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Abraham Lincoln in Mercer County, Illinois 1832, 1834, 1858
William C. Ives
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This essay is an attempt to pull together and synthesize what is known, or at least believed to be known, about Abraham Lincoln's direct connections with Mercer County, Illinois—specifically his three appearances there in 1832, 1834, and 1858. Accurately describing Lincoln's early life, during which his first two visits to Mercer County occurred, has severely challenged those who have attempted to do so. Douglas L. Wilson in Honor's Voice, an excellent account of Lincoln's early years, wrote, "One of the principal reservations of professionally trained historians concerning Abraham Lincoln's early life is that most of the evidence pertaining to it is of a highly questionable sort. The evidence that historians find most reliable—written or printed documents that are contemporary with the events in question is, in this case, largely lacking." |
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Despite a substantial effort to locate them, many details—perhaps insignificant in themselves but when taken together would add meaningful insight and human interest to the often sterile and sparse written record—are missing. Informed and cautious conjecture must, therefore, often serve as a substitute until more facts become available. How many days was Lincoln in Mercer County on his 1834 mission to survey the New Boston town site? Where did he stay? Who assisted him in laying out the town? What were his relationships with prominent Springfield resident Elijah Iles, with Ephraim Gilmore, and with PeterVan Bergen who represented Iles and accompanied Lincoln to New Boston in September 1834? What route did they take there from Springfield, how long was the trip and what was their mode of transport? Detailed answers to these and many other questions would add much color and texture to those long ago days spent in Mercer County by a gangly youth who was destined to become our sixteenth and most revered president. |
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For the sake of simplicity, I have chosen to refer to all towns by their current names, rather than those employed in the 1830s. During Lincoln's 1832 and 1834 journeys to and through Mercer County, Oquawka was called "Lower Yellow Banks," Keithsburg was called "Middle Yellow Banks," and New Boston was called "Upper Yellow Banks." Yellow Banks was the Indian name for the seventeen-mile stretch of the Illinois bank of the Mississippi extending from Oquawka north to New Boston readily identified by banks of pale yellow sand rising sharply from the River. Even today, one can stand at the River's edge in New Boston and, looking south, observe those yellow banks along its eastern shore. |
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Mercer County—1832
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Abraham Lincoln was no stranger to Mercer County. He was in the county on at least three occasions and spent more time there than most people realize. While the available written record of Lincoln's visits is woefully incomplete, and it is highly doubtful that all of the potential primary sources have been located let alone consulted, the available material does provide significant glimpses into his associations with the county. |
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Thought to have been the first white men to explore Illinois, the Frenchmen, Louis Joliet and Jacque Marquette, canoed down the Mississippi River past what is now Mercer County in 1673. Thereafter, and until it became a separate, functioning governmental unit in 1835, Mercer was at one time or another part of Louisiana (1681–1763), an English province (1763–1778), the State of Virginia (County of Illinois) (1778–1784); the United States Northwest Territory (1787–1809); the United States Indiana Territory and then Illinois Territory (1809–1818); the Illinois Military Tract (1812–1855) and the Illinois counties of Madison (1812–1821) and Pike (1821–1825). Although "created" in 1825, Mercer County was governed from Peoria County (1825–1831) and then from Warren County (1831–1835) before it became self-governing in 1835.1 |
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When the twenty-three year old Lincoln first saw Mercer County in May 1832, he had lived in Illinois, mostly at New Salem, for scarcely two years. In those days, Mercer County was largely open prairie traversed east to west by wooded waterways, primarily Pope Creek and the Edwards River (called by the Indians "Big Turtle River"). Its rich soil and bountiful game and fish had sustained its Indian inhabitants and their neighbors for hundreds of years. The great Mississippi was the county's western boundary and its predominate physical feature. This majestic river also served as Mercer's avenue to the world at large. |
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The county then contained only a handful of white settlers—twenty-seven according to the 1830 state census—in addition to the occasional itinerate fur trader, nearly all of whom lived either on or close to the Mississippi near New Boston and Keithsburg. By the spring of 1832 most of these settlers had temporarily evacuated their homes and farms and headed south to Pence's Fort near Oquawka or beyond to Monmouth and elsewhere to escape an Indian population that was feared to becoming increasingly restive and hostile. |
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Lincoln's presence in Mercer County in 1832 was occasioned by the onset of the so-called Black Hawk War, the last significant military confrontation in Illinois and southern Wisconsin between Indians and the United States Army. This was a "war" in little more than name only. It consisted of a few relatively small, but bloody, skirmishes, lasted barely fifteen weeks, and cost the lives of many Indians along with some seventy soldiers and militia. A few white settlers also were killed during this short and, most now agree, unnecessary conflict. |
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After crossing the Mississippi and before departing New Boston, Black Hawk was reported to have visited at the cabin of John W. Denison.2 He and his father, William, were the first white settlers in Mercer County, arriving there in 1827. Abraham Lincoln along with hundreds of others throughout central and southern Illinois promptly answered Governor John Reynolds's call for the formation of a militia. Lincoln joined other local recruits on April 21, 1832 at New Salem. The New Salem volunteers formed a company and elected Lincoln its captain. They then proceeded at once to Beardstown on the Illinois River where they joined other similar units on April 22 and became part of the Fourth Illinois Regiment in General Samuel Whiteside's Brigade of Militia. Divided into four regiments, a spy battalion, and two other battalions, Whiteside's Brigade ultimately totaled more than 1600 men. They were enrolled into State Service on April 28. |
