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

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.