For Douglas will equivocate and Cal- houn will not," he explained. And one of the pictures New Salem yields to us is Lincoln with Calhoun, this man who would not deceive, at work, together. Boundaries were safe in the care of these two. But New Salem is so rich in pictures of that early, formative period of Lincoln's lifethat,turn our eyes as we may, we are rewarded by some new vision of him. Even the roads have their memories. On the highway between New Sa- lem and Springfield how often he could be seen trudging to and fro on the long walk to the larger settlement. After the purchase of his horse, he could cover the miles more swiftly. It was when he was mounted that he overtook a stranger on a much-jaded horse about fourteen miles from Springfield. They fell into conversation and Lincoln learned that the stranger was hastening to the Land Office in Springfield to enter his land before a false friend, who was close behind, 21 Lincoln in Illinois could put in a prior claim. In a moment Lincoln was off his horse and had exchanged with the chance acquaintance, who, with a fresh mount, rode off joyfully, to succeed in his errand. This oft-quoted story must in justice be said to il- lustrate the general good-will between men in sparsely settled regions quite as much as it does the kindly, quick sympathy that beat under a certain homespun shirt. Another New Salem road, not definitely iden- tified, gives us an amusing picture of young Lincoln, illustrative of other traits. This time he is on a pleasure party. A company of young vil- lage people ride together, each girl boasting an eager, attentive escort. A Miss Owen, a visitor from Kentucky, had fallen to Lincoln's share. When the party were forced to cross a certain branch of the river, the young men embraced the opportunity to assist the girls in every possible way. Lincoln alone offered no such gallantry. The visiting Miss Owen, much incensed, said to 22 ... , ^slk THE LITTLE BRIDGE AT NEW SALEM New Salem him, when he joined her after her scrabble over the branch, "You are a nice fellow. I suppose you did not care whether my neck was broken or not." " I knew you were plenty smart," said Lincoln honestly, " to take care of yourself" He paid women in general the compliment of " being plenty smart to look after themselves " ; for in a letter published in the Sangamon "Jour- nal " in I 8 3 6, he stated boldly that he believed in admitting all whites to the " right of suffrage who pay taxes or bear arms ("by no means ex- cluding females^." He was at the time of this utterance already a legislator, having in a second attempt won that distinction. The rise in the world entailed, as each upward step had always entailed for him, yet more debt. He was forced to borrow two hundred dollars in order to travel decently by coach, dressed in proper attire,to the scene of his new labors. On his return to New Salem from the State capital, Vandalia, he was greeted as a coming 23 Lincoln in Illinois man — he who had climbed up that steep river- bank such a short while since, an unknown la- borer on a flatboat. There was no more talk now of being a blacksmith. Toil there was to be for him in plenty, but never again was he to earn his bread with his hands. Eighteen years later he was telling the people : <« There is no permanent class of hired labor among us. Twenty-five years ago, I was a hired laborer. . . . Free labor has the in- spiration of hope." Perhaps it is because Lincoln's story is over- full of discouragements and hardships that the biographers have lingered over a few months of happiness that Fate at last gave to him. He had long known Anne Rutledge, the young daugh- ter of the tavern-keeper. He had known her as one knows a sister in the intimacy of family life. He had known her as a young girl sought by other men. One of them, a hard-headed young business man named McNamar, " with no more poetry than the multiplication table," had won 24 New Salem her promise to be his wife. It was this same man to whom Lincoln had once turned to correct the most glaring flaws in an early political speech. McNamar had left New Salem promising to write and to return soon. Time had gone on and he had not kept either promise. We can well im- agine that the tender heart of the young post- master must have ached for the girl when the weekly mails came in without the letters for which she waited in vain. From comforter he must have drifted insensibly to lover. In time his love was returned. Tradition gives us many a picture of the two: Anne at the quiking frame, Anne at the spinning wheel, Anne sweetly sing- ing hymns, Lincoln ever near. Sometimes, by the light of the fire, they would bend over the precious Kirkham's Grammar. One night Lin- coln wrote on the tide-page in his clear hand, «« Anne M. Rutledge is now learning grammar." The old book is still treasured by Anne's family, the name on the tide-page still legible. 