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The Illinois Militia was at best a rather loosely organized and poorly disciplined body of men who reflected the independent and self-reliant attitudes of the frontier while having little respect for military or political authority. This was clearly demonstrated by a less than stellar record of achievement during its few weeks of government service. In fact as one reads accounts of the Black Hawk War, the impression quickly forms that in the last analysis, the Militia may have been as much of a hindrance as it was a benefit to the Army both in prosecuting the war and in peacefully resolving the concerns raised by the Indian reappearance in Illinois. This is not to say, however, that the Militia was of no military significance. There is some evidence that, rightly or wrongly, the Indians feared the undisciplined behavior of the militiamen far more than that of the more restrained, professional soldiers of the regular army. |
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On April 29 and accompanied by Governor Reynolds, the Militia including Captain Lincoln left Beardstown and began its march north to Oquawka and then on to the Rock River. An additional 150 men without horses were ordered to travel to Oquawka by boat. At Oquawka, the Militia was to rendezvous with steamboats coming down river from Fort Armstrong and upriver from St. Louis, which would supply them with food and other essentials. Had it been known that Black Hawk was already moving up Rock River northeast toward Dixon; the Militia very likely would have proceeded directly to the Dixon area via Peoria, thus bypassing Henderson, Mercer and Rock Island Counties altogether. In fact, that is what General Atkinson had directed Governor Reynolds and the Militia to do. However, his order did not reach Reynolds before he had committed his force to the Oquawka route. |
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The militiamen traveled lightly. Most had a horse, a gun, a few personal items, meager rations and the civilian clothes on their backs, but little else. Much of their ammunition, bayonets, food, cooking and camping gear, soap and candles were to be provided by the State of Illinois or the United States Army either on route or upon reaching the Rock Island area. A number of wagons accompanied the men but were used primarily to carry some equipment and the personal items of their officers. |
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The seventy mile trek from Beardstown to Oquawka took nearly five days, from April 29 to the evening of May 3, and required the Militia to make camps in the Rushville area two times, a few miles northwest of Macomb on the open prairie eighteen miles south of Oquawka and finally at Oquawka itself. Reaching Oquawka required a challenging but highly successful fording of the Henderson River, which, after a wet spring, was rain swollen to a width of fifty yards, and flowing rapidly. As Governor Reynolds later wrote in his autobiography, My Own Times, "It is astonishing that two thousand men, horses, baggage, and all, could be crossed over a stream of this size, in less than three hours, without the loss of anything, except a horse or two."3 |
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The Militia was destined to spend three days at Oquawka awaiting the arrival of the supply boats containing badly needed food and other provisions. Upon its arrival, the militia was advised by the few remaining local residents that Blackhawk and his party had entered Illinois several weeks earlier. The following day, the Sauk Chief, Keokuk, accompanied by a small party, who advised that he did not intend to wage war against the United States, visited the volunteers' encampment. |
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It is uncertain exactly where the Militia camped during their three days at Oquawka. At the time, it consisted of several log cabins and out buildings and was not laid out as a village until July 1836. The few settlers included Stephen S. Phelps and from time to time his brother William, and their families, who had reached the area four years before. Alexis Phelps, an older brother and later a man of some local prominence, arrived a year later. |
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A place named Pence's Fort was nearby and thus a possible campsite. It was situated three miles northeast of Oquawka on the Henderson River at the farm of Judge John Pence. Before finally settling in the Oquawka area in 1829, Judge Pence had resided briefly in Saukenuk (Rock Island) and, while living there, had ensconced himself and his family in Black Hawk's own lodge! |
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The fort was a recently and rather hastily constructed, but solid, stockade of twelve foot high split logs and contained a block house or two within its seven-hundred square foot enclosure. It served as a refuge for several families from Mercer and Henderson Counties who had fled from the Indian unrest sparked by Black Hawk's return to Illinois a month earlier.4 While its site for many years was well known to local residents, no remains of the fort have been discovered and today few have even heard of it. |
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The Militia was certainly aware of Pence's Fort and at least some of their number no doubt visited there. Yet, it seems unlikely that the Fort served as the Militia's primary bivouac. A location close to the Mississippi River to expedite resupply from the riverboats is far more probable. No discovered contemporary account of the Militia's days in Oquawka makes mention of the Fort. |
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In any event, the supply boats, one from St. Louis and another from Rock Island, finally did reach Oquawka by May 6 and in the nick of time. Governor Reynolds wrote, "When we reached the Yellow Banks, we found no provisions nor boat from St. Louis, although it was ordered to be there ... I was in a critical situation ... This was a time I passed with great feelings of anxiety and pain for fear the boat and supplies would not reach the army. An accident to the vessel might occur and thereby the army would be compelled to disband for the want of provisions. This was my situation for three days, the longest I thought I ever experienced. The army had literally nothing to eat ... the boat ... arrived barely in time to save the disaster of disbanding the army."5 The militiamen met the boats and the eagerly awaited provisions, especially food for both the men and their horses, were quickly unloaded. |
