Abraham Lincoln quarterly. [Vol. 5, no. 3]

THE ABRAHAM LINCOLN )UARTERLY SEPTEMBER, 1948 THE ABRAHAM LINCOLN ASSOCIATION SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS

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THE ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUARTERLY VOL. V * SEPTEMBER, 1948 No. 3 Editor RoY P. BASLER Associate Editors G. W. BUNN, JR. BENJAMIN P. THOMAS COPYRIGHT 1948 BY THE ABRAHAM LINCOLN ASSOCIATION

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THE ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUARTERLY VOL. V* SEPTEMBER, 1948 * NO. 3 Is the Lincoln Birthplace Cabin Authentic? By Roy HAYS THE authenticity of the purported Lincoln birthplace cabin, now enshrined in the Memorial Building on the Lincoln birthplace farm, just south of Hodgenville, Kentucky, has been questioned for many years. The writer is a native of Louisville and remembers expressions of doubt as to the genuineness of the cabin. Indeed, the National Park Service has never represented it to be other than the "traditional" Lincoln cabin, and its i6-page booklet on the A braham Lincoln National Historical Park declares: ""In the light of the inconclusive evidence available at the present time [ 1941]1, it is impossible to make any definite and accurate, statement concerning the origin of the alleged Lincoln birthplace cabin now preserved in the Lincoln Memorial Building." Considering the facts available, this is a remarkable understatement of the case. The original Lincoln birthplace cabin was torn down prior to 1840. Jacob S. Brother, who resided on the Lincoln farm from 18,97 to 1840, made a statement that his father 127

128 ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUARTERLY built two log houses during the time they lived there. He also stated that a house which had stood on the property when they took it over was torn down and the logs used for firewood.' It is not necessary for us to rely entirely on the statement of the elderly Jacob Brother as to the fact that the original cabin disappeared before Lincoln became a national figure. We also have the written account of John B. Rowbotham, an artist, a keen observer and a good investigator, who went to the site in the spring of 1865 and reported the birthplace cabin gone. Rowbotham had been sent by a Cincinnati publishing house to make a picture of the birthplace cabin. He interviewed a nearby neighbor who was unable to do more than point out some rocks marking a chimney site. Fortunately, Rowbotham wrote an account of his investigation of the Kentucky home sites of the Lincolns in a long letter to William H. Herndon on June 24, 1865. This letter, together with Rowbotham's drawing of the cabin site appearing in Joseph H. Barrett's Life of Abraham Lincoln, presumably resolves any question as to the existence of a Lincoln birthplace cabin in 1865. Artist Rowbotham wrote, in part, as follows:.... From E. T. [Elizabethtown] proceed to Hodgenville which is about ten miles south east of there-8e inquire the way to Rock Spring farm owned by Mr. R. A. Creal better known as "old Dickey Creal [.]" The farm is about 3 miles south east of Hodgenville & a good straight road. The site of Mr. L's birthplace is on this farm about five hundred yards from Mr. Creals house. It is situated on a little Knoll or rising ground &8 is now a barley field. Some rocks indicating the site of the chimney are still there. At the edge of the field are two old pear trees planted by Thomas SJ. T. Hobson, Footprints of Abraham Lincoln (1909), pp. 14-15. The county records show that Henry Brother, the father of Jacob, owned the farm from 1835 to his death in 1840. Equity Box 19, Larue County Circuit Court, Hodgenville, Kentucky.

IS THE CABIN AUTHENTIC? 129 Lincoln-between which-was a gateway leading to the house. Mr. Creal remembers him well. Near the spot is a very romantic spring from which the farm takes its name-8c where no doubt Mr L as a Child often strayed. You will find Mr. Creal a truthful Kind hearted man....2 For many years after the Civil War, few people even knew where Abraham Lincoln's birthplace was located. Indeed, the exact site was a controversial question even after 1900.3 Major S. P. Gross has the distinction of being the first to make a serious attempt definitely to locate and mark the spot by establishing a national park on the birthplace farm. He took an option on the place early in 1894. The accounts of this transaction indicate clearly that the birthplace house had disappeared. They also indicate that it was the plan of Major Gross to establish a shrine of national interest like Mount Vernon and the Hermitage. There is no explanation as to why the Gross enterprise failed to materialize. It is regrettable that this meritorious idea was far ahead of the time. Published in the announcement of the Gross option,4 to emphasize the fact that the birthplace cabin was gone, was a drawing of a cabin of round logs with one door, no window and a mud-stick chimney. The drawing is stated to have been made from memory, apparently by an old neighbor of the Lincolns. This drawing, reproduced in the Louisville Times, February 2, 1894, may be the genesis of the concept of the Lincoln birthplace cabin which later materialized under the creative promotion of one Alfred W. Dennett and his agent, James W. Bigham. 2 Herdon-Weik Collection, Library of Congress. 8 For one of the more extreme accounts of Lincoln's background and birth, which places the site in Poortown, Washington County, Kentucky, see J. W. S. Clements, Origins of Clements-Spalding and Allied Families of Maryland and Kentucky (1928), Appendix, pp. 2-4. ' Announced first in Louisville Times, February 2, 1894. Subsequent news article, Louisville Commercial, March 26, 1894.

130 ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUARTERLY II Richard Creal, referred to in Rowbotham's letter to Herndon, owned and resided on land abutting the farm on which Abraham Lincoln was born in Larue County, Kentucky. In 1867 Creal bought eighteen and one-third acres, including the spring, an outstanding landmark known variously as the Rock Spring, Cave Spring, and Sinking Spring. This transfer of the area around the spring made Creal the nineteenth person who had owned part of the Lincoln farm, and the eleventh since Thomas Lincoln. In after years, Creal obtained ninety more acres of the Lincoln farm by adverse possession, and the place, up to 1895, was known as the "Old Creal Place." Near the spring is a magnificent oak which has been the starting point of almost every known survey of the Rock Spring farm. When Alfred W. Dennett bought the Old Creal Place in 1894, a chain of events was set in motion which, within a few years, involved a number of interesting characters. Dennett was the inventor of the quick-lunch. In the eighties his famous place on Park Row, New York, was opened, and it was here that William and Samuel Childs, the founders of Childs Restaurants, received their training. Dennett was extremely religious and was co-founder of the Florence Crittenton Mission and other important mission organizations. He helped support them all with a wide open pocketbook. The outstanding reformers of the eighties and nineties, in the East and on the Pacific Coast, were his close, personal friends. Gold mining in California had his attention for a number of years. His bankruptcy in 1901, was the genesis of protracted litigation over a fraudulent conveyance of the Lincoln birthplace farm, and, as will be seen, the records of this litigation provide much of our story. The conveyance was set aside by the court at a time when Dennett was a patient in a California mental institution in 1905.

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IS THE CABIN AUTHENTIC? 131 Associated with Dennett in a number of promotional enterprises was the Reverend James W. Bigham, a Methodist preacher and evangelist, who first met Dennett in New Albany, Indiana, in 1893. According to Dennett's testimony in the United States District Court in San Francisco, and his correspondence, it was Bigham who first interested Dennett in the Lincoln farm on "No Lynn" Creek.' Bigham was quite a prominent figure in western Kentucky in the nineties. These same sources indicate it was Bigham's fertile brain that created the idea of displaying two cabins at the Tennessee Centennial Exposition which was held at Nashville in 1897. One of these cabins was the alleged birthplace of President Lincoln and the other building was purported to be the structure in which Jefferson Davis first saw the light of day. The so-called Lincoln cabin was purchased from John A. Davenport in 1895, and was originally a two-story cabin in 5 In the Matter of Alfred W. Dennett, Bankrupt, No. 374o, U. S. District Court for the Northern District of California, filed November 25, 19o1, transcript of (hereafter referred to as Bankruptcy File): Direct Examination [in part] "Mr. Linforth [Trustee] Q. Do you know one J. W. Bigham, of Marion, Kentucky? Mr. Dennett [Witness] A. Yes, Sir. Q. Has he at any time represented you in connection with that property [Lincoln birthplace farm]? A. He was the agent through whom I was induced to purchase it some eight years ago; and he acted as a sort of agent for me and helped me with a settlement with the heirs, of the purchase money-what I bought was through him considerably." This voluminous bankruptcy file of approximately forty-six documents contains over two hundred pages. It includes information concerning the Lincoln birthplace farm and the two exhibition pieces, the "Lincoln" and "Davis" cabins, unobtainable elsewhere. I have 151 pages of this file, in photostat, in my collection of material on the farm and cabins. The name of Nolin Creek, in Larue County, has its origin in the pioneer designation, "No Lynn." A party of explorers camped on this creek about 1779 and a member named Lynn became lost. Searching parties returned to camp each night with the brief announcement, "No Lynn." It was repeated so many times during the search that it became the name of the creek. (Otis M. Mather, "Explorers and Early Settlers South of Muldraugh Hill," The Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society, January, 1924, Vol. XXII, No. 64, p. 31.)

132 ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUARTERLY which Davenport made his home. Located one mile north of the Rock Spring farm, it was knocked down and re-erected there as the one-room Lincoln birthplace cabin before being sent to Nashville.6 The "authentic birthplace cabin of Jefferson Davis," was built by Bigham from logs supplied by William B. Brewer of Fairview, Kentucky.7 After the Nashville Exposition these logs seemingly vanished into thin air to the consternation of admirers of the Confederate president. But some of these logs still survive and strangely enough their history is inex0 (1) Mattie Creal vs. T. W. Creal heirs, Larue County Circuit Court, filed April 17, 1894. Deposition of J. A. Davenport taken by Ben Hargan, Clerk, Larue County Circuit Court, May 17, 1894. (2) "A. W. Linforth, Trustee, vs. David Crear, A. W. Dennett and The Christian and Missionary Alliance," Equity Box 243, Larue County Circuit Court. Deposition of J. A. Davenport taken September 20, 1904, at his residence. H. P. Ford, Examiner for Larue County in presence of C. H. Moorman for Plaintiff and J. W. Gore, attorney for David Crear. (3) Affidavit of John A. Davenport taken May 3o, 1906, before Charles Williams, Notary Public, Larue County, Kentucky, now in the files of Chief Historian, National Park Service. Russell T. Evans, a photographer operating as the Evans Art Company in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, made a series of photographs of the Lincoln farm in September, 1895, apparently at the instance of Bigham. These photographs show the "improvements" made by Bigham for Dennett. They reveal that the area around the spring had been weeded out, that a makeshift arbor had been constructed just west of the spring, and that the "birthplace" cabin, being erected nearby, was about completed. Evans, at the time, took a close-up of this structure showing the front and chimney elevation. This photograph not only became famous but was so well circulated that, by the time the Tennessee Centennial Exposition was held, the public was ingrained with the assertion that it portrayed the log cabin in which Abraham Lincoln was born. The identity of the photographer, date and circumstances under which this well-known picture was taken are here brought to light for the first time. I have a set of four original prints, mounted for sale as souvenir photographs. They are of the cabin, spring, the corer oak and a general view of the farm. Evans was a native of Mississippi and remained in Elizabethtown about two or three years. Ida M. Tarbell used these photographs in 1895, claiming them specifically for McClure's Magazine without crediting Evans. 7 Signed statement given to the writer by Mrs. Bertha Brewer Wilkins at Hopkinsville, Kentucky, July 21, 1946, which gives the details of Bigham's purchase from her father of the house on Mills Street in Fairview, Kentucky. It also gives the details of how the old mantel was handed over to Bigham with the logs. Also, correspondence of the writer and Mrs. Brewer. See also, Todd County Times, Elkton, Kentucky, June 11, 1909; Nashville (Tennessee) Banner, May 1, 1897; Confederate Veteran, February, 1908, p. 74.

