McClure's Magazine
February, 1896.
Vol. VI. No. 3
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ILLUSTRATIONS
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By Ida M. Tarbell. 213
Lincoln's Life at New Salem from 1832 to 1836. 213
Looking for Work. 213
Decides to Buy a Store. 213
He Begins to Study Law. 221
Berry and Lincoln Get a Tavern License. 226
The Firm Hires a Clerk. 227
Lincoln Appointed Postmaster. 228
A New Opening. 228
Surveying with a Grapevine. 230
Business Reverses. 230
The Kindness Shown Lincoln in New Salem. 232
Lincoln's Acquaintance in Sangamon County Is Extended. 232
He Finally Decides on a Legal Career. 233
Lincoln Enters the Illinois Assembly. 234
The Story of Ann Rutledge. 236
Abraham Lincoln at Twenty-six Years of Age. 238
A GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL. By Ian Maclean. 241
THE FASTEST RAILROAD RUN EVER MADE. By Harry Perry Robinson. 247
A CENTURY OF PAINTING. By Will H. Low. 256
THE TRAGEDY OF GARFIELD'S ADMINISTRATION. By Murat Halstead. 269
Garfield's Administration. 274
The Garfields in the White House. 277
Last Interview with President Garfield. 278
THE VICTORY OF THE GRAND DUKE OF MITTENHEIM. By Anthony Hope. 280
Chapter II. 288
CHAPTERS FROM A LIFE. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. 293
THE TOUCHSTONE. By Robert Louis Stevenson. 300
MAGAZINE NOTES. 304
Mrs. Humphry Ward—Dr. Jowett. 304
Three Hundred Thousand. 304
Our Own Printing Establishment. 304
Anthony Hope's New Novel. 304
The Life of Lincoln. 304
The Early Life of Lincoln. 304
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. 304
"The Sabine Women"—A Correction. 304
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE EARLIEST PORTRAIT OF
LINCOLN IN 1859.
LINCOLN IN THE SUMMER OF 1860.
LINCOLN EARLY IN 1861.
LINCOLN IN 1861.
THE STATE-HOUSE AT VANDALIA, ILLINOIS.
LINCOLN'S SURVEYING INSTRUMENTS.
FACSIMILE OF A TAVERN LICENSE ISSUED TO BERRY AND LINCOLN.
BERRY AND LINCOLN'S STORE IN 1895.
DANIEL GREEN BURNER, BERRY AND LINCOLN'S CLERK.
THE REV. JOHN M. CAMERON.
JAMES SHORT.
SQUIRE COLEMAN SMOOT.
SAMUEL HILL--AT WHOSE STORE LINCOLN KEPT THE POST-OFFICE.
MARY ANN RUTLEDGE, MOTHER OF ANN MAYES RUTLEDGE.
JOHN CALHOUN, UNDER WHOM LINCOLN LEARNED SURVEYING.
LINCOLN'S SADDLE-BAGS.
REPORT OF A ROAD SURVEY BY LINCOLN.
A MAP MADE BY LINCOLN OF A PIECE OF ROAD IN MENARD COUNTY.
A WAYSIDE WELL NEAR NEW SALEM, KNOWN AS "ANN RUTLEDGE'S WELL."
CONCORD CEMETERY.
STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS.
MAJOR JOHN T. STUART.
JOSEPH DUNCAN, GOVERNOR OF ILLINOIS DURING LINCOLN'S FIRST TERM.
GRAVE OF ANN RUTLEDGE IN OAKLAND CEMETERY.
"I WENT UP TO MR. PERKINS'S ROOM WITHOUT CEREMONY."
"HE HAD THE JOLLIEST LITTLE DINNER READY YOU EVER SAW."
VIEW BACK ON THE TRACK WHEN TRAIN WAS RUNNING AT ABOUT 80 MPH.
JOHN NEWELL.
THE TEN-WHEEL ENGINE 564.
THE BROOKS ENGINE 599.
THE ENGINEERS WHO BROUGHT THE TRAIN FROM CHICAGO TO CLEVELAND.
J.R. GARNER, ENGINEER FROM CLEVELAND TO ERIE.
WILLIAM TUNKEY, ENGINEER FROM ERIE TO BUFFALO.
GEORGE ROMNEY, PAINTER OF "THE PARSON'S DAUGHTER."