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On May 7, 1832, the Militia left their encampment and headed north toward the Rock River and Fort Armstrong some fifty miles away. The party now consisting mostly of fifteen-hundred mounted volunteers along with two-hundred or so on foot and accompanied by a number of supply wagons stretched for more than two miles. While its precise route to the Rock Island area, mile for mile, has not been pinpointed with complete accuracy, its general path and various landmarks along its route can be identified. |
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Immediately north of Oquawka, the volunteers joined a trail used, perhaps for centuries, by various Indian tribes, most recently those of the Sauk and Fox Nations. It was a main thoroughfare from their winter hunting grounds in southeastern Iowa and northeastern Missouri via Oquawka to Saukenuk at Rock Island, and provided a convenient shortcut through Henderson, Mercer, and Rock Island counties by avoiding the considerably longer route around the bend of the Mississippi.6 |
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This well-worn path, later called the "Indian and Military Trail," passed through what is now the Big River State Forest several miles north of Oquawka, skirted a prominent spur projecting from the Mississippi bluffs called Bald Bluff. It continued easterly likely through what locals named Kuster's Gap and directly east into Mercer County and on for several miles to Belmont Church, now just a cemetery. There the trail abruptly turned north near what is now Seaton and crossed Pope Creek below the Cabeen farm. It then continued northward between Aledo and Joy, crossed the Edwards River and turned a bit northeast just east of Millersburg. After crossing Camp Creek, this trail continued to angle northeast to Saukenuk passing what is now Taylor Ridge and Milan. |
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Charles Shenkle, a state forester, identified the Big River State Forest portion of the Indian and Military Trail more than twenty years ago after painstaking investigation in and around the forest. That segment of the trail was described as being eight to ten feet wide and roughly 2.2 miles long. Today a portion of it has been designated as The Lincoln Hiking Trail, a 1.6 mile loop at the south end of the Forest just below the Bald Bluff Road. |
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Further north in Mercer County, a small remnant of the trail sits in the front yard of the Cabeen farm a few miles southwest of Aledo just above Pope Creek. In 1988 a plaque was placed at that site by the Puritan and Cavalier Chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution rewarding the historical research and persistence of Mrs. Alice Edwards, current owner Karl Kenney's grandmother. In later years, this portion of the trail became part of a stagecoach road from Beardstown through Knoxville to New Boston. One of the stations on that route was located on the Cabeen/Kenney farm near the present day farmhouse. |
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After following the Indian and Military Trail through the Big River State Forest, Lincoln and the Illinois Militia continued on the trail when it turned east toward Belmont Church and then directly north through Mercer County until it crossed the Edwards River two miles southeast of Millersburg. That crossing point, later known by local residents as the "Army Ford," is today located where 151st Street reaches the Edwards, and, although a former bridge is long gone, the ford itself remains readily identifiable.7 |
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Beyond the Edwards River and at the end of thirty-mile march from Oquawka, Lincoln's Militia camped on the north bank of a small creek (later named Camp Creek to note the event) a few miles northeast of Millersburg and likely where 172nd Street today crosses the Creek. The march then continued the next day on May 8 some twenty miles to the Milan area where General Atkinson assumed command of the "Illinois State Troops." The Militia was formally mustered into federal service the next day. As far as can be determined, the Militia's march from Oquawka to Milan took less then two days, most of which was spent in Mercer County. |
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Lincoln left the Army before the conclusion of the Black Hawk War and without seeing any combat; or as he put it in an 1848 speech in Congress that while he never saw any live fighting Indians, "... I had a good many struggles with the mosquitoes ..."8 During his less than three months in the military, Lincoln was mustered out of federal service three times and reenlisted twice, once for twenty days and once for thirty. During the twenty-day reenlistment, he joined a unit called the Mounted Independent Rangers commanded by Captain Elijah Iles of Springfield. His company, including now private Lincoln, marched from Ottawa and Dixon to Galena and then back to Dixon and on to Fort Wilbourne (by present-day Peru) where it was dissolved. Lincoln reenlisted there for thirty days in the independent spy company of Captain Jacob M. Early. When his second and final reenlistment was up, Lincoln was honorably discharged from federal service on July 10, 1832 at Burnt Village near Ft. Atkinson. He returned to New Salem by horse, canoe, and foot through central Illinois via Dixon, Peoria, and Havana, arriving there about July 20 to begin his first campaign for a seat in the Illinois legislature. |
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New Boston – 1834
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It was in late September 1834 when Lincoln next appeared in Mercer County. More than two years had passed since the Illinois Militia had trudged across the county on its way to confront Black Hawk on the Rock River. Lincoln had been commissioned to survey and prepare a plat of the proposed town of New Boston, the first of at least five town sites which he eventually surveyed (three of which became organized communities and survived), the others being well south of Mercer County mostly in what was then Sangamon County. Since his return from the Black Hawk War, Lincoln had made considerable progress in furthering his professional and political ambitions. He served as postmaster at New Salem and as deputy surveyor of Sangamon County. More significantly, he had just been elected on August 4 as a state representative to the 9th Illinois General Assembly and had begun to seriously read law. He obtained a provisional license to practice on September 9, 1836, and was officially enrolled in the Supreme Court Clerk's office on March 1, 1837. |