25 Lincoln in Illinois The heat of the prairies can be pitiless. In the year 1835 the rain fell unceasingly, without cooling the air. Heat and rain were followed by a steam that seemed to exude from the earth's pores. The pioneers in the river bottoms shook and burned alternately with " fever and ague." In New Salem good Dr. Allen went from cabin to cabin ministering to the sick. Among those he could not save was young Anne Rutledge. One hot August day her neighbors laid her to rest in the pine coffin some one of the pioneers had fashioned. It was Lincoln's first great grief Dr. Allen found him broken with sorrow, shaking with chills and fever, and sent him to the good squire, Boiling Green, under whose hospitable roof he was nursed back to health. The euphonious name, over whose syllables Lincoln's pen must have lingered lovingly when he wrote it in the old grammar, is all that is en- graved on the boulder that marks the young 26 New Salem girl's grave. Near by a birch tree is growing. To the pilgrim, as he glances back over his shoulder at the quiet spot, the birch, white and slender, is no unfitting reminder of the bride who was never to be. Over eighty momentous years have passed since that sultry August. New Salem has long since vanished from the earth. The traveler who climbs the clay bank of the Sangamon in search of the lost town, finds nothing more, upon reach- ing the summit, than a deserted field, half wood- land, half pasture. Of the cabins nothing is left but a few depressions among the briers. Down the street, where Kelso used to come whistling home with his catch of fish, a drove of horses crop the long grass. The silence is deep, broken only by the call of a blue jay. And yet to the lover of Lincoln this forsaken field speaks of him now and always ; for here, in the span of these few acres, he passed the form- 27 Lincoln in Illinois ative years of his life. Here he found friends who helped him start on his long upward way, giving him work, lending him books and money, endorsing him for postmaster, sending him to the Legislature, and encouraging him by their almost unanimous vote. Well may the horses stray down the lost village street. Well may the jay build her nest in the crotch of the tree where Lincoln's store once stood. New Salem's work was done I III. Moves to Springfield "i?>. THE STATE HOUSE DOME FROM EAST CAPITOL STREET, SPRINGFIELD I Ill MOVES TO SPRINGFIELD When New Salem helped to send Abraham Lincoln to the State Legislature, the sessions were held in Vandalia, a town on the western border- line of Illinois. It was generally agreed that a more central location for the capital was desir- able ; whereupon a bitter contest began for that honor, between a circle of prairie towns. That Springfield was chosen was due largely to Abra- ham Lincoln and eight of his colleagues, nick- named for their stature " The Long Nine." It was natural that Lincoln should favor Springfield. It was situated conveniently near New Salem. It was the home of an ever-increas- ing group of new-made but valuable friends. Major Stuart, a lawyer of Kentucky birth, had been especially kind, lending his young friend law books and encouraging his ambition to enter 31 Lincoln in Illinois the bar. William Butler, a Springfield citizen, was another new friend. Simeon Francis, the ed- itor of the leading Whig newspaper, had shown more than a passing interest when, self-intro- duced, Lincoln had walked from New Salem to present himself in the editorial office. These men and others were all using their utmost in- fluence to make Springfield the capital, so that by joining in their campaign, Lincoln was not only serving his own ends, but helping his good friends as well. In the year 1836, when Lincoln was in the twenty-seventh year of his age and his second term in the Legislature, Springfield won the vic- tory and became the permanent capital of Il- linois. It is easy to imagine the welcome which awaited the men who were responsible for the town's good fortune. As an entertainment, not even the ball that was given in honor of the ar- rival of the Talisman had surpassed the banquet now given «• The Long Nine." The pilot Lincoln, 32 Moves to Springfield in his buckskin breeches, so shrunken that they did not meet his socks by several inches, had not been invited to the ball ; but m the four years that had intervened since that day, Lincoln the legislator, in his «< mixed jeans coat, clawhammer style, flax and tow-linen pantaloons and pot- metal boots," had been making his way upward in the world. Consequently there was no more honored guest at the banquet at the Rural Hotel than the young legislator, «« A. Lincoln, mem- ber from Sangamon." It was not long after this public rejoicing that Lincoln, his entire possessions in his saddlebag, came to Springfield to live. A few months pre- vious he had been admitted to the bar, so that a change of residence was a necessity, as New