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A statue
at Lincoln Square in Decatur, Illinois marks the
spot where the Abraham Lincoln gave his first
political speech, at the age of 21.
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SPRINGFIELD,
Ill. - "I wonder if Lincoln had to turn around this
much," The Navigator asked, map splayed across her
lap in the passenger seat.
I had
just spun the steering wheel for our fifth or sixth
U-turn of the day on yet another placid two-lane highway
indistinguishable in its beauty from every other one
we'd seen that day. Hence all the U-turns.
In
addition to his better-known achievements - uniter of a
fractured nation, freer of the slaves, 16th president -
I was ready to heap one more laudatory title upon
Abraham Lincoln: deft traveler of the Illinois
countryside.
The
Navigator and I were somewhere between Middletown
(population 420, according to a U.S. Census Bureau
estimate) and Tremont (population 2,072), in the heart
of what was once the 8th Judicial Circuit. The circuit
included 14 counties (later reduced to eight) that
didn't have their own court staff in the mid-19th
century, so the court staff came to them: prosecutor,
defense attorney and judge. Usually acting as the
defense, Honest Abe traversed this land largely by
carriage or horseback every fall and spring for 23
years. At night, the lawyers slept two in a bed, three
or four beds jammed in a room. Each trip lasted about
three months and covered 450 miles.
Down here
they say the experience made the man. Lincoln spent
eight years in the state's General Assembly and two
years in the U.S. House of Representatives, but for the
bulk of his pre-presidential career, he worked as a
lawyer. At home in Springfield, he was in private
practice and did a lot of work for railroads, the
largest corporate clients of the day. But nearly half
his year was spent traveling the circuit, where he took
on his share of oddities, such as defending a woman
accused of murdering her husband with a piece of
firewood or successfully prosecuting a man accused of
stealing a herd of cows.
"It
is strange to contemplate that ... Mr. Lincoln's whole
attention should have been engrossed in petty
controversies or acrimonious disputes between neighbors
about trifles," wrote Henry Clay Whitney, a lawyer
who rode the circuit with the future president, in the
book, "Life on the Circuit with Lincoln."
"Yet I have known him to give as earnest attention
to such matters, as, later, he gave to affairs of
state."
In
advance of the Feb. 12 bicentennial of Lincoln's birth,
The Navigator and I set out last month to retrace his
route as closely as possible and see what he saw. The
good news: Historical organizations long ago planted
markers at each county line to guide travelers on the
same path Lincoln took. The bad news: The route includes
dozens of intersections that are just wisps on the map
and miles from a paved road. In the name of honesty, I
should say we got turned around more than once. But when
we finished four days later, The Navigator had a new
appreciation for the man.
___
If you
want to try such a trip, here are two suggestions: Get a
navigator and meet Guy Fraker. Fraker, 70, is a
semiretired Bloomington, Ill., lawyer who has dedicated
his recent years to Lincoln's place on the 8th Judicial
Circuit. Fraker, whose raspy voice comes with an easy
laugh, has been a Lincoln fan for decades but became
addicted only after cutting back his legal work.
"Instead
of playing golf, I got serious about Lincoln," said
Fraker, whose book, "The 8th Judicial Circuit:
Lincoln's Ladder to the White House," is to be
published next year by Southern Illinois University
Press.
He has
driven the circuit several times and memorized much of
it, a near wonder considering it involves an
unbelievable number of quick turns on tiny roads - hence
the need for a navigator. For navigation, I set out
recruiting and settled on an old friend who I figured
could A) be in a car with me for four days without
arguing about music and B) get lost with me many, many
times during those four days without arguing about being
lost.
She and I
started in Springfield, where we visited The Abraham
Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum and the modest,
comfortable two-story house where he lived with his wife
and children. Both were interesting, but light on
circuit history. And The Navigator squealed when she
found on display in the museum a wooden folding mirror
that Lincoln used for shaving while on the circuit.
"It
would be pretty bulky to take with you," she said.
"I can see why he would want to start growing that
beard."
