It's still dark out and the birds haven't even begun to sing. The chicken down the road still has his beak shut...thank goodness. But the traffic in front of the house is going strong even at an early hour. Fourteen houses in our rural, in the woods subdivision but you would think the number is 114 based on the number of cars which go by at, I must say, very excessive speeds. Posted at 25 MPH...but everyone speeds. Ahhh yes, there went an early garbage truck too.....which happens at least two days a week.
The chicken might not be up, but the little fox is screaming again. If you've never heard a fox marking it's territory, it's a treat .... you won't believe it's a fox. The first time we heard it was two or three years ago. Our dog hid behind the sofa she was so scared. So that you can hear the racket a fox makes, I found a couple of links to sites which have a fox screaming on it....it sounds like a bird. Especially the vixens' screams. For a long time we thought we had some kind of a weirdo bird making these sounds. This happens at our house constantly....one little fox lives in the forest in back of our house....and he/she is noisy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6NuhlibHsM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk1mAd77Hr4&feature=related
More Menard County History Stuff
This came from the book "Pioneers of Menard and Mason County" by O. T. Onstot, published in 1902. Today's post is about our very famous resident, Abraham Lincoln. Many Menard County residents take it for granted that Lincoln was a resident in the infancy stage of Menard County. And some current residents don't know much about the young A. Lincoln. This story basically is about his younger years love life. Some of it is sad and some is hilarious. It is rather long, so I am planning to make this about the only thing I post today. Enjoy!
"THE time Mr. Lincoln boarded at the Rutlege tavern, Harvey Ross also put up there as he passed through Salem. It was a hewn log house, two stories high, with four rooms above and four below. It had two chimneys with a large fire place, and not a stove in the house. The proprietor was James Rutledge a man of more than ordinary ability, and with his wife kind and hospitable. They had a large family of eight or nine children, and among them their daughter, Anna, celebrated in song and story as Lincoln's sweetheart. She was several years younger than Lincoln, of medium size, weighing 125 pounds and had flaxen hair. She was handsome and attractive, as well as industrious and sweet spirited. It was seldom that she was not engaged in some occupation knitting, sewing or waiting on the table. I think she did the sewing for the family. Lincoln was boarding at the tavern, and fell deeply in love with the gentle Annie, and she was no less in love with him. They were engaged to be married but had been putting the wedding off for awhile as he wanted to accumulate a little more property, and she wished to attend school a while longer. Before the time had arrived when they were to be married, Miss Annie was taken down with typhoid fever, and lay dangerously sick for four weeks.
Lincoln was an anxious and constant watcher at her bedside. The sickness ended in death, and young Lincoln was heart broken and prostrated. The histories have not exaggerated his pitiful grief, for he was not able to attend to business for quite awhile. I think his whole soul was wrapped up in that lovely girl. It was his first love, the holiest thing in life, the love that cannot die. The deepest gloom settled over his mind. He would often say to his friends, "My heart is buried in the grave with that dear girl." He would often go and sit by her grave and read from a little pocket testament which he carried with him. What he read I know not. But I'll warrant you it was, "Let not your heart be troubled," or John's vision on the Isle of Patmos with Anna among the white robed throng, where sickness, sorrow, pain and death are feared no more; where death is unknown. One stormy night he was at the house of a friend, and as rain and sleet came down on the roof he sat with bowed head and tears trickling down his cheeks. His friends begged him to control his grief. "I cannot," said he, "while storm and darkness are on her grave. Anna Rutledge was of gentle blood and would have later made him a noble wife in his humble years and in the imperial later life.
David Rutledge, a brother of Anna, took a course at Jacksonville college, and then went to Lewistown and studied law in the office of L. W. Ross and Jno. T Boice. He afterwards married Miss Elizabeth Simms, and moved to Petersburg and opened up a law office. He was a bright and promising young lawyer, and no doubt would have made his mark but for his untimely death. He was buried by the side of his sister in the cemetery. His widow married C. \Y. Andrus, a prominent merchant of Havana.