Salem, flickering to its end, ofi'ered no future to ambition. The Springfield that awaited Lincoln in * 3 7 was a country town boasting less than two thou- sand inhabitants. It was built, in good Western 33 Lincoln in Illinois fashion, about an open square, its mathematical center. This square was destined to hold the future State House. The streets of the town were laid out about the square with the accuracy of a checkerboard. They were unpaved, and in bad weather wagons sunk to their hubs in the black, sticky mire. Sometimes as many as a dozen overshoes were left sticking in the mud to show where ladies had attempted to pick their way over the crossings. When the mud would permit, the young peo- ple of the town used to form in a procession nightly, every girl's arm tucked securely in that of a " beau," and thus mated, walk in the twi- light down the cow paths. The men so out- numbered the girls that very small maidens were sometimes pressed into service. Later, when the twilight died, girls would place lighted candles in their windows as signals that they were at home to such of the beaux as cared to seek their society. 34 OLD BUILDINGS OF LINCOLN'S TIME ON THE WASHINGTON STREET SIDE OF THE GREEN Moves to Springfield Around the central green of the town, a row of two-story buildings straggled. On the lower floors of these, the merchants and bankers trans- acted business. The lofts were used for family residences or for the offices of the professional men. In one of these upper rooms Lincoln com- menced the practice of law as the junior part- ner of Major Stuart. In still another he found lodging with Joshua Speed, a young merchant of the town. On the day Lincoln was admitted to the bar, he went to Speed's store of general merchandise to ask for sufficient credit to buy a bed and its furnishings. «• If my experiment as a lawyer is a success," he said, '< I will pay you by Christmas. If I fail, I do not know that I can ever pay you." Joshua Speed had but a slight acquaintance with this sad-faced, honest customer; but he knew of him favorably by hearsay as a «« won- derful character" who could "outwrestle any 35 Lincoln in Illinois man in the county " and who could " beat any lawyer in Springfield speaking." Speed spoke impulsively, with generous ardor. « I have a large room upstairs," he said, *< with a double bed which you are welcome to share with me." And this, as a contemporary explained, «« because Speed was a Kentucky gen- tleman." Lincoln returned that courtesy of " the Ken- tucky gentleman " with a lifelong devotion. To Speed and to Speed only he confided his inner- most feelings. In the letters that have come down to us, those to Speed are the only ones in which we find record of Lincoln's private life. To Speed he wrote of the troubled course of his betrothal to that woman who afterwards became his wife ; after his marriage it was to Speed he wrote of his children. Not even the strain of opposite po- litical beliefs as to the burning question of the extension of slavery could shake their friendship. 36 Moves to Springfield Lincoln could always sign himself, «« I am your friend forever." When he was President and uneasy over Kentucky's loyalty to the Union, it was to that tried and true old friend he turned. Again and again Speed was summoned to Wash- ington. He had as much to do as any man with keeping Kentucky from secession. And for his services Speed asked nothing for himself He continued to live out his days in Kentucky as an unassuming business man, " fond of flowers," they say, and "with a vein of sentiment." But these days are all to come. Speed and Lincoln we are looking upon in their youth, lodging together like brothers over Speed's gen- eral store. In the evening they keep open house in the store itself Here around the open fire in the rear all the young men of the town were prone to drop in to enjoy vigorous debates upon the live subjects of their day. Our picture of this group would not be com- plete if we did not single out for particular 37 Lincoln in Illinois mention a young man, several years Lincoln's junior, as short as Lincoln is tall, a young man equally ambitious, with piercing blue eyes, a wealth of thick curling hair and a leonine car- riage of the head. He has been a fellow legis- lator with Lincoln in the Vandalia days, though as strong a Democrat as Lincoln was a Whig. At present he holds the position of Register of the Land Office. His name is Stephen A. Doug- las. We shall hear of him again. These young men of Springfield, around Speed's fire, are the whetstones upon which two of the group are unconsciously sharpening the mental weapons they shall draw against each other in days that are still to come. An evening of these debates would leave Speed and Lincoln still glowing, as, after covering the embers of the fire, they made their way to their cold bed in the loft above. Later the two friends exchanged these crude quarters