LI E> RAR.Y OF THE UNIVERSITY Of ILLINOIS 977.2 InZ !UL HIST. SURVH Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://archive.org/details/environmentofabr83igle THE ENVIRONMENT OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN INDIANA WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE DE BRULER FAMILY BY JOHN E. IGLEHART EUGENIA EHRMANN Indiana Historical Society Publications Volume 8 Number 3 INDIANAPOLIS PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY 1925 Copyright, 1926 John E. Iglehart s~> Jj ' A * j Us-^4J . <3i — a*- m HOLOGRAPH LETTER, SIGNE]D, OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. REFERRING TO HIS "OLD BOYHOOD HOME" IN SOUTHWESTERN INDIANA. By Courtesy of Arthur G. Mitten. Goodland, Indiana, Owner of the Original. THE ENVIRONMENT OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN INDIANA By John E. Iglehart Before the organization of the Southwestern Indiana Historical Society, in 1920, Spencer County had been searched for historical material upon Abraham Lincoln, and much of little value had been written, but not much research had been made there by resident workers other than Mrs. Bess V. Ehrmann. This society early devoted its attention to what has been called "The Lincoln Inquiry." The thirteen years in which Abraham Lincoln lived in southern Indiana, years in which he developed from childhood to manhood, obviously contributed much to the formation of his character, his ideas, and his habits. The Inquiry concerns itself with the influ- ences, general and personal, to which he was exposed during these years. The difficulties of the Inquiry are great: much of the evidence was never put into writing, much that was written has perished, and the Spencer County courthouse, with many records of importance, was burned shortly after the Lincolns moved away. At present, we are working upon two lines ; the general condition of frontier pioneer life in which Abraham Lincoln grew to maturity, and the biographies of the men whom the Lincolns knew or might fairly be pre- sumed to know. Both of these lines are involved in a study of Lemuel O. DeBruler and his family. (147) 148 The Environment of Abraham Lincoln The Frontier The frontier has of late years come to be recognized as one of the most important factors in American history. Its influence upon individual character is capable of scientific study ; it need not be a matter of mere speculation. Our western literature of the early time is scant, but there were a few writers whose vision was prophetic of the future, whose descriptions are applicable to the class of people who helped create the environment of Abraham Lincoln in Indiana, and who belonged to the locality and the people of whom Lowell speaks as "strong men with empires in their brains." These writers forecast what appears to be the foundation of the doctrines of Frederick J. Turner and James Truslow Adams in their interpretation of the frontier in American history, doctrines original with this generation, but now almost universally accepted. Willis Mason West, in his History of the American People, says : "Dr. Turner is the first true in- terpreter of the frontier in our history." 1 Many other authorities might be cited, but the extraordinary recommenda- tion of Turner by James Truslow Adams in his Revolutionary New England, applying Turner's doctrines to the history of New England, with his acknowledgement to Dr. Turner, is sufficient authority for my purpose. Our earlier national histories were for the most part written by New Englanders from a sectional view point which over- estimated Puritan influence in the development of national democracy and, so far as I have read, did not disclose the dom- inating influence of the pioneers even in the development of the states of the old Northwest Territory. 2 But before the New 1 Willis Mason West, History of the American People, 270 (New York, 1918.) 2 Woodrow Wilson, "The Course of American History" in Mere Literature and Other Essays, 218 (Cambridge Press, 1896). Samuel McChord Crothers, "The Land of the Large and Charitable Air," in The Pardoner's Wallett, 148 (New York, 1905). John E. Iglehart, "The Coming of the English to Indiana in 181 7 and Their Hoosier Neighbors," Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. XV, pp. 144, 146. The Environment of Abraham Lincoln 149 England historians and writers generally have seemed to take cognizance of Turner's great interpretation, Adams adopts it in principle as Turner applied it to the "New West." Adams accepts its great influence upon American democracy and American character, including the Atlantic Coast states, and applies this interpretation to the history of Revolutionary New England. 3 The earlier eastern historians did scant justice to, and the American public was slow to recognize, the work of the west- ern pioneer in American democracy. Full references have been made by me to this subject in printed addresses. 4 Evidences of a change of attitude are multiplying. The Columbia University Extension Home Study Department is now (1925) announc- ing a radio course upon "The Frontier in American History," in which attention is called to the continuing factors in the expansion of the American people from the time when a fringe of Europe was established along the Atlantic coastline of North America. "The main theme is to be the westward emigration, the occupation of a vast continent, the pressing forward of the frontiers and its part in the building of the 3 See the acknowledgment to Dr. Turner in James Truslow Adams, Revolutionary Nezv England, 1691-1776, p. 9, note (The Atlantic Monthly- Press, 1923). Mr. Adams' earlier work, The Founding of New England (1921) for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the best Ameri- can history of the year 1921, is but a portion of Adams' history, com- pleted in his Revolutionary New England, hailed by many as the best treatise on the history of New England in the seventeenth century writ- ten for scholar and general reader alike. 4 Inaugural Address as President of the Southwestern Indiana His- torical Society, February 23, 1920, Indiana Historical Commission, Bulle- tin No. 16, pp. 85 ff (October, 1922), Proceedings of the Southzvestern Indiana Historical Society; Annual address of the President, January 31, 1922, ibid., pp. 10-21 ; Annual address of the President, February 28, 1923, Bulletin No. 18, pp. 63-88, (October 1923), Proceedings of the Southzvestern Indiana Historical Society; also Indiana Magazine of His- tory, Vol. XV, p. 144; Ibid., Vol. XVII, pp. 138-39, wherein is criti- cized the attitude of Albert Bushnell Hart, who, as editor of Turner's Rise of the New West, ignores the vision of Turner upon which his fame must always rest, and upon which James Truslow Adams lays the foundation of his Revolutionary New England. See also paper of Mrs. Charles T. (Dierdre Duff) Johnson, "Moses Ashworth, Pioneer," Bulletin No. 18, p. 94 (October. T923), Proceedings of the Southzvestern Indiana Historical Society. 150 The Environment of Abraham Lincoln nation. 1 '" 1 The book recommended for reading in the course, David S. Muzzey's An American History, seeks to represent ''the newer tendencies in historical writing." Of three special features put forward, one is the emphasis "on the westward- moving frontier as the most constant and potent force in our history." 6 Lecture V of this course adopts the title Dr. Turner has given to his book, "The Rise of the New West," and suggests as readings to supplement the lecture, a large portion of Dr. Turner's book. Mr. Simeon Strunsky, a very versatile and able essayist and book reviewer, and a regular contributor to the New York Times Book Review, in a recent article finds occasion to refer to the subject of the Frontier in American History, and writes of it as one system which is in its beginnings but which seems to be rapidly forg- ing to the front. It had its first application in the rewriting of the his- tory of the American people. When fully developed it may come to be known as the Philosophy of the Frontier. The seed was sown a genera- tion ago by Professor Turner's essay on "The Significance of the Fron- tier in American History." Among those who have cultivated the ground is Professor Paxson, whose latest volume on the subject has just won the Pulitzer prize in history. The pioneer in the role of chief architect of the national spirit and of the nation's annals, now confronts us in the textbooks everywhere ; * * * * Recent historical writings have emphasized the importance of frontier conditions in the development of American life. * * * * Professor Turner and his successors have established beyond doubt that the frontier has been a force for democ- racy and radicalism in our history. It has nurtured a militant individual- ism, as against the trend in the older and richer part of the country toward caste and vested interest. 7 A valuable scrap of testimony is furnished by a most un- willing witness, which adds to it weight for that reason. The only instance I have found anywhere of any person chal- lenging the Turner doctrine, as it may for convenience be 5 The course is given by John A. Krout, instructor in History, De- partment of University Extension, Columbia University, from Station WEAF, New York, through the co-operation of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. 6 Editorial preface, revised edition, 1920. 