Extra Credit Questions

[AussieMick]

With no great confidence , Michael O'Laughlen

[L Verge]

That is really good handwriting for a young boy, but I am going to take one last guess - Willie Lincoln? Did he keep a journal or write to someone about the growing events surrounding the beginnings of the war?

[RJNorton]

Congratulations, Laurie! Yes, the lines I posted are from a letter 10-year-old Willie Lincoln wrote to a friend in Springfield named Henry Remann. The letter was written on May 3, 1861. The Remanns lived down the block from the Lincolns.

SOURCE: Lincoln's Sons by Ruth Painter Randall.

[L Verge]

Congratulations, Laurie! Yes, the lines I posted are from a letter 10-year-old Willie Lincoln wrote to a friend in Springfield named Henry Remann. The letter was written on May 3, 1861. The Remanns lived down the block from the Lincolns.

SOURCE: Lincoln's Sons by Ruth Painter Randall.

There are certainly many folks today who could take lessons on penmanship and sentence structure from ten-year-old Willie. Since I am not a student of Lincoln in general, I don't believe I have ever seen samples of handwritings like this. Even quotes are usually in standard publishing fonts.

[Anita]

Congrats Laurie and to you Roger for the challenge.

What happened to Willie's school notebooks, scrapbooks, letters from family and friends?

[AussieMick]

I stand to be corrected (Never knew what that cliche really means but you maybe know what I mean) ... and maybe I am imagining it, but I thought I read somewhere that Willie's letters were written by some adult person?

[L Verge]

I stand to be corrected (Never knew what that cliche really means but you maybe know what I mean) ... and maybe I am imagining it, but I thought I read somewhere that Willie's letters were written by some adult person?

That certainly seems reasonable given the obvious talent here - right down to perfectly straight lines of script on paper that appears not to be lined.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Quite a difference compared to what eleven yrs old Tad respectively much older Thomas Pendel were "up to".
https://historical.ha.com/itm/autographs...14-61085.s

[RJNorton]

Michael, I think you may have confused Willie and Tad. As Eva's post indicates, the samples we have of Tad's handwriting were actually written by adults. The "evidence" of Tad's writing indicates at least two different handwritings. But I believe Willie did his own writing. All evidence I've read indicates that he was an excellent student. He was very different about his studies in comparison to Tad.

Ruth Painter Randall (in Lincoln's Sons) discusses how he (Willie) learned to write in Miss Corcoran's school in Springfield. In 1859 Willie went to Chicago with Abraham, and he wrote to his friend, Henry Remann, "This town is a very beautiful place. Me and father have a nice little room to ourselves. We have two little pitchers on a washstand. The smallest one for me the largest one for father. We have two little towels on a top of both pitchers. The smallest one for me, the largest one for father. Me and father had gone to two theaters the other night."

Randall indicates another Willie to Henry letter exists but "owing to its prolonged contact with a piece of candy, apparently chocolate, it is badly stained and the date is obliterated."

Anita, I believe the ALPLM has some samples of Willie's handwriting and even a school newspaper in which Tad was the editor when he was at the Brown School in Chicago in 1866. How much actual work Tad himself did on the newspaper is unknown. The name of the newspaper was the Brown School Holiday Budget. I do not know if these items are on public display.

[AussieMick]

Michael, I think you may have confused Willie and Tad. As Eva's post indicates, the samples we have of Tad's handwriting were actually written by adults. The "evidence" of Tad's writing indicates at least two different handwritings. But I believe Willie did his own writing. All evidence I've read indicates that he was an excellent student. He was very different about his studies in comparison to Tad.
....

Ah, yes. It was, now I think too,Tad who had his letters written by adults. My apologies for the confusion.
Many people seem to agree that Willie was extremely advanced for his age.

BTW, I see that Tad Lincoln spent a few months being educated in Brixton, 'near' London, when he and his mother went to Europe. Thats according to 'Mrs. Abraham Lincoln: A Study of Her Personality and Her Influence on Lincoln' by W.A. Evans. Page 58
Mind you, I think Brixton was, even back then, very much a London suburb. So why the author should write 'near' London I dont know. Unless of course the author had the wrong location and mis-spelt it.
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=c5b...ln&f=false

Back in the 1870's Brixton was quite an upper middle class part of London. But I'm not aware of any major educational institutions there. (It went rapidly downhill from the 1910's ... and when I went to school in the 1960s there it was, well, very working class.)

http://www.urban75.org/brixton/history/b...p1870.html

[RJNorton]

What person was born here? The correct answer is a person who has been mentioned on this forum.

[Eva Elisabeth]

I've seen this before. I think it was Stanton (if not, Herndon).

[RJNorton]

You have an amazing memory, Eva!! Yes, it is the birthplace of Edwin Stanton.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Stan...hplace.jpg

[Eva Elisabeth]

Just wanted to add that the village/town was named after Prussian Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin Baron von Steuben...(as was the parade in NYC)

[GustD45]

Isn't he the one that trained the Continental Soldiers at Valley Forge during the Revolution?