973.7L63 
 C2SeG9 
 
 he Service of dedication 
 of the monument erected 
 above the graves of 
 Thomas and Sarah Bush 
 Lincoln, father and step- 
 mother of Abraham Lincoln, 
 Old Gordon Cemetery... 
 
LINCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://archive.org/details/serviceofdedicatOOIion 
 
THE SERVICE OF DEDICATION OF 
 
 THE MONUMENT 
 
 ERECTED ABOVE THE GRAVES OF 
 
 THOMAS AND SARAH BUSH LINCOLN 
 
 FATHER AND STEP-MOTHER OF 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 ILLINOIS LIONS CLUBS 
 
 OLD GORDON CEMETERY 
 
 SHILOH CHURCH 
 
 NEAR JANESVILLE, ILLINOIS 
 
 FRIDAY, MAY l<v 1924 
 
) ,!* 
 
 Wc tender to you this monument with the 
 gladness of heart of every American who 
 loves and reveres the name of Lincoln. 
 May it stand here among you as a constant 
 reminder to the world that the father and 
 mother of a great man are recognized and 
 remembered as having been the dominant 
 force and factor in making that great man. 
 John F. Garner. 
 
 And we honor the rugged honesty, the 
 simple dignity, the unpretentious piety, that 
 characterized the home life of Thomas and 
 Sarah Lincoln. William E. Barton. 
 
 The poverty of these pioneers was that 
 kind of poverty in which sturdy independ- 
 ence thrived. Frank O. Lowden. 
 
 And through it all (the life of Abraham 
 Lincoln) was the influence of the father 
 and step-mother — intangible but powerful: 
 With his struggles came the knowledge of 
 the value of a good heredity through the 
 one and the help of environment through 
 the other. He honored both. 
 
 Wayne C. Townley. 
 

 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 THOMAS AND SARAH BUSH LINCOLN 
 
 WHOSE HUMBLE BUT WORTHY HOME 
 
 GAVE TO THE WORLD ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 
 
 THE LIONS CLUBS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 HAVE ERECTED THIS MEMORIAL 
 
 DEDICATION 
 FRIDAY, MAY 16, 1924 
 
 OLD GORDON CEMETERY 
 
 SHILOH CHURCH 
 
 NEAR JANESVILLE, ILLINOIS 
 
 
7.»»S«!i*5»*M* 
 
 
 Members "of that vanguard of hardy pioneers which builded 
 the mighty States west of the Allegheny Mountains." 
 
 Frank O. Lowden. 
 
PROGRAM of the SERVICE of DEDICATION 
 
 THE HON. WAYNE C. TOWNLEY, Presiding 
 MUSIC by the CHILDREN OF JANESVILLE and LERNA SCHOOLS 
 
 Hymn "America" 
 
 Invocation Rev. Marion Hull, Mattoon Lions Club 
 
 Introduction of the District Governor of Lions Clubs 
 
 Hon. Bryan H. Tivnen, Mattoon Lions Club 
 
 Address "The Purpose of this Assembly" 
 
 Hon. Wayne C. Townley 
 
 Address "The Basis of Lincoln's Greatness" 
 
 Hon. Frank O. Lowden 
 
 Hymn "Illinois" 
 
 Address "The Parents of Abraham Lincoln" 
 
 Rev. William E. Barton 
 
 The Presentation of the Monument 
 
 Judge John F. Garner 
 
 The Acceptance of the Monument Mrs. Susan D. Baker 
 
 The Unveiling- of the Monument 
 
 Dr. S. A. Campbell, Mattoon Post No. 404, G. A. R. 
 
 The Benediction Rev. J. G. Reynolds, Shiloh Church 
 
Sarah Bush Lincoln 
 
 This picture used through the courtesy of Frederick H. 
 
 Meserve, New York City 
 
 So far as known, no picture of Thomas Lincoln was ever made 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 It has become a custom, and a good one, throughout the country 
 to erect memorials to men who have played their part in the world's 
 history or even in that of a community. One of the greatest charac- 
 ters upon the annals of not only Illinois but the entire nation is that 
 of Abraham Lincoln. Monuments have been erected in his honor 
 throughout the world. 
 
 When we honor these great lives that have gone before us, it 
 seems altogether fitting that their fathers and mothers should also 
 be remembered. It was Lincoln himself who declared, in substance, 
 that all he was he owed to his mother. 
 
 On the Indiana division, near the little village of Janesville, Coles 
 County, Illinois, eleven miles south of Mattoon, in a secluded country 
 cemetery are two graves; a small headstone tells the passer-by that 
 in these graves rest the remains of Thomas Lincoln and Sarah Bush 
 Lincoln, the father and step-mother of Abraham Lincoln. Thomas 
 Lincoln died in January, 1851, and Sarah Bush Lincoln in April, 1869. 
 These two graves in little Shiloh Cemetery have been practically for- 
 gotten, with the exception of a faithful few in that vicinity who have 
 formed a memorial association to preserve the graves. 
 
 In the spring of 1923, Wayne C. Townley of Bloomington, Illinois, 
 who is the district governor of the Lions Clubs of Illinois, was visiting 
 the Mattoon Lions Club, and while in the vicinity he paid a visit to 
 this cemetery. Not even a trail was marked so as to guide visitors 
 to this historic place. Mr. Townley called the attention of the Mat- 
 toon local club to this apparent neglect. The suggestion was all that 
 was necessary to cause the Mattoon Lions Club to become active. 
 The members instituted a movement to mark a trail from Mattoon 
 to Shiloh Cemetery, a distance of about fifteen miles. The trail was 
 eventually marked by using an orange circle in which were written 
 in dark blue the letters "T. L. T." (Thomas Lincoln Trail). This 
 mark appears upon the telephone poles the entire distance. In addi- 
 tion, enamel signs about two by three feet were procured, which are 
 posted along the way, directing tourists to the final resting place of 
 Abraham Lincoln's parents. Also, where the road is not paved, it is 
 now kept oiled. 
 
 At the international convention of the Lions Clubs at Atlantic City 
 in June, a caucus of all the Illinois delegates was called by District 
 Governor Townley, and the matter of raising funds to erect a suit- 
 able memorial over these two long-neglected graves was presented 
 and unanimously indorsed by the delegates. Thereafter, the proposi- 
 tion was presented to every club in the state. 
 
 — (Illinois Central Magazine, February, 1924.) 
 
Hon. Wayne C. Townley 
 
 Bloomington, Illinois 
 
 District Governor Illinois Lions Clubs 
 
THE PURPOSE OF THIS ASSEMBLY 
 
 BY HON. WAYNE C. TOWNLEY 
 
 We are here to dedicate this monument erected in memory of 
 Thomas and Sarah Bush Lincoln, the father and step-mother of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln. 
 
 Illinois may well recall its contribution to that great life. 
 
 Here, in this State, were developed those talents which produced- 
 that great debater — the superior of a Stephen A. Douglas: 
 
 Here was developed that orator whose speeches are classed with 
 the gems of the ages : 
 
 Here was inspired that patriot — ready to hold the horse of a vain 
 McClellan, willing to bear the ridicule of a mistaken Greeley, satis- 
 fied to ignore the false clamor of a misguided minority; that this 
 nation, of the people, by the people, for the people, might live: 
 
 Here he gave his "lost speech" — which pointed to his leadership in 
 the Republican Party and paved his way to the Presidency : 
 
 Here was developed from the rough, unlettered, unknown back- 
 woodsman — the world's greatest citizen : 
 
 Here was the training that gave to us the patient, wise, just, 
 martyred leader who loved his country more than himself; his honor 
 more than his station; his ideals more than his office: 
 
 And through it all was the influence of the father and step- 
 mother — intangible but powerful : With his struggles came the 
 knowledge of the value of a good heredity through the one and the 
 help of environment through the other. He honored both. 
 