7 "About Books, More or Less: Frontiers and Limits," New York Times Book Review, July 5, 1925, p. 4. The Environment of Abraham Lincoln 151 called, is in a magazine article which, for the purpose of deny- ing the truth of this doctrine and contradicting the weight of authority conceded to be wholly against the writer, states : For thirty years American historical thought has been dominated by the frontier shibboleth. The theory means, in all essential particulars, that the controlling factor in American life and character has been the frontier. First pronounced by Professor Frederick J. Turner, at a meet- ing of the American Historical Association in 1892, it has come to be generally accepted and to serve as the chief guide to historical interpre- tation. No one has criticized it, no one has questioned it. 8 William Henry Milburn, the blind man eloquent, and Judge James Hall lived among the western people, were in sympathy with them, and have left truthful descriptions of the pioneer in the old Northwest, as well as in Kentucky, where the Indian wars during the Revolution were, at so great cost, won chiefly by the backwoodsmen of the Alleghenies. Milburn's eloquent and profound interpretation of the life and character of the westerner, his description of the characteristics of the western mind and of the schooling of the wilderness are true to life, as are also Judge James Hall's fine descriptions of the western people among whom he lived. 9 We have also fair and im- partial accounts of the backwoodsmen of the Alleghenies by Roosevelt, to whom the descendants of the "Men of the Western Waters," among whom are the active members of the Southwestern Indiana Historical Society, recognize a last- ing obligation. The western type of mind and character was fully developed in Abraham Lincoln. The educating influence of wilderness life affected him in his development in Spencer County from the age of seven to twenty-one ; long before the latter age he showed a maturity far above that of the average man of twenty-one years. 8 John C. Almack, "The Shibboleth of the Frontier," in The Histori- cal Outlook, May, 1925, p. 197. Dr. Almack is a professor of history at Leland Stanford University. 9 See William Henry Milburn, The Pioneers, Preachers and People of the Mississippi Valley (New York, i860), and The Pioneer Preacher (New York, 1858) ; James Hall, Legends of the West (Cincinnati, 1869), and The Romance of Western History (Cincinnati, 1869). 152 The Environment of Abraham Lincoln It had affected Lincoln's ancestors, who had been for several generations backwoodsmen of the Alleghenies and men of the western waters, so finely described by Roosevelt, and who, according to the same writer, were of a distinct race or type of men resembling each other more than they resembled pioneers in any other part of the country. It affected your ancestors and mine. "The Lincoln type in figure, movement, features, facial make-up, simplicity of speech and thought, gravity of coun- tenance, and integrity and truthfulness of life, as it stands accredited by the vast number of writers on Lincoln, is in a substantial degree to-day [and has been from the beginnings of the State] a Hoosier type in southern Indiana. It may still be found in the judge on the bench, the lawyer at the bar, the preacher in the pulpit, and others descended from pioneer stock who are forceful and intelligent leaders of the common people." 10 The majesty and splendor of the lonely forest or boundless prairie, nature's primeval forms, yet untainted and undese- crated by the play of human passions and human appetites, fresh from the hand of the Creator, impart to the human soul a grandeur and a nobility of character scarcely acquired in the pursuits of trade or commerce, or in the common, fixed, and plodding occupations of every day life. There is given a peculiar muscularity to the form, and vigor to the step, and freshness to the thought. The will is un- trammeled, scarcely even limited by the thought of any im- possibility ; self-reliance is developed to the very highest point, with an independence of action and being outside of all human aids. The pioneer learns to preserve and cultivate the very utmost of the vast self-supporting powers of humanity. He must depend upon himself ; if he is wanting to himself, he is lost. A new country demands courage, decision, habits of keen 10 John F. Iglehart, "The Coming of the English to Indiana in 1817, and Their Hoosier Neighbors," in Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. XV, p. 146. The Environment of Abraham Lincoln 153 and sleepless observation ; fertility of resource and versatile employment of various powers to suit changing occasions, are the well-defined characteristics of pioneer life. 11 There was a deep human sympathy between the western pioneers, who were compelled to share with each other, to aid each other in sickness and distress, far removed from the com- forts and necessities of the older sections of the country. Historians agree that the wilderness life of this period developed the individuality of the pioneer in an extraordinary manner, that he was impatient of restraint, which was in many forms so obnoxious to him that to escape it was one of his reasons for having left the Atlantic Coast or European life forever behind him. This applied to religious, social, econom- ic, and political conditions, in which, as a pioneer in the remote backwoods on free land, under free institutions, he began life anew and created new conditions. He did this so well that he laid enduring foundations for an agricultural democracy which greatly modified the democracy of the At- lantic coast states, dominated as they were in so many par- ticulars by the influences of European life. New conditions, continually recurring with each advancing wave of western emigration, reacted continuously on the set- tlements farther east by modifying old conditions and creating conditions new in part in American democracy, bearing the impress in a substantial degree of the individuality of the pioneer. The earlier generation may be described in Milburn's words as "men strong of frame, compact and muscular, Herculean of stature, of dauntless courage, of determination incapable of discouragement or fear, carrying their lives in their hands, ready, if necessary, to crimson the soil of that new world with their heart's blood. There is hardly a more striking commentary upon, or interpretation of, the pristine radical elements of Anglo-Saxon character in the whole range of the records of our race, than is to be found in the history of 1:l Milburn, Pioneers, Preachers and People of the Mississippi Valley, 253- 154 The Environment of Abraham Lincoln its occupancy of Kentucky and the Northwestern Territory." 12 They were — women as well as men — heroes of heroic blood, who left the Atlantic Coast states, dissatisfied with political and economic conditions and the poisonous germs of European civilization found in Colonial life, as well as Euro- pean life, and who sought the wilderness far beyond the mountains for a new beginning for themselves and their children. They felt the breaking of the ties with kindred whom they scarcely expected to see (and seldom did) again, as the pathetic letters I have found among their papers show. They left all the comforts of old world community life be- hind them to struggle with the forces of nature and the danger of wild beasts even after the Indians were gone. Women as well as men were heroic. Both of my grand- mothers succumbed prematurely to the hardships of wilderness life. One left an infant child ; the other did not live to see all her children grown to full age. My mother said that while she lived in the wilderness of Warrick County, until she moved to Evansville in 1849, she always kept a watchful eye upon her little ones who were able to wander in the dooryard for fear some straggling bear or wolf would pick them up. Such was the schooling of the wilderness and of frontier life which the DeBrulers learned. Such also was the school- ing of the parents from whom they inherited not only dis- tinguished ability, but sturdy character and heroic blood as well. Of these writes Walt Whitman, the poet, prophet, and in- terpreter of the life of the new race in the new world created in the advancing frontier: All the past we leave behind, We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world, Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march, Pioneers ! O pioneers ! Have the elder races halted? Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas? 12 Milburn, Pioneers, Preachers and People of the Mississippi Val- ley, 255. The Environment of Abraham Lincoln 155 We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson, Pioneers ! O pioneers ! O you daughters of the West! O you young and elder daughters ! O you mothers and you wives ! Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united, Pioneers ! O pioneers ! O to die advancing on ! Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come? Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill'd, Pioneers ! O pioneers ! Neighbors of the Lincolns in Indiana I was once asked, in the spirit of critical inquiry, to name some person of importance in southwestern Indiana whom Lincoln might have known. The absence of easily accessible historical data on that point, and a failure to appreciate scattered facts known to exist and now being gathered to- gether, seemed to raise a presumption that Lincoln's associa- tions in Spencer County were almost wholly among the lowest type of society, that type described by Dr. Frederick J. Turner, the father of Western history, as only the "scum which the advancing wave of civilization bore before it." I regard it, therefore, as one of the most important, if not the most important, parts of the "Lincoln Inquiry" to collect a series of biographies of known neighbors of the Lincoln family in Indiana. 