| |
 Story
by Fred A Priebe
In 1837 the nation suffered a
financial panic. Illinois was in financial straits for several years
thereafter, with debts higher than income. The value of the notes issued
by the State Bank fell to a value of forty-four cents on the dollar. In
one effort to save the state’s finances, state auditor James Shields
ordered that taxes paid with State Bank notes be taken at actual value.
A great deal of protest followed.
The Whigs wasted no time in leveling
criticism at Shields, a Democrat. Abraham Lincoln, a good Whig, wrote a
series of letters from the “Lost Townships” under the name of a
backwoods widow named Aunt Becca. She told of a friend of hers, a
Democrat, who spoke against the action of Shields. She made fun of
Shields with these words; “I seed him when I was down in Springfield
last winter. They had a sort of gathering there one night, among the
grandees, they called a fair. All the gals about town was there, and all
the handsome widows, and married women, finickin about, trying to look
like gals, tied as tight in the middle, and puffed out at both ends like
bundles of fodder that hadn’t been stacked yet, but wanted stackin
pretty bad…I looked in at the window, and there was this same fellow
Shields…he was paying his money to this one and that one, and tother
one, and sufferin great loss because it wasn’t silver instead of State
paper; and the sweet distress he seemed to be in, -- his very features,
in the exstatic agony of his soul, spoke audibly and distinctly ‘Dear
girls, it is distressing, but I cannot marry you all.
(Continued)
|
|
| |
 Story
by Dean Dorrell
In
his late teen years, Lincoln worked in Southern Indiana running a
ferry back and forth across the Anderson River near where it emptied
out into the Ohio River. One day a couple of well-to-do men,
probably gamblers, asked him to ferry them out to a steamboat in the
middle of the river, which he did. As he dropped them off, each man
gave Lincoln fifty cents, which is more than he had ever held in his
hand at one time. Unfortunately, he dropped one of the coins and
watched it sink into the Ohio River and disappear for good
He began to ferry men out to the
steamboats on a fairly regular basis, which raised the ire of two
men who were contracted with the State of Kentucky for exclusive
rights to ferry people across the Ohio. One day they called Lincoln
over to the Kentucky side so they could "talk" to him, the idea
being that they would beat him soundly and convince him to cease his
ferry business for steamboat passengers. However, Lincoln being the
wrestler that he was, they discovered the task was not going to
be as easy as they expected. After a struggle, Lincoln persuaded
them to go with him to the nearest judge and allow him to settle the
matter. They ended up in Squire Pate's home where he sat and
listened to the Kentucky men's story. They explained that they had
an exclusive contract with Kentucky, which had jurisdiction over the
Ohio, to provide ferry service across the Ohio at that point.
(Continued)
|
|
|
|
 Story
by
George
Cheevers,
Cross-Roads of History:
Abraham Lincoln and the Families of Ulysses S. Grant and John
Wilkes Booth in Dorchester, Massachusetts
Many American children have heard stories that begin with
the phrase: “George Washington slept here,” and surely some of
them are apocryphal. I had heard from teammates on my youth
hockey team that Abraham Lincoln had slept in our hometown of
Dorchester, Massachusetts, but I doubted the veracity of the
story when it was presented in 1969. Great figures, the likes
of Lincoln, did not come to a place such as Dorchester.
Yet Washington had come to Dorchester Heights in 1776 (which
later became part of South Boston in 1804) and those of us who
live in Suffolk County celebrate the evacuation of the British
as a holiday. Might Lincoln have come here, to the Lower Mills
section of Dorchester, as my teammates had claimed? And how do
Ulysses S. Grant, Edward Everett, John Conness, the Galway born
U.S. senator from California and John Wilkes Booth connect to
both Dorchester and Lincoln? Read on.
The story of the prairie Congressman in Dorchester was long
dormant in my memory until I was reminded of it-- thirty-three
years later-- in the aftermath of attending the annual
convention of the Association of Lincoln Presenters as its 137th
(and newest) member in April, 2002. (This high school History
teacher had attended a local celebration of “Lincoln Days” at
the Forbes Museum* with its impressive collection of Lincoln and
Civil War memorabilia and replica log cabin, and that is where I
heard of the ALP). Dan Bassuk, the president of the ALP,
informed me on that day in April that Lincoln had visited
Massachusetts in 1848. Dan indicated that he would be pleased
to provide me with a centennial anniversary map of that
occasion.
(Continued) |
|
 Is
your story next |
|