IS THE CABIN AUTHENTIC? 133 tricably interwoven with that of the alleged Lincoln cabin.8 III The 1895 encampment of the G.A.R. was held in Louisville, Kentucky, and during the preparations for this event, a law suit was started over part of what we now know as the Abraham Lincoln birthplace farm. This litigation grew out of a family squabble among the heirs of Richard Creal. It is in connection with this law suit that John A. Davenport made a deposition about the farm in 1894. In it, he referred to the farm as the "Old Creal Place" and stated that it was worth about $1,1oo (for 1 o acres), that the improvements were "not much" and were going down, that the land was not in condition to be rented, that there was no timber, and that in his opinion the farm should be sold to facilitate the best settlement for the heirs.9 At this time, the spring was no more than a cattle wallow, local interest in the place was nil, and pilgrims to the spot had the silent contempt of most of the local citizens. As a result of the litigation, this barren, abandoned briar patch was ordered sold for the second time in its history by a county commissioner. The fact that this real estate was once part of a three hundred acre farm of Thomas Lincoln was of little consequence in this legal contest, yet it is only through the plaintiff's petition that we learn that ninety acres of Lincoln's birthplace were obtained by Creal because they were worthless to the former title holder. Dennett bought the Rock Spring farm November 23, 8Concerning the cabin where Jefferson Davis was born, Robert McElroy's Jefferson Davis (1937), briefly refers to the Davis birthplace cabin and indicates that a news item in the New Orleans Daily Picayune states its logs were stored in Richmond, Virginia. The writer has made extensive inquiry in Richmond contacting all available sources of information there, but the logs of the Davis birthplace cabin are not in Richmond and no one there knows where the cabin is located. Search for the Davis cabin has been conducted throughout the South, but there is no trace of it. 9Supra, footnote 6.

134 ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUARTERLY 1894, for $3,000 on three installment notes due in the customary periods of six, twelve, and eighteen months, and thereafter, the place was referred to as "Lincoln Spring Farm." Three days after buying this farm, Dennett, in an oddly worded contract, made Bigham his agent and attorneyin-fact to manage it.'0 It is to be remembered that Dennett was, thereafter, away in California or New York practically all the time and that Bigham was the master of the farm and the development of this real estate designated in their contract as the "Lincoln Birthplace." Dennett had sensed that the historical significance of this old farm enhanced its value and that it was another possible source of dollars to pour into his numerous reform movements and serve as a prop to his own shaky finances. Upon buying the farm, Dennett announced in the Louisville Courier-Journal, December 1, 1894, that it was a moneymaking venture, that he planned to convert it into a public park and build a large hotel on the place. Further, he announced that during the national G.A.R. encampment of 1895, he was "arranging to have special trains run down to Hodgenville." He was convinced that the "old soldiers would flock down there and he would more than make his money back during the encampment of 1895." The Dennett hotel on the Lincoln birthplace farm failed to materialize. But out of a clear sky, on August 29, 1895, the Reverend Mr. Bigham announced in the Larue County Herald that he had received a telegram from Dennett, "instructing him to have built at once a log cabin on the Lincoln Farm exactly where stood the cabin in which Lincoln was born, and the cabin is to be built out of the identical logs that were in the original cabin." Bigham had made the deal with 10 Original copy of this contract, dated November 26, 1894, is in the file of "A. W. Linforth, Trustee, vs. David Crear, A. W. Dennett and The Christian and Missionary Alliance," Larue County Circuit Court, Hodgenville, Kentucky. It was exhibit "A" in the case.

IS THE CABIN AUTHENTIC? 135 Davenport, buying Davenport's log cabin situated one mile north of the Lincoln farm on the road to Hodgenville. Now he re-erected it at Rock Spring. When Bigham moved the Davenport logs to Rock Spring, they were not the "identical logs that were in the original cabin." Judge John C. Creal stated that the Davenport cabin was a comparatively new house when he first remembered anything about it. This was sometime after 1840, as the Judge was born in 1836. In considering Judge Creal's affidavit on the cabin, it is to be remembered that he was the community's outstanding citizen and that he was born a few hundred feet from the spring and was intimately acquainted with the exact spot all his life. He knew more about the facts of the matter than anyone then living, and it was probably for this reason that the counsel of The Lincoln Farm Association went to him first when they undertook the so-called "Collier Investigation," to which we will give attention later. The re-erection of the Davenport cabin on the birthplace farm was a simple job. The matter of authenticating its logs as having originally been in the house in which Lincoln was born, was not so simple. Bigham knew that a great many soldiers, newsmen, statesmen, bureaucrats and carpetbaggers had stopped at Rock Spring during the Civil War and that they had found no birthplace cabin there. Bigham solved his dilemma by giving the Davenport cabin an early Civil War connection. It was locally known that a Dr. Jesse Rodman, a Larue County physician, had been sent to Washington during the Civil War, to make a direct appeal to President Lincoln concerning the excessive draft of Larue County men." After Bigham re-erected the Davenport cabin at Rock Spring in 1895, he prepared a lecture, "historic 8c descriptive," 12 11 Interview with Judge Otis M. Mather, Hodgenville, Kentucky. SLetter, Bigham to Dennett, April 16, 1901, in which Bigham refers to "my written lecture, descriptive & historic," in connection with "the relics"; Bankruptcy File.

136 ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUARTERLY in which he stated erroneously that it was Dr. George Rodman, a brother of Dr. Jesse Rodman, who had gone to Washington about the draft.13 Dr. George Rodman, according to Bigham, returned from Washington with such admiration for President Lincoln that he went to Richard Creal, the owner of the Lincoln farm, and bought the birthplace cabin still standing at the spring. According to Bigham, this cabin was then brought to Dr. George Rodman's farm and was there re-erected. John A. Davenport later bought this farm from Dr. George Rodman. Hence, the cabin obtained from Davenport by Bigham, according to this version, was the original birthplace cabin. Bigham also mistakenly stated that the Creal family bought the farm from Thomas Lincoln. This authentication story is unsatisfactory. Richard Creal did not own the Lincoln birthplace until 1867. The Larue County records show that Royal P. Hankla owned fifty-six acres around the spring from 1853 until 1867, when he made the previously mentioned sale of eighteen and one-third acres to Creal. Ten owners of the spring are recorded from the time the Lincolns were ejected in 1811 until this plot was bought by Creal in 1867. Regardless of the Davenport cabin's true history, however, Bigham and Dennett exhibited it at the Nashville Centennial as the original Lincoln birthplace cabin, but they were not satisfied to have the Lincoln cabin alone. Eleven years before, William B. Brewer had bought a dismantled tworoom log cabin located on what was believed locally to be the exact spot of Jefferson Davis' birth.'4 The spot had been the property of the Davis family in 1 8o8. The chain of title'5 "Abraham Lincoln National Historical Park gives the Bigham version under the sub-caption "The Lincoln Birthplace Cabin" (p. io). "' Signed statement of Mrs. Bertha Brewer Wilkins, July 21, 1946. 1E. S. Stuart, "The Birthplace of Jefferson Davis," Confederate Veteran, November, 19o7, pp. 486-487.

IS THE CABIN AUTHENTIC? 137 shows approximately eleven owners since 1811, one of whom was a Negro, and that the property was finally sold to a syndicate which laid out the town of Fairview and subdivided the farm. In view of this long string of ownership, during which the Davis homestead was once a pottery, the authenticity of this old cabin was highly doubtful. Further, it was not common local practice for white people to take up residence in a house which had been used by Negroes. But this did not deter Bigham. He purchased this "Jefferson Davis birthplace cabin" with a purpose to exhibit it, with the Lincoln cabin, at Nashville. When Brewer bought this cabin, it contained a cast-iron mantelpiece, and when the cabin was dismantled, Brewer had had the mantelpiece built into his own dining room. Now, however, he ripped it out and conveyed it to Bigham with the logs. This investigation extended from Maine to California and from Wisconsin to Florida in an effort to unravel the tangled threads of the story of these cabins, and it was often this old relic which provided the indispensable clue. Two fairly good accounts of the display of the Lincoln and Davis cabins at Nashville are available. One occurs in the Nashville Banner, May 1, 1897, a three-quarter page writeup with illustrations. This tells of the cabins being displayed on the midway and maintains that they contained the furniture and personal effects of the Lincoln and Davis families. The Official Report of the Exposition contains an account of the display and prints a quaint photograph of the entrance to the cabin show. Although the cabin venture was not a financial success in Nashville, during the exposition Dennett made another agreement with Bigham. This was in writing and provided for future exhibitions of the two cabins and the sale of souvenirs. This new contract stated that Dennett owed Bigham $1,500 and the last paragraph read: "In the event of the sale,

138 ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUARTERLY during the winter of '97 and '98 ending with the rising of Congress in the Spring of '98, of the Lincoln farm to the United States Government, I promise on receipt of said purchase money to pay Mr. B the sum of $1500 cash." 16 Bigham had some circulars made, but it appears the cabins were not exhibited by him after the Tennessee Centennial Exposition. Dennett took the logs to New York City, and on August 19, 1899, wrote Bigham that they were stored in the subbasement of his mission which was located at 39 Bowery.17 Dennett made serious efforts to sell the Lincoln farm and cabin to the Government, but Congress disappointed him, even though Bigham worked strenuously upon the Kentucky congressional delegation, particularly Senator William J. Deboe and Representative David H. Smith.18 In January of 1899, Dennett sent Bigham $35 for a trip to Washington to lobby for the sale of the farm, and admonished, "you can write me from Washington if it is not quite enough."19 Without a word to Bigham, on February 2, 1899, Dennett conveyed the Lincoln farm to David Crear (not to be confused with Creal) by lodging the conveyance, in which the consideration was left blank, with the Larue County Clerk. The voluminous records of litigation in which Dennett was involved in New York and California tell why this conveyance was made.20 "6This contract is now in the hands of Reverend J. W. Bigham's daughter, Carrie Dennett Vidal (Mrs. J. H.). It is dated at Union City, Tennessee, August 6, 1897, and is written on tablet paper, in pencil, in Dennett's hand. " Bankruptcy File. 18 Representative Smith of Hodgenville was later able to procure a Congressional appropriation of $1o,ooo to implement an appropriation of $2,500 by the Kentucky legislature and certain private contributions for the erection of the Weinman statue in the Court House Square at Hodgenville. 9 Bankruptcy File, Dennett to Bigham, January 17, 1899. 0 Ibid., testimony of David Crear; also, "A. W. Linforth, Trustee vs. David Crear, A. W. Dennett and The Christian and Missionary Alliance," Larue County Circuit Court, Hodgenville, Kentucky, Deposition of Elisha G. Selchow. (Note, Selchow was a member of the Board of Managers of The Christian and Missionary Alliance.)

