Who is this person?

[RJNorton]

Laurie, in Lincoln Legends: Myths, Hoaxes, and Confabulations Associated with Our Greatest President Ed Steers writes, "En route to his inauguration in 1861, he (Lincoln) told a special session of the New Jersey state senate at Trenton that he still harbored deeply ingrained memories of 'a small book' he had 'got hold of...away back in my childhood: Mason Locke Weems's Life of Washington. Parson Weems's best seller had all but invented the myths of Washington cutting down the cherry tree and lobbing a coin across the wide Potomac, but its strained credulity did not bother the president-elect trying to earn respect as he faced down a nation-threatening secession crisis."