About 10
miles north of Springfield we found a spot where a
marker was supposed to have been; its disappearance is a
mystery to Lincoln scholars. Near Delavan we passed the
first existing marker - a bird had built a nest inside -
before getting to Tremont, the no-stoplight former seat
of Tazewell County, where the Tremont Museum and
Historical Society, at Madison and Sampson Streets, is
open from 2 to 4 p.m. on the second Sunday of each
month.
Fraker
had given approximate directions to a brick house with a
wide yard where Lincoln would stay and barbecue with the
circuit members. Such social gatherings were the
lifeblood of the circuit, replete with "bustle,
business, energy, hilarity, novelty, irony, sarcasm,
excitement and eloquence," Whitney wrote in
"Life on the Circuit with Lincoln."
We
couldn't find the house, a private home, during a quick
spin through its quiet streets, so we stopped into one
of the few businesses on the town's main street - an
insurance office. I explained the house we were looking
for, and Bob Wettstein, who ate a baloney sandwich at
his desk, immediately knew where to send us.
"That
was my grandpa's house!" said Wettstein, 30.
"I don't know why Lincoln stopped there, but its
been passed down for years that he stayed there. It's
cool to tell people."
After
marveling at the house and the long, sloping yard where
Lincoln barbecued, we pushed on past another marker and
landed in Metamora (population, 3,324). There, in the
former seat of Woodford County, is one of the bigger
finds on the trip: one of the two courthouses on the
circuit still standing in its original location where
Lincoln practiced.
Built in
1845, that creaky two-story brick courthouse at 113 E.
Partridge St. has been refashioned as a museum and state
historic site. The second-floor courtroom is simple and
tidy, the walls white and unadorned except for blue trim
on the windows. "The floorboards are original, so
you're literally walking in Lincoln's footsteps up
here," said museum curator Jean Myers.
The
Metamora courtroom looks onto a park where, Myers said,
Lincoln would sit in the days before a session to meet
potential clients and mediate disputes that he thought
shouldn't go to court. Sometimes he would bring those
mediations to the tavern "to get them lubricated a
little bit," Myers said. He called it an example of
Lincoln being a peacemaker who was a step ahead of
everyone else.
"Lincoln
had to get the skills somewhere that made him the great
president he was," Myers said. "In my opinion,
it happened on the 8th Judicial Circuit." On the
way to Bloomington, we passed the third marker.
___
The next
morning, Fraker gave us his tour of relevant Lincoln
spots in downtown Bloomington, which include a handful
of buildings where the future president worked. Some
have sat untouched for decades - same stairs, same
floor, same walls - but not in an effort to preserve
history; they just haven't been redeveloped yet.
After a
tour of the David Davis Mansion, l000 E. Monroe Drive,
Bloomington - Davis was the judge on the circuit and
helped get Lincoln elected president - The Navigator and
I headed back to the countryside, passing Marker 4 on
the desolate, snowy border between McLean and Logan
Counties.
Logan
County has the rare distinction of hosting two essential
8th Circuit sites. The initial county seat was in a town
called Postville, which no longer exists. It was
swallowed up by what is today known as Lincoln (the only
town in the nation named for the president before he was
president because he was that popular on the circuit).
Henry Ford bought the original Postville Courthouse in
1929 and moved it to Dearborn, Mich. Today a replica
sits where the original did, at a state historical site
at 914 5th St. in Lincoln. The first floor is a decent
little museum about the circuit, and the second is the
courtroom.
Twelve
miles south sits Mt. Pulaski (population 1,591), where
Lincoln visited when that town was the county seat
between 1848 and 1854. Like in most towns where the
circuit stopped, the court is literally at the center of
town. All life, businesses and commerce have grown
around it. Locals still take immense pride in the fact
that other than Metamora, it is the only standing
courthouse on the circuit where Lincoln worked.
"You
can hear him walk," said Wallace Kautz, 74, site
coordinator for the Mt. Pulaski Courthouse, 113 S.
Washington St. "Other people have heard it too.
Something is in this building, and whatever it is, it
sounds like Lincoln."