1 " My preparation of this sketch ot the DeBruler family has opened to me a line of work in this ]3 There exists yet, not given to the public, a mass of priceless source material relating to the early life of Abraham Lincoln, which has been gathered during a life of earnest devotion to the work by Jesse W. Weik of Greencastle, who collaborated with Herndon in the invaluable life of Lincoln and who is recognized as having contributed independently in his publication to Lincoln literature, as well as to pre- serving this source material, much of it personally gathered by Mr. Weik, and to this he has added by preserving original writings of the earliest work dating since Lincoln's death. It is an enormous com- pilation of about twelve hundred pages, which was made at the right time when no other person had collected, and which cannot now be duplicated. An interpretation of this evidence when Mr. Weik gives it to the public, which it is hoped he may do, will be in my opinion necessary to an understanding of the life and character of Abraham Lincoln. 156 The Environment of Abraham Lincoln direction more fruitful than I had anticipated, a line of con- trolling importance in the Inquiry and one which must be followed up. Enough has already been accomplished to make the assumption alluded to utterly untenable. Mrs. Bess V. Ehrmann in a paper upon "The Lincoln Inquiry" read at a meeting of the Southwestern Indiana His- torical Society, October 14, 1924, near Lincoln City in Spencer County, gave a description of, and bibliographical references to, the thirty-four papers on the records of the society at that time. Together with the poems of Mrs. Albion Fellows Bacon upon Lincoln read at the same meeting, it has attracted atten- tion both in and out of the state. 14 Calls from students and prominent historical workers for copies of it show the interest it has aroused. Two editorials may be cited which express acceptance of our interpretation of the data presented : In this exceedingly valuable paper Mrs. Ehrmann summarized all the papers presented to or written by members of the Southwestern Indiana Historical Society upon the Lincoln family in Indiana. The mere recital showed what a large part the society has played in establishing the repu- tation of the Lincoln family and of Abraham Lincoln himself, as respect- able members of an energetic, forward-looking community, whose worth was recognized by their neighbors. 15 As a result of the ''Inquiry" thirty-four papers have been written in the last four years, some of them published in the local press. Some of them give the history of families with whom Lincoln was intimately as- sociated. Others record stories of Lincoln which have been handed down in families living in the Lincoln neighborhood ; some include letters and documents of Lincoln which have been in the possession of people in Spencer county ; sketches of men of prominence with whom Lincoln came in contact in his residence there. . . . [The conclusion reached in this inquiry as summarized by Mrs. Ehrmann is] that Lincoln availed himself of all the opportunities exist- ing in pioneer life in that section when he lived in Indiana. He knew many of the people who lived within a reasonable distance of his home, 14 This paper and Mrs. Bacon's poems were printed in the Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. XXI, pp. iff. Mrs. Bess V. Ehrmann, from the beginning of the Southwestern Indiana Historical Society, has been among the leaders and practical workers in it, always on the executive committee, and for several years secretary of the society. No person has been more active in its work. 15 Christopher B. Coleman, Director of the Indiana Historical Com- mission in Indiana History Bulletin, Vol. II, No. 2 (November, 1924), pp. 23-24. The Environment oe Abraham Lincoln 157 which for that time might be considered fifty miles. He knew about all who were worth knowing among them. Abraham Lincoln knew pretty well all that was worth knowing in his locality in 1830 and within that radius, and all that could be learned by reading the papers, intelligent inquiry and personal acquaintance with the better class of people whose history has not (with honorable exceptions) been properly recorded up to the organization of this society. This work, which is not yet finished, may well be suggested as a working model for any local historical so- ciety in the state. 16 Judging from Mrs. Ehrmann's paper, it seems that the final solution of the Lincoln Inquiry will not be a difficult matter, nor long delayed, but only awaits the continuation of this society's work. This fact is recognized by historians, such as Ida Tarbell, who are enthusiastically in sympathy with our work. After the publication of Mrs. Bess Ehrmann's paper and the poems on Lincoln in Indiana by Airs. Albion Fellows Bacon, I sent a copy of the magazine to Miss Ida Tarbell, who supplementing many previous splendid tributes to the work of our society, says in part in her letter of May 13, 1925, to the writer: I like Mrs. Bacon's poem, and Mrs. Ehrmann's paper is a valuable contribution. I am more and more interested in your Lincoln inquiry, and the longer I roll over the idea in my mind, the more convinced I am not only that it is the right approach to any study of Lincoln in South- western Indiana, but that it is probably a much wider and richer field than any of our biographers have yet appreciated. I hope you will keep the Inquiry alive. With the Society behind you, as you say it is, and with such a fine corps of workers, I am sure you are going to convince the thoughtful people, sooner or later, that all of our present treatments of Abraham Lincoln in Indiana are inadequate. Ida Tarbell's book, In the Footsteps of the Lincolns, printed in advance in various newspapers in the summer and fall of 1923, and issued in book form February, 1924, contained, ac- cording to the announcements, and correctly, two reasons for a new book on Lincoln, one the story of seven generations of Lincoln's courageous, hardy, industrious pioneer ancestors, and the other the story of his own early manhood. The latter, the story of Lincoln in Indiana (chapter 12, p. 139) is the heart of ]6 Kate Milner Rabb, in the Indianapolis Star, November 26, 1924. 158 The Environment of Abraham Lincoln her book. On page 150 she discloses a new field to biographers in the interpretations and work of this Society. Carl Sandburg's new book. The Unfathomed Lincoln, is now (while this article is in the hands of the printer) coming from the press in advance publication, beginning in the October, 1925 number of the Pictorial Review, with an important fore- word in the preceding September number. The second install- ment, the November number, contains a most important sum- mary of facts and knowledge and opportunities accessible to and appropriated by young Lincoln after he left Kentucky in 1816 and before he moved to Illinois in 1830. Sandburg's story so far printed (December, 1925) is freed from the bias of the Kentucky historians and is one showing deep human sympathies, and to some extent the vision of an interpreter of many vital influences which undoubtedly greatly influenced the "awakening of Abraham Lincoln," as Tarbell's chapter twelve calls it. The history of "Lincoln in Indiana" has been written by Rev. J. Edward Murr, a southern Indiana man from the Lin- coln country and of the Lincoln type, a man of high character who has spent much time among Lincoln's neighbors, in the Indiana Magazine of History, beginning with volume 13, page 307, and continued in volume 14, pages 13 and 148. This work, like everything else relating to Abraham Lincoln in Indiana, has attracted too little attention, but must soon receive full consid- eration, for its value is very great. He also has in a sense the vision of an interpreter ; some of his conclusions are, in my judgment, of real value and will be ultimately accepted by the historians as correct, and some evidence preserved by him is of supreme value. In my address delivered November 17, 1925, at Princeton, Indiana, at the fall meeting of the Southwestern Indiana His- torical Society, not yet published, I spoke inter alia at some length upon this important subject, embracing also certain later and more specific statements by the Reverend Mr. Murr made by him at my request in matters of evidence of supreme im- portance already referred to in his history. The Environment of Abraham Lincoln 159 Information is accumulating about the outstanding contem- poraries of Abraham Lincoln in Spencer County ; Lemuel Q. and James P. DeBruler, Daniel Grass, Thomas B., and Alex- ander Britton, John W . Graham, John Pitcher, and others. 