 We have come to this little country churchyard to pay tribute by 
 the dedication of this granite, to these "whose humble but worthy 
 home gave to the world Abraham Lincoln." With this privilege 
 comes the opportunity of saying these few words of long delayed 
 appreciation. 
 
 These two belonged to Abraham Lincoln. "He belongs to the 
 ages." 
 
Hon. Frank O. Lowden 
 Oregon, Illinois 
 
 Former Governor of Illinois 
 
 Honorary Member of Lions Clubs of Illinois, Affiliated 
 with the Blooming-ton Club 
 
THE BASIS OF LINCOLN'S GREATNESS 
 
 BY GOVERNOR FRANK O. LOWDEN 
 
 Man always delights to invest his heroes with a mysterious origin. 
 He loves contrast and finds joy in a paradox. He likes to set oppo- 
 site the loftiest height which his hero has reached the humblest and 
 least promising youth which he can assign to him. This suits man's 
 sense of the dramatic. And so it came about that in the years fol- 
 lowing Abraham Lincoln's martyrdom many myths grew up about 
 his ancestry, his early life, and even his own character and standing 
 in the several communities in which he lived. 
 
 The truth about all these things is just now beginning to appear. 
 We are fortunate today in having with us William E. Barton, whose 
 tireless researches have done much to dispel the mists that have gath- 
 ered about Abraham Lincoln's early life. Ida M. Tarbell has re- 
 cently written a book called, "In the Footsteps of the Lincolns," 
 which dispels many of the illusions surrounding Lincoln's forebears. 
 We now know that the family from which he came had borne an 
 honorable part in the history of America for almost three hundred 
 years. We now see Thomas Lincoln, not as a so-called "poor white," 
 a phrase which more often misleads than defines, but rather as a 
 member of that vanguard of hardy pioneers which builded the mighty 
 states west of the Allegheny mountains. We find too, in the light 
 of modern research, that the family of Hanks likewise had a long 
 and honorable record in the pioneer upbuilding. 
 
 Miss Tarbell says : 
 
 "But what is a 'poor white'? Poor whites are the backwash, 
 not the vanguard of the pioneer army. In every onward move- 
 ment into the wilderness there were those who, through bodily 
 weakness, fear, discouragement, misfortune, dropped by the way. 
 They were like soldiers, wounded or gassed in the front line 
 trench beyond any future hope of active service. Without them 
 the pioneer army could not have advanced as it did. They were 
 part of the sacrifice that opening the new continent demanded. 
 
 Now the Lincolns and Hankses were of neither class. They 
 moved ahead into the very heart of the Kentucky battle ground, 
 and there planted themselves and withstood the perils and hard- 
 ships of the early period. Moreover, as we shall see, the Hankses, 
 like the Lincolns, kept the pioneer spirit. They pushed ahead 
 with the vanguard which went later into Indiana and Illinois. 
 They were never lagcards behind, that is, they never were of 
 the 'poor white' class." 
 
That Thomas Lincoln and his family endured hardships and what 
 would now seem severe privation no one will deny. That was the 
 common lot of the pioneer, and the hardships and the privations of 
 the Lincoln family were no exception. It is true that they lived in 
 a simple little log house without the conveniences to which we are 
 now accustomed. That too was the common lot of the pioneer. I 
 myself for a time lived in one of these little log homes. I cannot 
 recall though that we ever suffered loss of self-respect or ever felt 
 any sense of inferiority from that circumstance. And then there were 
 compensations to the pioneer. The wild beauty of a new and virgin 
 land, the sense of freedom and adventure which always accompanied 
 the pioneer, made life far richer than we are likely to suppose. 
 
 The Lincolns were poor, as nearly all the pioneers in the migration 
 from the East were poor. But it was not the kind of poverty that 
 corrodes or breaks the spirit. In the abundance of wild game, in the 
 fruitfulness of the virgin soil, there was no place for the spectre of 
 starvation. The poverty of these pioneers was that kind of poverty in 
 which sturdy independence thrived. 
 
 It is very fitting, therefore, I think, to mark the grave and honor 
 the memory of this pioneer who was the father of him whom Lowell 
 called "the first American." It is also fitting at the same time to do 
 honor to the memory of Sarah Bush Johnson Lincoln, the second 
 mother of the great Emancipator, who sleeps here by the side of the 
 pioneer father. Abraham Lincoln was fortunate indeed, that in his 
 childhood and young manhood he should have come under the influ- 
 ence and been enfolded by the love of Nancy Lincoln and Sarah 
 Bush Lincoln. He himself, in words that will never die, confessed 
 his infinite debt of gratitude to these two. 
 
 In this presence and on this occasion, one would be remiss if he 
 did not seek to draw some lessons from the life of the illustrious 
 son of Thomas Lincoln. 
 
 Principles rather than policies appealed to Abraham Lincoln. All 
 great questions seemed to him to involve some moral quality. It was 
 his habit, therefore, to resolve them into their simple fundamentals. 
 It thus happens that many of his words are as apt and forceful today 
 as when they were first spoken by him. In harmony with this thought 
 I shall try to put before you some of the things for which Lincoln 
 stood which directly apply, as it seems to me, to the grave problems 
 with which we and all the world with us are confronted now. 
 
 On February 12, 1809, two men were born. They have been dust 
 for many years. Yet each played a large part in the great world war 
 that recently reached its close. These men were Abraham Lincoln 
 and Charles Darwin. Darwin devoted his life to the study of material 
 things. In that world in which he lived he found heredity and en- 
 vironment to be the controlling facts. Out of his study came the 
 doctrine of the survival of the fittest. The savants of Germany made 
 
 10 
 
that doctrine the cornerstone of a new philosophy which they called 
 Kultur. 
 
 According to Kultur, the world belonged to the strong and to the 
 strong alone. Might was right and the world was in the relentless 
 grip of physical force. Justice, gentleness, righteousness, were words 
 invented by the weak to protect themselves against the strong. To 
 pity a foe was weakness, to spare him was a crime. Kultur was a 
 denial of the moral law; was a blind faith in the power of the laws 
 of life which Darwin had declared. The fatal defect in Kultur was 
 that it assumed that Darwin's theory covered the entire philosophy 
 of life. This was not so. He was accounting only for the material 
 universe. He never denied so far as I have discovered that there was 
 a larger world — the moral and spiritual world. Kultur overlooked 
 this and took its fatal plunge. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln was born in a cabin in Kentucky. If heredity 
 and environment had been all there was in human life we never 
 should have heard his name. While Darwin delved in rocks to find 
 vanished forms of life, Lincoln studied man. By them his sympathies 
 were quickened ; the moral depths of his being were stirred; the 
 right and wrong of human conduct engaged his deepest thought. Just 
 as the laws of physical being unfolded under the eye of the great 
 scientist, so the laws of the moral universe disclosed themselves to 
 the great man. Lincoln had never read The Origin of Species, but 
 he knew that under the moral law an injury inflicted upon an inferior 
 by a superior man reacts upon himself. He said: 
 
 "This is a world of compensation and he who would be no 
 slave must consent to have no slave. And those who deny free- 
 dom to others deserve it not for themselves, and under a just God 
 cannot long retain it." 
 
 Unconsciously Lincoln became the interpreter of the moral laws 
 of society just as Darwin became the interpreter of the physical laws 
 of life. Therefore Lincoln asserted that all men had the inalienable 
 right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Lincoln was as 
 much at home amidst the play of moral and spiritual forces as was 
 Darwin in the realm of mere matter. It was this moral grandeur to 
 which Lincoln attained that made him the wisest of all men. For, after 
 all, wisdom is largely a product of character. Men may be intellectu- 
 ally brilliant, indeed brilliant beyond compare, and yet be utterly lack- 
 ing in wisdom. Where other men had views, Lincoln had convictions. 
 Convictions come from the heart and not from the brain. And so 
 whenever there arises a question of human liberty or of human rights, 
 one may turn to Lincoln for an answer without inquiring as to the 
 particular year in which he wrote. There is a perfect harmony run- 
 ning through all his utterances. 
 
