Lincoln’’s doings December 7, 1859
Dear Mary December 7, 1859
With
Don’t allow it, Mary, until fully assured that he is worthy of the happiness. Dec. 7-1859 Your friend A. Lincoln
Inscription in the Autograph Album of Mary Delahay
Mary was the daughter of Lincoln’s old friend Mark W. Delahay, in whose home he had been a guest during his stay at Leavenworth, Kansas. The inscription was written on the day of his departure for Springfield.
Numerous invitations from the interior of Kansas were received by Mr. Lincoln. but home-engagements forced him to return, and he bade us farewell on the morning of the 7th, after a weeks sojourn and faithful labor. Champion Vaughan gave utterance to the general feeling in the following article, which appeared in his paper the morning of our honored guest’s departure:
“Abraham Lincoln leaves this morning for his Eastern home. His short stay in Kansas has been full of significance. He has met a
Leavenworth correspondence of The New York Tribune, August 30, 1860.
Leaving on Wednesday for the return trip to Springfield. The Illinois State Journal reported that Mr. Lincoln “expresses himself delighted with his visit and with the cordial reception he met with from the people of that incipient State.” Judge Owen T. Reeves recalled Mr. Lincoln reviewing his Kansas trip with David Davis in the office of the county court clerk in Bloomington, Illinois: “As I went in one day Mr. Lincoln, who had just returned, was talking with the judge. Judge Davis was asking Mr. Lincoln whom he met in Kansas. Mr. Lincoln told him and in the course of the conversation said: ‘I met two young men who struck me as being men of great promise.’ Judge Davis asked for their names. ‘One was named Ewing — Thomas Ewing,’ Mr. Lincoln said. ‘ The other was a young man by the name of Ingalls.’ ‘Which did you think was the brightest?’ asked Judge Davis. ‘That young man Ingalls struck me as having one of the brightest minds I ever saw,’ replied Mr. Lincoln. Ewing afterward became governor of Ohio. Ingalls was the brilliant senator from Kansas. ‘I predict for that young man Ingalls a great future, was the way Mr. Lincoln concluded his description of the two young men to Judge Davis.’”
Leavenworth Weekly Herald, December 10, 1859
The above map shows the route taken by Mr. Lincoln and Company on their seven hour
Mr. Lincoln and company crossed the frozen Missouri River at Leavenworth, and followed along the newly graded Weston and Atchison Railroad Company roadbed through Beverly, Weston, Iatan then huged the River Bluffs to Rushville, where they picked up the almost completed Atchison and St. Joseph Railroad and followed along beside it on in to St. Joseph, Missouri.
or this….
or this’
Is this the one?/’
December 11, 1855, the Atchison and St. Joseph Railroad was incorporated. The articles of association provided that Benj. Stringfellow, John H. Stringfellow, Peter T. Abell, John Doniphan, Stephen Johnson, Elijah H. Norton, Harvey Collier, Robert W. Donnell, Reuben Middleton, Bela M. Hughes, James H. Lucas, John Simon, or any five of them, constitute the first board of directors.
In the summer of 1858, Gen. Benjamin Stringfellow, Dr. J. H. Stringfellow, Peter T. Abell, Harvey Collier, Reuben Middleton, John Doniphan and Robert W. Donnell met in St. Joseph, in the Methodist Church, which then stood on the northeast corner of Third and Felix streets, the present (1881) site of the National Bank of St. Joseph, and there organized the company. At this meeting, Samuel C. Pomeroy, of Atchison, was elected a director and president of the company. Charles West, of St. Joseph, was also at this meeting elected a director.
Contracts for grading were immediately let along the entire line of the road, and work commenced at Winthrop, opposite Atchison. By July 1, 1859, this grading was completed between St. Joseph and Winthrop, a distance of 20 miles.
In
.July 15, 1859, the Weston and Atchison and Atchison and St. Joseph Companies, finding that their means would be inadequate to accomplish more than the work of grading the road, for the purpose of an early completion of the same made a contract with the Platte County road, by which they transferred to that corporation the roadbed, franchises and right of way from St. Joseph to Weston, which company was enabled on the work
In December, of the same year, the road was finished to Iatan, and by April 4, 1861, trains were running through to Weston.
L. L. Jones, Esq Springfield, Ills.
My dear Sir: Dec. 9. 1859
Your kind invitation to me to visit Lawrence, was handed me at Leavenworth on Saturday the 3rd. Inst. I was advertised to speak there that evening and also on Monday the 5th; so that it was not possible for me to be at Lawrence before, or at, the election. I supposed there was not sufficient object for me to go after the election, through the excessive cold.
Please present my respects, and make my acknowledgments, to the other gentlemen, who joined you in the invitation, and accept the same for yourself.
Very truly yours A. LINCOLN
Kansas City, Missouri, Times, February 9, 1929. Jones was a young lawyer from Connecticut who had gone with the Free-Staters to settle in Olathe, Kansas. His letter dated November 29 bears thirteen signatures in addition to his own.