https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/ Mon, 31 Aug 2026 02:18:08 +0000 MyBB https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5106.html Wed, 17 Sep 2025 15:56:06 +0000 Gene C]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5106.html
"AN ARCHEOLOGICAL OVERVIEW AND
ASSESSMENT OF LINCOLN BOYHOOD NATIONAL
MEMORIAL, SPENCER COUNTY, INDIANA"

This seems to have been prepared for the National Park Service in 1997

Not sure how I found this, but I found sections of it very interesting.
For those of you interested in trash dump and privies, you will find p 30 of particular interest.

Other interesting topics include
The Farm After the Lincolns
The Nancy Hanks Cemetery
The History of Lincoln City
Reference for Further Studies
Cabin Architecture
Archeology at the Lincoln Boyhood Memorial
Misc. Photos and Maps

https://npshistory.com/publications/libo/aoa.pdf

If you are interested in Lincoln's early life in Indiana, you will find this informative with information not found in most history books.]]>
"AN ARCHEOLOGICAL OVERVIEW AND
ASSESSMENT OF LINCOLN BOYHOOD NATIONAL
MEMORIAL, SPENCER COUNTY, INDIANA"

This seems to have been prepared for the National Park Service in 1997

Not sure how I found this, but I found sections of it very interesting.
For those of you interested in trash dump and privies, you will find p 30 of particular interest.

Other interesting topics include
The Farm After the Lincolns
The Nancy Hanks Cemetery
The History of Lincoln City
Reference for Further Studies
Cabin Architecture
Archeology at the Lincoln Boyhood Memorial
Misc. Photos and Maps

https://npshistory.com/publications/libo/aoa.pdf

If you are interested in Lincoln's early life in Indiana, you will find this informative with information not found in most history books.]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5101.html Mon, 15 Sep 2025 11:16:06 +0000 Steve]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5101.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WrpAZi3AuI

(relevant section begins at 2:41 point)

The whole video is about 40 minutes long but this section is only a couple of minutes long.

Does anyone have any idea what she's talking about?

Steve Whitlock was involved in the Genetic Lincoln group, but sadly he's passed and I can't ask him him about this. Here's a link to her Wikipedia page, so she's not a crank peddling the Abraham Enloe nonsense:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colleen_M._Fitzpatrick

Abraham Lincoln has one of the more mysterious family trees of any of the presidents - his maternal grandfather is unknown and his paternal grandmother (Thomas Lincoln's mother) is only known by her first name, Bathsheba, without a known maiden name or family. (Some people have claimed that her maiden last name was Herring, but as of yet, there's no evidence for that.) That's 50% unknown ancestry with a potential for surprises. But I've never heard of any DNA test finding African ancestry.]]>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WrpAZi3AuI

(relevant section begins at 2:41 point)

The whole video is about 40 minutes long but this section is only a couple of minutes long.

Does anyone have any idea what she's talking about?

Steve Whitlock was involved in the Genetic Lincoln group, but sadly he's passed and I can't ask him him about this. Here's a link to her Wikipedia page, so she's not a crank peddling the Abraham Enloe nonsense:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colleen_M._Fitzpatrick

Abraham Lincoln has one of the more mysterious family trees of any of the presidents - his maternal grandfather is unknown and his paternal grandmother (Thomas Lincoln's mother) is only known by her first name, Bathsheba, without a known maiden name or family. (Some people have claimed that her maiden last name was Herring, but as of yet, there's no evidence for that.) That's 50% unknown ancestry with a potential for surprises. But I've never heard of any DNA test finding African ancestry.]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5096.html Wed, 27 Aug 2025 12:24:14 +0000 observer]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5096.html After Lincoln's first election as president, Isaac Cogdal, a friend of Lincoln's, ventured to ask whether it was true that Lincoln had fallen in love with Ann. Lincoln is said to have replied:

It is true—true indeed I did. I loved the woman dearly and soundly: she was a handsome girl—would have made a good, loving wife.... I did honestly and truly love the girl and think often—often of her now
From
Donald, David Herbert (1995). Lincoln. New York: Touchstone. ISBN 0-684-80846-3.
pp.57-58 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Rutledge {reference only}]]> After Lincoln's first election as president, Isaac Cogdal, a friend of Lincoln's, ventured to ask whether it was true that Lincoln had fallen in love with Ann. Lincoln is said to have replied:

It is true—true indeed I did. I loved the woman dearly and soundly: she was a handsome girl—would have made a good, loving wife.... I did honestly and truly love the girl and think often—often of her now
From
Donald, David Herbert (1995). Lincoln. New York: Touchstone. ISBN 0-684-80846-3.
pp.57-58 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Rutledge {reference only}]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5039.html Sat, 08 Mar 2025 18:01:10 +0000 Gene C]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5039.html
William Herndon wrote in the preface of Herndon's Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life - ( https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex...01.05.0025 )
"In determining Lincoln's title to greatness we must not only keep in mind the times in which he lived, but we must, to a certain extent, measure him with other men. Many of our great men and our statesmen, it is true, have been self-made, rising gradually through struggles to the topmost round of the ladder; but Lincoln rose from a lower depth than any of them — from a stagnant, putrid pool, like the gas which, set on fire by its own energy and self-combustible nature, rises in jets, blazing, clear, and bright. I should be remiss in my duty if I did not throw the light on this part of the picture, so [x] that the world may realize what marvellous contrast one phase of his life presents to another."

According to the same book above, in chapter 2,
The head of the household now set resolutely to work to build a shelter for his family.
In this forbidding structure, when completed, was fourteen feet square, and was built of small unhewn logs. In the language of the day, it was called a “half-faced camp,” being enclosed on all sides but one. It had neither floor, door, nor windows. In this forbidding hovel these doughty emigrants braved the exposure of the varying seasons for an entire year.

The article below gives us a little more information regarding the source and story of the half-faced camp.
The author of this article - Lincoln Lore, December 11, 1939 - reaches this conclusion at the end of his article,
"The story of that half-faced camp is but another one of Herndon's gross exaggerations.

You'll just have to read this to find out why
https://www.friendsofthelincolncollectio...-11_01.pdf

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++]]>
William Herndon wrote in the preface of Herndon's Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life - ( https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex...01.05.0025 )
"In determining Lincoln's title to greatness we must not only keep in mind the times in which he lived, but we must, to a certain extent, measure him with other men. Many of our great men and our statesmen, it is true, have been self-made, rising gradually through struggles to the topmost round of the ladder; but Lincoln rose from a lower depth than any of them — from a stagnant, putrid pool, like the gas which, set on fire by its own energy and self-combustible nature, rises in jets, blazing, clear, and bright. I should be remiss in my duty if I did not throw the light on this part of the picture, so [x] that the world may realize what marvellous contrast one phase of his life presents to another."

According to the same book above, in chapter 2,
The head of the household now set resolutely to work to build a shelter for his family.
In this forbidding structure, when completed, was fourteen feet square, and was built of small unhewn logs. In the language of the day, it was called a “half-faced camp,” being enclosed on all sides but one. It had neither floor, door, nor windows. In this forbidding hovel these doughty emigrants braved the exposure of the varying seasons for an entire year.

The article below gives us a little more information regarding the source and story of the half-faced camp.
The author of this article - Lincoln Lore, December 11, 1939 - reaches this conclusion at the end of his article,
"The story of that half-faced camp is but another one of Herndon's gross exaggerations.

You'll just have to read this to find out why
https://www.friendsofthelincolncollectio...-11_01.pdf

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5031.html Sat, 15 Feb 2025 12:56:39 +0000 Gene C]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5031.html
http://www.galenfrysinger.com/interior_l...linois.htm]]>
http://www.galenfrysinger.com/interior_l...linois.htm]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5022.html Tue, 04 Feb 2025 12:22:51 +0000 Gene C]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5022.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlcIEaqT1qU

Unfortunately, Sondra Hicks got it wrong. If you read the comments to the video, several of the viewers believe her story.

How do I know she got it wrong?
It's a long story that isn't new. She gives you some clues in her video.
I'll give you some time to research it for yourself if you want to.
Over the next few days I'll share with you what I found out.

Please feel free to add your comments. It's a shame how this kind of false history gets spread. We've seen it before, even by some of the former posters on this site.
Stay tuned in, don't worry. We'll sort this out.]]> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlcIEaqT1qU

Unfortunately, Sondra Hicks got it wrong. If you read the comments to the video, several of the viewers believe her story.

How do I know she got it wrong?
It's a long story that isn't new. She gives you some clues in her video.
I'll give you some time to research it for yourself if you want to.
Over the next few days I'll share with you what I found out.