IS THE CABIN AUTHENTIC? 139 Four years previously, Dennett had given a $5,000 note to Crear as a personal subscription to The Christian and Missionary Alliance. While in California in 1897, Dennett had also receivedmorethan$3,ooo cash froma wealthy California reformer to bring to Crear in New York for the Alliance. The managers of the Alliance, believing Dennett to be a very substantial business man, let him keep this donation as a loan and accepted another Dennett note in lieu of the money. Attachments and executions on Dennett holdings in New York City in 1898 and the early months of 1899 brought Dennett to grief. When his well-known place on Fourteenth Street was attached, he was in sore straits. In an effort to protect the Alliance on the two notes totaling over $8,000, Dennett conveyed the Lincoln farm to Crear.21 Succeeding events indicate that Crear was merely trying to help an old friend by being party to a pretended sale. The Dennett-Bigham correspondence shows that after the transfer of title to Crear, Dennett paid taxes on the farm, received small checks for part of the tenant's corn crops, and continued his incessant effort to sell the farm. Bigham continued to supervise the farm as manager. With the adjournment of Congress early in 1899, Dennett wrote Bigham that he was penniless, and in December advised Bigham that he had again been to Washington, this time with the idea of selling the farm to the Government as a home for veterans of the Spanish-American War. "If Senator Deboe has any sort of push about him," Dennett commented, "he will see his opportunity for doing himself a big piece of popularity in urging this thing night and day-but if he will not push this thing, I will undertake to see McKinley myself." 22 Dennett visited Washington twice more in February, 21 The two notes are now in a file in the Larue County Clerk's office. 2 Bankruptcy File, Dennett to Bigham, December 22, 1899.

140 ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUARTERLY 1900oo, but lamented that Senator Deboe was doing nothing. "Not a soul interested in it," he complained, "and simply referred to the Committee on Grounds and Buildings and that is the last of it, never to be revived or looked at." 23 Dennett buttonholed the members of this committee, even going to the residence of the chairman one evening, but only to be told his project had no chance. Of all the Senators Dennett talked to, none but Senator Chauncey Depew offered to support a measure to buy the farm. "Nobody but God Allmighty, in my opinion can sell that property," moaned Dennett. "I've written today already to a friend in W-------- long a res. for name of one Honorable Lobbyist, if there is such a genus and if I get confidence in such will offer them $5000 for a sale." In this lengthy communication, Dennett firmly advised Bigham that the Civil War must be left out "alltogether, no mixing-a full South and North Institution on Southern Soil is the thing." Dennett voiced further doubt about Senator Deboe's interest, "just like all true born politicians, talk pleasant and misguide and fool you." 24 March, 1900, found Dennett in Washington again, "hoping perchance to influence, if possible, some agency toward the farm interests"25 but he found the prospects small. At last, in desperation, he resorted to a retired Senator from a Southern state who was allowed the privilege of the floor of the Senate, but even he would not undertake the job of selling Congress the farm. When Crear took up Dennett's notes to The Christian and Missionary Alliance, in 1899, Dennett owed Crear $1,500 on a personal loan, in payment of which Dennett gave Crear title to the Lincoln and Davis cabins. Nevertheless, Dennett 2 Ibid., Dennett to Bigham, March 2, igoo. " Ibid. 2 Ibid., Dennett to Bigham, March 24, 9ioo.

IS THE CABIN AUTHENTIC? 141 still seemed to have control of the cabins, for on December 22, 1900, Dennett wrote to Bigham from Westville, California, that "a party desires rate for cabin to exhibit at Buffalo Pan-American nx season. I've written him. You assured me that you would long since [send] me your Historical sketch of same, it may be needed-please attend to it at once and send as above." 26 This appears to be the first of several attempts to rent the cabins from Dennett for exhibition at the Buffalo Exposition. Among those interested in this project was General O. 0. Howard,27 but apparently the patriotic general would have nothing to do with the Davis structure. "I should, probably have posted you to say nothing of the Davis cabin," wrote Dennett to Bigham, "as I think it would do no good." The Davis cabin was not too popular at Northern expositions and Dennett thought their best bet was to sell it to some Southern Society. "I would sell it for $ 1ooo," Dennett advised Bigham, "pray about it dear brother." 28 When Bigham got a nibble for the Lincoln farm from the Illinois Central Railroad, which was interested in it as a tourist place, Dennett quickly wrote, "God bless your efforts with I. Central, go for them from your knees." 29 The conclusion of the Dennett-Bigham correspondence came in the summer of 1901, after Bigham had made a final effort to sell the Lincoln farm to the "Saint Luke Society in Chicago," which wanted the place as a site for a sanitarium 26 Ibid., Dennett to Bigham, December 22, 1900. 27 Bigham, in a letter to Dennett dated April 16, 1901, said, "I am today writing Genl. O. O. Howard as you requested and will make to him, as full statement as will acquaint him with all the Essential facts in the premises, also will forward to him if he desires, copies of affidavits on identity of the Lincoln and Davis cabins-also copy of my written lecture, descriptive & historic, these papers will satisfy him and enlist him fully in the relics. If I could be at Buffalo, & for a few days - &c conduct the exhibit, Genl Howard would have little trouble afterward making it interesting to visitors, & if Howard will remunerate me for the trip-I will go as I would be happy to help you to realize on it." Bankruptcy File. * Bankruptcy File, Dennett to Bigham, February 15, 1901. 2 Ibid.

142 ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUARTERLY for alcoholic and narcotic addicts. Dennett in a farewell gesture wrote Bigham, "I think it profitless to go into a review of our past relations. I had such implicit confidence in your opinion that I readily took the risk of the Nashville investment and the purchase of the Davis house. It is very true that thro' your able efforts a good reduction was made in the price paid to the exhibition, this I could not probably have effected myself, but of course you know my losses there were exceedingly heavy." 1o With the conclusion of his promotional activities with Dennett, the Reverend Mr. Bigham returned to the ministry and became an outstanding preacher in Florida, widely known and highly regarded as a temperance lecturer. Indeed, he was once put forward as a candidate for governor. In spite of his vicissitudes as a cabin showman and his claim that Dennett tricked him out of $1,500, the Reverend Bigham carried an old Dennett contract in his wallet to the time of his death, and liked to show his friends the old folded paper as evidence of his important role in the showing of the cabins. At the Nashville Centennial, Dennett had become acquainted with Frederic W. Thompson who operated a substantial part of the midway. An outstanding personage in the amusement world at the turn of the century, Thompson was one of those who was interested in exhibiting the Lincoln and Davis cabins at the Buffalo Exposition in 19o1.31 When General Howard lost interest in the cabins, Thompson 30 Ibid., Dennett to Bigham, July 23, 191o. According to a letter of Bigham written to Crear, December 2, 190o, Bigham had just about effected a deal for the sale of the Lincoln farm to the St. Luke Society in Chicago for $io,ooo. Crear turned Bigham's letter over to E. G. Selchow for reply and Selchow wrote Bigham, on December 5, 1901, "I have the entire matter in hand and have parties looking into the purchasing of the farm with a view to a purchase at more than double the amount you name in your letter to Mr. Crear. Snap Shots on the Midway of the Pan-Am. Expo., etc., by Richard H. Barry, Buffalo, New York, Robert Allen Reid, publisher, 190o. Copy in Buffalo Public Library; also, copy in possession of the writer.

IS THE CABIN AUTHENTIC? 143 and his partner, "Skip" Dundy made a deal with Dennett to rent them. The logs were still stored in Dennett's place at 39 Bowery, New York, and when the partners went to get them, in April, 1901, they had a surprise. The establishment was in the hands of the District Attorney. An unemployed laborer, Charles Gale, had gone into the combination restaurant and mission on March 2, 1901, and ordered a lunch consisting of a cup of coffee and doughnuts. Gale was unable to pay the check of six cents and the cashier, two waiters, and the cook-all ex-convicts-promptly set upon the hapless Gale and beat him to death. They dragged the corpse out on the sidewalk and placed it in such a position that it would appear that Gale had fallen down the steps of an upstairs hotel next door. There were sufficient witnesses to this bloodthirsty affair and within half an hour police had the participants in custody and a thorough investigation was under way. A placard stated Dennett's "Surpassing Coffee" was served in the mission and the fact that the establishment was a Dennett enterprise was brought out, together with the information that Dennett had decamped owing the owner "thousands of dollars in rents." The New York papers gave the murder full coverage, and the Court elicited some criticism by reason of the comparatively slight penalty placed against the four defendants. After some delay, however, Thompson and Dundy removed the logs of the two cabins and sent them to Buffalo. This appears to have been about the last of April, as Dennett received word in California on May 6, 1901, from his friend, E. G. Selchow, of New York, that "the cabins had started west." 32 At the Buffalo Exposition, Thompson and Dundy blossomed out as the operators of a great many midway features, 32Bankruptcy File, Dennett to Bigham, May 7, 1901.