17 These men, with many others then in Spencer County, were equal to the best pioneer settlers in any of the new states. To them public attention is now directed in the searchlight of the Lincoln Inquiry. I have no doubt Abraham Lincoln knew most, if not all, of these people. They were not hard to get acquainted with in that wilderness life. In addition it is contemplated by some of our ablest workers to have sketches, more or less complete as facts justify, of a large number of the prominent families living between Cory- don and New Harmony, and north as far as Jasper, then called Enlow's Hill. There was free communication between the Lincolns and the Enlows. This would aid in building up the intellectual side of Lincoln's environments. It would furnish side lights that led Lincoln in his search for knowl- edge. The movement of persons and trade north, south, east, and west in southwestern Indiana, influencing the people of Spencer County in the third decade and connecting them directly with Boonville, Evansville, Princeton, New Harmony, and Vincennes, furnished full opportunities necessary for a man of Abraham Lincoln's type, as the world now knows him, to obtain the experience, information, and knowledge which he is known to have acquired when he reached the state of Illinois, and for the existence of which no other explanation has been or can be given. By this I mean that for the space of fifty miles or greater in all directions from the Lincoln farm, contact with people and sources of information were accessible to Lincoln. Vincennes was still the mother city of a large territory. Nearly all of the public men of Indiana, commonwealth builders, were then living in southern Indiana, l7 See list in History of Warrick, Spencer and Perry Counties, 258 f f (Chicago, 1885). 160 The Environment of Abraham Lincoln a considerable number of them in Vincennes and Corydon, some of them in New Harmony, Princeton, Evansville, Boon- ville, and Rockport. There was a stage line from Evansville to Vincennes after 1824, continuously making two trips a week each way until railroads were built. Evansville was the receiving and discharging point for New Orleans, and the Ohio River traffic for Vincennes and southwestern Indiana and intermediate territory, as well as a wider territory, as newspaper advertisements of the time show. New Harmony was during that time at its zenith, a point of world-wide importance, where resided men of national reputation and where high intellectual standards were main- tained in both magazine and newspaper literature then pub- lished. In 1822, a road was built from New Harmony to Boonville, across Vanderburgh County, in two sections, one section extending from the Warrick County line to the Posey County line, centering in Saundersville, the heart of the first British settlement in Indiana. Corydon was the state capital until 1825, and after the capital was moved to Indianapolis, it was still the residence of many prominent people, and travel was continuous between that point and Vincennes and Evansville by roads which went past the Lincoln farm. As a medium of communication and as a present source of information, attention should be called to the weekly news- papers published from 1820 to 1830 in Evansville, New Har- mony, Vincennes and Corydon, the files of which are now accessible, and perhaps for other periods also, though complete files are not preserved. 18 George R. Wilson of Dubois County, high authority on the history of this period and location, in a letter to the writer, says that there is proof that the Lincolns had acquaintances in Dubois County. While revising this paper, I have, in answer to a letter ^Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. XV, pp. 138-43, and notes. In- diana Historical Commission, Bulletin No. 18, pp. 73 ff, Proceedings of Southwestern Indiana Historical Society. The Environment of Abraham Lincoln 161 informing him of my intention to quote him, received from Mr. Wilson a letter almost all of which I quote: Judge L. Q. DeBruler was a leading lawyer and judge at the Du- bois county bar. The name DeBruler is remembered in Dubois county with high honors and profound respect. A few American pioneers of the family name yet live in Dubois county and they are unusually highly respected. The Condits were hotel people at Jasper. It seems to me I can locate a Condit grave among the Enlows, in the City Cemetery at Jasper. James H. Condit in 1840, conducted the Indiana Hotel, where it now stands, at the S. W. corner of 5th and Jackson Street, Jasper. When our courthouse was destroyed by fire August 17, 1839, court was held at the Condit Hotel, and Judge L. Q. DeBruler was an attorney at that court. 19 Dubois county was unusually closely connected with Spencer and Warrick counties. We drew many of our American pioneers from Spen- cer and Warrick. Before 1830, there were no Germans in Dubois county. When they came many Americans returned to Spencer and Warrick counties. There came from Warrick county (as land owners) such men as John J. Chappell, Jerome B. Bristow, Byram E. L. Condit. David Evans, John Armstrong Graham, Christopher C. Heath, Sam'l A. Hull, Jesse Hubbard, Philip Huber, Jonathan H. Julian, Benj. F. Julian, Levi Lock- hart, Benj. McCool, Larkin Montgomery, Timothy Nolan, Samuel Palmer and John W. Shrode. There came from Spencer county, as land owners, Richmond L. Crosley, John Garland, Wm. Jones, Thos. G. Kissinger, Valentine Licht, Henry C. McKinley, Alford Mylor, Stephen Ravenscraft, Xavier Stro- nger, Philip J. Saltsman, Joseph Schonhoff, Michael Spade, Wm. Thompson, George Tuihtheran, and the Enlows. I do not mean these were all, nor that they lived in Dubois county, but that they entered land there. , James Gentry, on April 16, 1818, became the owner (by entry) of 160 acres of land about four miles south of Huntingburg. It was the first land entry in Cass township and on the Lincoln Trail between Lin- coln City and the Enlows' mill at Jasper. The improved Jasper and Evansville state road permits you to see all of this entry and passes within 60 rods of it for one-half a mile. The Enlows entered Jasper in 1829; they also entered land all about the Freeman Markers between Huntingburg and Dale, as did the Bruner family that is said to have had a joint-ownership with Lincoln in a long rifle, said to be at Wash- ington now. Corroborative of the interpretation and conclusions arrived at in our vision of this work, and relating to the opportunities which were presented to Lincoln in his environments in 19 George R. Wilson, History of Dubois County, 162 (Jasper, Indi- ana, 1910). 162 The Environment of Abraham Lincoln Indiana, is a recent article by Meredith Nicholson, 20 in which one of the ablest of our Indiana writers deals with the factor of what he calls "a healthy curiosity which winged the genius of Lincoln for immortality," and he correctly states that what a youth really seeks and finds and assimilates for himself, whether he has known the stimulus of college training or has done his own exploring, leads into a field where standardiza- tion and method are helpless. Mr. Nicholson is plowing in the same field with us. The entire eight counties of Southwestern Indiana, including Lincoln's county of Spencer, were in the same judicial cir- cuit for judges and prosecuting attorneys, and the lawyers, the leading men of the time — commonwealth builders as well as lawyers — followed the judge on the circuit on horseback. During Lincoln's time practically all of the leading lawyers in these counties, including frequently lawyers from Vincennes and occasionally from Henderson and Louisville, practiced at Rockport and Boonville, where Lincoln attended court. James Hall, one of the most competent and impartial writers of that time, was for many years circuit judge in southern Illinois among people whom both he and Eggleston describe as much the same as those in southern Ohio and Indiana where they settled near the river. In describing court scenes in this section of the country during Lincoln's time, he says : The seats of justice were small villages, mostly mere hamlets, com- posed of a few log-houses, into which the judge and bar were crowded, with the grand and petit jurors, litigants, witnesses, and, in short, the whole body of the county — for in new counties every body goes to court." 21 Oliver H. Smith, describing the interest of the people of Indiana in the early days when the population was settled chiefly in the southern third or half of the state, says the people came hundreds of miles to see the judges and to hear 20 "Is Our Great National Motive Power Being Educated Out of Us?" an article in the Evansville Sunday Press, July 19, 1925, one of the Pre-Eminent Author Series of articles by American writers. 