![]() He did not attend church in the early months of his residence there, because as he wrote, he did not know how to act. Springfield, with its four hundred inhabitants, its muddy streets, and its live stock running at large, was to him a lonesome place. Barton, “The first city in which Lincoln lived very nearly paralyzed him by its magnificence. Nevertheless, noted Lincoln biographer William E. Hogs, cows and chickens wandered at will, and disputed the few board walks and footpaths with pedestrians.” 6 In summer every passing team raised clouds of dust while in winter the mud seemed to have no bottom, for there was not a foot of pavement. Remnants of the groves in which the town was founded furnished shade, but otherwise the streets were bare of trees. Most of the twelve or thirteen hundred inhabitants lived in small fame houses, with here and there an imposing resident, and just as often the simple cabin of an early pioneer. Small store buildings lined the square, in the center of which stood a two-story brick court house. Pratt wrote: “When Lincoln came to Springfield in the spring of 1837 the town was anything but prepossessing. Lincoln and his adopted home town were beginning major transitions. ![]() Though he had his wonderful gift of humor, I venture to assert that in the long run of years life was to him serious and earnest.” 5īoth Mr. He usually walked alone, his head inclined as if he was absorbed in deep thought, unmindful of surrounding objects and persons. I often observed him as he passed to and fro from his meals to his office. Butler, the second house west of my father’s home. Lincoln, after his arrival in our city, boarded at the home of Mr. In this hope he was by no means in error, for his subsequent history shows that he indeed united his friends to himself with hooks of steel.” 4 Another friend, Dr. Lincoln ‘had little, if any money, but hoped to find in Springfield, as he had in New Salem, good and influential friends, who, recognizing alike his honesty and his nobility of character, would aid him whenever a crisis came and their help was needed. Speed, a fellow Kentucky transplant, and often took his meals with the family of fellow attorney William Butler. He roomed with general store owner Joshua F. Lincoln lived the life of a bachelor-lawyer-politician. Lincoln was still something of a country bumpkin in the city even though Springfield was still a village, not a state capital, and quite rural in its own appearances. Lincoln’s move in 1837 from New Salem, Illinois, to Springfield and lasted until his marriage in 1842. Lincoln’s life in the Illinois state capital. Like him the leading citizens of Springfield showed toward each other respect and kindness and friendship to such a degree in their daily intercourse that this ‘stranger in a strange land’ remembers to the present day the honor he felt it to be to have the acquaintance of such men.” 3 Lincoln was a real type of an American gentleman. Lincoln’s gratitude for Springfield’s hospitality. ![]() Out of a condition of great mental uncertainty in all matters relating to domestic relations he had come into a settled condition as the husband of a brilliant and ambitious woman and the father of a family of sons to whom he was devotedly attached.” 2 Springfield reciprocated Mr. From an obscure figure in State politics he had come to be the recognized leader of a political party that was destined to achieve national success and to determine the policies of the nation with little interruption for more than half a century. From an ill-trained fledgling lawyer, compelled by his poverty to share a bed in a friend’s room above the store, he had come to be a leader at the Illinois bar. He emerged from grinding poverty into a condition in which he owned a home and had a modest sum of money in the bank. Barton wrote “that in this period covering nearly a quarter of a century Lincoln was developing in many ways. In Springfield Lincoln became a successful lawyer, married Mary Todd, fathered four sons, and pursued a flourishing political career that culminated in his election to the presidency in 1860.” 1 Springfield nurtured Abraham Lincoln and the local lawyer nurtured his home town. Historian Michael Nelson wrote: Lincoln thrived in Springfield: he lived there…longer by far than in any other place. For nearly 23 years, Springfield was the center of Abraham Lincoln’s life – his social, legal and political world. ![]()
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