 It is not strange that as Kultur was partially founded upon the 
 doctrine of Darwin, so the Allies in the great war found their chief 
 
 11 
 
inspiration in the life of Abraham Lincoln. For this great contest was 
 a war between the material forces of the world upon the one hand 
 and the spiritual forces upon the other. Where the Central Empires 
 found comfort in The Origin of Species, the statesmen of England 
 and France, and of Italy and the United States, read the Gettysburg- 
 speech and the Second Inaugural and thereby renewed their faith and 
 refreshed their courage. 
 
 We have known ever since Lincoln's death that he was America's 
 most perfect product, but we did not learn how much he meant to 
 all the world until the great war came and civilization was threatened 
 on every front. Then it was that in France or England or wherever 
 the torch of liberty still burned and men were fighting for righteous- 
 ness with their backs to the wall — then it was that the whole world 
 turned to the words of Lincoln. Whether it was Lloyd George in 
 the Parliament of England or Clemenceau in France, or wherever 
 it might be, it was Lincoln's words that gave the highest inspiration to 
 the forces fighting the battles of civilization. And so in our own 
 country Lincoln loomed a mightier figure than ever before. During 
 the most depressing period of the war, when our Allies were becom- 
 ing war weary, whenever a mission from foreign lands visited Amer- 
 ica either to stimulate our activities or to renew their own courage, 
 that mission made a pilgrimage to Lincoln's tomb. I was in Spring- 
 field when the French mission headed by Marshal Joffre visited that 
 city. I drove with the great French soldier, who held the enemy at 
 bay in the first Battle of the Marne, to the cemetery where lies 
 Lincoln's dust. As I looked at the old hero and saw his streaming 
 eyes and his trembling hands as he laid his tribute of blossoms upon 
 Lincoln's bier, I thought I could see that he in that sacred presence 
 had resolved anew "They shall not pass." 
 
 Lincoln truly served mankind because he loved mankind. Genuine 
 service must always spring from the promptings of the heart, and is 
 never a product of the will alone. It was the poet Lowell who said: 
 
 "How beautiful to see 
 Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed, 
 Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead." 
 
 And so he couldn't help giving his tenderest thought to the work- 
 ing man. He cared for him because he cared for all men. Every- 
 one is familiar with his significant saying that the Lord loves plain 
 people because He made no many of them. 
 
 With reference to the age old question of labor and capital, he 
 declared : 
 
 "Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only 
 the fruit of labor and could never have existed if labor had not 
 first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much 
 the highest consideration." 
 
 12 
 
That is but another way of saying that society should chiefly con- 
 cern itself with the lot in life of the average man. And this is but 
 saying, in another form, that Lincoln was a lover of humanity. The 
 Declaration of Independence, to which again and again he turned in 
 his thinking, included not only the right to life and liberty, but the 
 right to the pursuit of happiness as well. And it is interesting to note 
 that though Lincoln emphasized the right to liberty — for slavery was 
 the dominant issue at the time — he never referred to the Declaration, 
 so far as I can find, without coupling with the right to liberty the 
 right to the pursuit of happiness. Life means much; liberty means 
 much; but both fail unless life can be lived and liberty enjoyed under 
 conditions of well-being. Any form of government is but a means 
 to an end, and that end is the happiness of the individual. 
 
 I am sure that in our almost a century and a half of existence, 
 since that great day of Independence, more men have lived happy 
 lives in our country and under our form of government than in any 
 other in all the history of the world. But the happiness and well- 
 being of the average man and woman must be steadily advanced if 
 our institutions are to endure. The economists may explain, the 
 statesmen may excuse our failure to accomplish this, but the fact 
 remains that our civilization will fail if the well-being of the men 
 and women and children of America shall not continuously improve. 
 
 This cannot be, however, in my opinion, if we destroy private in- 
 itiative in industry. For every invention, for every improved process 
 made under the stimulus of private initiative, though the inventor 
 may profit, society profits immeasurably more. A steadily reducing 
 amount of human labor is all the time required to produce the neces- 
 sities of life. If we shall abandon the ancient landmarks and sub- 
 stitute for private initiative and private industry a communistic state, 
 the progress of mankind will be arrested and retrogression will set 
 in. Again Lincoln speaks to us. It is a message for today : 
 
 "The legitimate object of government is to do for a com- 
 munity of people whatever they need to have done but cannot 
 do at all or cannot so well do for themselves in their separate 
 and individual capacities. In all that the people can individually 
 do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere." 
 
 He also warns us : 
 
 "Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of an- 
 other, but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus 
 by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence 
 when built." 
 
 Lincoln's love of the Union was the guiding motive and the 
 supreme passion of his life. He hated slavery, but he loved the 
 Constitution more. 
 
 African slavery for years had been the great problem of the 
 American people. Phillips and Garrison had lashed the conscience of 
 
 13 
 
the North for permitting this national sin. The Union had long been 
 held together by compromise. Lincoln saw that though there might 
 be compromise on expedients there never could be compromise over 
 principles. He announced, 
 
 "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe that 
 
 this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half 
 
 free." 
 
 And yet when asked for his solution of the problem he was silent. 
 He knew only that the law must be maintained, whether it guaranteed 
 the integrity of the federal union or slavery. Phillips declared that 
 the constitution was a "union with death and compact with hell." 
 Lincoln urged always that the constitution must be absolutely upheld 
 both when it made for freedom and for slavery. 
 
 In his debate with Douglas, he said, in regard to the Fugitive 
 Slave Law: 
 
 "I have never hesitated to say, and I do not hesitate to say, 
 that I think under the constitution of the United States the peo- 
 ple of the Southern states are entitled to a Congressional Fugi- 
 tive Slave Law." 
 
 Then came John Brown, that "noble suicide." But Lincoln could 
 not approve of Harper's Ferry. There was no warrant for it un- 
 der the law. 
 
 Lincoln was nominated for President over the protests of the ex- 
 tremists. Phillips published an article entitled, "Abraham Lincoln, 
 the Slave Hound of Illinois." In it he boasted : "We gibbet a North- 
 ern hound today, side by side with the infamous Mason of Virginia." 
 But Lincoln was elected. Maligned by the South, distrusted by the 
 Abolitionists of the North, the months that intervened between his 
 election and his inauguration were the hardest of his life. Sad, de- 
 pressed and impotent, he quietly waited at Springfield, while all the 
 forces opposed to his most cherished principle, the preservation of 
 the Union, were mustering both South and North. He hated slavery 
 but he loved the constitution. The federal union and its mission were 
 the supreme passion and sublime faith of his life. With hands tied, he 
 beheld the South, in the interests of slavery, and a large portion of the 
 North, in the interests of peace, advocate a separation of the two. He 
 witnessed the spectacle of Cabinet ministers conniving at secession. 
 Sustained only by an abiding faith, he waited gloomily but steadfastly 
 for the day when he should take command. Tardily the hour arrived. 
 It was almost, not quite, too late. 
 
 It was impossible for Lincoln as President to foresee the emanci- 
 pation of the slaves because the constitution protected slavery. He 
 could only know that he had but one duty, and sadly and solitarily he 
 set about that duty. In very truth, the sins of the fathers are visited 
 upon the children. Slavery was a sin but it was the sin of the fathers. 
 
 14 
 
Lincoln bowed his great shoulders to bear this sin. In his first in- 
 augural address he said : 
 
 "I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the 
 institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I 
 have no lawful right to do so and I have no inclination to do so." 
 