THE PARSON'S DAUGHTER.
JOHN CONSTABLE.
FLATFORD MILL, ON THE RIVER STOUR.
THE HAY-WAIN.
JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER.
PEACE--BURIAL AT SEA OF THE BODY OF SIR DAVID WILKIE.
PORTRAIT OF A BOY.
JOHN HOPPNER.
PORTRAIT OF A LADY.
PORTRAIT OF A CHILD.
MRS. SIDDONS.
LADY BLESSINGTON.
SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE.
MISS BARRON, AFTERWARDS MRS. RAMSEY.
PORTRAIT OF A BROTHER AND SISTER.
GARFIELD IN 1881, WHILE PRESIDENT. AGE 49.
GARFIELD IN 1863.
GARFIELD IN 1863.
GARFIELD IN 1867, WITH HIS DAUGHTER.
"FROM THE LONG GRASS BY THE RIVER'S EDGE A YOUNG MAN SPRANG UP."
"'YOU ARE THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD,' HE ANSWERED SMILING."
"'LISTEN!' SHE CRIED, SPRINGING TO HER FEET."
"HE LEANED FROM HIS SADDLE AS HE DASHED BY."
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
PROFESSOR AUSTIN PHELPS, FATHER OF ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS.
PROFESSOR M. STUART PHELPS, ELDEST SON OF PROFESSOR AUSTIN PHELPS.
"HE WAS A GRAVE MAN, AND BESIDE HIM STOOD HIS DAUGHTER."
"'MAID,' QUOTH HE, 'I WOULD FAIN MARRY YOU.'"
"ALL THAT DAY HE RODE, AND HIS MIND WAS QUIET."
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By Ida M. Tarbell.
LINCOLN'S LIFE AT NEW SALEM FROM 1832 TO 1836.
BERRY AND LINCOLN'S GROCERY.—A SET OF BLACKSTONE'S COMMENTARIES.—BERRY AND LINCOLN TAKE OUT A TAVERN LICENSE.—THE POSTMASTER OF NEW SALEM IN 1833.—LINCOLN BECOMES DEPUTY SURVEYOR.—THE FAILURE OF BERRY AND LINCOLN.—ELECTIONEERING IN ILLINOIS.—LINCOLN CHOSEN ASSEMBLYMAN.—BEGINS TO STUDY LAW.—THE ILLINOIS STATE LEGISLATURE IN 1834.—THE STORY OF ANN RUTLEDGE.—ABRAHAM LINCOLN AT TWENTY-SIX YEARS OF AGE.
Embodying special studies in Lincoln's life at New Salem by J. McCan Davis.
LOOKING FOR WORK.
T was in August, 1832, that Lincoln made his unsuccessful canvass for the Illinois Assembly. The election over, he began to look for work. One of his friends, an admirer of his physical strength, advised him to become a blacksmith, but it was a trade which would afford little leisure for study, and for meeting and talking with men; and he had already resolved, it is evident, that books and men were essential to him. The only employment to be had in New Salem which seemed to offer both support and the opportunities he sought, was clerking in a store; and he applied for a place successively at all of the stores then doing business in New Salem. But they were in greater need of customers than of clerks. The business had been greatly overdone. In the fall of 1832 there were at least four stores in New Salem. The most pretentious was that of Hill and McNeill, which carried a large line of dry goods. The three others, owned by the Herndon Brothers, Reuben Radford, and James Rutledge, were groceries.
DECIDES TO BUY A STORE.
Failing to secure employment at any of these establishments, Lincoln, though without money enough to pay a week's board in advance, resolved to buy a store. He was not long in finding an opportunity to purchase. James Herndon had already sold out his half interest in Herndon Brothers' store to William F. Berry; and Rowan Herndon, not getting along well with Berry, was only too glad to find a purchaser of his half in the person of "Abe" Lincoln. Berry was
THE EARLIEST PORTRAIT OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. (REPRINTED FROM McCLURE'S FOR NOVEMBER).