for a comfortable room in the private 38 Moves to Springfield house of William Butler, a prominent citizen of the town, and Lincoln lived on here after Speed had given up his store and returned to his Kentucky home. The children of the But- ler family remembered him as a delightful friend, always willing to toss boys and girls high up in the air in his sinewy young arms. When the oldest of them came down to breakfast in the morning Lincoln was usually to be found, warm- ing himself before the comfortable glow of a Franklin stove, engrossed in the works of Wil- liam Wirt. It was out of compliment to this in- terest that one of the Butler children was named after the famous jurist. Another boy was named Speed. The two perpetuated the memory of the friendship of the two young men sheltered under this hospitable roof It was before this time, in the very early days after Lincoln's removal to Springfield, that he wrote to Mary Owen, that young woman whom he had failed to help over the branch at New 39 Lincoln in Illinois Salem : " This living in Springfield is a dull busi- ness after all, at least it is to me. I am quite as lonesome here as I ever was in my life. I have been spoken to by but one woman since I have been here, and should not have been by her if she could have avoided it. I have never been to church yet and probably shall not be soon. I stay away because I am conscious I should not know how to behave." Lincoln's social deportment, never his strong point, it must be admitted, was at this early day sadly deficient. Poor, awkward, badly dressed, without the graces that appeal to women, no candle flickered its evening welcome to him. It was either just before or just after he came to Springfield to live that Lincoln went to an evening party at Simeon Francis's, the social polish, of which he fek the lack, still unmas- tered. Editor Francis lived on the northern out- skirts of the town in a comfortable house which stood in a spacious lot that boasted a flower 40 Moves to Springfield garden. In central Illinois, with its summers of scorching heat, gardens are not now common. In that early day the shrubs and flowers of the editor's garden were a matter of local wonder and pride. We can picture young Lincoln, therefore, on the night of Simeon Francis's party approaching this somewhat imposing place with feelings of mingled interest and timidity. He pushes open the garden gate, and walks up the path to the door between the shrubs and flowers. A friend of Editor Francis answers for the remainder of the story. The door opens, Lincoln bows his head and enters. He hears laughter from within, the deep voices of men, the lighter voices of women. He catches sight of curls and ribbons, hears the swish of silk. Divining the countryman's embarrassment, Ed- itor Francis hastens forward. His kind glance lights on Lincoln's face with its habitual expres- sion of melancholy, then on his hat which still securely rests on his head. The editor smiles, 41 Lincoln in Illinois and holds out his hand for this offending arti- cle. Lincoln smiles, too, and the smile lights up his plain face until it glows with warmth and life, as he places his hand in that of his host with a clasp firm and cordial, his hat still resting on his dark hair I So he makes his debut into Spring- field society. The Springfield which Lincoln knew has disappeared almost as completely as the New Salem which he left behind him. In Spring- field, now grown into a city of fifty thousand inhabitants, progress has been as destructive as nature. The building in whose second story Stuart & Lincoln had their offices, and that other where Joshua Speed and Lincoln sat before the open fire of the store, are no longer in existence. The house of William Butler, where Lincoln lived after Speed had returned to Kentucky, has also gone its way. The house of Simeon Fran- cis, with its shrubs and roses, has given place 42 Hh\, LITTLE SHOPS OF OLD SPRINGFIELD Moves to Springfield to a theater which claims that corner of the town. We may wander around the square, now neatly paved with brick, and, save for the old State House, look in vain for any of the landmarks that were in Lincoln's time. It is true, they say, that here and there the walls of some of the old buildings still stand, but in the Western passion to be abreast of the time fronts have been torn away and replaced twice and thrice. Glittering plate-glass windows, new doors, added stories, have so changed the appearance of the streets that Lincoln knew, that he himself might well feel lost should his astral form visit these scenes. IV. Houses Lincoln Knew ^'Itf^ THE ROBERT IRWIN HOUSE ON FIFTH STREET IV HOUSES LINCOLN KNEW In the residential portion of old Springfield, time has been a shade less cruel to the land- marks of Lincoln's day. Here and there we come upon houses which once knew his step, houses that opened their doors to him in friendly greeting through