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Very few details about this surveying commission are documented. However, it seems reasonably clear, from what is known is that a prominent Springfield businessman and entrepreneur, Elijah Iles, was responsible for it. Elijah Iles was one of the founders of Springfield having arrived there in 1821 at the age of twenty-five. He had been attracted to Sangamon County and specifically the Springfield site where the County Commissioners had determined to locate the county's first and temporary courthouse. There Iles proceeded to build and operate a general store, the first in the Springfield area. This store became the anchor of a small community that developed around it and the courthouse. Shortly thereafter, the federal government finished surveying the area and in 1823 opened a federal land office from which large lots were offered at generous prices. The entrepreneurial Iles recognized this attractive opportunity and exploited it. He and three others had the town of Springfield surveyed and platted, after which he purchased (and later sold) substantial acreage in the platted area. Thus, Iles launched what has been described as "a lifelong career of buying and selling land and in farming." |
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By the late 1820s, Elijah Iles was quite well known in the Springfield area for these business and real estate ventures. The probability is great that anyone living in Sangamon County during that time knew of Iles and most were no doubt acquainted with him. After all, everyone needed supplies and, of the very few sources readily available, Iles owned and operated the first and perhaps most significant one. |
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Among the small number of residents then in Sangamon were William Denison and his son, John W. and their families who had settled there in 1826 from Indiana. While no record of the Denisons' activities while in Sangamon County has been discovered, its meager population coupled with Iles prominence suggests that they probably knew Iles and he probably knew them. It is also likely that Iles was aware of the Denisons' departure and destination when they and their families set off for Upper Yellow Banks in 1827 to become the first white settlers in Mercer County. After establishing themselves at New Boston, William and John Denison purchased approximately 240 acres there on May 21, 1832 from the Federal Government according to the Illinois Public Domain Land Tract Sales Database. William took title to 128 acres and John 113.9, each paying $1.25 per acre.9 |
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It was at this time that Elijah Iles became a small part of the early history of New Boston. It is not known what specifically piqued Iles's interest in either the Denisons or the New Boston site. Perhaps it stemmed from an earlier acquaintance with the Denisons while they both resided in Sangamon County in 1826–27 and which may have been maintained during the following seven years. Iles also may have heard through other sources that the New Boston area held commercial promise. At any rate, he apparently concluded that this Mercer County riverfront location was worthy of substantial investment, either directly or as security for a loan. |
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By involving himself in New Boston area real estate, Iles was a step ahead of the sharply rising tide of land speculation occurring throughout the Illinois Military Tract, a huge (some 3,500,000 acres), sparsely populated area of northeastern Illinois lying roughly between the Illinois and the Mississippi Rivers up to the Wisconsin border and encompassing thirteen counties and parts of three others. Mercer County was situated at the northwest corner of this Tract, which in 1812 Congress had set aside for land warrants to be issued to veterans of the War of 1812. If certain procedures were followed, those warrants could be exchanged for deeds to 160 acres (later 360 acres) in the Tract. Most of the 1812 veterans who applied for and received their warrants exchanged them for patents or deeds and then turned around and sold their deeds to land speculators. This speculative fever reached its peak from 1835 to 1837, by which time warrants had been issued for more than 2,800,000 acres in the Tract. |
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Being an experienced real estate investor (or perhaps more accurately, speculator) in both raw land and town sites, Iles recognized at once that there was no organized settlement at New Boston or even a survey of the area that could provide a sound legal basis for subsequent real estate transactions. He, therefore, set in motion the same process he had employed ten years earlier in Springfield where he had the town site surveyed and then recorded along with deeds to lots he purchased within the surveyed site. In Springfield, outside and never a part of the Military Tract, he had purchased the lots directly from the federal government. |
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There seems to be no record of Iles's direct role, if any, in the selection of Lincoln to survey the New Boston site. Although he was Lincoln's commanding officer for roughly three weeks during the Black Hawk War, Iles was not with the Illinois Militia as it moved through Mercer County in May 1832. While Iles does mention Lincoln twice in his short autobiography, there is no indication that they were anything more than passing acquaintances. Still, Iles certainly was aware that Lincoln had just been elected to the Illinois legislature and surely was well acquainted with the politically influential chief surveyor of Sangamon County, John Calhoun, who had appointed Lincoln as a deputy surveyor for that county in 1833. |
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For the new Boston project, Iles utilized the services of Peter Van Bergen of Springfield. Van Bergen had arrived in Springfield in 1830 at the age of thirty. In the years that followed, he had achieved some prominence in the area as a speculator in farmland and town sites, and as an accomplished horseman and money lender. He was also Iles brother-in-law. |
