Annotation
[1] AD, ORB. The document carries at the bottom a certification by N. W. Matheny, Clerk, County Commissioners Court, dated September 9, 1842. It is laced together with pink ribbon tied in a bow at the top, as it was prepared for Mary Todd on the day when her satiric contribution to the Rebecca letters was published in the Sangamo Journal (vide supra). It is difficult to avoid the conjecture that Lincoln produced this prosaic but obviously sentimental document as a result of his meetings with Mary at the home of Simeon Francis during the letter-writing episode (Beveridge, I, 343-44).