many years. This one, with the long steps and wide veranda mounted on its high English basement, was the homestead of Robert Irwin, a merry wag of a man who liked a good game of chess before the fire, who led the campaign singing for Lincoln in '6 1 , mak- ing wry faces to amuse the crowd. He and Lincoln had many a chess game, many a laugh together. Major Stuart's house, with its long veranda, its spacious rooms, has known little change. Stuart's friendship with Lincoln started long be- 47 Lincoln in Illinois fore they became law partners. The two men served together in the skirmish known as the " Black Hawk War " and sat in the Lower House at Vandalia as fellow legislators. Nine years Lincoln's senior, Major Stuart long outlived his friend. A distinguished Congressman, a pol- ished gentleman of the old school, we see him yet, in fancy, walking the streets that Lincoln knew, with a courtly bow for high and low. He once said to a friend with some sadness : "I be- lieve that I am going to live to posterity only as the man who advised Mr. Lincoln to study law and lent him law books. It is a little humili- ating that a man who has served his country in Congress, as well as his State, should have no further claim to remembrance; but I believe this is so." The law firm of Stuart & Lincoln was not of long duration. When Stuart went to Congress in 1 841, Judge Stephen T. Logan, the man who was accounted the best lawyer at the Illinois 48 Houses Lincoln Knew bar, offered a partnership to Lincoln. Judge Lo- gan ««was small in stature, frail in constitution, with a piercing, deep-set eye." He taught Lin- coln much law in the two years that they worked side by side. The house in which Judge Logan lived still stands in its ample grounds. An old lady, who was a child in Lincoln's day, remem- bered that while she was playing there with the Logan children Lincoln called to see the Judge. When he was told that the Judge was out, but would soon be in, he sank provisionally into a rocking-chair so much too small for him that his long legs were thrust out in a manner that made the children laugh. From this seat he watched their game of marbles for a moment or two, then asked for a taw and dropped on the floor among them. Here he was found by the Judge and his wife, and thus the old lady who told the story best remembered him. She used to conclude her reminiscence with a quizzical smile and touch of amusement : " Now, of course, people 49 Lincoln in Illinois think of Lincoln as a great man, as great, I dare say, as Lord Palmerston ! " At one time almost every house in Spring- field could boast of as intimate a remembrance; but one by one these old houses have made way for newer buildings. At this writing few that knew Lincoln's step still stand. One that Spring- field knows to-day as the residence of the late Bishop Seymour was in Lincoln's time the house of John Owsley. Its classic white pillars, rising from the ground to the roof, reminded the pass- er-by that its owner, who was a Kentuckian, had tried as far as possible to make this new home re- semble the Southern mansion he had left behind him. Lincoln was often a guest within these doors, though in his own Kentucky days such mansions as this had been all unknown to him. At a wedding that occurred here, Mr. Owsley's young daughter was put in charge of two lively twin brothers. Just as the ceremony was about to begin, she missed them and searched for them 50 THE OWSLEY HOUSE Houses Lincoln Knew in vain until she spied their gleeful faces high above the crowd. And then she saw that her charges were perched on Lincoln's shoulders, from which vantage-point they enjoyed the cere- mony. The house that is richest in reminiscences of Lincoln stands next door to the Owsley home. It is an old brick mansion of mid-Victorian ar- chitecture which, when Lincoln came to Spring- field, was one of the finest residences in the State. Already its days are numbered, but before it goes down before the pitiless demands of an expanding community, we may pause for its story, for the vision of the days when, with its conservatory, its rosewood and mahogany fur- niture, covered with haircloth or brocatelle, its gold-banded china and solid silver, its splendor was the pride of the countryside. The owner of this house was Ninian Ed- wards, son of an early Governor of the new State of Illinois, and himself a politician of note. He 51 Lincoln in Illinois had been a member of the Legislature several times and had borne an active part in the cam- paign to remove the capital to Springfield. Whether it was through association with Ed- wards in the Legislature, or through the kind offices of Speed that Lincoln first found his way to the hospitable Edwards home, is not known. It is more than likely that he made his first ap- pearance there as a guest at one of the semi- annual receptions which Mrs. Edwards made a point of holding for the Legislature. This