In the spring of 1835 the young representative from Sangamon returned to New Salem to take up his duties as postmaster and deputy surveyor, and to resume his law studies. He exchanged his rather exalted position for the humbler one, with a light heart. New Salem held all that was dearest in the world to him at that moment, and he went back to the poor little town with a hope, which he had once supposed honor forbade his acknowledging even to himself, glowing warmly in his heart. He loved a young girl of the village, and now for the first time, though he had known her since he first came to New Salem, was he free to tell his love.
One of the most prominent families of the settlement in 1831, when Lincoln first appeared there, was that of James Rutledge. The head of the house was one of the founders of New Salem, and at that time the keeper of the village tavern. He was a high-minded man, of a warm and generous nature, and had the universal respect of the community. He was a South Carolinian by birth, but had lived many years in Kentucky before coming to Illinois. Rutledge came of a distinguished family: one of his ancestors signed the Declaration of Independence; another was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States by appointment of Washington, and another was a conspicuous leader in the American Congress.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN 1858.
From an ambrotype owned by Miss Hattie Gilmer of Pittsfield, Illinois. The Gilmer ambrotype was taken by C. Jackson, in Pittsfield, October 1, 1858, during the Lincoln and Douglas campaign, immediately after Lincoln had made a speech in the public square. Lincoln was the guest of his friend D. H. Gilmer, a lawyer. He sat for two pictures, one of which was finished for Mr. Gilmer. The other picture is supposed to have been destroyed.
The third of the nine children in the Rutledge household was a daughter, Ann Mayes, born in Kentucky, January 7, 1813. When Lincoln first met her she was nineteen years old, and as fresh as a flower. Many of those who knew her at that time have left tributes to her beauty and gentleness, and even to-day there are those living who talk of her with moistened eyes and softened tones. “She was a beautiful girl,” says her cousin, James McGrady Rutledge, “and as bright as she was pretty. She was well educated for that early day, a good conversationalist, and always gentle and cheerful; a girl whose company people liked.” So fair a maid was not, of course, without suitors. The most determined of those who sought her hand was one John McNeill, a young man who had arrived in New Salem from New York soon after the founding of the town. Nothing was known of his antecedents, and no questions were asked. He was understood to be merely one of the thousands who had come West in search of fortune. That he was intelligent, industrious, and frugal, with a good head for business, was at once apparent; for he and Samuel Hill opened a general store, and they soon doubled their capital, and their business continued to grow remarkably. In four years from his first appearance in the settlement, besides having a half-interest in the store, McNeill owned a large farm a few miles north of New Salem. His neighbors believed him to be worth about twelve thousand dollars.
TWO NEW SALEM CHAIRS.
Now owned by Mrs. Samuel Hill, Petersburg, Illinois.
John McNeill was an unmarried man—at least so he represented himself to be—and very soon after becoming a resident of New Salem he formed the acquaintance of Ann Rutledge, then a girl of seventeen. It was a case of love at first sight, and the two soon became engaged, in spite of the rivalry of Samuel Hill, McNeill’s partner. But Ann was as yet only a young girl; and it was thought very sensible in her, and very gracious and considerate in her lover, that both acquiesced in the wishes of Ann’s parents that, for some time, at least, the marriage be postponed.
MAJOR JOHN T. STUART, THE MAN WHO INDUCED LINCOLN TO STUDY LAW.
After a photograph owned by his widow, Mary Nash Stuart, Springfield, Illinois. John T. Stuart was born in Fayette County, Kentucky, seven miles east of Lexington, November 10, 1807. He was a son of Robert Stuart, a Presbyterian minister, and professor of languages in Transylvania University. His mother’s maiden name was Hannah Todd. She was a daughter of General Levi Todd, and a sister of Robert S. Todd, the father of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln. John T. Stuart graduated at Center College, Danville, Kentucky, in 1826, and after studying law in Richmond, Kentucky, he went to Springfield, Illinois. This was in 1828. Here he at once began the practice of the law. In the Black Hawk War he was major of the battalion in which Lincoln commanded a company, and here his acquaintance with Lincoln seems to have been formed. In 1832 he was elected a representative in the State legislature, and was reëlected in 1834. In 1836 he was an unsuccessful Whig candidate for Congress. Two years later he was again a candidate, and this time was elected, defeating Stephen A. Douglas. He was reëlected in 1840. Lincoln, upon his removal to Springfield in the spring of 1837, became Major Stuart’s law partner. The partnership continued until April 14, 1841, when Lincoln became the partner of Judge Stephen T. Logan. For many years Major Stuart was the senior member of the law firm of Stuart, Edwards and Brown, the two other members being Benjamin S. Edwards and Christopher C. Brown. In 1837, at Jacksonville, Illinois, he was married to Mary V. Nash, who is still living. Major Stuart died in 1885.