144 ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUARTERLY one being The Old Plantation. The Old Plantation had six cabins in it, among which were the Davenport-Lincoln birthplace cabin and the Brewer-Davis cabin. At the close of the Buffalo Exposition the six cabins were dismantled and the exhibitors later stated that half the logs of the Lincoln cabin were lost in transit from Buffalo back to New York.33 Richard H. Barry published an account of The Old Plantation at Buffalo, with photographs of the excellent and imposing entrance to the show and also individual photographs of the cabins, both of which were used to house some of the Negro actors in the show. Signs were attached to both cabins stating they were respectively, the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis.34 Although it is often mistakenly stated that the Lincoln birthplace cabin was at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, the cabin on exhibition in Chicago was actually the Coles County, Illinois, residence of the Lincolns. It was not on the exposition grounds and was not exhibited as the birthplace cabin. The structure at Chicago had the distinction of being authentic and was actually associated with the Lincoln family after their removal to Illinois. In 1904, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition was held at St. Louis, with The Old Plantation, owned and exhibited by one James A. Thompson, as one of the features. Also there, was the Lincoln Museum, owned by the Lincoln Exhibit Company. The Old Plantation and the Lincoln Museum were separate concessions. The former was still a "coon and cabin" show, but without the "Lincoln" and "Davis" cabins, which were then in a basement at College Point, New York. The Lincoln Museum had a cabin claimed to be ninety years old and brought from Larue County, Kentucky, and it 88 New York Times, March 23, 1903 -SBarry, op. cit., pp. 125-128.

IS THE CABIN AUTHENTIC? 145 was stated to be the cabin in which Lincoln lived when he was four years old-in other words, the Knob Creek home of the Lincolns. Its general appearance was that of the reconstructed Davenport cabin, but without a window. That this cabin was a hoax seems evident from the testimony of artist Rowbotham, who was at Knob Creek, the site of the second boyhood home of Lincoln for the purpose of sketching this cabin in 1865. His investigation there, as at Rock Spring, revealed that the Lincoln cabin was gone. It had been torn down in 1838 to make way for a new road.85 When Dennett filed his petition in bankruptcy in November, 1901, he scheduled more than $90,000 in claims, the smallest of which was $71 for linoleum bought for 39 Bowery in January, 1900. His schedule of assets consisted of one item, "Clothing $2o." Unless the transfers of the Lincoln farm and the cabins to Crear were bona fide, he should have also scheduled them, but he did not do so. The day this petition was filed, November 25, 1901, Dennett made a statement, published in the San Francisco papers, in which he said, "among my assets is a farm known as the Abraham Lincoln farm." It was not necessary for Dennett to publicly announce that the farm was still his, for his swarm of creditors were after it in full cry. Typical of these was Richard H. Jaeger, of New York City, who on March 31, 1902, filed a motion opposing the granting of Dennett's bankruptcy discharge. Jaeger claimed Dennett was knowingly and fraudulently concealing his assets, among which were the birthplace farm, shares in Dennett Surpassing Coffee Parlor Company of the California chain, real estate at Mountain Lake Park, Maryland, and "a certain barn" also at Mountain Lake Park.36 8Rowbotham to Herndon, June 24, 1865, Herndon-Weik Collection, Library of Congress. 36 Bankruptcy File, Opposition to Discharge, filed by R. H. Jaeger, March 31, 190x.

146 ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUARTERLY Dennett was to be very carefully questioned about these assets in proceedings before the bankruptcy Referee, by the Trustee and other attorneys, in May, 19o02.37 It was brought out by the attorney for the opposing creditors that this barn was worth $5o. The amazing feature of both the bankruptcy proceedings and the suit to set aside the transfer of the farm in Larue County is that nothing was ever mentioned about a recovery on the cabins. Dennett had plastered photographs of the DavenportLincoln birthplace cabin everywhere, including all the New York newspaper offices, and no one could have escaped learning the fact that Dennett owned this exhibition piece. The letters of Dennett to Bigham telling about renting the two cabins to display at Buffalo were copied and made a part of the bankruptcy file, and Bigham's deposition in the bankruptcy file also tells about the cabins. The Trustee and the creditors ignored them and went after a fifty dollar barn. Wonder over this odd disregard of the old cabins by the creditors, is expressed by Crear's son, William Crear, who called the writer's attention to the fact that Crear's ownership of them was never disturbed. Apparently, no one put much credence in the Lincoln birthplace cabin and the Jefferson Davis birthplace cabin back in 19o0. During the bankruptcy hearing, Dennett stated under oath that Reverend Bigham was the "agent" through whom he was "induced" to purchase the Lincoln birthplace farm and who helped with a settlement of the purchase money "with the [Creal] heirs." In testifying, Dennett referred to Bigham many times and said, "What I bought was through him considerably." Further, the transcript shows Dennett stating that he had hoped to sell the farm for a soldiers' home, inasmuch as Kentucky had none. He had learned that "more than half [of the Kentucky soldiers] were Union Soldiers and " Ibid., Direct Examination of Alfred W. Dennett.

IS THE CABIN AUTHENTIC? 147 nearly half were Confederate Soldiers, so it seemed a fine sop to throw to the South to give them a home there," [and] "I thought the government would probably do it and give twenty or twenty-five thousand dollars for the property." Crear was called upon to give two depositions in 1902 regarding the farm transaction. There was a variance in the testimony in them, and the Report of the Referee called the attention of the Court to this discrepancy, and also to the fact that Dennett, through Bigham, had remained in active control and possession of the farm, and had actively and constantly tried to sell it to the United States Government and then to the Illinois Central Railroad Company, and further, that Dennett had not informed Bigham of the sale of the farm to Crear until two and a half years after the conveyance. The Court agreed with the Referee in believing that Dennett thought he had parted with title to the Lincoln birthplace farm when he made the transfer to Crear, and thus, that Dennett had not knowingly and fraudulently omitted including the farm in his schedule of assets, nor had Dennett committed perjury in verifying his schedule. Dennett was discharged as bankrupt on September 1, 1903, and now began a legal contest to set aside the transfer of the Lincoln birthplace farm to Crear. The history of this lawsuit is not generally known. As for the cabins, after Dennett's bankruptcy petition was filed in November, 19o1, nothing was heard of them until 1903, but sometime during this period they were put in storage at George Tilyou's place at Coney Island where Thompson and Dundy had gone to display their famous amusement device, "A Trip to the Moon." John Guelphi, connected with Coney Island for almost fifty years, and in charge of the vast desolation which was once the great Luna Park, states that he has a recollection of the logs being at Steeplechase. Dr. Martin A. Couney, of "Incubator Baby" fame, and a

148 ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUARTERLY very close friend of both Thompson and Dundy, states he remembers the knocked-down cabins being at Coney Island."8 In March, 1903, Thompson and Dundy inspired considerable publicity about the cabins when they announced they had bought them early in 1901, but that the logs of the cabins had become mixed. The Brooklyn Eagle, March 23, 1903, stated: "A cabin, supposed to be made of two, one in which Abraham Lincoln was born and the other, in some way associated with the life of Jefferson Davis, is reported to have been discovered by the Reverend Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis, pastor of Plymouth Church, in his work on behalf of the Beecher Memorial Fund." The New York Times, March 20, 1903, had the most complete coverage of the cabin story of Thompson and Dundy, and papers over the country took it off the wire and published the news that the logs of the Lincoln and Davis cabins were mixed up. The matter came to the attention of Brewer back in Fairview, Kentucky, and he promptly caused the following to be printed in the Kentucky New Era, published in Hopkinsville: "W. B. Brewer denied several statements contained in the article from New York concerning the logs from the cabins in which Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were said to have been born having been so badly mixed as for it to be impossible to separate them. Mr. Brewer does not say the mix-up of the logs did not occur, but denies other statements in regard to the Jefferson Davis cabin, which he owned at the time it was sold. He does say, however, that if the logs are mixed up he feels sure he could separate them by means of marks which he himself placed on the logs when the home was torn down and carried to Nashville 8 Correspondence with John Guelphi and Dr. Martin A. Couney, and personal interviews with both at Coney Island in May, 1946.

IS THE CABIN AUTHENTIC? 149 during the [Centennial] Exposition in that city in 1897." 89 Luna Park, Thompson's and Dundy's most grandiose venture, opened May 2, 1903, and on page two of the pamphlet announcing this event, among "39 Supreme, Stupendous, Spectacular, Sensational Shows," was listed "Log Cabin where Lincoln was Born" and "Jefferson Davis's Humble Birthplace." 40 This announcement with reference to the two cabins may have been premature, as we have not been able to determine that the cabins were shown at Luna Park in 1903, although the logs were probably there. There was good reason for them not to be shown, as the Trustee in Bankruptcy was diligently searching for assets of Alfred W. Dennett. Most of this bloodhound activity centered in New York City, since the Trustee had retained Edward S. Hatch of the firm of Hatch and Wickes, 100oo Broadway, to contest the transfer of the Lincoln farm to David Crear. This law firm represented the majority of Dennett's clamoring creditors. Nothing further was heard of the cabins until early in 1904, when the New York Sun published, on February 16, a lengthy article to the effect that Crear was the owner of the Lincoln birthplace farm and the birthplace cabin. This article reported that Crear had refused a Chicago offer of $25,000 for them and that he stated a bill then pending in the Kentucky Legislature to buy them for $1o,ooo would be futile. The Sun considered it news that the logs of the cabin were then stored in a building on Long Island, and that Crear would sell them when the "right man comes along." The legal contest in which Crear sought to retain title to the farm was rapidly shaping up. The Trustee hired Pinker89 Quoted by E. D. Southgate, Confederate Veteran, February, 1908, p. 74. Files of the Kentucky New Era for 1903 are missing, according to a letter written by Mr. Dudley H. Taylor, the Managing Editor, to the author, September 14, 1946. 40 A copy of this pamphlet is in the library of The Long Island Historical Society, Brooklyn, New York.