lady, a Todd of Kentucky, was famous for her entertainments. Whether one was asked to the ball or the " promenade," the cheer was equally good. Fifty years after, when these par- ties were merely a memory, the hostess's sal- ads were mentioned with respect ; and the occa- sions when they were served were recalled with pride. That rural legislator who approached his hostess with, " I am obliged to leave on the nine o'clock train and would be pleased to have you 52 Houses Lincoln Knew give me my supper early," crudely epitomized the general appreciation. The attraction for Lincoln in the year '39, however, was neither the ball, the promenade, nor the cheer. His visits were plainly inspired by Mrs. Edwards's sister, Mary Todd, of Ken- tucky, a girl who had fled a stepmother to accept the shelter of a sister's home. She was a bright- eyed, well-educated girl with the reputation of a sharp tongue in a day when, as a contempo- rary explained, " a retort was well thought of" An old lady remembered vividly the evening party at which Mary Todd first appeared in Springfield in a dashing costume of white bob- binet with black velvet sash and tie. She used to smile slyly over the memory of some retort Mary Todd had made that very night to a young man who essayed a battle of wits with her. The party had been peculiarly marked for the old lady, — who was then a very young lady, — not only by Miss Todd's brilliant entry, but by the fact that 53 Lincoln in Illinois upon this evening the first pyramid cake ap- peared. What miraculous confections they were, those pyramid cakes of Mary Todd's and Lin- coln's youth. Cakes of graduated size, placed one on top of another like children's blocks, composed the glistening whole. Four and five stories high they rose in frosted splendor in the centers of long tables. Thirty-six eggs could be used in their making. A morning was none too long for a child to wield a fly-brush while the icing dried. The old lady who remembered the simulta- neous appearance of Mary Todd and the pyra- mid cake could not recollect that Lincoln had been present at that first party. Stephen A. Douglas, one of the rising politicians of the State, was more likely to have been there. The third and last of Lincoln's future law partners, young William Herndon, may well have been among the guests. He tells, in his famous " Life of 54 THE NINIAN EDWARDS HOUSE, IN WHICH LINCOLN WAS MARRIED Houses Lincoln Knew Lincoln," of dancing with Mary Todd upon another evening soon after and of unwittingly calling forth one of her sharp retorts. He was as a man and also as a writer much given to flowery language, with figures not always well chosen. In would-be gallantry he said to Miss Todd : " You glide through the dance with the ease of a serpent." With a flashing eye and a stern •« An unfortunate comparison truly," Mary Todd stopped short. This well may have been the beginning of a long misunderstanding between Lincoln's fu- ture wife and Lincoln's future law partner. Cer- tain it is that they did not like each other and that Mary Todd has suffered grievously in Herndon's hands. Apparently Lincoln gave no such offense. His visits were encouraged, even in those days when Stephen A. Douglas joined Miss Todd's train, paying her what the world of that day called " particular court." Both Lincoln and Lincoln in Illinois Douglas, in that rivalry which ran through their lives, had their turn sitting on the mahogany divans, upholstered in patterned haircloth, un- der the light of Mrs. Edwards's sperm-oil lamps. At the end of the year Lincoln was the victor, his engagement to Miss Todd being generally understood. But the old house that had seen Lincoln's love-making and Douglas's " court," was to see also a girl's tears. The engagement did not run smoothly. A year and more of estrangement ensued during which Lincoln's step was not heard on the threshold nor his place claimed at Mrs. Edwards's hospitable board. More grace- ful figures than his sat beside Miss Todd on the slippery surfaces of the horsehair sofas. The year of estrangement was perhaps the most wretched of Lincoln's life. Racked with doubts as to his own feelings, he seems to have been further distressed by his anxiety as to what Mary Todd might be suffering. He wrote out 56 Houses Lincoln Knew his heart to Speed, and at one time went to Kentucky to pay him a visit. How it might all have ended we cannot guess, had it not been for the intrepidity of Mrs. Simeon Francis, the wife of the editor, who had long been Lincoln's friend. Perhaps she was the girl's confidante and knew her to be constant to Lincoln. Per- haps she had grown weary of the young legis- lator's woe-begone countenance. In any event, she boldly took fate in her own hands. She gave an evening party with the express purpose of bringing the estranged pair together. When they met, awkwardly enough, embarrassed to find themselves in each other's presence