We spent
the rest of the day motoring past grain silos and heavy
farm equipment, finding three more county-line markers;
two were on dirt roads that afforded unspoiled
360-degree views of snowy farms. We hit the last one in
the dark while Interstate Highway 72 rumbled a stone's
throw away. Under a moonless sky, we angled our
headlights to get a good view.
___
After a
night in Urbana, we headed east on a lovely strip south
of I-74 called Lincoln Trail Road, which is one of the
original, crooked paths Lincoln traversed. Found at the
first intersection on Illinois Highway 49 just 2 miles
south of Ogden, it's Fraker's favorite part of the
route, and it's not hard to see why. As the dirt and
gravel head 35 miles east to Danville - passing another
marker - the farms take on a slight rolling quality,
then become gentle hills. They look more like New
England than anything else on the route.
In
Danville, another spare city puncturing our idyllic
rural escape, we stopped at the Vermilion County Museum,
116 N. Gilbert St. (on display is a desk used by
Lincoln). Next door, and part of the museum, is the home
of Dr. William Fithian, who served in the General
Assembly with Lincoln and put him up when the circuit
came through town. The highlight: a walnut, half-canopy
bed on which Honest Abe slept.
Museum
director Sue Richter said locals take their Lincoln
heritage "very seriously," noting that her
husband's grandfather was named Abraham Lincoln Richter,
and she knows a woman whose grandmother sat on Lincoln's
lap when she was a child.
"When
you have things like that, it's not all that far
removed, and it feels personal," Richter said.
We roared
past another marker, stopped in Paris (population 8,785)
to see the Milton Alexander house, 132 S. Central Ave.,
where Lincoln stayed. Then it was on to Charleston
(population 20,296), where one of his legendary debates
with Stephen Douglas was held, the only one on the
circuit. On the way, we passed Marker 10.
The
Navigator and I were getting good at spotting the
markers from farther away.
___
The first
marker we came across on Day 4 was on the line between
Coles and Shelby Counties. Unlike the others, it was not
on a post but was sunk into a low brick wall. Fraker
said the post was knocked down, and a local who got
tired of waiting for the state to fix it improvised her
own solution.
We passed
by courthouses in Shelbyville (population 4,615) and
Sullivan (population 4,339), then found the county-line
marker at the border of Macon and Moultrie Counties -
from which the face has been removed (most likely
stolen).
In
Decatur, we visited Lincoln Square, a tiny patch of
downtown marked by a statue of a smooth-faced Lincoln,
where he gave his first political speech (on behalf of
the local Whig Party) at 21. We visited the Macon County
Historical Museum, 5580 N. Fork Rd., also in Decatur,
where director Pat McDaniel emphasized Lincoln's local
roots. Lincoln's first home in Illinois was just down
the road. "Everyone thinks it's Springfield, but
it's not," McDaniel said.
But
unlike some of the smaller towns we'd seen, Decatur is
somewhat apathetic about its Lincoln legacy. McDaniel
started a Lincoln Festival in 2005 but folded it after
three years due to lack of interest.
"When
you look at old articles from the 1920s, they were
complaining even then that people didn't care about the
Lincoln heritage," McDaniel said. "It's just
sad."
We buzzed
by Lincoln Trail Homestead State Park (10 miles west of
Decatur off U.S. Highway 36, on Lincoln Trail Memorial
Parkway). That's where the Lincoln family first lived
after moving from Indiana in 1830. We went through
Taylorville (population 12,222), where a statue of
Lincoln and a pig stand outside the Christian County
Courthouse, a reference to Lincoln jokingly asking a
judge for a "writ of quietus" because a pig
was squealing beneath the courtroom floor.
And we
passed the final two county-line markers. That last one,
perched beside a creek at the Christian and Sangamon
County border, felt like a quiet victory. In the cold,
as the orange sun dipped, The Navigator and I exchanged
a congratulatory hug, then drove the last 50 miles to
Springfield to complete the journey we began hundreds of
miles earlier. We stayed at the most obvious destination
we could find: The President Abraham Lincoln Hotel and
Conference Center.