150 ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUARTERLY ton's National Detective Agency to make investigations, and their sleuth, John H. Ghegan, called at Merchant's Restaurant, 110o Duane Street, New York City, where Crear was in business. Investigator Ghegan's testimony indicated that his effort was a waste of time, as the Sun had published everything Crear had to say about the farm and cabin.4' John A. Davenport was called upon to make a deposition in this case regarding the Rock Spring farm and the cabin he had sold to Reverend Bigham nine years previously. H. P. Ford, Examiner for Larue County, after swearing in Davenport, at the Davenport farm, asked, among others, the following question, "Did you ever see the house that is said to be the house where Lincoln was born in said farm?" Davenport replied, "Not until after it was brought from my place here." After this curious answer, the next question was, "How came it on your place?" and the reply, "I only know from hearsay." 42 Crear never visited the farm, but as Dennett had informed him it was worth $9,ooo as farm land, and much more because of its historical background, Crear made a strenuous effort to retain his title to it. However, the Larue County Circuit Court ruled the Dennett conveyance to Crear fraudulent and void in May, 1905, and for the third time a court ordered the place sold by a commissioner. On August 28, 1905, the farm was bid in for $3,6oo by Richard Lloyd Jones who was acting for Robert Collier, publisher of Collier's Weekly.43 Three notes were executed 1 Transcript of Ghegan's deposition. A. W. Linforth, Trustee, vs. David Crear, A. W. Dennett and The Christian and Missionary Alliance, Larue County Circuit Court, Hodgenville, Kentucky. "Ibid., Davenport's deposition. 0 The account of this court step sale, in the Louisville Courier-journal, August 29, 1905, states that a large crowd of local people were present but none of them bid on the farm. In addition to Jones (managing editor of Collier's Weekly), bids were made by E. J. McDermott, who represented The Christian and Missionary Alliance, and by John E. Burton, of Milwaukee, "who owns the largest library of Lincoln histories in the world."

IS THE CABIN AUTHENTIC? 151 by Collier, each for $1,2oo and due in the customary installment periods of six, twelve and eighteen months. This sale was subject to the contingent dower right of Mrs. Dennett which was satisfied in October, 1906. In February, 1907, the last installment and interest was paid on the farm by Collier, making a recovery of $3,783.50 by Hatch and Wickes for the Trustee. The matter was concluded in December, 1907, after all of Dennett's creditors had been compelled to file their claims anew, for the San Francisco Fire of 1906 had burned up the Trustee's records. IV The first announcement of the plan which led to the enshrinement of the Lincoln cabin at Hodgenville, appeared in the Louisville Courier-Journal in August, 1905. This write-up included a reproduction of the Russell T. Evans photograph 44 of the rebuilt Davenport cabin. In Collier's Weekly for February O1, 1906, the coverage included nine pages of text and pictures about the Lincoln farm, the cabin, and the proposed memorial. Included in this array was notice of the formation of The Lincoln Farm Association, "organized and incorporated to develop the Lincoln Birthplace Farm into a National Park." The public was invited to participate, and each contribution of twenty-five cents or more entitled one to membership. Appropriately, the first subscription came from Thomas Kirkpatrick, postmaster of Hodgenville, in January, 1908. Over 0oo,ooo citizens contributed to the fund, over $350,000 being raised.45 The prospectus of the development of the farm, published in February, 1906, portrayed a great shaft approximately at the place where the Memorial is now situated. " Supra, footnote 6. "Abraham Lincoln National Historical Park, p. 13.

152 ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUARTERLY North of this shaft, there was to extend a spacious plaza, several hundreds yards long, and an imposing museum building was to stand at the north end of this area. This museum building was to cost $250,000 and have a central court, over which was to be constructed a movable roof, to house the cabin. The enshrinement of a cabin was an integral part of the plan from the beginning. It is sometimes stated in the vicinity of contiguous counties in Kentucky, that Robert Collier was "wringing his hands in disappointment" at not having the proper cabin, and that at the very last moment, in desperation, he went off down a road, bought a likely cabin and put it in the Memorial, and that he was forever after angry with a politician who had let him down on getting the "right" cabin. This story has many variants, some of them with complex and intricate plots. Another story has the cabin placed in the Memorial as an afterthought."4 None of these stories is correct. Crear was still in legal possession of the logs of both cabins, and as stated in the New York Sun, in 1904, the logs were in the basement of a building in College Point, Long Island. This building was an annex to the old Conrad Poppenhusen mansion which Crear and his associates had purchased about 1888. The Christian and Missionary Alliance had operated their Berachah Orphanage there until about 1897 -The logs remained in the basement of the vacant annex " Collier's Weekly for February io, 1906, stated that the cabin was then the property of an exhibitor who held it intact in a cellar in Stamford, Connecticut, for "ransom," and that it "will never be given back to the people, to whom it should belong, but it can be bought back and this will be done." Careful investigation shows that the logs of the Davenport and Brewer cabins were never known to have been stored in Stamford, Connecticut. Judge L. B. Handley, of Hodgenville, was intimately connected with the birthplace memorial project, and in an interview, informed the writer that the cabin was made a feature of the Memorial because the directors, or some of them, thought some of the original logs of 18og09 were actually in the pile of logs stored in College Point.

IS THE CABIN AUTHENTIC? 153 building from the time they were brought from Coney Island until late in 1905, when the buildings were torn down. The logs were then moved to the basement of the Warren Collins residence, a few hundred yards away, for storage. Information as to the whereabouts of the supposed Lincoln logs was finally obtained by The Lincoln Farm Association in 1905 which negotiated their purchase in 1906. Crear had come into undisputed control of them when Dennett became insane and was committed to the State Hospital at Stockton, California, in April, 1904, and in February, 1906, Norman Hapgood acting as Collier's agent, obtained them from Crear for $1,ooo.47 Having at long last obtained the "original Lincoln cabin" the Association arranged a "Triumphant Tour" of the logs from New York back to Kentucky with the idea of publicizing their project and attracting contributions. To this end the old logs were displayed from New York to Louisville. No city was too large, and no whistle stop too small, to show the decaying remnants to the adults and school children of the communities on the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad in June, 1906. Unfortunately, the project did not attract sufficient con47 The Brooklyn Eagle stated that it had been informed that "$50,000 was paid for the cabin." With true Scot propensity for accuracy concerning financial details, Crear advised his family that the transaction resulted in a net return of $975 as Hapgood, in turn, sold him a membership in The Lincoln Farm Association for $25. When Hapgood handed over the $975, the logs were in the basement of the Collins residence, then 635 Thirteenth Street, College Point, Long Island, New York. Charles L. Mount residing in the Collins residence, remembers the logs well and showed the writer where they were piled in his basement after the orphanage building was torn down. The old mansion grounds have long since been subdivided. Hermon Mac Neil, the sculptor, an old resident of College Point, remembers the logs in the Poppenhusen Annex basement, and was very helpful when the writer was in College Point on this research. Also, Reverend Howard Van Dyke, now Assistant Foreign Secretary of The Christian and Missionary Alliance, recalls the logs piled in the basement of the vacant annex building at College Point when he stayed there in the summer of 1905. August Kupka, Vice President of The Flushing Historical Society and an old friend of David Crear, also aided this research materially.

154 ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUARTERLY tributions to allow The Lincoln Farm Association to go ahead with its plan as scheduled. There are a number of reports and bills in the files of the Library of Congress which testify to the effort made in 1908, to obtain a congressional appropriation of $50,000, providing The Lincoln Farm Association would raise $150,000, but Congress was still allergic to the idea.48 The departure of the logs from College Point was more fully publicized than their arrival from Coney Island, a few years previously. A photographer was on the spot and took pictures of the logs being removed from the Collins basement. As the dray went by the College Point Public School, the children sang "The Star Spangled Banner" and "My Old Kentucky Home." There were numerous newspaper accounts of the event and the Queens Borough Topographical Bureau has a record of the removal which states, "The Cabin consisted of 142 pieces, including logs, two doors, a mantel and an ancient looking pine box." The present cabin in the Memorial has exactly 63 logs in its four walls, including four small, short logs in each of the two gables. Hence, the Association removed logs of both the Davenport and Brewer cabins with the door to each, and a mantel. The load was stored in Long Island City until June, 1906, so that the triumphant return of the Lincoln cabin to Kentucky could be timed with Kentucky Homecoming Week, to be held in Louisville at that time. A photograph taken in the Pennsylvania Railroad yard at 37th Street and North River, on June 6, 19o6, shows two drays with the logs, two doors, and a mantel, on the way to be loaded on a flatcar." When the flatcar arrived in Louisville on June 12, 19go6, the description of its content in the " Again, we have Judge Handley's comment that he was informed, by those in charge, that the very elaborate plans for the Memorial had to be changed accordingly, because there was not enough money to carry out the original ideas. " Collier's Weekly, June 23, 190go6, p. 13.

IS THE CABIN AUTHENTIC? 155 local press stated there was a mantel with the logs. '0 The car was decorated with flags and bunting and two large framed pictures of Lincoln were erected above the log pile. A military escort for the logs was provided by the State of Kentucky in the form of an officer and four enlisted men. Captain Neville S. Bullitt was the officer in charge of the escort, and he well remembers the trip to New York to bring back the logs. Captain Bullitt gave the writer an account of the return to Louisville, and indicated that the departure in New York City was without much public attention and that Philadelphia, where the car stayed a day, showed the least interest. The car was attached to both passenger and freight trains in its journey to Louisville, and the farther west the car went, the more interest was shown. Stops were made at Baltimore, Harrisburg, and Altoona. There was an immense crowd at Pittsburgh. A huge crowd had gathered at Richmond, Indiana, but got only a brief glimpse of the logs as the flatcar was pulled through the station. The car was scheduled to stop at Cincinnati, but for some reason did not go there. The crowd at Indianapolis was estimated at ten thousand and included a band. Indianapolis thoughtfully provided a squad of National Guardsmen to help out Captain Bullitt's men, who were kept busy thwarting splinter snatchers. Captain Bullitt has told the writer concerning the last day of the journey that, "about noon that day a special freight train consisting of about ten cars was made up. Our flatcar and a caboose were attached, and we set out on the final lap of the journey ending at Louisville. The Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce had received so many telegrams from citizens of towns along our route begging for an oppor"0 Louisville Courier-Journal, June 13, 19o6: "Until the cabin is put together in Central Park to-day all that can be seen is a pile of rough and partially decayed logs, an old door which is minus one of its original panels, and a rough mantelpiece."