21 Hall, Legends of the West, Preface to Second Edition. The Environment of Abraham Lincoln 163 the lawyers "plead" the cases, as they called it. 22 The court records in these counties usually showed that lawyers were formally admitted to the bar upon their first appearance in the court, and always when they came before the court from other counties to transact law business. Unfortunate- ly the records of Spencer were destroyed by fire, and the entire record of the admission of lawyers during Lincoln's time in Spencer County was destroyed ; but Perry County, lying east of Spencer, farther removed from Vanderburgh and Gibson counties where most of the lawyers in the counties mentioned lived during Lincoln's time, has preserved its record of admis- sions to the bar ; so has Warrick County ; and the list taken from the latter counties may be fairly assumed to describe men who practiced during the same period at Rockport in Spencer County. From these sources and from the record in local history of various particular trials it is established that the leading lawyers were frequent, and many of them regular, practitioners at Rockport in Spencer County during Lincoln's time. 23 John A. Brackenridge was one of the distinguished lawyers of the southern Indiana bar during Lincoln's residence there. It has never been doubted as a matter of family and local history among the old settlers of Spencer and Warrick coun- ties, that Lincoln was a frequent visitor at the residence of John A. Brackenridge in Warrick County, that he heard him plead at the bar at Boonville, and borrowed law books from him. The Reverend J. Edward Murr, author of "Lincoln in Indiana," quotes Wesley Hall as stating that young Lincoln frequently made pilgrimages to Brackenridge's home, borrowed his law books, sometimes remained throughout the day and 22 Hon. O. H. Smith, Early Indiana Trials and Sketches, 7 (Cincin- nati, 1858). ^History of Warrick, Spencer and Perry Counties, 1885, p. 74. See also "John A. Brackenridge," by Mrs. Eldora Minor Raleigh, one of the leading writers of the Southwestern Indiana Historical So- ciety, and daughter of a sister of Mrs. John A. Brackenridge, Indiana Historical Commission, Bulletin No. 16, pp. 60-66 (October, 1922) ; Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. XVII, p. 147, note; Ibid., p. 14T. 164 The Environment of Abraham Lincoln night reveling in the mysteries of the law ; and also that Lincoln obtained his first opportunity of reading Shakespeare on these visits, and that he, Hall, had heard Lincoln recite Shapespeare. 24 Mrs. Raleigh, in her sketch of Brackenridge says that the latter lent Lincoln law books, and that a friend- ship was established between them which was never broken. 25 When the Reverend Murr's attention was called to the fact that his authority for the statement above mentioned in his "Lincoln in Indiana" was not stated with definiteness, he wrote me a letter stating that his authority for the statement was Wesley Hall, who made the statement to him, and that Hall was a man of the highest character for integrity and truth, and his word was reliable. Mrs. Raleigh, on being in- terrogated for definite evidence of her statement, says that the fact has always been recognized as family history in the Brackenridge family and has never been doubted. She is indignant that at this late date, after all of the witnesses of the time are dead, any question should be made about it. From 1824 to 1830, the fourth judicial circuit in Indiana was composed of the counties of Dubois, Pike, Gibson, Posey, Vanderburgh, Warrick, Spencer, Perry, and Crawford. One judge and one prosecuting attorney filled the office in all of those counties. With two terms of court a year, as Judge Hall says, the judges and the prosecuting attorneys and lawyers following them around the circuit, were much of the time on horseback. David Hart, a descendant of one of the Hart brothers of Richard Henderson and Company fame, was presiding judge in those counties from 1818 to 1819, when he resigned, having disqualified himself to hold the office under the constitution of Indiana by issuing a challenge to fight a duel. Judge Hart died about 1820, and his widow and children returned to Kentucky. He was succeeded as president judge by Richard Daniel of the Princeton bar, who held the office from January 2, 1819, to February 21, 1822. ^Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. XIV, p. 159. 25 Bnlletin No. 16, p. 63 (October, 1922), Indiana Historical Commis- sion. The Environment of Abraham Lincoln 165 He was succeeded in February, 1822, by James R. E. Goodlett, who held the office until December 31, 1831. When these judges were not upon the bench they were practicing as law- yers at the bar. The prosecuting attorney of Spencer County from August 9, 1824 to August 14, 1826 was Amos Clark, who was suc- ceeded on the latter date by Charles I. Battell, who held the office till December 30, 1832. Richard Daniel was a leading practitioner of the bar in all of the counties named during all of Lincoln's time in Spencer County. Amos Clark was the leader of the Evansville bar during all of Lincoln's time in Indiana and for more than ten years later, when he removed to Texas. 26 In the legislature of Indiana in 1818, what is now Spencer County was represented in the lower house by Daniel Grass, who was succeeded in 1821 by Thomas Vandever, representing Spencer, Perry, Dubois, and part of Warrick ; in 1822, by John Daniel, same counties ; in 1823, by David Edwards, rep- resenting Spencer, Perry, Dubois counties and Lewis town- ship, part of Warrick County ; in 1824, by William McMahan, same counties; in 1825 and 1826 by John Daniel, Spencer, Perry, and Dubois counties ; in 1827, Isaac Veatch represent- ing Spencer and Perry counties. Isaac Veatch was the father of General James C. Veatch, a very able and distinguished citizen of Rockport. Samuel Frisby represented the same counties in 1828 ; Richard Polke in 1829 and John Pitcher in 1830. The state senators were Ratliff Boon, 1818, representing Posey, Vanderburgh, Spencer, Warrick, and Perry counties ; Elisha Harrison, 1819 to 1821 ; Daniel Grass, 1822 to 1825, representing Perry, Spencer, Dubois, and part of Warrick ; Daniel Grass, 1826, representing Perry, Spencer, and Craw- ford counties; John Daniel, 1827 to 1830, and in 1830, 26 History of Vanderburgh County, 83-85 (John E. Iglehart, Day- ton. 1923), published as Volume III of Logan Esarey's History of Indiana. 166 The Environment of Abraham Lincoln Samuel Frisby representing the same counties. 27 There is at this late period no means of accurately judging the comparative influence of John Pitcher and John A. Brack - enridge on Abraham Lincoln during his life in Spencer County. Pitcher, like Brackenridge, was a man of excellent ancestry and had the best education possible for a man of his time. He came from Connecticut, where he studied law with Judge Reeves, the well-known law-book writer. Pitcher was a man of antislavery, Brackenridge of proslavery sentiments. In view of the importance of the slavery question at that time, it is more than likely that Pitcher exercised a good deal of influence over Lincoln in that direction, pointing out clearly correct ideals and discussing questions of interest at the time in conversation with Lincoln. Although Pitcher never ac- quired the social habit of the westerner, more readily acquired by Brackenridge, but throughout his life maintained always a stern and dignified reserve, he was a fine conversationalist, and easy of access. He was one of the great trial lawyers of Indiana, altogether the ablest man in public life who lived in Spencer County during Lincoln's time. My judgment is that both Pitcher and Brackenridge exercised important influence upon the ideals and life of Lincoln during this important formative period. 28 Daniel Grass was probably more of a commonwealth builder and political influence in Spencer County than any other man in it from the earliest history of Rockport until Lincoln left Indiana. There can be no serious doubt about Lincoln's knowledge of him, and acquaintance with him, although there is no direct testimony of which I have knowledge to that particular point. The circumstances of Grass's life and his relation to matters of public interest justify this conclusion. 2!) 27 History of Warrick, Spencer and Perry Counties, 489. 28 Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. XVII, pp. 145, 146, and T47. See also letter from H. C. Pitcher, "Judge John Pitcher" in Evansville- and Its Men of Mark, 406-7 (Edward White ed., Evansville, 1873). 29 The reader may be reminded here that it is upon the doctrine of probabilities that Butler founds his argument in favor of natural religion. The Environment of Abraham Lincoln 167 The life of Daniel Grass has been written and will be pub- lished in the proceedings of the Southwestern Indiana His- torical Society. Joseph Lane was one of the distinguished men of southern Indiana, a rival of Ratliff Boon and Robert M. Evans in public life. When Vanderburgh County was created, Boon legislated him out of his (Boon's) legislative district, putting his farm into Vanderburgh County, which accounts for the irregular eastern boundary of that county. Lane was intimate with Grass, Boon, Evans, and Hugh McGary ; in a conference these men settled their rivalries sufficiently to permit the crea- tion of Vanderburgh County as it now exists so as not to in- terfere with the ambitions of Grass in Spencer County and of Boon in Warrick County. Lane's account of the organi- zation of Vanderburgh County is the only reliable one in existence. 30 Lane worked in the clerk's office in Warrick County shortly after the organization of Warrick County, was very active in politics in the third decade, was justice of the peace in Vanderburgh County, member of the legislature (defeating Robert M. Evans for the place), was appointed governor of Oregon during the Mexican War, and became United States Senator upon admission of Oregon to the Union. He was candidate with Breckenridge against Lincoln and Hamlin in 1860. It is probable that Lincoln knew Lane ; he must have had the opportunity ; and Lane was one of the most popular, as well as one of the foremost men in this section in the third decade, during Lincoln's life in Indiana. John M. Lockwood was a member of the family of the wool carder Evans, at Princeton, and knew Lincoln very well. The circumstance of their meeting, with a romance incidental to Lincoln's visit to the wool carder Evans, has been fully 30 History of Vanderburgh County, 101-2 (Brant and Fuller, 1889) One of William W. Woollen's finest sketches is of Joseph Lane, Bio- graphical and Historical Sketches of Early Indiana, 412-25 (Indian- apolis, 1883). 