Please feel free to add your comments. It's a shame how this kind of false history gets spread. We've seen it before, even by some of the former posters on this site.
Stay tuned in, don't worry. We'll sort this out.]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5018.html Tue, 07 Jan 2025 15:44:51 +0000 Gene C]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-5018.html
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/UGxHpovIPEs

your thoughts ?]]>
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/UGxHpovIPEs

your thoughts ?]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4972.html Mon, 24 Jun 2024 21:03:22 +0000 mbgross]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4972.html https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4957.html Mon, 22 Apr 2024 19:59:02 +0000 Gene C]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4957.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQnl5TY2eh8]]>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQnl5TY2eh8]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4956.html Fri, 19 Apr 2024 23:26:59 +0000 Gencor]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4956.html
In a letter dated October 19, 1960, Mr. Lincoln wrote back to Grace. "Having never worn any, do you not think that people would call it a piece of silly affection if I were to begin it now?" he asked. Yet, by the following January, the recently elected present was seen to have a beard growing in. The next month, in February 1861 a bearded President Lincoln made a stop in Westfield and met Grace Bedell in person.

As he continued to make his way by train to Washington, D.C., his facial hair filled in, and by the time of his March 1861 inauguration, he was the first United States President with a full beard.

I read this in History Facts and it was such an adorable story I just had to bring it here. For those of you who already know this story, I hope you will forgive me. I had never heard the story and thought that I would share it.]]>
In a letter dated October 19, 1960, Mr. Lincoln wrote back to Grace. "Having never worn any, do you not think that people would call it a piece of silly affection if I were to begin it now?" he asked. Yet, by the following January, the recently elected present was seen to have a beard growing in. The next month, in February 1861 a bearded President Lincoln made a stop in Westfield and met Grace Bedell in person.

As he continued to make his way by train to Washington, D.C., his facial hair filled in, and by the time of his March 1861 inauguration, he was the first United States President with a full beard.

I read this in History Facts and it was such an adorable story I just had to bring it here. For those of you who already know this story, I hope you will forgive me. I had never heard the story and thought that I would share it.]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4946.html Tue, 02 Apr 2024 02:27:27 +0000 Susan Higginbotham]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4946.html The Huntress, Washington, D.C. journalist Anne Royall included pen-portraits of new members of Congress, including Stephen Douglas, whom she described as "rather under middle height,” before assuring her readers, “In his manners, Judge Douglass [sic] is polite, and urbane, and to crown the whole, he is in the market. Ladies look out!”

Does anyone know if she met Congressman Lincoln? I tend to think not, as her biographer Bessie Rowland James doesn't mention it. (She did meet Jefferson Davis, whose manners she described as "extremely winning.")]]> The Huntress, Washington, D.C. journalist Anne Royall included pen-portraits of new members of Congress, including Stephen Douglas, whom she described as "rather under middle height,” before assuring her readers, “In his manners, Judge Douglass [sic] is polite, and urbane, and to crown the whole, he is in the market. Ladies look out!”

Does anyone know if she met Congressman Lincoln? I tend to think not, as her biographer Bessie Rowland James doesn't mention it. (She did meet Jefferson Davis, whose manners she described as "extremely winning.")]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4904.html Thu, 28 Dec 2023 17:34:34 +0000 Dave Taylor]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4904.html
I had always assumed that Lincoln had been the winner and thus, earned Jack’s respect. But in Joe DiCola’s wonderful book on New Salem that I just recently finished reading, he included a letter from Lynn McNulty Greene which implies that Jack brought Lincoln down. Is there an answer as to who actually won the wrestling match?]]>
I had always assumed that Lincoln had been the winner and thus, earned Jack’s respect. But in Joe DiCola’s wonderful book on New Salem that I just recently finished reading, he included a letter from Lynn McNulty Greene which implies that Jack brought Lincoln down. Is there an answer as to who actually won the wrestling match?]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4885.html Mon, 16 Oct 2023 16:37:30 +0000 Amy L.]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4885.html
" 'Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.' At the hazard of being thought one of the fools of this quotation, I meet that argument — I rush in — I take that bull by the horns. I trust I understand and truly estimate the right of self government. My faith in the proposition that each [person] should do precisely as [they] please with all which is exclusively [their] own lies at the foundation of the sense of justice there is in me. I extend the principle to communities... as well as to individuals. I so extend it because it is politically wise, as well as naturally just; politically wise in saving us from broils about matters which do not concern us. Here, or at Washington, I would not trouble myself with the oyster laws of Virginia, or the cranberry laws of Indiana. The doctrine of self-government is right — absolutely and eternally right — but it has no just application as here attempted. ... When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs [another], that is more than self-government — that is despotism. ... [My] ancient faith teaches me that 'all men are created equal,'..."