156 ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUARTERLY tunity to see the cabin that the conductor of the special freight was instructed to stop the train at any station where I requested him to do so. Accordingly, whenever we were approaching a town, I would stand on a lower step of the caboose and lean out at arm's length. If I saw a crowd at the station I would nod to the conductor who would then signal the engineer and the train would be brought to a stop. We made five such stops: at Franklin, Edinburg, Columbus, Seymour and Scottsburg." Frederick E. Pierce was advance man for the newspaper publicity of the movement of the logs back to Kentucky, and the generous local write-ups in the cities visited testify to his industry. At Philadelphia there was good news coverage and a photo of Mayor Weaver speaking from the flatcar. The following day the Public Ledger moralized editorially on the advantage of birth in a log cabin. The newspaper accounts indicate that the crowd at Baltimore, as at Philadelphia, were slightly perturbed in finding the cabin dismantled and not erected. Mayor Timanus and Congressman Schirm were the speakers there. The reporters commented that both doors of the cabin were showing the effects of time and that the logs were showing signs of decay; also, that a Baltimore lady started to walk off with a short log for a souvenir. The stops at Harrisburg and Altoona were noted in the local papers, and at Pittsburgh the news coverage was very good, with local pictures-one, a photograph of the decorated flatcar and the logs. From Pittsburgh, one finds news accounts of this event in local papers everywhere the logs were exhibited. The only place that missed fire was Louisville. There was no welcoming committee, and Captain Bullitt and his flatcar pulled into the old Main Street Station unnoticed. Upon their arrival, the logs were erected into a cabin in Central Park. The Minute Book of the Louisville Park Commission

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IS THE CABIN AUTHENTIC? 157 shows that a committee of The Lincoln Farm Association had petitioned for permission to display a cabin in Central Park during Kentucky Homecoming Week.51 With the display of the cabin in Central Park, Louisville, the triumphant tour was over, and the logs were stored in the Louisville Public Warehouse on East Main Street until the laying of the cornerstone of the Memorial on the farm in i909. The logs were sent down to Hodgenville for this ceremony and then brought back to the Louisville warehouse until 1911, when they were again taken to Hodgenville and permanently placed in the Memorial. No record exists as to the disposition of the two doors and the mantel.which were on the flatcar with the logs. After the flatcar reached Louisville for Homecoming Week, a puzzling situation developed in Central Park when the employees of the Louisville Park Commission attempted to erect the Lincoln cabin for exhibition. Contemporary photographs of this hastily thrown up cabin show what happened when the workmen were confronted with two doors. They were placed on opposite sides of the cabin, and strangely enough, in view of the supposed time and place of their origin, one had four panels. Brewer's daughter, Mrs. Bertha Wilkins, has examined the photograph of the two drays, taken June 6, 1906, in the Pennsylvania Railroad freight yard in New York City. She states that the mantel perched on top of the logs is similar to the mantel which was in their father's home at Fairview, and was taken out and sold with the logs of the supposed Davis cabin. As previously related, Brewer stated he marked each log 51 For some reason, the display of this cabin in Central Park at Louisville, has been confused with Central Park, Manhattan. Extensive inquiry shows that neither the "Lincoln" nor the "Davis" cabin was ever displayed in Central Park, Manhattan, although The Lincoln Farm Association stated the Lincoln cabin was displayed there after its return from Buffalo.

158 ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUARTERLY in the cabin he sold to Bigham in 1897, and which was exhibited at Nashville, Tennessee, as the Davis birthplace cabin. John M. Cissell, custodian of the Abraham Lincoln National Historical Park, and associated with the birthplace farm from childhood, has stated to the writer that when he was a boy of eleven, he assisted Bigham's son in carving roman numerals on the logs of the reconstructed Davenport cabin when it was taken apart to be shipped to Nashville in 1897. According to Mr. Cissell, this marking was done with a two-inch chisel, and he identifies thirteen logs in the front and side walls of the log structure now in the Memorial as having these carved marks. Inspection of the interior of the cabin now in the Memorial of the Abraham Lincoln National Historical Park, discloses that there are two logs in its walls with very old marks of black paint. One log, marked "S io," is the tenth log from the ground on the side where the door is located. The other, marked "E 7," is the seventh log from the ground in the side opposite the fireplace. Obviously, there are at least three sets of logs in this structure: one set with marks carved in some of the logs, another set with very old black paint marks, and the remaining logs with no marks at all, presumably the logs required to make replacements. Mr. Cissell's statement that the logs of the Davenport cabin were marked with roman numerals has been accepted by the National Park Service.5 There seems to be no logical reason for doubting, Mr. Brewer's statement that he had marked the logs of the Davis cabin. Some of both came back on the flatcar to Louisville, and apparently some of both came to rest in the structure now in the Memorial. Thereupon the Davis cabin ceased to exist. What became of the left-over logs has not been ascertained. 112Abraham Lincoln National Historical Park, p. i i.

IS THE CABIN AUTHENTIC? 159 V Three months after the purchase of the logs, The Lincoln Farm Association began an investigation in Larue County to determine if their cabin was authentic. The law firm of Handley and Williams, investigators for the Association, took twelve affidavits from residents of Larue County. Four of these affidavits relate to the authenticity of the cabin. The remainder related to the fact that local tradition indicated Abraham Lincoln was born on the Rock Spring farm.53 The first affidavit on the Lincoln cabin was taken by Handley and Williams on May 28, 19o6, the affiant being Judge John C. Creal. Judge Creal swore that he was born in what is now Larue County in 1836 and had been County Judge for the past sixteen years. He further affirmed that "the house made of logs which was removed by the Rev. J. W. Bigham from the farm, is that it was a comparatively new house when I first remember anything about it. The stairway in this house and the upper floor were placed in there by my Uncle, J. B. Cates, when I was about ten years of age. Sometime in April, 1893, the question was raised about these logs since removed by Mr. Bigham being the logs in the original Lincoln cabin. My mother, at that time about seventy years old, told me that these logs, afterwards removed from the place, had no connection whatever with the logs in the original cabin, that a man by the name of Jackson had built this cabin from the logs that were removed.... One of my earliest recollections is that an old cabin stood about ten or 53 The only evidence that the records of Hardin and Larue Counties were consulted in this investigation consists of a certified copy of the contract of purchase by Thomas Lincoln of a farm on Mill Creek. This farm, twenty miles northwest of Hodgenville, bought from Dr. John T. Stater in September, 1803, was in no way connected,with the birthplace. There is also a one dollar bill of sale, from Robert J. Collier, in this bundle of papers, in which he sells to The Lincoln Farm Association the "log cabin called the Abraham Lincoln log cabin, and which has been and now is exhibited as such, and which was sold to me... and said to be the log cabin or part of the same in which Abraham Lincoln was born."

160 ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUARTERLY fifteen feet from the Jackson cabin. This old cabin at that time was in a very bad state of repair and showed age and was evidently a very old house. My recollection is that this was a round-log cabin. I do not recollect what became of this old cabin." 54 This affidavit of Judge Creal is separated from the other affidavits in the file of the Association. Apparently, it was disregarded, for a separate affidavit was taken from the Judge on July 7, 19o6, but this second affidavit makes no mention of his first deposition and is made in reference to a statement of James L. Walters made many years previously. The authentication of the cabin by The Lincoln Farm Association is based on the affidavits of three local residents: John A. Davenport, Zerelda Jane Goff, age eighty-six, whose testimony is signed with her mark, and Lafayette Wilson, a farmer, age sixty-three. In 1906, Davenport, in his affidavit about the farm deposes that "in 1875 he moved into the cabin built of logs from the Lincoln cabin, that when he first came in this County in 1863, it was known by all the old residents that these logs were taken from the Lincoln cabin at the spring and were the logs composing the old Lincoln cabin. Affiant says that in 189- [sic] he sold these logs to one A. W. Dennett of New York. The trade was made with the Reverend J. W. Bigham, who was acting for A. W. Dennett and these logs were taken to the Lincoln farm and a cabin rebuilt on the site of the original cabin. It remained there a year or more and for reason or purpose it was removed.55 Mrs. Goff, born in 820, made a lengthy statement to the effect that she had come to Larue County in 1831, and had MThe affidavits of Judge Creal, Mrs. Zerelda Goff, John Davenport, and Lafayette Wilson are in the original file turned over to the War Department by The Lincoln Farm Association. These papers are now in the office of the Chief Historian, National Park Service. r6 Ibid.

IS THE CABIN AUTHENTIC? 161 lived continuously in the vicinity of the Lincoln farm. She remembered a family of Skaggs living in the Lincoln cabin, and the Lincoln cabin logs being carried to the George Rodman place. Mr. Williams, who took this deposition, wrote an additional certification to the document affirming that Mrs. Goff informed him, orally, that Lafayette Wilson was the man who hauled the Lincoln cabin logs to the George Rodman place in 186o. Several days elapsed before Wilson's affidavit was taken on June 5, 19o6, when he testified that he moved the Lincoln logs in March, 186o, from the knoll above the spring to the farm later occupied by John Davenport. Mr. Wilson stated he was hired to move these logs by Daniel Dyer. This affidavit does not mention Dr. George Rodman. In 191o, it was announced that these affidavits had been submitted to Professors Albert B. Hart of Harvard, George B. Adams of Yale, and Frederick J. Turner of Wisconsin, and Miss Ida Tarbell, and that after reviewing them they agreed the logs were genuine beyond a reasonable doubt. A careful check in the office of the Chief Historian of the National Park Service, the War Department, and The National Archives has failed to turn up any written opinion on this question by any one of these historians. However, Professor Turner did discuss the authenticity of this cabin about the time the Memorial idea got under way, and agreed that the cabin in question was of the type and in the general vicinity of that in which Lincoln was born. But he could not say it was the original cabin and doubted whether any one else could.56 Shortly after Bigham made his announcement in August, 1895, that a birthplace cabin was to be built of the original logs, an on-the-spot investigation was made by Clifton M. 56 Signed statement of Mrs. Dorothy Turner Main, March 7, 1946, in the writer's possession.

162 ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUARTERLY Nichols, who was writing a biography of Lincoln for the publishing firm of Mast, Crowell and Kirkpatrick, at Springfield, Ohio. He was a resident of Springfield, Ohio, and had been editor of the local Republic Times for over thirty years. Under a cut of the Evans photograph of the purported Lincoln birthplace cabin, Nichols mentions John A. Davenport and states that the cabin is not the authentic birthplace cabin and furnishes a report of his investigation substantiating his conclusion.57 In the summer of i909, Admiral Lucien Young, a Kentuckian of outstanding attainment, branded the Lincoln birthplace cabin a hoax. No retiring Milquetoast was Admiral Young. In a published article, he said, "a rude log cabin figures extensively as being the hut in which Lincoln was born: an antique that evidently emanated from the fruitful brain of some imaginative and enthusiastic showman. As a boy in the '6os, I attended school at Hodgenville and used to romp and play over the Lincoln farm and I never saw any such cabin on the place then. This cabin, to be encased in the marble structure, is evidently a dingy structure of logs put together a few years ago to enhance the exhibition at Nashville, Tennessee, and subsequently sold to some exhibitors who took it about the country as a traveling show. The advertisement of this log cabin was profuse. Even a neighbor of the Lincolns was found to testify that he went to Hodgenville for the doctor to attend the birth of Abraham." 58 Robert Todd Lincoln never believed the cabin to be authentic. On August 25, 1919, he wrote to Otto Wiecker of New York, "... the lithograph you mention possesses no interest for me. It is of course the work of some person ignorant of the probable environments of the event. So with pre7 Clifton M. Nichols, Life of Abraham Lincoln (1896), p. 18. 68 Sunset Magazine, August, 1909, pp. 136-137.