so un- expectedly, Mrs. Francis briskly crossed their hands, with " Be friends again,'* and left them to work out their own salvation. Those hands were destined never again to be unlocked. In the weeks that followed, they used to meet in Mrs. Francis's pleasant rooms, safe here from comment and observation. One rainy 57 Lincoln in Illinois morning — the 4th of November of that same year — Ninian Edwards appeared breathlessly at the house of his brother, Benjamin Edwards, an imposing mansion near the northern bound- ary of the town that to-day does duty as an art museum. His sister-in-law, a young woman lately from the East, hastened to welcome him. " I met Lincoln awhile ago," Ninian Edwards began at once, " and he told me that he and Mary were to be married to-night at the parsonage. I told him that this would n't do, that if Mary was to be married, it must be from my house." The sister-in-law was silent, lost in astonish- ment. She had supposed that the engagement of Lincoln and Mary Todd had been perma- nently broken. She had been long enough in the West, however, to know that a hasty wedding meant much labor for the family in a town where the local confectioner's stock consisted of noth- ing more festive than gingerbread and beer. She hastened to Mrs. Ninian Edwards's, and, with 58 THE BENJAMIN EDWARDS HOUSE Houses Lincoln Knew the help of other friends and neighbors, a boun- teous old-time supper was prepared. When the guests arrived that evening, Mrs. Edwards was ready for them. Hams and cakes were arrayed on the sideboard in the fashion of the day. Mary Todd had borrowed a wed- ding dress of a sister and stood, with three brides- maids, white and shining in conventional silk. The bridegroom, the lank <« plebeian" who had won Mary Todd's heart, entered soon after with Mr. and Mrs. Butler, those friends who had shared their home with him since his early Springfield days. Only a short hour since, Mrs. Butler, resplendent in a green satin gown, had stood on tiptoe to tie the bridegroom's necktie, determined, perhaps, in her motherly care of him, that for once his appearance should defy criticism. The Butler children hung about him to the last. When the door closed upon him, they knew that he would not return to their roof again; the morning would not find him reading 59 Lincoln in Illinois the works of William Wirt before the Franklin stove. And so Lincoln, in his carefully tied cravat, stood by his bride between the folding doors of the wide double parlors, and made the solemn vows. "Love is eternal" was engraved on the ring he slipped on her plump little hand. This was the greatest night the old house was ever to know, though the guests who fluttered about the bride were so all-unconscious of its importance. To them it meant only that Mary Todd had chosen to ally herself with a young lawyer with scarcely a penny to his name, his scanty income helped out by the per diem of a State legislator. They asked one another in whis- pers why Douglas had not been her choice. In the long years between this day and Lin- coln's departure for Washington to be inaugu- rated President, he and his wife were many times to seek again this door; for Mrs. Edwards's hospitality flowed on through the years, her spa- 60 Houses Lincoln Knew cious rooms being ever thrown wide to welcome friends and honor renown. It must have been some time after Lincoln's nomination for the Presidency that, at one of Mrs. Edwards's balls, a fiery Southern girl, vis- iting in the town, railed at <'this Lincoln, who wants to put niggers on a level with white peo- ple." A laughing youth took her then and there to meet Lincoln, whom they came upon in a card-room, surrounded by his usual court. Lincoln met the girl with kindness, and lis- tened with patience, seeming to see reflected in her fury and misunderstanding the fury and misunderstanding of the South itself. He took the pains to explain his attitude on slavery quite clearly and plainly to her before she went back to her dancing. " I did not know Lincoln would be like that," was her contrite remark. And that memory the house has folded away with many others — a mere sketch in its great book of recollections that ends with those days 6i Lincoln in Illinois when Mary Lincoln came back to these rooms that had known her girlhood, to live out her broken days, shattered by the loss of her hus- band and three of her children. She used to shut out the sun, choosing to live instead in the dim light of candles as if to say that their feeble flicker sufficed to light her on her way in these dark days of her life. Perhaps it was because to her darkened mind she found that, by shutting away a reality stern and grim, she could better lose herself in the visions of the past, when, gay, spirited, and happy, in white bobbinet and black velvet, she danced to the lively strains of the fiddles while the old house echoed her gay retorts. V. The Lincoln Home V.