Denton Snider is quoted (in the Illinois Daily Journal?):
"Lincoln shows his hatred of slavery, in his Peoria speech, and pricks many a sophistical bubble cleverly blown by Douglas for vindicating himself before the people. Upon Lincoln has dawned a bright auroral promise of a new career at the age of forty-five years, in the very flowering of his highest talent. And let it not be forgotten! That adversary and antitype of his, so long triumphant over him, he can now clutch with the grip of Ophiuchus and hale the violator of what he deems the right before the judgment-seat of the Folk-Soul, Yea of the Ages."]]>
" 'Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.' At the hazard of being thought one of the fools of this quotation, I meet that argument — I rush in — I take that bull by the horns. I trust I understand and truly estimate the right of self government. My faith in the proposition that each [person] should do precisely as [they] please with all which is exclusively [their] own lies at the foundation of the sense of justice there is in me. I extend the principle to communities... as well as to individuals. I so extend it because it is politically wise, as well as naturally just; politically wise in saving us from broils about matters which do not concern us. Here, or at Washington, I would not trouble myself with the oyster laws of Virginia, or the cranberry laws of Indiana. The doctrine of self-government is right — absolutely and eternally right — but it has no just application as here attempted. ... When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs [another], that is more than self-government — that is despotism. ... [My] ancient faith teaches me that 'all men are created equal,'..."

Denton Snider is quoted (in the Illinois Daily Journal?):
"Lincoln shows his hatred of slavery, in his Peoria speech, and pricks many a sophistical bubble cleverly blown by Douglas for vindicating himself before the people. Upon Lincoln has dawned a bright auroral promise of a new career at the age of forty-five years, in the very flowering of his highest talent. And let it not be forgotten! That adversary and antitype of his, so long triumphant over him, he can now clutch with the grip of Ophiuchus and hale the violator of what he deems the right before the judgment-seat of the Folk-Soul, Yea of the Ages."]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4871.html Thu, 28 Sep 2023 12:22:58 +0000 Gene C]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4871.html
This from the Internet Archive. The Archives gives this stories source as McClure's, November 1922
I had to enlarge the print to read it.

https://archive.org/details/lincolnsfirs...ew=theater]]>
This from the Internet Archive. The Archives gives this stories source as McClure's, November 1922
I had to enlarge the print to read it.

https://archive.org/details/lincolnsfirs...ew=theater]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4857.html Tue, 05 Sep 2023 15:44:26 +0000 David Lockmiller]]> https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4857.html The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln, Volume II, 1849-1856
By Sidney Blumenthal

Douglas’s crowning, if ultimately catastrophic, achievement was the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which forms the central armature of Blumenthal’s story. Beneath his expedient rhetoric, Douglas’s main goal may have been to line the pockets of his speculator friends, who stood to reap immense profits from the development of a transcontinental railroad. Douglas could only secure the deal with the support of the South, by agreeing to open part of the Nebraska Territory, and implicitly more of the West, to slavery. Brilliant though he was as a legislative strategist, Douglas failed to grasp the depth of outrage the act would spark across the North. Even racist whites did not want to compete for work with slaves. Irreconcilable fissures over slavery erupted in both the Democratic Party and among Lincoln’s Whigs.

According to one Illinois colleague, Lincoln even feared “that the tendency of the times was to make slavery universal, and that Illinois ... would soon legalize slavery there.”]]> The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln, Volume II, 1849-1856
By Sidney Blumenthal

Douglas’s crowning, if ultimately catastrophic, achievement was the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which forms the central armature of Blumenthal’s story. Beneath his expedient rhetoric, Douglas’s main goal may have been to line the pockets of his speculator friends, who stood to reap immense profits from the development of a transcontinental railroad. Douglas could only secure the deal with the support of the South, by agreeing to open part of the Nebraska Territory, and implicitly more of the West, to slavery. Brilliant though he was as a legislative strategist, Douglas failed to grasp the depth of outrage the act would spark across the North. Even racist whites did not want to compete for work with slaves. Irreconcilable fissures over slavery erupted in both the Democratic Party and among Lincoln’s Whigs.

According to one Illinois colleague, Lincoln even feared “that the tendency of the times was to make slavery universal, and that Illinois ... would soon legalize slavery there.”]]>