Grave of James Rutledge, father of Ann

[maharba]

The suicide is by the Sangamon River, is 'an apparent suicide'
(somehow detectable in bones or ashes), is nothing but bones,
and yet is also ashes, and the remains of a suicide from some years ago, and somehow able to leave an enduring suicide note, and able to send his Suicide Poem to the newspaper too,
and also killed himself by plunging a knife into his own heart
(and/or lungs). Hmm. That was 1838. Was there an actual suicide locally or nationally that Lincoln or another author/poet could have heard about or based this upon? Nothing is going to match 'global suicide method' in the poem. But, in addition to his chronic sorrow and the early deaths of his own relatives from natural causes, might he have heard of an actual suicide maybe in one of those Louisville or other papers he was fond of reading?