Who Said This?

[RJNorton]

David Davis Home?

[Dave Taylor]

Not the Davis home.

Hint: The speaker’s use of the word “home” is more general than a specific building.

[RJNorton]

Dave, can you tell us if the right answer is Lincoln-related? I am assuming it is due to the wording of your first post.

[Dave Taylor]

This site is very much living Lincoln related. It’s only the speaker who has an assassination connection.

[RJNorton]

Can you tell us if the assassination-related character was at the Petersen House? Can you give us a hint as to why the person is assassination-related?

[Dave Taylor]

The assassination related speaker was not at the Petersen House. In truth, this person wasn’t even born yet when Lincoln died.

I would work on trying to figure out what they are talking about first and the redacted person who aided the effort to venerate Lincoln. The speaker is the hardest part of this thing. I only stumbled across this quote yesterday while search old newspapers for something completely unrelated.

[AussieMick]

The law office at 6th and Adams Streets in Springfield ?

[Rob Wick]

I'm guessing Oak Ridge Cemetery, but I have no idea about the other two questions.

Best
Rob

[Dave Taylor]

Sorry Mick and Rob, the quote is not referencing either of those places. Set your sights a little to the northwest.

[Anita]

Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic site

[Dave Taylor]

New Salem?

Anita is correct! The quote is in reference to New Salem. The next question is who is the speaker thanking for their assistance with New Salem?

[Rob Wick]

If it's New Salem, they must have been talking about William Randolph Hearst, who bought the property in 1906 and then it was eventually transferred to the state.

As to who was doing the speaking, I have no earthly idea.

Best
Rob

[Dave Taylor]

You got it Rob. The individual being praised is William Randolph Hearst due to his generosity in purchasing New Salem. Since I don't really expect anyone to guess the speaker, I'll just state it. Hearst was being praised by Chicago attorney Henry Riggs Rathbone, the son of the Lincolns' guests at Ford's Theatre Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris. I stumbled across this 1921 article in a San Antonio newspaper while looking to see if there were any assassination related things in San Antonio.

[RJNorton]

No googling please. This quote comes from a book of historical fiction, but I have no reason to not believe it's essentially true.

Whose words are these?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"I am sorry for your distress, but I must tell you, darling, how paltry a thing Willie Lincoln's death looks from here. I do not underestimate the Pres.'s woe, but the national fuss: is it seemly? It is as if a dauphin had died. Mother sends me a cutting from the Star: Lying in state in the Green Room? Before a funeral in the East one? Children die each day in the normal order of things: think of the ones my mother lost, infants, more than twenty years ago. The President's grief for his son is ill-proportioned to the merely abstract sorrow he can feel at reports of grown men dying in quantity, just across the river from Washington. Madame Presi- dent should come downstairs and get out to the hospitals, so that she can see all the boys, older than her Willie, but still boys for all that, dying far from their own mothers' comfort- ing arms."

[Steve]

I stumbled across this 1921 article in a San Antonio newspaper while looking to see if there were any assassination related things in San Antonio.

Dave, have you considered looking into the murder of Ben Thompson in 1884 in San Antonio? Supposedly, David E. George of "Booth mummy" fame claimed to have been involved in his murder as well. Although the description of what George said happened (according to Oklahoma newspaper reports written after George's death) don't seem to match the details of Thompson's murder.