 Then there followed Bull Run, Shiloh, Antietam — these battles 
 were all fought, not for the slave but for the Union. If any had been 
 decisive for the Union slavery would have remained. But events are 
 mightier than men. It was destined that slavery should perish forever 
 from this continent. So the South must fight so well that the North 
 should be compelled for its own preservation to free the slave. Lee 
 was fighting for humanity, though he knew it not. Our Canadian 
 brethren in our own Revolutionary war seemed to lose battles to the 
 colonial forces. Though they could not see this, those disasters were 
 their gain. The freedom of the English colonies was won for them 
 by the American rebels in that great war. England learned a new 
 colonial policy at the surrender of Yorktown, and our then Canadian 
 foes became beneficiaries of Washington's heroic deeds. So, the 
 noblest sons of the South now admit that Lincoln was the best friend 
 they ever had. In very truth, "they are victors who have been van- 
 quished by the right." 
 
 Strange concatenation of events ! Phillips, the inspired abolition- 
 ist, urging that the South be permitted to go; Greeley, the powerful 
 editor, against a war of coercion; Lincoln, insisting that he was 
 without power to interfere with slavery in the South ; Lee, main- 
 taining with force of arms the right to secession in the interest of 
 slavery — yet out of it all comes the freedom of four million slaves. 
 This glorious but unseen result was the fruit of Lincoln's perform- 
 ance of the duty of the hour. 
 
 When the emancipation proclamation was resolved upon, Lincoln 
 solemnly made this confession to his cabinet: 
 
 "When the rebel army was at Frederick, I determined, as soon 
 as it should be driven out of Maryland, to issue a proclamation 
 of emancipation, such as I thought most likely to be useful. I 
 said nothing to anyone; but I made the promise to myself and — 
 to my Maker. The rebel army is now driven out, and I am going 
 to fulfill that promise." 
 
 And so today, to the many who believe that constitutional man- 
 dates can be easily laid aside and picked up again when the need is 
 past, to all who believe that they are wiser than the men who framed 
 that constitution and the form of government under which they live, 
 I commend with all my heart the words and the deeds of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln. 
 
 All through his writings runs the thought too that our cause was 
 the cause of humanity. In his speech at Gettysburg he did not say: 
 
 15 
 
"Let us highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in 
 vain ; that this Nation, under God, shall have a new birth of 
 freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for 
 the people, shall not perish" from the United States but "from 
 the earth." 
 
 His vision circled all the globe. His great heart was beating in 
 sympathy with mankind everywhere. 
 
 How well he wrought I doubt if even he himself could fully under- 
 stand. The American Republic has been an inspiration to the lovers 
 of liberty everywhere. The Republic, during its almost a century and 
 a half of existence, has had a mighty influence throughout the world. 
 Its power has come from its success as a self-governing nation. Our 
 influence has run around the globe because we have contented our- 
 selves with being an exemplar to, rather than a ruler of, mankind. 
 
 Lincoln did preserve the Union and free the slaves. That Nation 
 which he saved had grown so powerful in a little more than fifty 
 years that it was able, in the supreme crisis of civilization, to turn 
 the tide of the great world conflict. And as he prayed, so now 
 may we have faith to believe that "government of the people, by the 
 people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." 
 
 And now the most important of all his precious teachings. And 
 that is that no nation can endure which denies its dependence upon 
 God. We need to recognize this truth as never before in all our 
 history. Within the last few years we have had before our very 
 eyes two attempts to replace a civilization founded upon righteous- 
 ness, upon moral and spiritual concepts, with a purely materialistic 
 and Godless structure. First, under the leadership of their philoso- 
 phers Germany evolved the idea that the state could do no wrong. 
 She had been marvelous in her achievements during the year which 
 had preceded the war; she had shown an efficiency which challenged 
 the admiration of the world; she had come to think that she had so 
 far conquered matter in all its forms that she could rest her future 
 upon a material base alone. And we know the result. We saw that 
 no matter how well disciplined her legions, when those legions hurled 
 themselves against less perfectly disciplined legions — moved and sus- 
 tained, however, by a deep moral purpose — we saw her splendid 
 legions dashed to pieces. And again at almost the same time another 
 effort was made to build a civilization upon material concepts alone. 
 This time it was in Russia that the effort was made. There they 
 had taken as a basis for their new philosophy of government the 
 principles of Karl Marx, which sought to resolve all things into ma- 
 terial terms. Churches dismantled; the clergy were driven from the 
 altar; and a civilization based upon purely material concepts was the 
 thing attempted. The world knows the result. It now sees that it 
 is just as impossible to rest a civilization upon a material base as 
 it is upon the might of the sword alone. 
 
 16 
 
There is this in common between the two attempts, the attempt 
 of the German Militarists and the attempt of the Bolshevists, and 
 that is that each sought to eliminate all spiritual forces and all moral 
 qualities from their respective schemes. And therefore it never 
 seemed to me strange that the Bolshevists, when they came into pos- 
 session of Russia, should meet the ambassadors of Militarism at 
 Brest-Litovak upon equal terms and there frame a treaty of peace. 
 Isn't it strange that with these two colossal failures staring us in 
 the face we should need to be reminded by Lincoln that "it is the 
 duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the 
 overruling power of God?" Let me read you part of the Fast Day 
 Proclamation which Lincoln issued in the darkest days of the war: 
 
 "We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of 
 Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace 
 and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power 
 as no other nation has ever grown; but we have forgotten God. 
 We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in 
 peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us ; and we 
 have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all 
 these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and 
 virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have 
 become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and 
 preserving grace, too proud to pray to God that made us : 
 
 "It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended 
 Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency 
 and forgiveness. 
 
 "All this being done in sincerity and truth, let us then rest 
 humbly in the hope authorized by the divine teachings, that the 
 united cry of the nation will be heard on high, and answered with 
 blessings no less than the pardon of our national sins and the 
 restoration of our now divided and suffering country to its for- 
 mer happy condition of unity and peace." 
 
 We are confronted with grave and perplexing problems. Civiliza- 
 tion itself seems to some hanging in the balance. The world is drift- 
 ing whither no man knows. How quickly all this would change if 
 these words of Lincoln could only enter and hold the heart of the 
 world in these troublous times. 
 
 The cause of democracy is the cause of humanity. Democracy 
 concerns itself with the welfare of the average man. Lincoln was 
 its finest product. In life he was its noblest champion. In death he 
 became its saint. His tomb is now its shrine. His country's cause 
 for which he lived and died has now become the cause of all the 
 world. It is more than a half century since his countrymen, with 
 reverent hands, bore him to his grave. And still his pitiless logic for 
 the right, his serene faith in God and man, are the sword and shield 
 with which democracy, humanity and righteousness everywhere op- 
 pose their foes. 
 
 17 
 
Rev. William E. Barton, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 Oak Park, Illinois 
 
 Honorary Member Oak Park Club 
 
 18 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND HIS PARENTS 
 
 BY REV. WILLIAM E. BARTON 
 
 We have assembled to pay a tribute of honor and respect to the 
 memory of a very humble man and woman. Large as is the com- 
 pany here convened, it is the minutest possible fraction of the num- 
 ber of those who constitute in reality the assembly of this occasion. 
 An event of this character, relating so intimately to the life of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln, cannot occur in any remotest spot in America and not 
 attract the attention of the whole country. We are assembled in a 
 place remote from the railway, and distant from any of the more 
 populous cities, but this large company of those actually present serves 
 to remind us of the interest of the many thousands of others focused 
 this day upon this quiet spot. 
 
 We are gathered in a country churchyard, attractively situated 
 on the high bank of a gently flowing stream, amid surroundings at 
 once primitive and picturesque. Hard by is the little church, and 
 around us are the graves, in their dates of occupancy both recent 
 and remote, of the successive generations of the inhabitants of this 
 neighborhood who for a century have found repose here. After life's 
 fitful fever, if they knew such fever in the quiet of this community, 
 they sleep well. The place is quiet, dignified, restful. It exhibits 
 neither the display nor the neglect, one of which is apt to character- 
 ize our places of burial. 
 