The Rutledge family stood high in the country. Anna's father was a South Carolinian of high birth. One of his ancestors signed the Declaration of Independence. Another chief justice of the Supreme Court under Washington's appointment. A third was a conspicuous leader in congress. So Lincoln's boyhood love was of a high and gentle birth.
One year after the sad death of Anna Rutledge, Mr. Lincoln again fell in love. Miss Mary Owens was his second sweetheart. She came from Kentucky to visit her sister, Mrs. Bennett Able, who lived just north of Salem. In many respects she was very different from Anna Rutledge. She was older and larger. She was finely educated and had been brought up in the most refined society, and she dressed much finer than any lady who lived about New Salem. Her fashionable silk dress was in striking contrast with the calico dress, calf skin shoes and straw bonnet that Anna had worn. She was in the habit of making frequent visits to the post office for letters from her Kentucky home, and that was where Lincoln first became acquainted with her. It was not long until he became a frequent visitor at her sister's home, and these visits continued until her return to Kentucky. It became the gossip of the neighborhood that they were to be married. When the gossip was repeated to Lincoln by a friend he replied, "If ever that girl comes back to New Salem I am going to marry her." In about three years Miss Mary did return, but Lincoln did not marry her, and I presume the readers will want to know the secret of it all. They did not agree, and she would not consent to the marriage. On this point Miss Mary is reported to have said that there vere many things she liked and other things she did not like, and the things she did not like overbalanced the things she did like. "I could not help admire Mr. Lincoln," she said, "for his honesty, truthfulness and goodness of heart, but I think he was a little too presumptuous when he told his friend that if I ever came back to New Salem he was going to marry me. That is a bargain that it takes two to make, and then his training and bringing up has been so different from my own, and his uncouth behavior was most disagreeable. He was lacking in those little links which make up the chain of a woman's happiness. At least that was my judgment. He was not the ideal husband that I had pictured to myself that I could love. He asked me to become his wife; I told him no."
In our next we will give Mr. Lincoln's side of the story. He had a lady friend whom he confided in and advised with in many of his private affairs. She had learned that he was engaged to Miss Mary and that the engagement was broken off, and she wanted to know the cause. So he wrote her a letter and it is presumed he did not expect the letter to go out of her possession unless it went into the fire, but as time went on it did get out of her hands. After the refusal of Mary Owens to marry Lincoln a lady friend knowing the circumstances wrote to Mr. Lincoln to ascertain the reason of the refusal, to which he replied:
Springfield, 111., April l, 1838. Dear Madam: It was in the autumn of 1836 that a married lady, Mrs. Bennett Able, of my acquaintance, who was a great friend of mine, being about to pay her father a visit in Kentucky, proposed to me that on her return she would bring a sister of hers back with her on condition that I would become her brother- in-law. With all convenient dispatch I of course accepted the proposal, for you know I would not have done otherwise had I been averse to it, but between you and me I was most confoundedly well pleased with the project. I had seen her sister some years before and thought her agreeable and intelligent and sa\v no good reason and no objection to plodding along through life hand to hand with her. Time passed. The lady took her journey in clue time and returned, her sister in company with her. This astonished me a little for it appeared to me that her coming so readily showed that she was a trifle too willing, but on reflection it occurred to me that she might have been prevailed upon by her married sister to come without anything concerning me ever having even mentioned to her, so I concluded that if no other objection presented itself I would consent to the plan. All this occurred to me on hearing of her arrival in the neighborhood for be it remembered that I had not seen her except about three years previous as above mentioned. In a few days we had an interview and although I had seen her before she did not look as my imagination had pictured her. I knew she was over size, but she now appeared a match for "Falstaff.' I knew she was called an old maid and I felt the truth of one-half the application, but now when I beheld her I could not help thinking of my mother, and this not from her withered features for her skin was too full of fat to permit it to wrinkle, but from her want of teeth and weatherbeaten appearance in general and from a kind of a notion that ran in my head that nothing could have commenced in infancy and reached her present bulk in less than thirty-five or forty years. In short I was not well pleased with her, but what could I do. I told her sister I would take her for better or worse and made it a point of honor in all things to stick to my word, especially if others had been