From a daguerreotype in the possession of the Hon. Robert T. Lincoln, taken before Lincoln was forty, and first published in the McCLURE'S Life of Lincoln. Of the sixty or more portraits of Lincoln which will be published in this series of articles, thirty, at least, will be absolutely new to our readers; and of these thirty none is more important than this early portrait. It is generally believed that Lincoln was not over thirty-five years old when this daguerreotype was taken, and it is certainly true that it is the face of Lincoln as a young man. "About thirty would be the general verdict," says Mr. Murat Halstead in an editorial in the Brooklyn "Standard-Union," "if it were not that the daguerreotype was unknown when Lincoln was of that age. It does not seem, however, that he could have been more than thirty-five, and for that age the youthfulness of the portrait is wonderful. This is a new Lincoln, and far more attractive, in a sense, than anything the public has possessed. This is the portrait of a remarkably handsome man.... The head is magnificent, the eyes deep and generous, the mouth sensitive, the whole expression something delicate, tender, pathetic, poetic. This was the young man with whom the phantoms of romance dallied, the young man who recited poems and was fanciful and speculative, and in love and despair, but upon whose brow there already gleamed the illumination of intellect, the inspiration of patriotism. There were vast possibilities in this young man's face. He could have gone anywhere and done anything. He might have been a military chieftain, a novelist, a poet, a philosopher, ah! a hero, a martyr—and, yes, this young man might have been—he even was Abraham Lincoln! This was he with the world before him. It is good fortune to have the magical revelation of the youth of the man the world venerates. This look into his eyes, into his soul—not before he knew sorrow, but long before the world knew him—and to feel that it is worthy to be what it is, and that we are better acquainted with him and love him the more, is something beyond price."
LINCOLN IN 1859.
From a photograph in the collection of H.W. Fay, De Kalb, Illinois. The original was made by S.M. Fassett, of Chicago; the negative was destroyed in the Chicago fire. This picture was made at the solicitation of D.B. Cook, who says that Mrs. Lincoln pronounced it the best likeness she had ever seen of her husband. Rajon used the Fassett picture as the original of his etching, and Kruell has made a fine engraving of it.
LINCOLN IN THE SUMMER OF 1860.
From a copy (made by E.A. Bromley of the Minneapolis "Journal" staff) of a photograph owned by Mrs. Cyrus Aldrich, whose husband, now dead, was a congressman from Minnesota. In the summer of 1860 Mr. M.C. Tuttle, a photographer of St. Paul, wrote to Mr. Lincoln requesting that he have a negative taken and sent to him for local use in the campaign. The request was granted, but the negative was broken in transit. On learning of the accident, Mr. Lincoln sat again, and with the second negative he sent a jocular note wherein he referred to the fact, disclosed by the picture, that in the interval he had "got a new coat." A few copies of the picture were made by Mr. Tuttle, and distributed among the Republican editors of the State. It has never before been reproduced. Mrs. Aldrich's copy was presented to her by William H. Seward, when he was entertained at the Aldrich homestead (now the Minneapolis City Hospital) in September, 1860. A fine copy of this same photograph is in the possession of Mr. Ward Monroe, of Jersey City, N.J.
William F. Berry, the partner of Lincoln, was the son of a Presbyterian minister, the Rev. John Berry, who lived on Rock Creek, five miles from New Salem. The son had strayed from the footsteps of the father, for he was a hard drinker, a gambler, a fighter, and "a very wicked young man." Lincoln cannot in truth be said to have chosen such a partner, but rather to have accepted him from the force of circumstances. It required only a little time to make it plain that the partnership was wholly uncongenial. Lincoln displayed little business capacity. He trusted largely to Berry; and Berry rapidly squandered the profits of the business in riotous living. Lincoln loved books as Berry loved liquor, and hour after hour he was stretched out on the counter of the store or under a shade tree, reading Shakespeare or Burns.
LINCOLN EARLY IN 1861.—PROBABLY THE EARLIEST PORTRAIT SHOWING HIM WITH A BEARD.
From a photograph in the collection of H.W. Fay of De Kalb, Illinois, taken probably in Springfield early in 1861. It is supposed to have been the first, or at least one of the first, portraits made of Mr. Lincoln after he began to wear a beard. As is well known, his face was smooth until about the end of 1860; and when he first allowed his beard to grow, it became a topic of newspaper comment, and even of caricature. A pretty story relating to Lincoln's adoption of a beard is more or less familiar. A letter written to the editor of the present Life, under date of December 6, 1895, by Mrs. Grace Bedell Billings, tells this story, of which she herself as a little girl was the heroine, in a most charming way. The letter will be found printed in full at the end of this article, on page 240.
His thorough
LINCOLN IN 1861.