168 The Environment of Abraham Lincoln described. 31 I remember John M. Lockwood very well. My father knew him well. He lived in Evansville from 1830 until a later period, when, having accumulated a fortune, he went to Mount Vernon ; there he died, having acquired prom- inence in that community. He was a giant in size, something- like six feet, four inches high as I remember, and was proba- bly as tall as Lincoln when the two as young men met together at the wool carder's house and place of business in Princeton. The leaders of the English settlement in north Vanderburgh County are recognized as men of prominence in this section by the early historians, including George Flower, who wrote a history of the English settlement in Edwards County, Illi- nois. 32 Among others were the Hornbrooks, Maidlows, Ingles, Wheelers, Hilliards, Potts, James Cawson, and Dr. Hornby. Very recently there came into the custody of Mrs. Bertha Cox Armstrong a considerable portion of the library of James Cawson, a civil engineer and school teacher from Lon- don, who brought into the English settlement in 1818 a library from England, to which he added continuously while in America. This library has been donated to the Vanderburgh County Museum and Historical Society, and will be the sub- ject of proper description by one of the ablest members of that Society. 33 General Washington Johnston was well known throughout ;u The daughter of John M. Lockwood, deceased, has furnished an account' to the Vanderburgh County Museum and Historical Society of Lincoln's visit at Princeton, to Evans, with whom Lockwood worked in 1827 and earlier. Mr. Jesse W. Weik published in December, 1912, in the Success magazine, an article called "When Lincoln Met the Wool Carder's Niece." A copy of the article was read at the meeting of the Southwestern Indiana Historical Society at Newburgh, May, 1925, by Lockwood's granddaughter, Mrs. Lottie Edson Erwin. 32 George Flower, History of the English Settlement in Edwards County, Illinois (Chicago Historical Society Collections, Vol. I, Chi- cago, 1882.) 33 Mrs. Armstrong is a great-granddaughter of George Potts, who married a sister of Mrs. Cawson, and who was a partner with Cawson in business. The library of the Cawson family came into his custody. See Ida Tarbell's reference to the influence of this settlement upon Abraham Lincoln in her book In the Footsteps of the Lincolns, 150 (New York, 1924). See also Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. XV, p. 89. The Environment of Abraham Lincoln 169 all of the counties in Southwestern Indiana, including Spencer County, practiced in all of the counties, was one of the most prominent men in the organization of Indiana Territory and the State of Indiana, was a land speculator in many of the counties, and was one of the most influential and active men in Indiana Territory. His services in putting the anti- slavery clause into the first constitution of Indiana were of the greatest value. It is probable that Lincoln knew him and his work. 34 Two other probable acquaintances of the Lincoln's may be mentioned : Elisha Harrison, a second or third cousin of Wil- liam Henry Harrison, was one of the most influential men in southwestern Indiana from 1816 to 1825, about the period of his death. When Vanderburgh county was created he was in the lower house of the legislature ; at the same time, Boon was in the state senate. He was very ambitious in politics, whereby he incurred the enmity of Ratliff Boon, and was prevented from realizing his political hopes. Robert M. Evans was a man of great prominence in southwestern Indiana. Joe Lane, in a letter written some forty years ago to the Van- derburgh County Biographical and Historical Society, said of Robert M. Evans and Daniel Grass, that they belonged to the whole state of Indiana. 35 Lincoln was a Jacksonian Democrat when he left Indiana in 1830 ; his representative in Congress was Ratliff Boon, who is described as an excellent campaigner, very suave and polite in his address among the people, though very combative with his political opponents, a political boss, who ruled practically without interference in southwestern Indiana during Abraham Lincoln's residence in Spencer County. He was in Congress during all of Jackson's time, from 1824 to 1838, except 34 See the paper by George R. Wilson, "General Washington John- ston," read before this Society in February, 1924, and published in the Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. XX, pp. 123-53, a valuable contribu- tion to the history of the state. 35 A sketch of Robert M. Evans is found in History of Vanderburgh County, 48-50. For a sketch of Elisha Harrison, see Ibid., pp. 53-57. 170 The Environment of Abraham Lincoln one term of two years when he was beaten by one vote. 30 An acquaintance of Abraham Lincoln about whom little has been written — and part of that erroneous — is Judge Lemuel Quincy DeBruler. Two papers upon Judge DeBruler and the DeBruler family are incorporated in this sketch as supple- menting what has hitherto been published about the human environment of Lincoln in Indiana. 37 36 For a sketch of Ratliff Boon see paper by William L. Barker in Indiana Historical Commission, Bulletin No. 16, pp. 72-78 (October, 1922), Proceedings of the Southwestern Indiana Historical Society. A fuller life of Boon is now in preparation. 37 These papers were read at the sixth annual meeting of the South- western Indiana Historical Society, February 6, 1925, at Evansville. The paper upon Judge Lemuel Quincy DeBruler was prepared at the writer's request by Mrs. Eugenia Ehrmann, only surviving child of Judge DeBruler, with the aid, especially upon the Judge's legal career, of Judge E. M. Swan. It was read by Mrs. George C. Dunlevy. JUDGE LEMUEL QUINCY DEBRULER By Eugenia Ehrmann The first DeBruler of whom we have any record was a French Huguenot, who came to this country about 1740, and settled near Baltimore. He married there, and among his offspring were twin sons, one of whom was the great-grand- father of Lemuel Quincy, the subject of this sketch, who with his twin brother, James Pressbury DeBruler, was born in Orange County, North Carolina, on September 17, 1817. There is no record to explain just why this branch of the family drifted to North Carolina, but poor soil and the ques- tion of slavery were undoubtedly factors in their coming to Indiana. Some of the relatives owned slaves, a fact so ab- horrent to the others that they were persuaded to free them and all move together to a free state. They arrived in Indiana in October, 1818, but did not stop until they reached Pike County, where they lived several years. Afterward, their father, Wesley DeBruler, entered land in Dubois County, about eight miles from Jasper, where he reared five sons and one daughter. His twin sons had visions of a professional career early in life, and studied early and late, helping out their meager schooling with private instruction from any one who could or would instruct them. Lemuel Q. (commonly called "Quincy") chose the law, but his twin brother, James P., chose the medical profession. So their paths separated for (r?i) 172 The Environment of Abraham Lincoln the first time in their lives. Quincy read and studied law faithfully for several years, and finally began practicing his profession about 1840, in which year he married Angeline Condit. He was frequently heard to say that he would be satisfied when he had saved a thousand dollars, but he did not retire at that point. Notwithstanding his liberality and generous public spirit, he acquired a modest fortune, yet his untiring energy impelled him on until he finally died in the harness as an active lawyer. James graduated from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia and located in Rockport, Indiana, where he mar- ried Sarah Graham, daughter of Judge John Graham. He persuaded his brother, Quincy, that Rockport had many ad- vantages over Jasper, being a river town with superior busi- ness prospects, while Jasper was far inland. So the lawyer moved to Rockport about 1850, having attended courts there frequently before. Here he was admitted to the bar in 1846. He succeeded so well that he could not be induced to make another change when his brother, Doctor James, moved to Evansville in 1858 ; but remained at Rockport, engaging in his profession until his death on August 10, 1875, being sur- vived by his wife, two sons, Curran A. and Oscar, and one daughter, Eugenia, wife of Dr. E. D. Ehrmann. Mrs. Ehr- mann is the only member of the family now living (1921). Judge Lemuel Q. DeBruler was elected prosecuting attorney in his circuit, embracing Spencer and eight other counties, August 27, 1846, and held the office two years. He was elected judge of the common pleas court of his district upon the organization of that court under the new constitution of Indiana, October 26, 1852, and was reelected October 26, 1856, retiring at the close of the year 1860; but his preference however was for the active life of the advocate. 