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Little is known about who approached and actually hired Lincoln and negotiated with him the terms of his commission. Most likely, however, it was Van Bergen. Obviously surveying a town site nearly one hundred miles northwest of Sangamon County did not fall within Lincoln's responsibilities as a deputy surveyor, so it can be assumed that he undertook Iles project on an individual basis. At that time, such "moonlighting" was apparently not an uncommon practice among surveyors. Thus, Lincoln, accompanied byVan Bergen acting as agent for Iles, set out for New Boston sometime during the latter half of September 1834. |
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How Lincoln and Van Bergen traveled to New Boston is uncertain. They may have used a "Four Horse Post Coach" service between Springfield via Monmouth to "the Yellow Banks" (now Oquawka) which was advertised to begin in the spring of 1834; and then acquired horses to ride the eighteen miles on to New Boston. Or they could have utilized river transportation all the way to New Boston. However, it is more likely that they rode horseback the entire distance since they would need horses while in New Boston and thereafter to reach Monmouth, the county seat of Warren County, to record the plat of survey.10 Further, Lincoln's surveying equipment was not so bulky as to seriously hinder his reaching New Boston by horse. |
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There is irony in the fact that while Lincoln and Van Bergen were together throughout their New Boston trip, Van Bergen was in litigation with Lincoln in Sangamon County over an unpaid debt of some $154.00 represented by a note signed by Lincoln and others and later purchased by Van Bergen. Van Bergen subsequently prevailed and a judgment against Lincoln was obtained. Lincoln's horse, saddle, bridle, and surveying instruments were levied upon and sold to satisfy the judgment. Happily for Lincoln, a friend, James Short, purchased these essential possessions and returned them to him. |
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Very few details of Lincoln's New Boston stay have been located including when he arrived and how long he remained there. However, working backwards from September 30, 1834, the date on Lincoln's plat of survey, one might reconstruct the following itinerary and time at the site: one day to prepare the plat and assist in the preparation of several deeds also dated September 30 which Lincoln witnessed; three full days to survey the site; one day after arrival to secure lodging and become generally familiar with the site; three days to travel (by whatever mode) from Springfield to New Boston. After adding a day for contingencies, such a "reconstructed" itinerary would place the date of his departure from Sangamon County about September 21 and the date of arrival in New Boston around September 24. |
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Upon reaching New Boston, Lincoln and Van Bergen presumably at once sought out William Denison who, along with his large and extended family, would have made up much of the area's tiny population. As noted earlier, William and his son John W. Denison held title to the 240-acre New Boston site to be surveyed. Van Bergen (and probably Lincoln as well) was fully aware of the Denisons' ownership and Iles, the sponsor of the project, had apparently loaned money for its purchase.11 And, as we shall see, the Denisons and Iles were involved in land transfers as soon as Lincoln's survey had been completed. |
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Whether Lincoln and the Denisons were acquainted prior to Lincoln's arrival at New Boston is unknown but unlikely, although one can speculate that they could have been. The Denisons and a few others were temporarily present at Pence's Fort just outside of Oquawka at about the same time in early May 1832 during the Black Hawk War when Lincoln and the Illinois Militia spent three days in the Oquawka area near the Fort. If the Denisons were still at the Fort and based on their acquaintance with Black Hawk and knowledge of the Sauk, they would have been splendid sources of intelligence concerning the Militia's soon to be foe—intelligence that most officers would have found useful. |
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To assist him in conducting the survey, Lincoln would have needed one or more helpers to set the Gunter's chain, place the marking pins and the range flags or poles, and possibly to aid him in recording his compass readings and measurements. The Denisons and their acquaintances were obvious sources for those necessary assistants and may well have provided at least one, Ephraim Gilmore, a twenty-four year old native of Ohio, who had arrived in New Boston early in 1834. He was well known to the William Denison family as the suitor of their daughter, Julia Ann, who married Gilmore scarcely one month after Lincoln completed his survey. Gilmore later became Mercer County's first surveyor as well as its first circuit clerk, among his many other public offices and accomplishments. |
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This raises the possibility that Gilmore's interest in surveying may well have been sparked by a few days of work with Lincoln. Lending credence to this conjecture is Gilmore's obituary in The Miami Republican of Paola, Kansas on April 15, 1888 which stated that "Judge Gilmore was intimately acquainted with Abraham Lincoln from his youth, surveyed with him in Illinois and with much interest watched his development from an unpromising boy to President."12 |
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Lincoln completed his New Boston survey by September 30, 1834. On that same date, Lincoln witnessed three deeds. The first was from John W. Denison to his father, William, transferring to him John's interest in the New Boston site for $900.00, and thereby, at that point, making William the sole owner of the 240-acre town. William then deeded eighty acres to Iles and eighty acres to William H. Denison, very likely William Harrison Denison, another of William's sons.13 Also on September 30, one Joseph Erwin, as a Justice of the Peace for Warren County, attested that both Dennison and Van Bergen appeared before him and acknowledged the plat. |
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On the following day, October 1, Van Bergen filed the New Boston plat in the Warren County Recorder's Office at Monmouth along with two of the deeds, the one from John W. to William Denison, and the one from William to Iles.14 Apparently, the two Denisons accompanied Lincoln and Van Bergen to Monmouth. The plat of survey and the Iles deed, or at least confirmed copies of them, were returned to Van Bergen on October 2 who then presumably took them back to Sangamon County and turned them over to Iles. One can reasonably assume that Lincoln was with Van Bergen in Monmouth and on the return trip to Springfield, although there is no specific record of it. |