From a photograph loaned by Mr. Frank A. Brown of Minneapolis, Minnesota. This beautiful photograph was taken, probably early in 1861, by Alexander Hesler of Chicago. It was used by Leonard W. Volk, the sculptor, in his studies of Lincoln, and closely resembles the fine etching by T. Johnson.
"'I am very glad to meet you, Mr. McDonough, and am grateful to Kelley for bringing you in so early, for I want you to tell me something about Shakespeare's plays as they are constructed for the stage. You can imagine that I do not get much time to study such matters, but I recently had a couple of talks with Hackett—Baron Hackett, as they call him—who is famous as Jack Falstaff, but from whom I elicited few satisfactory replies, though I probed him with a good many questions.'
THE STATE-HOUSE AT VANDALIA, ILLINOIS—NOW USED AS A COURT-HOUSE.
Vandalia was the State capital of Illinois for twenty years, and three different State-houses were built and occupied there. The first, a two-story frame structure, was burned down December 9, 1823. The second was a brick building, and was erected at a cost of $12,381.50, of which the citizens of Vandalia contributed $3,000. The agitation for the removal of the capital to Springfield began in 1833, and in the summer of 1836 the people of Vandalia, becoming alarmed at the prospect of their little city's losing its prestige as the seat of the State government, tore down the old capitol (much complaint being made about its condition), and put up a new one at a cost of $16,000. The tide was too great to be checked; but after the "Long Nine" had secured the passage of the bill taking the capital to Springfield, the money which the Vandalia people had expended was refunded. The State-house shown in this picture was the third and last one. In it Lincoln served as a legislator. Ceasing to be the capitol July 4, 1839, it was converted into a court-house for Fayette County, and is still so used.—J. McCan Davis.
LINCOLN'S SURVEYING INSTRUMENTS—PHOTOGRAPHED FOR McCLURE'S MAGAZINE.
After Lincoln gave up surveying, he sold his instruments to John B. Gum, afterward county surveyor of Menard County. Mr. Gum kept them until a few years ago, when he presented the instruments to the Lincoln Monument Association, and they are now on exhibition at the monument in Springfield, Ill.
FACSIMILE OF A TAVERN LICENSE ISSUED TO BERRY AND LINCOLN MARCH 6, 1833, BY THE COUNTY COMMISSIONERS' COURT OF SANGAMON COUNTY.
The only tavern in New Salem in 1833 was that kept by James Rutledge—a two-story log-structure of five rooms, standing just across the street from Berry and Lincoln's store. Here Lincoln boarded. It seems entirely probable that he may have had an ambition to get into the tavern business, and that he and Berry obtained a license with that end in view, possibly hoping to make satisfactory terms for the purchase of the Rutledge hostelry. The tavern of sixty years ago, besides answering the purposes of the modern hotel, was the dramshop of the frontier. The business was one which, in Illinois, the law strictly regulated. Tavern-keepers were required to pay a license fee, and to give bonds to insure their good behavior. Minors were not to be harbored, nor did the law permit liquor to be sold to them; and the sale to slaves of any liquors "or strong drink, mixed or unmixed, either within or without doors," was likewise forbidden. Nor could the poor Indian get any "fire-water" at the tavern or the grocery. If a tavern-keeper violated the law, two-thirds of the fine assessed against him went to the poor people of the county. The Rutledge tavern was the only one at New Salem of which we have any authentic account. It was kept by others besides Mr. Rutledge; for a time by Henry Onstott the cooper, and then by Nelson Alley, and possibly there were other landlords; but nothing can be more certain than that Lincoln was not one of them. The few surviving inhabitants of the vanished village, and of the country round about, have a clear recollection of Berry and Lincoln's store—of how it looked, and of what things were sold in it; but not one has been found with the faintest remembrance of a tavern kept by Lincoln, or by Berry, or by both. Stage passengers jolting into New Salem sixty-two years ago must, if Lincoln was an inn-keeper, have partaken of his hospitality by the score; but if they did, they all died many, many years ago, or have all maintained an unaccountable and most perplexing silence.—J. McCan Davis.