1 1 Leander J. Monks, Courts and Lawyers of Indiana (Indianapolis) 1916), Vol. I, p. XXXIX, Index, gives the middle initial erroneously as O. instead of Q., and also gives the career of a "Samuel S. DeBruler" as a separate and distinct individual. There was no such person; "Samuel S." is a mistaken version of "Lemuel Q." The Environment of Abraham Lincoln 173 In his practice, he soon won his place as the leader of the bar in his county, at that time the ablest bar the county had ever had. He was engaged in almost every case of importance here as well as in the courts of other counties and states. He valorously crossed swords with other able legal gladiators of his day, among them the far-famed John A. Brackenridge, John Pitcher, Daniel B. Kumler, Charles Denby, Asa Iglehart, General James M. Shackleford, the brilliant James M. Shank- lin, Charles L. Wedding, Edwin R. Hatfield, Judge George L. Reinhard, and other eminent practitioners, intellectual legal giants, lawyers of great force, ability, and deep learning, nor did he battle without signal success. In stature he was slightly above the average ; rather slender, but capable of endurance ; with dark complexion ; an eye like an eagle, keen, penetrating, and awe-inspiring ; a clear, ringing, clarion voice ; language short, sharp, and incisive as an Italian stiletto. In his earnest, impassioned, eloquent speech and fervid oratory — ornate, logical, and masterful — he swept oppo- sition before him with an avalanche of flame, and carried conviction to the hearts of his hearers. His nearest equal in oratory and advocacy in the bar of his county was his son and partner, Curran A. DeBruler, who had superior advantages and opportunities. He was gradu- ated from various institutions of learning, including Cam- bridge. Brilliant, alert, fiery but polished, analytical, classical, flowery as the meads in May, his burning eloquence shattered antagonism like a thunder-bolt. Although his legal ability, learning, fine sense of justice, and humane heart later made him judge of the First Judicial Circuit of Indiana, and although he was an able and capable judge, he was in that position out of his true orbit. Quincy DeBruler was a Union man in the War of the Rebellion and although his deafness prevented his enlisting, he was active in encouraging and inspiring the soldiery and defense of the nation. Shortly after Lincoln's second election, he went to Washington on legal business. There he went to 174 The Environment of Abraham Lincoln the White House, to pay his respects. President Lincoln, bringing his hand down on his shoulder with a resounding whack, said, "Sit down, sit down, DeBruler, I want to talk — I know some of the things you have done for the Union, and I want news of Spencer county." He was public spirited and a valuable asset to the public welfare. It was chiefly through his efforts and instrumental- ity that his county got its first railroad and better connection and communication with the outside world. He ran a race with Mr. Kirby, of Cincinnati, one of the railroad promoters, to see which one should throw the first shovelful of dirt. The Judge lost because his spade caught on a root. The church, also, and all other commendable enterprises enjoyed his munificence. He could never refuse an appeal for help, although he frequently responded against his better judgment. More than one motherless child was taken into his home and kept, sometimes for two or three years, until some other provision was made for it. Such is a brief out- line of the career of Quincy DeBruler as a lawyer. The life of Quincy DeBruler was made unique by a series of strange circumstances and coincidences. He was of a family which boasted of many sets of twins. He had two aunts, Polly and Arabella DeBruler, who were twins, and who died on the same day and were buried in the same grave. His sister, Sarah Sharp, had twin daughters who died in their infancy. His brother, Richard, had twin daughters, Emma and Ella, and also a daughter, Lucy Craig, who was the mother of twins ; and another brother, Thomas F. DeBruler, had twin daughters, Mary and Sarah, the former of whom is still living ; they were so like each other that their parents could scarcely distinguish them, and it was not until they were grown that acquaintances could tell them apart. Judge Lemuel Quincy DeBruler and his twin brother, Doctor James P., were so like in appearance, that it was dif- ficult to distinguish between them. Both became deaf in both ears in 1859. The Judge had a fall and broke his shoulder The Environment of Abraham Lincoln 175 and two ribs, and the next day his brother, James, suffered precisely the same injuries. Both had a peculiar and obstinate eruption on the forehead at the same time. James died on August 10, 1874, and as a result of the many coincidences in their lives, the Judge with a premonition, or rather presenti- ment, began to prepare his business and mundane affairs to follow his beloved brother. And his anticipation was soon verified — he was taken sick one year from the day that James was, and of the same disease, and died one year from the day of his brother's death. Every small detail connected with his sickness was identical with that of his brother. Throughout the Judge's sickness, and until he was laid to rest, the yard and porches were full of people, of high and low degree, both black and white, many with tears streaming- down their faces, mute testimony of the affection and esteem in which he was held. The song, ''Only remembered by what I have done," sung at his brother's funeral was sung also at his. He was laid to rest in the cemetery at Rockport, and loving friends keep his memory green. In remembrance of Ouincy DeBruler, all can say : "None knew thee but to love thee, Nor named thee but to praise." THE DEBRULER FAMILY AS TYPICAL PIONEERS By John E. Iglehart I have, since I have been a member of the Indiana bar, now past fifty-four years, regarded the DeBruler family as one of the distinguished families of the state, embracing as it has Judge L. O. DeBruler and his son, Curran A. DeBruler (who was also Judge, but whom I will call by his first name to distinguish him), and Dr. James P. DeBruler, the twin brother of Judge L. Q. DeBruler — all distinguished by in- herited talents of very high order and by achievement of high success which came with a lifetime of labor; all men of high ideals and the graces of social life which mark the gentleman, which Chesterfield truly says it takes three generations to develop. I have known most of the prominent members of the South- western Indiana bar during a period of fifty-five years. Those I did not know personally I knew by reputation among their older associates, particularly my father, in whose law office I entered after graduation from college in June, 1868, before I was twenty years old and with whom I was associated until his death nearly twenty years later. Social life then among lawyers in the courtroom and in their offices was more highly valued than now, and widely differ- ent from the present ; for the pioneers at the bar who had out- lived the pioneer age, continued their old habits and customs until the new generation took their place. (176) The Environment of Abraham Lincoln 177 As early as 1870, and before any railroad was built in Posey County, before the days of abstractors of title in this section, I visited Mt. Vernon and examined titles to a strip of land on the Wabash River, upon which the Louisville and Nashville Railroad is now located. In these trips I used both the steam- boat and the stage. I was in and about the courthouse, met the lawyers, had law business dealings with some of them, as well as those in other counties. I remember one occasion, about 1871, when John Pitcher was about the age that I am now, in his full mental powers but not so active physically as I am now. I sat next to him upon the top plank of a high board fence surrounding the public square and the old court- house in Mt. Vernon, a fence five planks high, with the posts sawed off evenly so that a plank nailed on the top of the posts made a comfortable seat in the sun in the cool air of spring or fall. On the other side of Pitcher, as I remember, was lawyer Milton Pearse. I took part in a conversation lasting about an hour and a half, which I greatly appreciated as I realized (but not quite so well then as I do now), who John Pitcher was and had been. I am the only living lawyer, I think, who heard Pitcher and Harrow try cases in court, and I knew even then the standing of Judge DeBruler, about twenty-five years younger in age and experience than Pitcher. In the middle fifties my father was on the bench and traveled the circuit. DeBruler, Pitcher, and the other leading lawyers practiced before him. When DeBruler and Pitcher were each on the bench in different circuits, my father prac- ticed before them. His knowledge of them was complete, and in my dual associations of social and professional life with him, I came to know all he could teach me, and particularly his estimate of lawyers. Using this and other means of in- formation as well, I formed my estimate of Judge DeBruler. I saw him occasionally, and I learned the esteem in which he was held by his brethren, which has remained with me always the same. Dr. James P. DeBruler was my father's family physician until the doctor died in the early part of 1874, while I was 178 The Environment of Abraham Lincoln still living for the last year under the paternal roof. Mrs. Ehrmann's sketch of Judge DeBruler recognizes, so far as a comparison can be made of the two brothers in different professions, that they were equals. While the doctor had not the opportunities of the judge in public speaking, he was a fine conversationalist ; with his humor and good cheer I have seen him change the atmosphere of gloom in the sick room