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The tale persists in Mercer County that the rather unconventional and confusing pattern of New Boston's streets was due in part to Lincoln's less than accurate survey, which in turn (usually with a knowing wink of the eye by those who repeat the story) resulted from one or more encounters with whatever alcoholic beverages were available. Whether or not Lincoln had a nip or two while in New Boston need not be of concern since the professionalism he exhibited in surveying the town has been subsequently validated. In 1965 The Quad City Times commissioned a resurvey of New Boston by a certified surveyor who concluded that consistent with the recognized surveying practices of that time, there was absolutely nothing wrong with what Lincoln did. |
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Although the few recollections of Peter Van Bergen, then a septuagenarian, about events occurring more than forty years earlier fall somewhat short of total recall (for example, he appears unable to identify New Boston as the town Lincoln surveyed), they do tend to shed some confirming light on certain aspects of the journey, namely that the trip to New Boston and back was on horseback, roughly a week was spent there and that Lincoln was a good surveyor as well as a teetotaler. |
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On June 1, 1836, some twenty months later, Iles along with William Denison and one Charles Jack advertised the sale of lots in New Boston. The sale was held there on July 12, 1836,15 and on the same day Lincoln's plat of survey was refiled by William Denison in the office of the clerk of the Mercer County Circuit Court then in New Boston. Mercer County had become self-governing the year before and New Boston was its temporary county seat. That plat was either the original or a copy of the one that had been filed in the Warren County Courthouse in Monmouth on October 1, 1834. It seems more probable; however, that the original remained on file with the Warren County Clerk and the one filed in New Boston was a copy. In a nice historical coincidence, the then Mercer County Clerk who attested to this refiling, was none other than Ephraim Gilmore, also still the Mercer County Surveyor. Gilmore's attestation, therefore, was of a document that he very likely had helped to create. |
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Lincoln's plat of survey later surfaced as an exhibit in a lawsuit Elijah Iles filed in 1848 in the Mercer County Circuit Court then sitting in Keithsburg. Iles was seeking to validate his one-third interest in a New Boston lot (Lot D) in which Iles, William Denison, and William H. Denison each had an "equal and undivided interest" and which they had committed to donate to Mercer County if and when New Boston became its permanent county seat. Of course, it never did.16 Kiethsburg was the county seat at the time the lawsuit was filed having been chosen in 1847. Aledo was not selected until 1857. It was this choice of Keithsburg over New Boston that no doubt prompted Iles to file suit to protect his interest in Lot "D." Whether the plat exhibited in the lawsuit was Lincoln's original, or a copy, has not been conclusively established. Again, it seems likely that the exhibit was the same document Van Bergen took back to Springfield in early October 1834, whether that document was Lincoln's original or a copy. In any event, the exhibit disappeared after the lawsuit was concluded. While its whereabouts is uncertain, it is currently believed to be in the possession of a private collector residing in Illinois. |
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Lincoln's Campaign Visit 1858
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The sole source to date of specific information about Lincoln's visit to Mercer County during his 1858 senatorial campaign against Stephen A. Douglas was an interview published in the Aledo Times Record in October 1988. The late Wilma Willits Munson, formerly of New Boston, but then residing in Little York, recalled that her aunt, Viola J. Willits Hindeman, had often told Wilma that as a young girl Viola had once listened to Lincoln give a campaign speech on what is now the Dudley Wolfe farm on the bluff road less than a mile south of State Route 17 and several miles east of New Boston. Lincoln was reported to have spoken from a point part way up the bluff to the crowd assembled below. |
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Efforts to corroborate these recollections so far have been to no avail. What is known is that Lincoln was in this part of Illinois in October 1858. On October 7, 1858, he and Douglas held the fifth in their famous series of debates on the steps of Old Main on the Knox College campus in Galesburg. A delegation from Oquawka and many other nearby towns traveled to Galesburg to hear the debate. Then, after leaving Galesburg and visiting Kewanee and Toulon on October 8, Lincoln gave a lengthy campaign speech at Oquawka on the October 9, after which he moved on to Burlington, Iowa for another speech. The 10th was spent in Burlington and on October 11, Lincoln delivered a lengthy speech at Monmouth, where, incidentally, he had an excellent non-bearded picture taken. |
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The record reveals that Lincoln spent the night of October 12 in Macomb, thus leaving open the possibility that he campaigned in Mercer County (and perhaps elsewhere) between the conclusion of his Monmouth speech on October 11 and his arrival in Macomb on the evening of the 12th. No records have been discovered which preclude the possibility of a Mercer County appearance at that time. Certainly, in 1858, it would have been relatively easy to cover the distance between Monmouth, Mercer County, and Macomb within those twenty-four to thirty hours. While Lincoln returned to west central Illinois for several days later in October, he apparently ventured no further north than Dallas City on the Henderson/Hancock county line. |
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Therefore, sparse as the record is, the possibility remains that Lincoln made a campaign appearance in Mercer County in the fall of 1858. |
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Conclusion