 Such a spot as this held ever a solemn, an almost morbid, attrac- 
 tion for Abraham Lincoln. After he was dead, his widow remem- 
 bered that a few weeks previous to his death, while he and she were 
 at City Point with General Grant before the final campaign that 
 forced the surrender of Lee, they took a drive one day, and coming 
 upon a little country cemetery they went in and rested for a little 
 time. The place seemed to them so beautiful, so restful, he said to 
 her that he could wish that he and she might be buried in such a spot. 
 
 It was of such a churchyard, remotely situated in rural England, 
 that Gray wrote his immortal poem, one line of which, Abraham 
 Lincoln was accustomed to say, told the whole story of his life, — 
 
 "The short and simple annals of the poor." 
 
 That line alone stands out rather too stark and forbidding. It 
 reads better in its setting: 
 
 Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, 
 
 Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap. 
 
 Each in his narrow cell forever laid, 
 
 The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 
 
 19 
 
Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, 
 
 Their homely joys, their destiny obscure; 
 Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile 
 
 The short and simple annals of the poor. 
 
 The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
 
 And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 
 
 Await alike the inevitable hour ; — 
 
 The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln loved the noble cadence of these accurately 
 measured pentameter lines. He loved places like this. He himself 
 visited this spot. Where our feet are standing, his feet have stood, 
 and with like reason, that here he might honor his father. A kindred 
 respect for his father, then dead, and for his step-mother, then living 
 three and one-half miles from here, and now buried here beside her 
 husband, brought Lincoln here, in February, 1861, that before leaving 
 for his inaugural as President he might pay his respect to the two 
 people whose dust is buried beneath this stone, Thomas Lincoln and 
 his second wife, Sarah Bush Lincoln. We pay our tribute to this 
 couple today, and to the first wife of Thomas Lincoln, Nancy Hanks 
 Lincoln, who lies buried in Spencer County, Indiana. 
 
 Let us first record "the short and simple annals" of these three 
 people, the father, the mother and the step-mother of Abraham 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Thomas Lincoln was born on Linville Creek, in that part of 
 Augusta which is now Rockingham County, Virginia, January 6, 1778. 
 His father. Abraham, was a captain in the militia and his name ap- 
 pears with that title in the Augusta County records for 1777 and the 
 Rockingham County records for 1779. Abraham Lincoln married, 
 not Mary Shipley, as is claimed in many books, but Bathsheba Her- 
 ring, the marriage license bearing date of June 9, 1770. Abraham 
 Lincoln married but once, and not twice, as is often asserted, and his 
 widow survived him many years. The family migrated to Kentucky 
 about 1782, and Abraham was killed by Indians, not in 1784, as is 
 usually stated, but in May, 1786. Thomas Lincoln, a lad of eight, 
 saw his father murdered, and witnessed also the swift revenge of 
 his older brother Mordecai, a lad of fourteen, who took careful aim 
 through a crack in the log wall of the cabin, and shot the Indian 
 who had killed his father. This tragedy occurred, not where Louis- 
 ville now stands, nor in Washington or Hardin County, though all 
 these sites have been shown to me as those where the pioneer Lin- 
 coln was killed. He was killed on Long Run of Floyd's Fork, and 
 his unmarked grave is probably within the inclosure of a little church- 
 yard even more primitive than that in which we are assembled, that 
 of the Long Run Baptist Church, which stands upon land owned by 
 the murdered man, Abraham Lincoln, the father of Thomas. Ac- 
 companied by other members of the Filson Club of Louisville, I have 
 identified the Lincoln farm on Long Run, and the Lincoln spring and 
 
 20 
 
the site of the Lincoln home, and have made what I regard as a close 
 approach to proof of the location of the pioneer Lincoln's grave. It 
 is not likely that any future investigation will he more thorough or 
 will greatly modify this conclusion. Thomas Lincoln's father sleeps 
 in a little cemetery in Jefferson County, Kentucky, near to the Shelby 
 County line, and on the brow of an elevation overlooking the stream — 
 a situation not unlike that of our own surroundings this very hour, 
 here in Illinois. 
 
 Thomas was the youngest of three sons of Abraham and Bath- 
 sheba Lincoln, his brothers being named Mordecai and Josiah. He 
 had also one older sister Mary, and a sister two years younger than 
 himself, Nancy, born in Virginia, March 25, 1780. She married Wil- 
 liam Brumfield, in 1801, her mother, Bathsheba, being alive and sign- 
 ing the required document consenting to the marriage. Bathsheba 
 later lived with this daughter, Nancy, on Mill Creek, in Hardin 
 County, and is buried beside her. The grave of Bathsheba is not 
 marked, and the exact date of her death is not known, but Nancy's 
 grave has a tombstone which states that she departed this life at 
 7 o'clock, October 9, 1845, aged 65 years, 6 months and 14 days. 
 
 Thomas Lincoln, the youngest son of these two pioneers, Abra- 
 ham and Bathsheba, removed from Kentucky to Indiana in the 
 autumn of 1816, and to Macon County, Illinois, in the spring of 
 1830. He came to Goose Nest Prairie, three and one-half miles from 
 this spot, in 1832, and lived there until his death, January 17, 1851. 
 
 His first wife was Nancy Hanks, who was born in Virginia about 
 1784. The exact date of her birth is unknown, and the books that 
 profess to give it precisely base their declarations on no documentary 
 proof. The Hanks family in that period kept no family records. 
 She was approaching her twenty-third birthday when, on June 12, 
 1806, she married Thomas Lincoln. She was a tall, slender, and 
 rather frail woman, of dark complexion, and a high forehead. From 
 her, as he believed, her son Abraham inherited some of his best 
 traits. She was a virtuous and worthy woman, and her son honored 
 her memory. She died near Gentryville, Indiana, October 5, 1818, at 
 the age of 35. Her grave is worthily marked, and is surrounded by 
 a park, owned and maintained by the State of Indiana. Illinois, tard- 
 ily following the example of her sister state, this day sends saluta- 
 tions from this sacred spot to the grave of Lincoln's own mother, 
 yonder in the quiet repose of Southern Indiana. 
 
 Sarah Bush, a daughter of Christopher Bush, was born in Hardin 
 County, Kentucky, December 13, 1788. She married, March 13, 1806, 
 Daniel Johnston, the jailer of that county. There is a tradition that 
 Thomas Lincoln had been a suitor for her hand before her first mar- 
 riage; if so, she did not show good judgment in rejecting him. Her 
 first husband died in October, 1818, leaving her with three small chil- 
 dren and a very heavy indebtedness. On December 2, 1819, she 
 married Thomas Lincoln. Her possessions in furniture were consid- 
 
 21 
 
crable as compared with his, and as he had journeyed from Indiana 
 back to Kentucky on horseback to court her, he had to borrow from 
 his brother-in-law a wagon to transport her and her belongings, in- 
 cluding her three children, to the new home in Indiana. From this 
 incident it has been inferred that Thomas Lincoln owned no horses 
 of his own at the time. On the contrary, he owned horses, one or 
 more, and sometimes as many as four or five, from the time he 
 reached the age of twenty-one until he left Kentucky. Moreover, and 
 I have this story direct from Mrs. Bush's own relatives, she was un- 
 willing to marry and leave unpaid debts behind her, and Thomas Lin- 
 coln was prepared for that emergency, and paid up her debts before 
 their marriage. She has been greatly pitied for having married so 
 shiftless a man as Thomas Lincoln, but that pity has been wasted. 
 She needed a home and a husband quite as much as he needed a wife, 
 and his two children and her three profited equally by the marriage. 
 She died December 10, 1869, and her grave has never been marked 
 until this day, that witnesses the unveiling of a suitable monument 
 to the memory of herself and her husband. 
 
