S.O.S

[David Lockmiller]

(11-04-2019 08:23 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Help - I may need a short version of the story that I have heard over the years of Mr. Lincoln tricking a companion into eating a persimmon that had not been sweetened by a hard frost. I'm doing a Facebook snippet on a 19th-century Persimmon Pudding recipe and an accompanying Persimmon Beer one. If there is space, I would like to include the Lincoln legend.

Laurie, you may be thinking of the following story:

On one occasion, President Lincoln, when riding near the Soldiers’ Home, said to his footman, named Charles Forbes, who had but recently come from Ireland, “What kind of fruit do you have in Ireland, Charles?” To which Charles replied, “Mr. President, we have a good many kinds of fruit: gooseberries, pears, apples, and the like.” The president then asked, “Have you tasted any of our American fruits?”

Charles said he had not, and the president told Burke, the coachman, to drive under a persimmon tree by the roadside. Standing up in the open carriage, he pulled off some of the green (unripe) fruit, giving some of it to Burke and some to Charles, with the advice that the latter try some of it. Charles, taking some of the green fruit in his hand, commenced to eat, when to his astonishment he found that he could hardly open his mouth. Trying his best to spit it out, he yelled, “Mr. President, I am poisoned! I am poisoned!” Mr. Lincoln fairly fell back in his carriage and rolled with laughter.

Story source is from "Lincoln and the Irish: The Untold Story of How the Irish Helped Abraham Lincoln . . .” by Niall O’Dowd

Laurie, you better be careful about using this source. This same story was also printed on page 650 of "Lincoln Talks, A Biography in Anecdote," which itself has been proven to be an unreliable source for Lincoln stories. Perhaps Niall O'Dowd used this Emanuel Hertz story for his book quoted above.