Such was the situation when Lincoln appeared in New Salem. He naturally soon became acquainted with the girl. She was a pupil in Mentor Graham’s school, where he frequently visited, and rumor says that he first met her there. However that may be, it is certain that in the latter part of 1832 he went to board at the Rutledge tavern, and there was thrown daily into her company.
During the next year, 1833, John McNeill, in spite of his fair prospects, became restless and discontented. He wanted to see his people, he said, and before the end of the year he had decided to go East for a visit. To secure perfect freedom from his business while gone, he sold out his interest in the store. To Ann he said that he hoped to bring back his father and mother, and to place them on his farm. “This duty done,” was his farewell word, “you and I will be married.” In the spring of 1834 McNeill started East. The journey overland by foot and horse was in those days a trying one, and on the way McNeill fell ill with chills and fever. It was late in the summer before he reached his home and wrote back to Ann, explaining his silence. The long wait had been a severe strain on the girl, and Lincoln had watched her anxiety with softened heart. It was to him, the New Salem postmaster, that she came to inquire for letters. It was to him she entrusted those she sent. In a way the postmaster must have become the girl’s confidant; and his tender heart, which never could resist suffering, must have been deeply touched. After the long silence was broken, and McNeill’s first letter of explanation came, the cause of anxiety seemed removed; but, strangely enough, other letters followed only at long intervals, and finally they ceased altogether. Then it was that the young girl told her friends a secret which McNeill had confided to her before leaving New Salem.
A WAYSIDE WELL NEAR NEW SALEM, KNOWN AS “ANN RUTLEDGE’S WELL.”
He had told her what she had never even suspected before, that John McNeill was not his real name, but that it was John McNamar. Shortly before he came to New Salem, he explained, his father had suffered a disastrous failure in business. He was the oldest son; and in the hope of retrieving the lost fortune, he resolved to go West, expecting to return in a few years and share his riches with the rest of the family. Anticipating parental opposition, he ran away from home; and, being sure that he could never accumulate anything with so numerous a family to support, he endeavored to lose himself by a change of name. All this Ann had believed and not repeated; but now, worn out by waiting, she took her secret to her friends.
With few exceptions, they pronounced the story a fabrication and McNamar an impostor. Why had he worn this mask? His excuse seemed flimsy. At best, they declared, he was a mere adventurer; and was it not more probable that he was a fugitive from justice—a thief, a swindler, or a murderer? And who knew how many wives he might have? With all New Salem declaring John McNamar false, Ann Rutledge could hardly be blamed for imagining that he either was dead or that he had ceased to love her.
It was not until McNeill, or McNamar, had been gone many months, and gossip had become offensive, that Lincoln ventured to show his love for Ann, and then it was a long time before the girl would listen to his suit. Convinced at last, however, that her former lover had deserted her, she yielded to Lincoln’s wishes, and promised, in the spring of 1835, soon after Lincoln’s return from Vandalia, to become his wife. But Lincoln had nothing on which to support a family—indeed, he found it no trifling task to support himself. As for Ann, she was anxious to go to school another year. It was decided that in the autumn she should go with her brother to Jacksonville and spend the winter there in an academy. Lincoln was to devote himself to his law studies; and the next spring, when she returned from school and he was a member of the bar, they were to be married.
A happy spring and summer followed. New Salem took a cordial interest in the two lovers, and presaged a happy life for them; and all would undoubtedly have gone well if the young girl could have dismissed the haunting memory of her old lover. The possibility that she had wronged him; that he might reappear; that he loved her still, though she now loved another; that perhaps she had done wrong—a torturing conflict of memory, love, conscience, doubt, and morbidness lay like a shadow across her happiness, and wore upon her until she fell ill. Gradually her condition became hopeless; and Lincoln, who had been shut from her, was sent for. The lovers passed an hour alone in an anguished parting, and soon after, on August 25, 1835, Ann died.
LINCOLN IN 1858.