induced to act on it, which in this case I had no they had. I was now convinced that no other man on earth would have her and hence they were bent on holding me to the bargain. Well, thought I, I have said it and may the consequences be what they may, it shall not be my fault if I fail to do it. At once I determined to consider my wife. This done all my powers of discovery were put to work in search of perfections which might upset her defects. I tried to imagine her handsome, which, but for orp4jency was true. Exclusive of this no woman I had ever seen had a fairer face. I also tried to convince myself that the mind was nTuch more to be valued than the lace and in this she was not inferior, as I could discover, to anyone with whom I was acquainted. Shortly after, without coming to an understanding with her, J set out for Vandalia to take my sefet in the legislature. During my short stay there I had letters from her which did not change my opinion of her intellect or intention, but on the contrary confirmed it in both. All this time I was fixed firm in my resolution. I found that I was continually repenting of the rashness that had led me to make it. After my return home I saw nothing to change my opinion of her. She was the same and so was I. I now spent my time in planning how I might get along in life after my changed condition, how I might put off the evil day, which I really dreaded as the Irishman the halter. And now vou want to know how I got out of the scrape clear in every sense of he term with no violation of word or honor. I do not believe you can guess so I will tell you. As the lawyer says was done in this manner, to-wit : After I had delayed the matter as long as I thought I could I came to the conclusion that I might as well bring the matter to a close so I mustered up courage and poposed to her direct, but shocking to relate she answered, 'No.' I first thought she did it through modesty, which I did not think becoming under the circumstances of the case, but on renewing my suit she repelled it with greater firmness than before. I tried it again and again with the same success or rather want of success. I was finally forced to give it up and found myself mortified beyond endurance : I was mortified it seemed in a hundred ways. My vanity was deeply wounded by the reflection that I had been too stupid to discover her intentions and at the same time never doubting that I understood them perfectly and that she whom I had taught myself to believe would have been the last to reject me me with all my greatness and then to cap the whole thing I began to suspect that I was really in love with her. But let it all go. I'll try to out-live it. Others have been made fools of by girls but this can never be said of me. In this instance I made a fool of myself. I now have come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying and for the reason that I never could be satisfied with anyone who would be blockhead enough to have me. Your sincere friend. A. LINCOLN.
It would seem that after the death of Anna Rutledge and the refusal of Mary Owens, Mr. Lincoln would have been discouraged in his matrimonial attempts, but it was not so in his case. It is an old saying that there are as good fish in the sea as ever were caught. After his removal to Springfield he was thrown into different society and with his genial good nature he was not destined to live an old bachelor. We shall give his third and last love.
By his marriage with Mary Todd there were three children so the name of Lincoln was perpetuated. We have met Robert Lincoln several times but there is not the least resemblance to his father in his make-up. He is a short, heavy-set man with a broad face and heavy eyebrows. He resembles the Todds and not the Lincolns.
Note: There was other parts of the story, but these were the main parts. I hope you didn't get bored with the length. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know a bit about the our 16th president and his life in Menard County.
Thought For The Day
Never, never, never quit.
--Winston Churchill
Lincoln's Home At New Salem
The best part of history is being able to find something that we can look at and begin to understand what went on many years ago. But when history isn't documented, we must come to our own conclusions and those conclusions can never be 100% accurate. In fact, most times, the conclusions are totally in error. Don't take for granted that your children will remember something you told them 25 years ago and don't think they will document what you said....NO, IT WILL NOT HAPPEN. And when something isn't documented, the thought process usually is lost in the translation. As I'm sure some of you will agree, I hated American history when I was a student. And, I really didn't take the time to learn things then that I should have. Now, I can better understand the importance of documenting history and learning about what made America and our town what it is today. Think about the posts you read in my blog....do you enjoy them I would ask.....or do you consider them boring? Most will say they enjoy learning about the days of old related to our town and our county. History is important. And, I say with conviction ...... Document your history! Now! Later my friends.
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