1860: Lincoln Visits Five Points.

[Mylye2222]

(12-12-2019 09:17 PM)STS Lincolnite Wrote:  

(12-02-2019 02:10 PM)Mylye2222 Wrote:  Aside from his infamous Cooper Union speech in NYC, Lincoln took the time during his stay to visit Five Points, a high criminal rate poor neighborhood in the City. From what I've read ae, it was the US equivalent of White Chapel in London. But by 1960, there were reforms. Street children and youth at risk were taken care of in institutions. Lincoln stopped by one of them, the House of Industry. It was an unplanned visit. He sat in a Sunday School class amid kids, and then the teacher asked a few words from him. According to this link partially copying a period paper piece, Lincoln told them about his own youth in difficulty and instructed them to keep up fighting to inprove their condition and leave their destitute past behind.

https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/t...ve-points/

I was familiar with the story of Lincoln’s visit to the Five Points region of NYC, but the details in this article were different than what I remembered about the visit. Differences include when the visit occurred (I remembered it being after the Cooper Union Address and not the afternoon before) and who was with Lincoln (I didn’t remember it being Washburne, but someone else – couldn’t remember for sure who it was) so I did a little digging.

My recollection of different visit details was substantiated by going to the Lincoln Log (online, it incorporates Lincoln Day-by-Day: A Chronology, with corrections and additions by the Papers of Abraham Lincoln). They have Lincoln’s visit to Five Points occurring on Sunday March 11, 1860 – about 2 weeks after the Cooper Union Address. They also have Lincoln going to Five points with Hiram Barney. Washburne is not mentioned.

http://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.asp...JjaC5hc3B4

An article titled Hiram Barney and Lincoln: Three Unpublished Documents by Allan Nevins in The Huntington Library Quarterly also mentions Barney taking Lincoln to Five Points.

Lastly, I checked Harold Holzer’s book Lincoln at Cooper Union. He too has the visit to Five Points occurring after the Cooper Union Address (again on March 11, 1860) and Lincoln having made the trip with Hiram Barney (who was a trustee of the Five Points House of Industry) and additionally being joined by Reverend Samuel B. Halliday (one of the founders of the school) - see pages 202-204. In an endnote (pp. 315-316 ), Holzer makes reference to Washburne. He states that Francis Fisher Browne claimed that Washburne was present but that other sources place Washburne elsewhere on March 8 and that there is good reason to doubt that Washburne was present on the March 11 visit.

Food for thought on the details but it seems the various versions agree on the essence of Lincoln’s visit to Five Points. The story of his visit to these underprivileged children is wonderful.

Thank you for the valuable sources you're providing here. I knew Mary took many shopping trips to NYC while they were in the White House, but I thought previously Lincoln himself only traveled there once, and it was for the Cooper Union speech. So if it's certain this Five Points stop is true, we don't know exactly when it occurred actually. Anyway that doesn't wipe out in anything the wonderful gesture in it.
Had AL the chance to serve his second term full, I'll bet he would have took action regarding youth at risk.