After a photograph owned by Mrs. Harriet Chapman of Charleston, Illinois. Mrs. Chapman is a granddaughter of Sarah Bush Lincoln, Lincoln’s step-mother. Her son, Mr. R. N. Chapman of Charleston, Illinois, writes us: “In 1858 Lincoln and Douglas had a series of joint debates in this State, and this city was one place of meeting. Mr. Lincoln’s step-mother was making her home with my father and mother at that time. Mr. Lincoln stopped at our house, and as he was going away my mother said to him: ‘Uncle Abe, I want a picture of you.’ He replied, ‘Well, Harriet, when I get home I will have one taken for you and send it to you.’ Soon after, mother received the photograph, which she still has, already framed, from Springfield, Illinois, with a letter from Mr. Lincoln, in which he said, ‘This is not a very good-looking picture, but it’s the best that could be produced from the poor subject.’ He also said that he had it taken solely for my mother. The photograph is still in its original frame, and I am sure is the most perfect and best picture of Lincoln in existence. We suppose it must have been taken in Springfield, Illinois.”
FACSIMILE OF A LEGAL OPINION BY LINCOLN.—NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.
From the original, in the possession of Z. A. Enos, Springfield, Illinois. In a convention of surveyors, held at Springfield in 1859, the question was much discussed whether the act of Congress of February 11, 1805, relating to surveys, was intended to control all future surveys and subdivisions of the government lands. It was decided to submit the question to a lawyer for an opinion. Mr. Lincoln was selected, for the reason not only that he was a lawyer of recognized ability, but also because he had been a practical surveyor. A committee having waited upon him, he wrote out the opinion of which a facsimile is here presented. Mr. Enos, who holds the original document, was an active participant in the convention to which this opinion was rendered.
JAMES McGRADY RUTLEDGE, A COUSIN OF ANN RUTLEDGE.
James McGrady Rutledge, son of William Rutledge, is now past eighty-one years of age, having been born in Kentucky, September 29, 1814. He is now a resident of Petersburg. He is active and remarkably free from the infirmities of age. When a boy, with a yoke of oxen, he hauled the logs for the construction of the mill and the dam at New Salem and for some of the cabins of the village. “‘Rile’ Clary and I carried chain for Lincoln many a time,” he says; “‘Rile’ going foremost and I following. We became accustomed to it and Lincoln preferred us.” Ann Rutledge and her cousin were nearly the same age, and being thoroughly congenial, she made a confidant of him. They were much in each other’s company, and Ann often talked to him of Lincoln. “Everybody was happy with Ann,” says Mr. Rutledge. “She was of a cheerful disposition, seeming to enjoy life, and helping others enjoy it.”
The death of Ann Rutledge plunged Lincoln into the deepest gloom. That abiding melancholy, that painful sense of the incompleteness of life, which had been his mother’s dowry to him, asserted itself. It filled and darkened his mind and his imagination, tortured him with its black pictures. One stormy night he was sitting beside William Greene, his head bowed on his hand, while tears trickled through his fingers; his friend begged him to control his sorrow, to try to forget. “I cannot,” moaned Lincoln; “the thought of the snow and rain on her grave fills me with indescribable grief.”
He was found walking alone by the river and through the woods, muttering strange things to himself. He seemed to his friends to be in the shadow of madness. They kept a close watch over him; and at last Bowling Green, one of the most devoted friends Lincoln then had, took him home to his little log cabin, half a mile north of New Salem, under the brow of a big bluff.
Here, under the loving care of Green and his good wife Nancy, Lincoln remained until he was once more master of himself.
But though he had regained self-control, his grief was deep and bitter. Ann Rutledge was buried in Concord cemetery, a country burying-ground seven miles northwest of New Salem. To this lonely spot Lincoln frequently journeyed to weep over her grave. “My heart is buried there,” he said to one of his friends.
When McNamar returned (for McNamar’s story was true, and, two months after Ann Rutledge died, he drove into New Salem, with his widowed mother and his brothers and sisters in the “prairie schooner” beside him) and learned of Ann’s death, he “saw Lincoln at the post-office,” as he afterward said, and “he seemed desolate and sorely distressed.” On himself, apparently, her death produced no deep impression. Within a year he married another woman; and his conduct toward Ann Rutledge is to this day a mystery.
Many years ago a sister of Ann Rutledge, Mrs. Jeane Berry, told what she knew of Ann’s love affairs; and her statement has been preserved in a diary kept by the Rev. R. D. Miller, now Superintendent of Schools of Menard County, with whom she had the conversation. She declared that Ann’s “whole soul seemed wrapped up in Lincoln,” and that they “would have been married in the fall or early winter” if Ann had lived. “After Ann died,” said Mrs. Berry, “I remember that it was common talk about how sad Lincoln was; and I remember myself how sad he looked. They told me that every time he was in the neighborhood after she died, he would go alone to her grave and sit there in silence for hours.”
In later life, when his sorrow had become a memory, he told a friend who questioned him: “I really and truly loved the girl and think often of her now.” There was a pause, and then he added: “And I have loved the name of Rutledge to this day.”