Did William Coggeshall Save Lincoln's Life?

[John Fazio]

Hello:

Just to keep everyone abreast: I am in indirect contact with Freda Koch's daughter, Monique Williams, and her daughter-in-law, Cherie Koch, both of whom live in the Columbus area. Cherie advises me that she has "boxes and boxes" of material in her garage that Freda used in the preparation of her 1985 book. She added that she thought there is a letter or letters or parts of the same from Lincoln to Coggeshall in the material. That would be a goldmine if true, but I doubt it; if Freda had such a letter or letters, she would have included the same in her book. She said the Ohio Historical Society does indeed have some material that was given to them by Monique, referred to generally as "The Coggeshall Papers", but she isn't sure what, exactly, they have. She also said she hasn't looked at the material in her garage for 15 years, but would enjoy doing so now incident to my interest in material relating to Coggeshall's Lincoln connection. I told her I thought it unreasonable to expect her to do that much searching without compensation, but she insisted. We agreed to touch base when I am in her area. Interestingly, she said she knew that there are doubters of Coggeshall's claims and that there were doubters even when Freda was writing her book. She said she had no opinion as to the authenticity of the claims. Stay tuned.

John