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Abraham Lincoln's three visits to Mercer County, while themselves, not of earthshaking historical significance, did, nevertheless, leave a lasting impression on both the county and on Lincoln, although certainly in quite different ways. The two most significant of the three occurred during what one perceptive scholar, Douglas Wilson, in Honor's Voice, has called Lincoln's years "of a remarkable transformation." This suggests that events and relationships occurring and developed during those highly impressionable years would have a deeper and more profound impact than many, which Lincoln would later experience.17 |
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Lincoln's survey and platting of New Boston remain valid and operative today even though the bright future originally and justifiably predicted for "Upper Yellow Banks" never materialized. While Lincoln visited and worked in many locales throughout Illinois, it was unusual, though not unique, for him to have left behind something of a permanent nature, something far more concrete and less transitory than the delivery of campaign speeches, courthouse appearances, or journeys to and through various towns and cities. Much of Lincoln's Mercer County legacy remains embedded in the streets and lots of New Boston that he measured and shaped. Their dimensions and configurations are his and have changed little since they were first recorded eight score and fourteen years ago. Thus did Lincoln leave his mark on Mercer County, both literally and figuratively. |
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The days he spent in and about Mercer County no doubt made their small contributions to the molding of Lincoln's character and the shaping of his attitudes. Captain Lincoln's exposure to the challenges of leadership during the Black Hawk War, including two days leading his company of Illinois Militia through Mercer County, no doubt enhanced his appreciation of certain military realities which he later faced as our nation's Civil War Commander in Chief. The successful completion of and presumed fair compensation for his first town survey had to increase the self-confidence of a twenty-five year old youth trying to make his way in the rough and tumble world of early Illinois. |
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Mercer County also has a rich Indian heritage most of it preceding the Black Hawk War. While it may be difficult to document and a challenge to accurately locate and identify, much remains to be discovered. Mercer County was not a battlefield during the Black Hawk War. That war was fought many miles to the north and east. Yet Mercer did serve as a staging area and a major transit route for the contending forces. It even supplied several volunteers for the Illinois Militia. |
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Notes
1 The boundaries of Mercer and other counties in the Illinois Military Tract such as Peoria, Knox, and Warren were established on January 13, 1825 by the Illinois Legislature, and thereby in a technical sense, became recognized as separate geographical entities. At that time, the southern part of the future Rock Island County was included in Mercer and the future Henderson County in Warren. However, neither of these counties became independently functioning governmental units until somewhat later since the population threshold (350) for self-governance had not then been met. Mercer achieved self-governing status in 1835, Henderson in 1841. See also History of Mercer County, (Illinois) (Chicago, H.H. Hill and Company, 1882).
2 Contemporary records, and other materials based on them, utilize at least four different spellings of that family name: Denison, Dennison, Deniston, and Denniston. I have chosen to use Denison throughout since that spelling was the one used in the obituary of William Denison's wife, Margaret, upon her death May 29, 1891.
3 Governor John Reynolds, My Own Times (Chicago, Chicago Historical Society, 1879), 227.
4 The pioneer William and John Dennison families from New Boston apparently spent some time at Pence's Fort before moving on to the relative safety of Monmouth. They returned to New Boston in the fall of 1832 after the conclusion of the Black Hawk War. However, it appears likely that during those few months in Monmouth, they journeyed at least once to Springfield where they borrowed enough money from Elijah Iles, who will be more fully identified later, to permit them to purchase on May 21, 1832, 241.9 acres of New Boston real estate.
5 Reynolds, My Own Times, 227.
6 Prior to 1821 the Sauk and Fox returned to Illinois from their annual winter hunts in Iowa and Missouri by crossing the Mississippi well south of Mercer County near its confluence with the Des Moines River before moving on to Saukenuk. However, the influx of white settlers into that area had forced them to utilize, thereafter, a crossing point some fifty miles north at "about the mouth of the Iowa River." See Ellen M. Whitney, The Black Hawk War 1831–1832, Vol. II, Part 1 (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1970, 1973, 1975), 200. Other trails led into and away from Saukenuk toward the Mississippi River as well as into central Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan thereby making this large Indian village a junction or hub rather than a terminus for foot and mounted traffic.
7 The Edwards River had been forded at the same place less than a year earlier in June 1831 by a different brigade of Illinois Militia, numbering about 1500, seeking to quell a reported Indian uprising at Rock Island. This disturbance sometimes has been referred to as the first Black Hawk War since Black Hawk was at the center of it as well. This brigade was led by Congressman (and later Governor) Joseph Duncan, at one time a large land holder (or speculator) in both Mercer and Henderson Counties. That "cheerful and ardent little army", as one newspaper report then described it, Kerry A. Trask Black Hawk, The Battle for the Heart of America (New York: V. Henry Holt and Co., 2006), 10, or a "motley mob" as it was called by the biographer of a contemporary politician, John Francis Snyder, Adam W. Snyder, And His Period in Illinois History 1817–1842 (Virginia, Illinois: 1906), 110, was also accompanied by Governor Reynolds. It had marched north from Beardstown to Rock Island initially following the Beardstown—Rock Island Road, the northern section of which had been laid out in 1827. The Militia proceeded north from Macomb to Monmouth, veered northwest to Little York, then continued through the center of Mercer County where it joined the Indian and Military Trail in the vicinity of its Edwards River crossing before moving on to Andalusia. The march took nearly four days. The Militia had expected to engage large numbers of Sauk and Fox in and about Saukenuk. However, no such engagement occurred. The Indians had suddenly vanished and so the Militia went home.