"'Your last suggestion,' said Mr. Lincoln, 'carries with it greater weight than anything Mr. Hackett suggested, but the first is no reason at all;' and after reading another passage, he said, 'This is not withheld, and where it passes current there can be no reason for withholding the other.'... And, as if feeling the impropriety of preferring the player to the parson, [there was a clergyman in the room] he turned to the chaplain and said: 'From your calling it is probable that you do not know that the acting plays which people crowd to hear are not always those planned by their reputed authors. Thus, take the stage edition of "Richard III." It opens with a passage from "Henry VI.," after which come portions of "Richard III.," then another scene from "Henry VI.," and the finest soliloquy in the play, if we may judge from the many quotations it furnishes, and the frequency with which it is heard in amateur exhibitions, was never seen by Shakespeare, but was written—was it not, Mr. McDonough?—after his death, by Colley Cibber."
"Having disposed, for the present, of questions relating to the stage editions of the plays, he recurred to his standard copy, and, to the evident surprise of Mr. McDonough, read or repeated from memory extracts from several of the plays, some of which embraced a number of lines.
"It must not be supposed that
BERRY AND LINCOLN'S STORE IN 1895.
From a recent photograph by C.S. McCullough, Petersburg, Illinois. The little frame store-building occupied by Berry and Lincoln at New Salem is now standing at Petersburg, Illinois, in the rear of L.W. Bishop's gun-shop. Its history after 1834 is somewhat obscure, but there is no reason for doubting its identity. According to tradition it was bought by Robert Bishop, the father of the present owner, about 1835, from Mr. Lincoln himself; but it is difficult to reconcile this legend with the sale of the store to the Trent brothers, unless, upon the flight of the latter from the country and the closing of the store, the building, through the leniency of creditors, was allowed to revert to Mr. Lincoln, in which event he no doubt sold it at the first opportunity and applied the proceeds to the payment of the debts of the firm. When Mr. Bishop bought the store building, he removed it to Petersburg. It is said that the removal was made in part by Lincoln himself; that the job was first undertaken by one of the Bales, but that, encountering some difficulty, he called upon Lincoln to assist him, which Lincoln did. The structure was first set up adjacent to Mr. Bishop's house, and converted into a gun-shop. Later it was removed to a place on the public square; and soon after the breaking out of the late war, Mr. Bishop, erecting a new building, pushed Lincoln's store into the back-yard, and there it still stands. Soon after the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, the front door was presented to some one in Springfield, and has long since been lost sight of. It is remembered by Mr. Bishop that in this door there was an opening for the reception of letters—a circumstance of importance as tending to establish the genuineness of the building, when it is remembered that Lincoln was postmaster while he kept the store. The structure, as it stands to-day, is about eighteen feet long, twelve feet in width, and ten feet in height. The back room, however, has disappeared, so that the building as it stood when occupied by Berry and Lincoln was somewhat longer. Of the original building there only remain the frame-work, the black-walnut weather-boarding on the front end and the ceiling of sycamore boards. One entire side has been torn away by relic-hunters. In recent years the building has been used as a sort of store-room. Just after a big fire in Petersburg some time ago, the city council condemned the Lincoln store building and ordered it demolished. Under this order a portion of one side was torn down, when Mr. Bishop persuaded the city authorities to desist, upon giving a guarantee that if Lincoln's store ever caught fire he would be responsible for any loss which might ensue.—J. McCan Davis.
HE BEGINS TO STUDY LAW.
It was not only Burns and Shakespeare that interfered with the grocery-keeping: Lincoln had begun seriously to read law. His first acquaintance with the subject had been made when he was a mere lad in Indiana, and a copy of the "Revised Statutes of Indiana" had fallen into his hands. The very copy he used is still in existence and, fortunately, in hands where it is safe. The book was owned by Mr. David Turnham, of Gentryville, and was given in 1865 by him to Mr. Herndon, who placed it in the Lincoln Memorial collection of Chicago. In December, 1894, this collection was sold in Philadelphia, and the "Statutes of Indiana" was bought by Mr. William Hoffman Winters, Librarian of the New York Law Institute, and through his courtesy I have been allowed to examine it. The book is worn, the title page is gone and a few leaves from the end are missing. The title page of a duplicate volume which Mr. Winters kindly showed me reads: "The Revised Laws of Indiana adopted and enacted by the General Assembly at their eighth session. To which are prefixed the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the State of Indiana, and sundry other documents connected with the Political History of the Territory and State of Indiana. Arranged and published by authority of the General Assembly. Corydon, Printed by Carpenter and Douglass, 1824."