 Thus, rapidly, I sketch the outlines of these three lives, and I 
 shall now take leave of chronology, and attempt some estimate of the 
 home life of this unpretentious couple, and the influences that assisted 
 in shaping the career of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 The family from which Thomas Lincoln was descended was a 
 thoroughly respectable family. It was of pure English descent, and 
 came to America first by way of Massachusetts. In the Revolution- 
 ary War there were many colonial soldiers named Lincoln from Mas- 
 sachusetts and very few from any other state. Thomas Lincoln was 
 of the sixth generation in descent from Samuel Lincoln, who was 
 born in England about 1619 and settled at Hingham, Massachusetts, 
 before 1640. Of the second generation, Mordecai, son of Samuel and 
 Martha Lincoln, of Hingham, Massachusetts, was born June 24, 1657, 
 and died at Scituate, Massachusetts, November 28, 1727. In the third 
 generation, Mordecai, son of Mordecai and Sarah (Jones) Lincoln 
 was born at Hingham, April 24, 1686, and died at Amity, Pennsyl- 
 vania, May 12, 1737. In the fourth generation, John, son of Mordecai 
 and Hannah (Salter) Lincoln, was born at Freehold, New Jersey, 
 May 3, 1716, and died at Linville Creek, Virginia, in November, 1788. 
 In the fifth generation, Abraham, son of John and Rebecca (Flowers) 
 Lincoln, was born in Berks County, Pennsylvania, May 13, 1744; 
 married Bathsheba Herring, removed to Rockingham County, Vir- 
 ginia, where his three sons and two daughters were born, migrated 
 to Kentucky in 1782, and was killed there by Indians in May, 1786. 
 This is a line of pure English descent, and it is not known that at 
 any point there was inter-marriage with any widely divergent strain. 
 All of these American ancestors of Thomas Lincoln could read and 
 write, and so could he; though his education was very meager. Like 
 all names on the frontier, the name Lincoln was misspelled, but none 
 
 22 
 
of the Lincolns misspelled it. I have seen hundreds of signatures 
 and none of them spelled otherwise than Lincoln. 
 
 This was not a low-grade family. It was a good, average, undis- 
 tinguished American family. The Lincolns in the hills of Kentucky 
 were of the same stock as the Lincolns in the Blue Grass, and these 
 were the same in lineage as those in Tennessee and Virginia, and 
 of close kin to those in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. 
 
 I should like to correct a few of the wrong impressions of Thomas 
 Lincoln. 
 
 The first is that he was cheated out of his share in his father's 
 estate by the rapacity of his eldest brother, Mordecai. A number of 
 sentimental books and some that are of more sober character have 
 sobbed over this situation. The fact appears to be that as the elder 
 Abraham Lincoln died intestate, his eldest son, Mordecai, inherited 
 the entire estate under the old English law of primogeniture then in 
 force in Virginia and Kentucky. But it seems to have been well 
 understood in such cases that the eldest son, who only had standing 
 in court, acted as guardian of the interests of the younger heirs. In- 
 deed, Mordecai himself was but fourteen when his father was killed. 
 The court records, of course, do not show the transactions between 
 Mordecai and his brothers. But the records do show that when the 
 second son, Josiah, came of age, Mordecai sold land that had been 
 his father's, and Josiah bought land for cash. They also show that 
 when Thomas came of age, Mordecai sold more land, and soon after- 
 ward, Thomas bought for 118 pounds, cash, 238 acres of land on 
 Mill Creek, a farm, by the way, which all writers have erred about, 
 but which has now been identified. Where did Thomas obtain 118 
 pounds? Presumably, from the settlement of his father's estate. 
 There is no slightest evidence that he was wronged by his brothers. 
 
 I am not prepared at present to state just what title Thomas Lin- 
 coln had to his several farms, though this is a story I intend some 
 time to relate. He had better color of title than any book now shows, 
 and he had cash, not a vast sum, but an adequate sum, for each 
 purchase. 
 
 I want also to refute the story that the Lincoln cabin was fur- 
 nished in the most poverty-stricken fashion. I do not credit the 
 stories of those who profess to remember this cabin, and either to 
 have shared its luxuries or suffered its privations. I think all such 
 stories imaginary. But we have the record of auction sales of a 
 number of estates where Thomas Lincoln was present as a successful 
 bidder, and he bought spoons, dishes and cooking utensils, as well as 
 live stock and implements. 
 
 I want to relate one little incident, because it sheds a light on 
 the character of Thomas Lincoln while he was still living in Ken- 
 tucky. Rev. Louis A. Warren, to whom I am indebted for many dis- 
 coveries of hitherto unknown facts about the Lincolns, discovered the 
 report of the commissioners appointed by the Court of Hardin County 
 
 23 
 
to settle the estate of Dr. Daniel B. Potter of Elizabethtown. He 
 had died leaving a widow and a large amount due him in unpaid 
 fees. He also left debts amounting to $1,560.35^4. The commission- 
 ers were able to collect out of the accounts due him the total sum 
 of $864.89^2, leaving the estate still in debt $695.4654. The commis- 
 sioners record the names of the men from whom they had been able 
 to collect, and Thomas Lincoln is among them, having paid in full 
 his small balance of $1.46. It is a petty item, but it shows that 
 when Nancy Lincoln needed a doctor she had one, and Thomas Lin- 
 coln paid his doctor's bills. 
 
 He paid his taxes regularly, and he left no unpaid debts behind 
 him when he left Kentucky or Indiana or Decatur. He lived and 
 died a poor man, thriftless, improvident and quite lacking in qualities 
 that appeal to the imagination. But he was a good neighbor, a good 
 father, a good husband. 
 
 I hold no brief for Thomas Lincoln. He was not a great man. 
 But he was great enough to be the father of a man of outstanding- 
 greatness, and some of the qualities which made Abraham Lincoln 
 great, his patience, his good humor, his kindliness, his love of fun, 
 he inherited from his father. We cannot afford to hold in light re- 
 gard the man who gave to the world so great a son. 
 
 It is often alleged that Thomas Lincoln could not read or write 
 until his marriage, and that his wife, Nancy Hanks, taught him to 
 write. On the contrary, he could "bunglingly write his name" as his 
 son Abraham said, before he was married, while Nancy made her 
 mark. That she could read and write, we are assured by those who 
 knew her : that he could do so we are assured by the fact that he did it. 
 
 It is often alleged that Thomas Lincoln was a religious vagrant. 
 We are told on what appears to many to have been reliable authority 
 of his going from one denomination to another. And we are told 
 that it was his second wife, Sarah, who first induced him to unite with 
 any church. On the contrary, Thomas Lincoln and his first wife, 
 Nancy Hanks, were members of the Little Mount Baptist Church in 
 Hardin County, Kentucky, and when a Baptist church was organized 
 on Little Pigeon Creek in Indiana, he united by letter, and his second 
 wife, Sarah Bush Lincoln, "by experience." In this church, he served 
 as trustee, often as moderator, sometimes as referee in matters of dis- 
 pute, sometimes as a messenger to other churches, and when he and 
 Sarah departed to Illinois, they brought their church letters in their 
 pocket. There was no Baptist church here within reach, and the 
 Lincolns became interested in the preaching of Rev. Thomas Good- 
 man, of Charleston, a minister in the Church of the Disciples of 
 Christ. With that congregation, in their later years, Thomas and 
 Sarah Lincoln were affiliated. Rev. Thomas Goodman preached the 
 funeral sermon of Thomas Lincoln. I am reliably informed by some 
 who heard it that it could be heard at a distance of half a mile. Mr. 
 Goodman's sermon is not preserved, but he spoke highly of Thomas 
 
 24 
 
Copyright by Herbert W. Fay 
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 25 
 
Lincoln as a neighbor, a friend and a consistent Christian man. 
 Thomas Goodman stood here, where our feet stand this day, and 
 committed to this dust the dust of Thomas Lincoln; and his old neigh- 
 bors mourned for a man whom they held in high regard as an hon- 
 est and kindly man and a good neighbor. People still are living who 
 remember the funeral and the interment, and though they were chil- 
 dren then and are aged now, we are glad of their testimony. 
 