IS THE CABIN AUTHENTIC? 1 163 tended pictures of the Lincoln Cabin, they easily indicate what it probably was but the actual cabin was a decayed ruin long before my father's election as President. "The structure now enshrined in a great marble building in Kentucky is a fraud when represented as the actual house." 59 Although Congress in 1916 accepted the Lincoln homestead and cabin without satisfactory investigation of the chain of title, or research on the authenticity of the cabin, the National Park Service began the authentication of the farm in 1939. By means of county records, it was determined that, in fact, the present park includes approximately one hundred and ten acres of more than three hundred acres Thomas Lincoln held in 1809.60 Concerning the authenticity of the cabin, the National Park Service was presumably unable to do more than gloss over its questionable origin. The writer has no desire to be an iconoclast, yet it is essential that the truth about this cabin be known. The National Park Service has never deceived the people about its authenticity, but neither has it told the whole story. Although the cabin is merely legendary, still it is symbolic of Lincoln's humble origin, and to know the facts about it need not detract from the pleasure of those who visit the beautiful park where it is enshrined. As for Alfred W. Dennett-the unwitting originator of the cabin legend, unsuccessful midway entrepreneur, and first promoter of the Lincoln birthplace memorial-he is entirely forgotten. He is buried in a single-grave lot in Rural Cemetery at Stockton, California. No one visits his grave, and the superintendent of the cemetery has no recollection of anyone ever inquiring about it. 19 The Collector: A M1agazine for Autograph and Historical Collectors, Vol. LIV, No. 6, April, 1940, p. 63. o Abraham Lincoln National Historical Park, pp. 8-9.

Lincoln Publications Books LINCOLN AND THE WAR GOVERNORS. By William B. Hesseltine. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1948. x, 405 PP. $4.50. Readers of the article., "Lincoln's War Governo'rs," which appeared in the-December, 1946, issue of this Quarterly are familiar with Professor Hesseltine's basic contention that by 1 865 national centralization was triumphant over states' rights because Lincoln, with his "superior intellect,") was a more skillful politician than the governors of the Northern states. In his. opinion, only New York's Horatio Seymour-of the sixty-three state executives with whom Lincoln dealt in the four years, of the "iwar between the states"-approached the President in quality of mind. From a federal union the United States emerged as a consolidated nation, and Lincoln was the master architect. Dr. Hesseltine gives some consideration to. other factors. He shows how, in many situations, Lincoln had the advantage of dealing with the governors separately. Gubernatorial groups assembled to formulate policy only three. times, the last being the Altoona (Pennsylvania) conference of September, 186,2, on the eve of which Lincoln is-sued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. This cut the ground from under Andrew of Massachusetts and other more radical and hostile governors who had been against the President's lenient border-state policy and his refusal to make the destruction of slavery the prime purpose of the war. Nor does the author ignore the fact that army and civil patronage was available to the President and was used to help put the Republican party exclusively in his hands. Nevertheless, throughout the study, the triumph of Lincoln's mind and personality over the war governors, is the predominant theme; the interplay of events and forces are only secondary considerations. It is true that such men as Andrew of Massachusetts, Yates of Illinois, Curtin of Pennsylvania, Morton of Indiana, and Buckingham of Connecticut, yielded more influence in organizing armies and directing military operations than the Administration did during the first year of the war. But a gradual change ensued, 164

LINCOLN PUBLICATIONS 165 and the governors became merely recruiting agents for a "national" army, and their political influence was lessened by repressive measures of the federal government such as the use of troops to influence elections, arbitrary imprisonment, and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. It is significant that in his preface Dr. Hesseltine reminds us that "When the war... ended, the bodies of those who had died that 'this nation, under God, shall not perish from the earth' rested in neat rows in national cemeteries." This is a much needed study, and a notable contribution to the "Lincoln theme." Unfortunately the subject matter does not always lend itself to easy telling, and at times the reader is left confused and uninspired by the manifold problems involving conflict over troops and supplies. It is well that Dr. Hesseltine writes with clarity and authority based on sound scholarship and extensive research. The publishers should be congratulated on the eye-appealing format and the inclusion of complete documentation. M. D. B. FRANCIS LIEBER, Nineteenth-Century Liberal. By Frank Freidel. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press, 1947. xiii, 445 pp. $4.50. This is a scholarly, readable biography of a man whose ideals and energy led him from a middle-class German home to the Battle of Waterloo, from the Greek revolution to a Prussian prison, and from a South Carolina college to Columbia University. His labors for the freedom he believed in brought forth two works on political economy and theory, and made him a sort of quasi-official adviser to President Lincoln's administration. The need to make a living brought forth an encyclopedia, which Mr. Freidel lists Lincoln as owning, several translations of German works, and something pretty close to a flood of pamphlets, poems, monographs and letters. Totalled, these efforts made Lieber a highly respected man, a friend and confidant of persons in high places, and, most important perhaps, a link between the United States and the culture and restive spirit of freedom of nineteenthcentury Europe. Lincoln played no major role in Lieber's life and works, di

166 ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUARTERLY rectly, but the Prussian was of service to his administration. Lieber was active in formulating the rules for the conduct of the war; he helped Attorney General Bates find precedents and theories to justify the suspension of habeas corpus; he served valiantly as a writer and speaker against a negotiated peace; and, incidentally, it was Lieber who conferred the LL.D. degree from Columbia University upon Lincoln. Professor Freidel writes with warmth and understanding, and his documentation and research make his work historically sound. L. A. D. THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS. By Francis Grierson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, [1909] 1948. xlii, 278 pp. $3.50. This unique book, too long neglected by students of Lincoln and the Civil War era, as well as by the general reader, is now republished under the sponsorship of The History Book Club, Inc. In the prefatory "Editor's Note," Bernard DeVoto makes a strong claim for it as a classic of American literature and American history, and belabors the scholars and historians for having ignored it. Neither Grierson nor his masterpiece, writes Mr. DeVoto, is mentioned in any of the books about Lincoln or the Civil War or the usual literary histories and guides to historical and literary material. Presumably, Mr. DeVoto is unacquainted with another book published by Houghton Mifflin some years ago which enjoyed a circulation even more limited than that afforded to Grierson's volume. The Lincoln Legend (1935) devotes several paragraphs to Grierson's masterpiece and ventures the opinion, which Mr. DeVoto now seconds with great enthusiasm, that it is the best thing of its kind on Lincoln and the Sangamon country in the years immediately preceding the Civil War. Far from wishing to disagree with Mr. DeVoto, the editor of the Quarterly believes that The History Book Club has done an excellent thing in republishing The Valley of Shadows. There is nothing quite altogether like it in American literature, though Mark Twain does something of the sort in re-creating the people and the atmosphere of a period and a locale not far remote from Grierson's Illinois in the decade before the war. Even Grierson's Emersonian mysticism is not wholly foreign to the undercurrent of intuition with which Twain endowed the immortal Huck, and

LINCOLN PUBLICATIONS 167 which preserved Huck, if not Mark Twain, from the crassness of a materialistic society as well as from the brutality of an illiterate frontier. As portrayed by Theodore Spencer in his excellent introduction to the volume, Francis Grierson was a sort of Huck Finn who kept going, educating himself and following his bent with sheer reliance on his inner being, but without Huck's aversion to polite society and "sivilization." Grierson's portrayal of Lincoln as a "practical mystic" springs from a source truer to Lincoln than does any rational analysis of Lincoln known to the editor. What Twain gives us in Huck Finn and what Lincoln gives us in The Gettysburg Address is the essence of American democracy, incorruptible by time or circumstance. That Grierson intuitively sounded Lincoln better than many who knew far more about him as a man and as a statesman, seems to the editor more than a possibility. Whence came this achievement, if not from the same source that created Twain's Huck Finn and Lincoln's Farewell Address? FIGHTING POLITICIAN, Major General N. P. Banks. By Fred Harvey Harrington. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1948. xi, 301 pp. $3.50. This book, "prepared and published under the direction of the American Historical Association from the income of the Albert J. Beveridge Memorial Fund," has long been needed to establish the degree of accomplishment as well as the degree of failure in the public career of one of the most controversial figures of the Civil War period. Unlike most of the great and near great of his time, Nathaniel P. Banks did not undertake through autobiography or memoirs to justify his career, and prior to Dr. Harrington's study no professional historian has addressed himself specifically to more than isolated periods or events in Banks' life. Hence, the need has been for a comprehensive biography, and so far as the editor's knowledge and judgment indicates, Dr. Harrington has provided what was needed. To say that the book is carefully documented and apparently exhaustive in its employment of source materials is sufficient to commend it to the student, but one may add that the narrative moves at a high level of professional competence.

168 ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUARTERLY Dr. Harrington sums up the career and character of Banks in a well-phrased sentence: "He had many opportunities, but he too often preferred expediency to principle." Yet the whole story is not told in this judgment, for the opportunities came to Banks often as a result of his preference for expediency. American politics before, during, and after the Civil War gave few rewards to fidelity to principle. Even, for example, the Major-generalship which Lincoln conferred, and the confidence which Lincoln placed in Banks' political efforts to organize a loyal state government in Louisiana, derived perhaps from Lincoln's recognition that Banks was a skilful politician who had demonstrated that he could compromise and could work with people. It is a truism that no man has ever consistently managed to get himself elected and appointed to office over a period of thirty years without bowing many times to expediency, and Banks' record proves the rule most adequately. Dr. Harrington recognizes Banks' strength as well as his weakness. The book is objective not only in the impartial recording of fact, but also in the relative statements of judgment. Banks comes off better as a politician than as a general, as might be expected, but he is best as a man who made his own way, supporting his family, serving his friends and constituents, and furthering the development of his country in spite of the fact that he seems to have held consistently no principle except that of remaining in office. GETTYSBURG. Edited by Earl Schenck Miers and Richard A. Brown. Maps by Harold C. Detje. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1948. xviii, 308 pp. $3.50. Gettysburg is a dramatic book. The excitement of battle is on every page, now suppressed and now exuberant. From June 15 to July 14, 1863, the entries in the diary of Sallie Robbins Broadhead, who lived on the Chambersburg Pike near Gettysburg, tell the story of a civilian's apprehension, excitement, and jubilation. The soldiers' story is told in excerpts from firsthand contemporary accounts arranged in climactic narrative. In all, ninety-two selections, woven together with editorial comment, make up the volume. Excellent maps illustrate the progress of the battle. As Mr. Miers notes in the "Introduction" the result is not