into cheerfulness more rapidly than could medicine. In the community in which he lived, he was generally and most favorably known ; throughout the medical fraternity of the state, he was recognized as a worthy leader. He stood in the front rank of his profession and was a fit representative of one of the distinguished families of the state. His son, Claude Graham DeBruler, was one of the editors and proprietors of the Evansville Journal. At his death the proceedings of the Press Club and expressions of esteem by leading men in his profession filled a page in the Journal. I knew him intimately at home, in college, and in the business world later, and he showed the same traits with which I have characterized the DeBruler family. His only son, James, a very promising young physician, died at the threshold of his career. The only living descendant of Claude or Dr. James P. DeBruler is Mrs. Bertha DeBruler Donavan of Evansville, a worthy descendant of such an ancestry. I knew Dr. DeBruler's wife, Mrs. Sarah Graham DeBruler, daughter of Judge John W. Graham of Rockport. Our families were near neighbors in Evansville, and socially intimate. I knew well her two sisters, Mrs. James W. Wart- man and Miss Nannie Graham, all pioneers of the early pioneer age, and I speak in no mere spirit of eulogy when I say that in intelligence, culture, and the highest social stand- ing, these ladies ranked as did the DeBruler gentlemen. I emphasize this because local history records that Judge John W. Graham was, for an unusually long period, from 1825 till 1838, lay judge at Rockport of the Spencer Circuit The Environment of Abraham Lincoln 179 Court, the only court of record in the county to which Abraham Lincoln from 1825 to 1830, when he left Spencer County, frequently came as an interested spectator. The posi- tion of lay judge was filled by election, and in those days the office itself indicated that the incumbent was one of the lead- ing men of the county. His biography should be written for the Southwestern Indiana Historical Society. There is every reason to believe Lincoln knew Graham well. I knew Curran DeBruler as a lawyer, and as a man, longer and more intimately than any others of the family, as we were both members of the Evansville bar. I have seen him under practically all of the tests to which a trial lawyer may be sub- jected. I have tried cases with him and against him as counsel, more often against him. He lacked from childhood the fine physical development of his father, and infirmity shortened his life, but as a silver-tongued orator of the first rank he rose above all physical weakness and was, with per- haps the exception of Blythe Hynes, who died in 1876, re- garded as the most brilliant orator and jury advocate of the Southwestern Indiana bar. He was one of the first graduates of the Harvard Law School to practice in this section, and, endowed as he was with the logical mind necessary to high success as a lawyer, with a fine discrimination in the use of words, with the greatest fluency of speech, his law-school training gave him a marked advantage which aided in making his legal arguments as effective with the judges as were his eloquent appeals with juries. His ethical standards were all that could be expected from a man of such distinguished ancestry. A local historian in Spencer County makes an excellent comparison between the father and son as lawyers, giving them the highest and sub- stantially equal rank as lawyers. 1 Judge DeBruler married, on March 7, 1841, at Jasper, in Du- bois County, Hulda Angeline Condit, a granddaughter of Uzal Condit (who was born in New Jersey, but in 1805 moved to ^History of Warrick, Spencer and Perry Counties, 1885, pp. 7,22-23. 180 The Environment of Abraham Lincoln Kentucky with his children) and the daughter of James Hervey Condit, who was a pioneer, first in Warrick County, later in Dubois County. The latter was a successful trader in tobacco and for many years loaded a flatboat in the fall for the New Orleans market and spent the winters there. Condit also conducted a hotel in Jasper. 2 Lincoln knew Judge DeBruler personally. The incident of Judge DeBruler's meeting with Lincoln furnished by Mrs. Eugenia Ehrmann, Judge DeBruler's only living child, is interesting; but unfortunately there is no record extant as to when and how Lincoln and Judge DeBruler became acquainted. Eugenia DeBruler, daughter of Judge DeBruler, married Dr. Edward Ehrmann, son of Dr. Christian Ehrmann, a noted physician who assisted in organizing the Homeopathic College in Louisville where he was professor of Theory and Practice. Their son, Dr. Calder D. Ehrmann, born in Rockport, June 6, 1878, is a physician living in Rockport. On June 23, 1902, he married Bess Virginia Hicks. The father of Mrs. Bess Ehrmann was Royal S. Hicks, who married Rachael Ann Britton, daughter of Thomas P. Britton. Mr. Hicks was a pioneer of Spencer County in the fifties, founded the Rockport Democrat, the oldest paper of Spencer County that is still being published, and made it an accredited organ of much influence in southwestern Indiana. He was born in Switzerland County, Indiana, in 1825. He was clerk of Spencer County from 1856 to 1864. I remember distinctly the first time (in the seventies) that 2 The Patoka River was then navigable, according to an Indiana statute. My uncle, Dr. Thomas Wheeler, son of Mark Wheeler of the English settlement in Vanderburgh County, told me that he traveled on a small steamboat up Patoka River as far as Jasper. From the genealogical record of the Condit family, (descended from John Condit, a native of Great Britain who settled in Newark, New Jersey), a book embracing 470 pages, it appears that the Condits were prominent pioneers in Kentucky and Indiana. Whether any of them lived in Spencer County I do not know, but there is a good deal of evi- dence tending to show that the county lines between W'arrick and Spencer Counties, and between Dubois and Spencer Counties as now existing, were not much of a division among the pioneers. James H. Condit lived with his family in Warrick County before he lived in Dubois County. The Environment of Abraham Lincoln 181 Royal S. Hicks was pointed out to me sitting in the courtroom at Rockport. He was a large heavy-set man with massive body, and an unusually large, well-shaped head, with a strong face. I have often thought of, and never forgotten, the man as I then saw him. He ranked among the prominent men of the Rockport bar. A biography of him is printed in the Biographical History of Eminent and Self-Made Men of the State of Indiana. The introduction into this sketch of the name of Thomas P. Britton, who, as the grandfather of Mrs. Dr. Calder Ehr- mann, is an ancestor of some of the latest generation of the DeBruler family, is germane both to my subject and to this occasion. He is of importance as a prominent educated man living in the environment of Abraham Lincoln from 1825 to 1830. The same is true of Judge John W. Graham, also made relevant by the marriage of Dr. James P. DeBruler to a daughter of Judge Graham. Thomas P. Britton was born in Monongahela County, Virginia, August 14, 1806. He and a brother, Alexander Britton, came to Rockport, Spencer County, in 1825. Alexander Britton was a trustee of the town of Rockport at its incorporation, and the trustees met in his house. He was postmaster at Rockport, and was town treasurer in 1854. He is named in the local history of Spencer County with Daniel Grass, Alexander Britton, John W. Graham, John Pitcher and many others as among the first residents of the town of Rock- port. Thomas Britton was a man of education and force, and strong personality, as appears in the early history of the time. He was clerk of Spencer County from 1835 to 1845, and recorder from 1835 to 1842. His handwriting is said to be the most perfect now appearing in the courthouse files of Spencer County, and is frequently shown, as such, to visitors. The Brittons were of good ancestry. Thomas Britton died in Rockport in 1853. I knew his son, Thomas P. Britton, Jr., who lived in Evansville and left 182 The Environment of Abraham Lincoln property and descendants here, also his son, Frank, well known and prominent in Evansville. Both were men of ability and high personal character, universally respected. Thomas P. Britton was sheriff of this county after the Civil War. 3 One incidental reference in Mrs. Eugenia Ehrmann's biog- raphy of her father might well be extended. The ancestor of the Indiana DeBrulers came, by way of North Carolina, from tidewater Maryland, out of a settlement of French Huguenots located near Baltimore. This is not a unique case of French Huguenot ancestry among the people of southwestern Indiana. Dr. Richard deNune, a French Huguenot, lived in tidewater Maryland in or near the locality from which the earlier DeBruler came, and his daughter, Mary deNune, my great grandmother, is buried in the old Iglehart cemetery in Prince Georges County, Maryland. 3 Since this address was delivered, a paper on the subject of Morris Birbeck's estimate of the people of Princeton in 1817 was read at the meeting of this Society at Newburgh, Indiana, in May, 1925, by Mr. L. C. Embree, and has been published in the Indiana Magazine of His- tory, Vol. XXI, pp. 289-99. It is one of the ablest among the contributions extant on the subject of the environments of Abraham Lincoln in Indiana between 1816 and 1830, both in facts conclusive in their nature and in the manner of their presentation.