 No one knew in 185 1 that ten years later a son of Thomas Lincoln 
 would be sitting in the President's chair; and the honors paid to 
 Thomas at his death were strictly local, and such as would have been 
 paid to any honest, well-intentioned citizen of this locality. Thirty- 
 six years afterward, Rev. Thomas Goodman, being asked to relate 
 for publication some of his memories of Thomas Lincoln, said: 
 
 "In his case I could not say aught but good . . . He was a con- 
 sistent member through life of the church of my choice — the Christian 
 Church, or Church of Christ, and was, as far as I know — and I was 
 a very intimate friend — illiterate, yet always truthful, conscientious 
 and religious."* 
 
 Thomas Lincoln was a farmer and a carpenter. He was not 
 greatly skilled in either trade, but in neither was he wholly a failure. 
 He was a fair, average country carpenter. He could frame a window 
 or hang a door or build a chest of drawers and do it well. Skill in 
 the use of tools ran in the Lincoln family. I have seen samples of 
 the carpenter work of a number of the Lincolns, both of Thomas 
 Lincoln and of his kinsfolk in Hancock County. They knew how to 
 mortise and dove-tail and do the ordinary work that counted for skill 
 in the carpentry of that day. The making of coffins was a large 
 part of the work of the carpenter of that day. I have seen the ac- 
 count book of Thomas's nephew, the younger Mordecai. He made 
 many coffins, as Thomas did. Six dollars was his charge for a full- 
 sized coffin and three dollars for a coffin for a child. Under our feet 
 in this cemetery many of the coffins of Thomas Lincoln have decayed 
 with the dust which they inclosed. 
 
 Thomas Lincoln had some skill in farm surgery, and was sent for 
 when neighbors had need of him. There are men living in this neigh- 
 borhood who remember to have assisted him in some of these rude 
 but effective operations. 
 
 The house where Thomas Lincoln died in 185 1 and where his 
 widow died in 1869 stood three and one-half miles from here. It was 
 sold to a corporation just before the World's Fair in Chicago, and 
 conveyed there for exhibition purposes. What became of it no one 
 appears to know. But I have learned that Thomas Lincoln lived in 
 that house only two days and one night. He lived in a round-log 
 house on the same farm. A round-log house, you understand, is not 
 
 *Quoted by Hon. Joseph H. Barrett of Loveland, Ohio, in the New 
 England Historical and Geneological 'Register for July, 1894, (Vol. 48) 
 pp. 327-8. 
 
 26 
 
a round house, but a square house, or at least a rectangular house, 
 built of round or unhewn logs. Round-log houses were the first 
 homes of virtually all the pioneers. But the settlers aspired to live 
 in square-log houses, that is, houses for which the logs had been 
 hewn and better fitted, and with wall surfaces more nearly plane. 
 Such a house Thomas Lincoln aspired to own and occupy, but, not 
 being an ambitious or excessively energetic man, he did not hasten 
 the matter. 
 
 At last the new house was erected, a house of two rooms with a 
 fire-place between, and it was of hewn logs. But by the time it was 
 finished, Thomas Lincoln was a sick man. His step-daughter, Ma- 
 tilda, set up a loom and did some weaving in the new house, but 
 Thomas Lincoln lay sick in the round-log house near by. 
 
 On the day before he died, he grew restless, and insisted on being 
 moved. So a bed was set up in the new house, and his step-son, 
 John D. Johnston, and old Beniah Wright moved him to the new 
 home. He looked around him in content. He saw the smooth walls, 
 hewn with his adz and broad-axe, and he was rested by the sight. 
 He was in his own new house. He slept there that night, and rested 
 better than he had been resting. The next day he died. They held 
 the funeral in the new square-log house; and Parson Goodman, stand- 
 ing in the open door, and preaching to the women and children inside 
 and the men outside, was heard not only by both these congregations, 
 but by every one else within a considerable radius, as I have already 
 stated. 
 
 Thomas Lincoln was about five feet and nine inches tall, and 
 weighed about 180 pounds. He had a well rounded face, smooth 
 shaven. His hair was cut round on a level of the bottom of his ears; 
 it was not shingled. He was muscular and compactly built, and had 
 a slight stoop. He was jovial, slow in thought and in movement, 
 good natured, but a dangerous man when angry. He was not a tee- 
 totaler, but was temperate in his use of liquor, and in that day was 
 reckoned abstemious. He was friendly and kind, and had deep, grey 
 eyes that sometimes lacked luster and then kindled with a deep light. 
 He was known in this neighborhood as "Uncle Tommy" and later as 
 "Grandfather Lincoln." His neighbors spoke well of him, and those 
 here present who remember him will not recall from their childhood 
 recollections anything to his discredit. He was not educated or 
 learned or ambitious ; he was not brilliant or of extraordinary abil- 
 ity; but he had good sense, sound judgment, a kind heart and mod- 
 erate ability. He was reliable and worthy of respect. 
 
 Thomas Lincoln won the love of two good women. Nancy Hanks, 
 the mother of his three children, was a slender, thoughtful young 
 woman, with mirth and melancholy alternating in her character. 
 From her, as Lincoln believed, he inherited his power of analysis, 
 his intellectual alertness and his capacity for sustained thought. She 
 was a religious woman, and when she was dying she told her children 
 to love God and be kind to each other, an admonition which they 
 
 27 
 
obeyed, holding her memory in high regard. The clods fell heavily 
 on her whip-sawed coffin in the woods of Indiana, and her death 
 fell as a cruel sorrow on the heart of her son Abraham. According 
 to the custom of the country, the funeral service was held some 
 months later when a traveling preacher named David Elkin was in 
 the neighborhood. 
 
 The second wife of Thomas Lincoln, the second mother of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln, was Sarah Bush, whose grave has waited 55 years for 
 the monument which we erect today. But a monument has already 
 been erected for her in the memory of those who knew of her influence 
 upon Abraham Lincoln. She encouraged his love of learning, though 
 she had none of it herself. She nurtured him in the simple virtues 
 which she knew and practiced. She came to the home when the 
 children, Abraham and his sister and their cousin, Dennis Hanks, 
 were unkempt and ragged, and she washed and mended and patched 
 and darned and brought cleanliness and comfort to the home. She 
 was a true mother to Abraham Lincoln, and when he was about to 
 leave his home and begin his duties as President of the United States, 
 one of the few visits which he made out of Springfield between his 
 election and inauguration was to the old home where he visited her, 
 and to this spot where his father lay buried. Abraham Lincoln saw 
 to it that so long as she lived, she had a home of her own, which 
 even her improvident and importunate relatives could not take away 
 from her; and in that home she lived until her death. 
 
 We are erecting this monument above the graves of very humble 
 people. If anyone had called at the door of the round-log house 
 over on Goose Nest Prairie and told Thomas and Sarah Lincoln that 
 one day a monument like this would mark their grave, they would 
 have been much bewildered. They could hardly have understood the 
 information. But the monument is well deserved, and has waited all 
 too long. The world has on the whole monuments enough, and some 
 of them are of very doubtful value. But it has none too many that 
 commemorate the virtues that we honor in these two untitled Ameri- 
 cans, these two modest servants of God. In honoring them we pay 
 honor again to Abraham Lincoln, and to his first mother, Nancy 
 Hanks. And we honor the rugged honesty, the simple dignity, the 
 unpretentious piety, that characterized the home life of Thomas and 
 Sarah Lincoln. 
 
 The most ominous sign in the life of today is the disintegration 
 of the American home. America will be strong in proportion as her 
 home life is clean and united and virtuous and strong. The inscrip- 
 tions on this monument are of the simplest possible character. They 
 bear only the names of Thomas and Sarah Bush Lincoln and the 
 years of their birth and death, and one simple sentence. But that sen- 
 tence is one of noble eulogy: 
 
 "Their Humble but Worthy Home Gave to the World 
 Abraham Lincoln." 
 
