Where did the Lincolns live after the Globe Tavern?

[Rob Wick]

Roger,

I wanted to look through all the letters between them before answering, and I'm glad I did. I didn't remember a face-to-face meeting but on July 10, 1926 Barton wrote Tarbell "I have been twice or thrice to Virginia since I met you in Chicago, and am getting bit by bit a little more knowledge of our mutual friends the Hankses." That is the only mention of a meeting between the pair that I am aware of. After that there were several invitations by Barton for Tarbell to come to Foxboro to see his Lincoln collection, but she never was able to make it.

I don't believe she gave him the information on the Fourth Street home because Barton's book came out in early 1925 (he was in Europe when it appeared) and from the 1926 letter I assume their meeting happened that year. She didn't respond to that letter until 1927 because she was in Italy doing her series on Benito Mussolini for McCall's. She doesn't mention their meeting in her 1927 response. She would have had to tell him sometime in 1924 before the book went to press, and their letters are full of back and forth over the legitimacy of Nancy Hanks, which as you know they vociferously disagreed about. It's interesting to me that Barton wrote Tarbell for the first time in 1920 and it took her nearly three years to respond. Somehow, his letter was misplaced and he thought he had somehow angered her. And today people get upset if a text isn't returned within an hour.

I also checked the correspondence from the Beveridge papers with Barton (I have the entire correspondence) and Barton was working on revisions after Beveridge successfully convinced Bobbs-Merrill in 1924 to publish the book, so Barton would have had to receive or find the information some time before the summer of 1924.

I noticed that Tarbell, in In The Footsteps of the Lincolns, did mention the stay at the Globe Tavern, but jumps over the Fourth Street home to the Eighth and Jackson home. So even then she didn't think it was of any importance, which is another reason I don't think she mentioned it to Barton.

I wonder if Herndon ever talked about it with his informants. I haven't checked the book yet or the book of letters that came out last year. It seems to me if I'm wrong about the Tinsley heirs that the next logical guess would be to put it to Herndon.

Best
Rob