8 Lloyd H. Efflandt, Lincoln and the Black Hawk War (Rock Island, Ill: Rock Island Historical Society, 1992), 53.
9 The Illinois database spells the purchasers surnames as "Dennitson," rather than Denison, but there is little doubt that they are one and the same. Most subsequent purchases of Federal lands by Denison family members were recorded under the name Denison or Dennison.
10 Mercer County in 1834, although a legally recognized separate county, was not yet self-governing. It had been attached to Warren County for some administrative purposes in 1925 and Monmouth served as its county seat from 1831 to 1835. All governmental functions were transferred to Mercer County in 1835 when its first government was formed at New Boston.
11 The only discovered first-hand account of Lincoln's surveying trip to Mercer County is a brief conversation with "P. Van Bergen" recorded on July 7, 1875 by John G. Nicolay, who served as Lincoln's chief private secretary from 1861 to 1865, when Van Bergen was in his seventy fifth year. Van Bergen was reported to have recalled that "Iles had loaned some people some money, and they couldn't pay it, and he took on eighty acres of land – and Iles thought it might be a good thing to lay out a town on it ....." An Oral History of Abraham Lincoln, John G. Nicholay's Interviews and Essays, Michael Burlingame, ed. (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press 1996), 33. Thus, a reasonable scenario is that in May of 1832 the Denisons borrowed money from Iles to purchase the 240 acre New Boston site and, whether by promissory note or otherwise, designated eighty acres of it as security for that loan. Why the Denisons sought out Iles as a source of funding is unknown but may well have been based on an earlier acquaintanceship when both lived in Sangamon County. At any rate, Iles received his eighty acres on September 30, 1834. Van Bergen was also quoted as recalling that "Mr. Lincoln was a good surveyor (sic) I employed him to go with me to lay out a town on the Mississippi River." See also, Henry E. Pratt, Lincoln Day by Day 1809–1839.
12 "Ephraim Gilmore," The Miami Republican (Paola, Kansas) 15 April 1888.
13 The 1882 History of Mercer County states that, in addition to Iles, William Denison deeded one third of his New Boston property to an Edward Burrall of Massachusetts. While it is likely that the referenced Edward Burrall is the same Edward Burrall who was then a prominent resident of Perryton Township in Mercer County, the History contains no further data regarding this purchase. Burrall's name is nowhere noted on Lincoln's plat of survey, whereas those lots deeded to Iles, and to William H. Denison and those retained by William Dennison were identified with their names on the plat. Diligent research by Aledo attorney, Robert J. Rillie, revealed that Burrall did in fact purchase New Boston lots, but not on September 30, 1834. He purchased lots from William Denison on July 12, 1836 and, later, from Elijah Iles and his wife, Melinda, on July 18, 1837. See Mercer County Recorder's Office, Deed Book B and also Grantor Index A and Grantee Index A., Aledo, Ill.
14 The original plat of survey as filed on October 1, 1834 in the Warren County Clerk's office in Monmouth stated that it is an accurate plat of New Boston "as surveyed by surv. A. Lincoln for Peter Butler Surveyor for the County of Warren and the attached parts thereof." (Mercer County was then an "attached part" of Warren). This statement appears to be a mere formality recognizing that Lincoln had done the work within Butler's jurisdiction; and in order to more legitimize the status of Lincoln's survey, it was probably believed necessary to record that he had operated under Butler's general authority when he made it. There is no evidence that Peter Butler had any other connection with Lincoln or the New Boston survey with one exception. Ralph B. Eckley, a long time columnist for the Monmouth Review Atlas, who often wrote of the history of Warren and Henderson, and occasionally Mercer, Counties stated in his column of February 12, 1979 that Butler's home, east of Monmouth, was a stagecoach stop and that Lincoln (no mention is made of Van Bergen) likely stopped there on his way to New Boston. If that is accurate, they probably stopped there on the return trip as well.
15 Adin Barber, Abraham Lincoln with Compass and Chain, Robert E. Church, Annotated Edition, (Rochester: Illinois Professional Land Surveyor Association, 2002), 103 identifies Jack as follows: "Captain Charles Jack, who lived at Yellow Banks...had been a British officer at the Battle of Waterloo; went to enlist with General Bolivar in South America; was wrecked off the coast of Haiti; and finally located in Virginia where he did surveying. He entered several farms in Mercer County, and became interested with the Denisons in laying out and settlement of New Boston". No other references to Charles Jack have been located. Thus, the possibility of Jack's being involved with Lincoln in his new Boston survey cannot be excluded.
16 The Illinois statute officially "organizing" Mercer County was approved January 31, 1835 and specifically designated New Boston as Mercer's "temporary" county seat where it remained until transferred to Millersburg sometime late in 1836.
17 Douglas L. Wilson, Honor's Voice (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), 293.
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