News

Search for Lincoln documents doesn't have to go far

Posted October 22, 2007 11:00 pm

Bruce Rushton

For more than three decades, the Sangamon County recorder's office has had framed legal documents signed by Abraham Lincoln just hanging around.

For more than two decades, scholars from the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, just a few blocks away, have been scouring the nation for legal documents signed by Lincoln.

Recorder Mary Ann Lamm, meet James Cornelius, curator for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.

"They're the real thing," Cornelius declared as he and John Lupton, associate editor of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln project, on Tuesday surveyed three documents memorializing Lincoln's work as a lawyer and as a financier for a homebuyer in Springfield during the 1850s.

The documents had been hanging in a vacant office at the recorder's, just a few feet away from a window. Lamm said she kept the blinds closed until a few months ago, when a cleaning crew left them open. Since then, sunlight has been streaming onto the documents, but not long enough to fade the ink.

"They're in excellent condition," said Lupton, who plans to electronically scan the documents as part of a state project to digitize every document written by Lincoln or sent to him. The project began in 1985.

Cornelius first heard of the documents about a month ago, when a museum volunteer who had been doing research in the recorder's office said the recorder had some Lincoln documents. Somehow, signals got crossed. Until Monday, Cornelius thought the documents involved the sale of Lincoln's home, which he knew could not be true. Those records are already in the vault of the presidential library.

"I'm sorry that I never followed up on it," Cornelius told Lamm on Monday.

"Possibly, I was supposed to give you a call," Lamm replied.

A State Journal-Register reporter who was looking into a 21st-century matter on Friday brought everyone together. The reporter idly asked Lamm about old documents in the office, and Lamm pointed out the Lincoln materials.

The reporter called Cornelius Monday afternoon, and Cornelius went to the recorder's office Tuesday.

He was glad he made the trip.

"We would be happy to have them," Cornelius said of the documents.

What they might be worth, neither Cornelius nor Lupton would say.

"As a state agency, we're prevented from doing what they do on 'Antiques Roadshow,'" Cornelius said.

As a lawyer and a president, Lincoln signed hundreds, if not thousands, of documents. Within a month of his assassination, thieves were combing courthouses throughout Illinois and slicing his signature out of ledgers and court files. Today, Lincoln's autograph can be purchased for as little as $4,250 on the Internet. Full, signed documents cost considerably more.

The documents in the county recorder's office aren't the Gettysburg Address, but they're not scratch paper, either.

At least one of the seals, which were drawn in ink back then instead of being stamped with red wax, appears to have been written in Lincoln's own hand, which is unusual, Cornelius and Lupton said. And all three documents involve women, which demonstrates that men alone didn't run the world.

"These are examples of women who are borrowing money from Lincoln and buying and selling property," Lupton said.

One document is a promissory note stating that a woman named Ritta da Sylva borrowed $125 from Lincoln to buy a home. Lincoln charged 10 percent interest, considered high today, but not during the mid-19th century. A second document signed by Lincoln on June 9, 1860, states that the debt was paid in full. At the time, Lincoln was winding up his career as a lawyer while running for president.

"June 9 is an interesting date," Lupton said. "Basically, after this, he stopped doing legal work."

A third document states that someone paid money owed to Maria Bullock, Mary Todd Lincoln's aunt. Cornelius said that was part of a land deal that became one of the most complicated cases of Lincoln's legal career.

"It dragged on for years and involved several lawsuits," Cornelius said. "In the end, it made very little money and caused him a lot of work. It's a good example of his surprising lack of success in real-estate law. This (document) is actually one of the success stories. Lincoln didn't have to sue him."

Lamm believes the documents were removed from official ledgers by her predecessor, Ron Gibbs, who held the recorder's post from 1952 until 1976. She said she recalls a controversy in the late 1960s or early '70s about Gibbs spending public funds to frame the documents. Gibbs died in 1985.

Lupton and Cornelius said they had assumed any Lincoln documents from the recorder's office would have been archived years ago at the University of Illinois. Lupton said he mistakenly thought that researchers would also have checked the county recorder's office.

"I thought they might have made it over here for some reason or another, but they had not," Lupton said.

Bruce Rushton can be reached at (217) 788-1542 or bruce.rushton@sj-r.com.

Article Categories
News