 28 
 
Judge John F. Garner 
 
 Quincy, Illinois 
 
 Former International Director of Lions Clubs 
 
 29 
 
THE PRESENTATION OF THE MONUMENT 
 
 BY JUDGE JOHN F. GARNER 
 
 This day among the Lions of Illinois is one long to be remem- 
 bered. We have here erected and dedicated a monument to the hon- 
 ored name of Lincoln. It matters not how poor a man may be or 
 how rich he may be; it matters not whether his life be crowded with 
 honor and success or whether he be obscure or is a failure as viewed 
 by others; there is in the heart of every man an innate desire to 
 have the last resting place of his progenitor suitably marked and 
 cared for. This devotion is akin to the love for his own children, 
 and upon such sentiments depend the safety of any nation. 
 
 It is written "And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; 
 but the greatest of these is charity." We are not left to wonder or 
 speculate as to their relative values for it is stated, the greatest of 
 these is charity. But when the Great Ten Commandments were given, 
 we were left to presume that they are all equally imperative. Today, 
 however, one stands out in the minds of every one here, as a reason 
 for our being here. "Honor thy father and thy mother, as the Lord 
 thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and 
 that it may go well with thee, in the land which the Lord thy God 
 giveth thee." And we are here, not to honor our own fathers and 
 mothers, but to honor the father and step-mother of Abraham Lin- 
 coln for his sake. 
 
 The Lions International demands above all else — Loyalty, Intelli- 
 gence, Our Nation's Safety. Just so long as a people honor their 
 dead, cherish and protect their living, will patriotism flourish and our 
 nation's safety be secure by an intelligent civilization. 
 
 Misguided philanthropists oftentimes place the end to be attained 
 on such a high plane they sacrifice the means of attainment and 
 debauch the participants in the enterprise. No class of men in the 
 world deplore war and the tragic consequences that follow in its 
 train more than the Lions. But even war with all its evil conse- 
 quences is better for a nation — better for the individuals who com- 
 pose it, than that doctrine of the pacifists now insiduously being spread 
 that we must not fight no matter what the issue may be. 
 
 The illustrious son of the man to whom this monument of stone 
 is erected was the type of man who would injure no one and yet he 
 recognized the fact that principle and right could not be sacrificed 
 even to avoid war and without hesitation he called the militia to pre- 
 serve the LTnion. He faced the issue of peace at the price of disin- 
 tegration of the Union. Had he followed the peace at any price 
 declarant of today, he would have lived to do the service the Lions 
 are doing today in marking his father's grave. But he would have 
 
 30 
 
sacrificed what was more precious to him than his life. He would 
 have killed his self-respect in shirking" a responsibility and murdered 
 patriotism of posterity in America. 
 
 Better that he too should have given his life than that truth and 
 right be crushed to earth. I cannot but feel if he had known in his 
 lifetime that his end would be as it was, he too would have said that 
 his only regret was that he had but one life to give for his country. 
 
 And so today, this band of faithful disciples of Abraham Lincoln 
 are performing" for him this service of suitably and permanently 
 marking the graves of his loved father and respected step-mother, 
 as he would have done had he lived. We are happy, each one of us 
 who have participated in this event in any particular, to look toward 
 his magnificent tomb and say to him that we are doing this for his 
 sake as we know he would have done had he lived, and as we believe 
 he would have us do. With all our pomp and ceremony, we do not 
 presume to dedicate this beautiful monument to the memory of his 
 father in the same manner he would have done. His act would be 
 filled with the tender love of a dutiful son gratefully acknowledging" 
 parental care. We, who are strangers to his blood can but render 
 the homage that our reason dictates and conscience commends. We 
 have tried in our humble way to do this thing as he would have us 
 do it. We have done this because Illinois gave him in service to the 
 Country. Many illustrious men have come from Illinois, but none 
 greater than the son of the man to whom this monument is dedicated. 
 Oh ! you other States of this United States, join with us when we sing: 
 
 ' ' Not without thy wondrous story, 
 
 Illinois, Illinois, 
 Can be writ the Nation's glory, 
 
 Illinois, Illinois. 
 On the Record of the years, 
 
 Abraham Lincoln's name appears, 
 Grant, and Logan, and our tears, 
 
 Illinois, Illinois. ' ' 
 
 If I could but impress upon my hearers and Lions everywhere, 
 the value of the study of the lives of great men, then would I feel 
 my participation in this day worth while. The arts and sciences are 
 necessary in the education of man. But history and biography bind 
 him so close to the past that he is able to understand the present and 
 trust in the future. May we go from here with that determination 
 to study the lives of all our great men and see to it that posterity 
 saves at least some time from the pursuit of folly for the contempla- 
 tion of the lives that have been worth while. 
 
 With this dedication today, the Lions of Illinois have finished 
 their work of permanently marking this hallowed spot. The task has 
 been well done and Lionism in this State and everywhere will rejoice 
 in its completion. It is my simple task to officially turn over this 
 mark of their esteem to the local association for future care. We 
 
 31 
 
tender you this monument with the gladness of heart of every Ameri- 
 can who loves and reveres the name of Lincoln. May it stand here 
 among you as a constant reminder to the world that the father and 
 mother of a great man are recognized and remembered as having 
 been the dominant force and factor in making that great man. We 
 ask you to receive this into your care and keeping in the same rev- 
 erent manner in which it is given and see to it that through the ages 
 that may come that it may be maintained sacred to the memory of 
 him in whose name it has been erected. Then indeed will we all 
 have kept the faith. 
 
 Mrs. Susan D. Baker 
 
 Janesville, Illinois 
 
 President Lincoln Memorial 
 
 Association 
 
 ACCEPTANCE BY MRS. SUSAN D. BAKER 
 
 In the name of the Shiloh Lincoln Memorial Association we thank 
 you for this beautiful monument. We accept it from the Lions Clubs 
 of the State of Illinois with gratitude for their work in fulfilling the 
 wish of Abraham Lincoln which he made by the side of his father's 
 grave in February, 1861. We thank Mr. Wayne C. Townley for his 
 assistance which made this possible. 
 
 It is a great day for us because you have fulfilled our hopes. 
 
 32 
 
OFFICERS ILLINOIS LIONS CLUBS 
 
 Wayne C. Townley, District Governor, Bloomington 
 Arthur Gottschalk, District Secretary, Springfield 
 
 MEMORIAL COMMITTEE 
 
 Judge John F. Garner, Quincy 
 
 H. R. Van Gunten, Chicago 
 
 H. B. Hill, Springfield 
 
 Loyd Cox, West Frankfort 
 
 Judge Clyde Vogelsang, "Taylorville 
 
 J. S. Wyatt, Treasurer of Fund, Bloomington 
 
 This monument has been erected by the Lions Clubs of Illinois 
 through the contributions of the following clubs: 
 
 Aurora 
 
 Benton 
 
 Bloomington 
 
 Blue Island 
 
 Carbondale 
 
 Carterville 
 
 Chicago Heights 
 
 Christopher 
 
 Collinsville 
 
 Du Quoin 
 
 East St.- Louis 
 
 Eldorado 
 
 Elgin 
 
 Elmhurst 
 
 Galesburg 
 
 Gibson City 
 
 Glen Ellyn 
 
 Greenville 
 
 Highland 
 
 Hinsdale 
 
 Joliet 
 
 Kankakee 
 
 Marion 
 
 Mattoon 
 
 Maywood 
 
 Momence 
 
 Individual members of the Decatur Club 
 
 Mt. Vernon 
 
 Oak Park 
 
 Olney 
 
 Peoria 
 
 Pittsfield 
 
 Quincy 
 
 Sesser 
 
 Springfield 
 
 Taylorville 
 
 West Frankfort 
 
 Chicago — 
 
 Austin 
 Central Club 
 Hyde Park 
 
 Irving, Jefferson and Port- 
 age Parks 
 Logan Square 
 Roseland 
 South Chicago 
 Uptown 
 
 Washington Park 
 West Englewood 
 West Pullman 
 Woodlawn 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
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