LINCOLN PUBLICA TIONS 169 factual history, but on the other hand, it is vivid impressionistic narrative. The errors of impression and judgment, the concentrated though limited view, and the personal element, all combine to produce an image of battle which is certainly part illusion, but the element of illusion is in itself part of the reality-the part which is winnowed out of history with the passage of time and the flailing of scholars. What has been done by Messrs. Miers and Brown is essentially the work of artists rather than historians. By their skilful arrangement of materials they have accentuated the dramatic development of the battle. And yet, except for a few minor errors, their editorial work is accurate and scholarly. The problem of what selection and arrangement of materials does to the "real" or "true" facts of history is exceptionally demonstrated in this book, and the question of what history is, is presented as a concrete, fascinating puzzle. The book should make new converts to the study of the Civil War. LEE'S CENTENNIAL, An Address. By Charles Francis Adams. With a Foreword by Douglas Southall Freeman. Edition limited to seven hundred and fifty copies. Chicago: Americana House, 1948. 76 pp. $7.50. This reprinting of Adams' address delivered at Lexington, Virginia, January 19, 1907, is a welcome addition to any Civil War collection. The book is attractively printed and nicely bound; but a book which is caviar to the general reader suffers most by misprints such as "prostate" for "prostrate." Dr. Freeman's "Foreword" is spare but to the point and sufficient. Reviewing Adams' treatment of Lee after these many years, we are struck by the fact that no extended biography known to us has hit so nearly the heart of the man that was Lee, not even Freeman's monumental work; and yet the tragedy of Lee's character was scarcely comprehended by Adams-the tragedy of a mind too intelligent to indulge with his fellow secessionists in rationalizing the moral obliquity of slavery and in believing that state sovereignty could be maintained under secession, but forced to wear the chains of an irrational duty dictated by emotions which could not bow to the voice of reason. It is time for a new one-volume biography of Lee which will revive the man who has been buried in facts as well as abstracted into symbol.

Brochures, Pamphlets, Etc. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, LL.D., A Professional Portrait. By H. H. Warner. Reprinted from the Michigan State Bar Journal, February, 1948. 7 PP. 250.- The title aptly describes the contents of the article. The author is an attorney practicing in Lansing, Michigan. LINCOLN MUSEUM, and the House Where Lincoln Died. Washington: United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1947. [5 PP.]. ABE GOES DOWN TH1E RIVER. By F. Lauriston Bullard. Reprinted from the Lincoln Herald, February, 1948. 15 pp.2 This reprinting is limited to one hundred copies. THE OHIO STORY, February 11, 1948, No. 173-"The Lincoln Men." The Ohio Bell Telephone Company. WTAM, Cleveland, Ohio.3 A printed radio script concerning the Lincoln fraternity of collectors and students. ADDRESS OF BEVERLY TUCKER, ESQ., TO THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES, 1 865. Edited by James Harvey Young. Emory University Publications, Sources k Reprints, Series V, 1948. 32 pp. 750.4 This interesting reprint of Tucker's denial of implication in the assassination of President Lincoln contains much flighty rhetoric and some significant, though belated, Confederate appreciation of Lincoln's humanity and greatness. Of particular interest to those who have read Otto Eisenschiml's Why Was Lincoln Murdered? is Tucker's remarkably similar interpretation of events. Tucker's deductions point to Andrew Johnson as the high accomplice of the conspirators. Since Tucker was defending himself against President Johnson's Proclamation setting a price on the heads of Tucker and other Confederate leaders, one cannot fail to enjoy the neatness, if not the vituperation, with which he turns his defense into a prosecution. I Address: 412-414 Olds Tower, Lansing 8, Michigan. 2 Address: Lincoln Memorial University, Harrogate, Tennessee. 8 Address: 75o Huron Road, Cleveland 15, Ohio. 'Address: The Emory University Library, Emory University, Georgia. 170

News and Comment Of interest to members of the Association is the newly founded and flourishing National Society of Autograph Collectors. The first meeting of NSAC was held May 17-18 in the Clements Library of the University of Michigan. Seventy-five members were in attendance, some of them having journeyed from California and from the eastern states. In addition to an excellent program, a fine collection of autographs was displayed, combining many choice items from the rare treasures of individual members. The place of the second annual meeting to be held in the spring of 1949 will be announced at a later date. Those interested in membership should address the secretary, Mrs. Otto Madlener, 874 Hill Road, Winnetka, Illinois. Other officers of NSAC are: Dr. Joseph E. Fields, President (Joliet, Illinois); Colonel William Herzog, Treasurer (Chicago, Illinois). Local groups are being organized in various sections of the country. A flourishing chapter has been organized in New York with officers as follows: Boyd B. Stutler, Chairman; Alexander W. Armour, Vice-Chairman; Richard M. Lederer, Secretary and Treasurer. NSAC plans to publish a journal devoted entirely to the interests of the collectors. The Lincoln Fellowship of Southern California held regular meetings on May 8 and June 12. Speakers and subjects were as follows: May 8-Mr. Charles Emory Barber, "The Dred Scott Case: A Factual Account, "Dr. William E. McCulloch, "Lincoln's Growth"; June 12-Mr. Edward F. Schewe, "Lincoln's Family Life," Mr. Harper Leiper, "Lincoln and the Public Press." Dr. T. Harry Williams of Louisiana State University has contracted with Alfred A. Knopf to do a book on "Lincoln and His Generals" which is to be published in 1950. 171

172 ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUARTERLY Best magazine article on Lincoln during the first quarter of 1948, was "President Lincoln and Doctor Gurley," by David Rankin Barbee, which appeared in The A braham Lincoln Quarterly, March, 1948. The Advisory Group of The Lincoln National Life Foundation announced the selection of Mr. Barbee's article in Lincoln Lore, No. 997, May 17, 1948. Second place was awarded to "Abe Goes Down the River," by F. Lauriston Bullard, which appeared in the Lincoln Herald, February, 1948. A feature of the Summer Festival sponsored by the American Legion at Park Ridge, Illinois, during the week of August 2-8, was a two-performance pageant, "Lincoln-The President." The pageant continued the theme of last year's presentation of the youthful Lincoln as "the man of destiny." Mr. Burr Lee, radio producer for the American Broadcasting Company, who directed the 1947 production was again in charge. The script was written by the Reverend Dr. George Truman Carl. The role of Lincoln was again played by Mr. Frank Ruark of Park Ridge. For the second year, Robert Sherwood's play, "Abe Lincoln in Illinois," was presented August 4-8, in the Kelso Hollow adjacent to the entrance to New Salem State Park, by the Abraham Lincoln Players, Inc. These players, a part of the Springfield (Illinois) Theatre Guild, comprise a new permanent organization set up to perpetuate the production of this play annually. The 1948 presentation was dressed with new scenery and was played upon a giant moving stage. Costumes and properties were authentic Lincoln period pieces. The Lincoln Players featured outstanding citizens and dramatists of Springfield. Some of the familiar roles were played by State Representative G. William Horsley, Springfield attorney, as Lincoln; lawyer S. Phil Hutchison as Douglas; and Mrs. Betty Farrington as Mary Todd Lincoln. The play was again ably directed by Miss Adelaide O'Brien, and thousands of persons from the middle west attended.

NEWS AND COMMENT 173 Members have had Lincoln Runs for Congress now for several months. The reviews in the daily press have been gratifying to date. In the December issue of the Quarterly a summary of the reviewers' opinions will be compiled. If any member wishes to obtain additional copies, he may place orders through his favorite book store or write directly to Rutgers University Press. Orders cannot be filled by the Association office. The Civil War Round Table of Chicago held its annual election of officers at a meeting on May 13. Officers were elected as follows: Lloyd D. Miller, President; Joseph L. Eisendrath, Jr., Secretary; William Herzog, Treasurer. General Donald Armstrong spoke on "The Applicability of Lessons of the Civil War to the Atomic Age." An informal meeting of the Round Table was held June 16, at the South Shore Country Club. Dr. Charles W. Olsen was host, and the program consisted of an informal discussion. Two Lincoln books forthcoming this fall should be of great interest to readers of the Quarterly-The Lincoln Papers, edited by David C. Mearns with an Introduction by Carl Sandburg (Doubleday), and Lincoln's Herndon, by David Donald (Knopf). The first is in two volumes, and presents the history of the Robert Todd Lincoln Collection and selections from the more important Lincoln papers prior to July i, 1861. The second is a fulllength, scholarly biography of Herndon. Contributors Roy Hays is a resident of Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan. His professional experience as an investigator in the insurance business has provided him with an indefatigable zest for uncovering facts and a technique that the professional historian may well emulate.

R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY, CHICAGO AND CRAWFORDSVILLE, INDIANA

THE ABRAHAM LINCOLN ASSOCIATION OFFICERS GEORGE W. BUNN, JR., President BENJAMIN P. THOMAS, Treasurer MARY E. HUMPHREY, Vice President PAUL M. ANGLE, Vice President RoY P. BASLER, Executive Secretary DIRECTORS OLIVER R. BARRETT J. PAUL CLAYTON MARY E. HUMPHREY JAMES W. BOLLINGER HENRY A. CONVERSE RALPH G. LINDSTROM F. L. BULLARD PASCAL ENOS HATCH HENRY M. MERRIAM ALCE E. BUNN LUCY BOWEN HAY CHARLES L. PATTON GEORGE W. BUNN, JR. EDGAR DEWrrr JONES JAMES G. RANDALL BENJAMIN P. THOMAS W. H. TOWNSEND THE ABRAHAM LINCOLN ASSOCIATION is a not-for-profit corporation which has as its principal purpose the collection and dissemination of information regarding all phases of the life of Abraham Lincoln. The Association is supported principally by the dues of its members, which are five dollars annually for junior members and library members, and ten dollars annually for sustaining members. All members receive the Association's publications, which are The Abraham Lincoln Quarterly and an annual volume on some phase of Lincoln's life. Titles of books already published will be furnished on request. THE ABRAHAM LINCOLN QUARTERLY The Abraham Lincoln Quarterly is published four times a year, in March, June, September and December. It is sent to all members of the Association, and may be subscribed for by non-members at the rate of three dollars annually. Correspondence in regard to contributions to the Quarterly should be addressed to the Editor, First National Bank Building, Springfield, Illinois. RoY P. BASLER, Editor GEORGE W. BUNN, JR., and BENJAMIN P. THOMAS, Associate Editors