As I have said before, much of my enjoyment in tracing family roots comes from the opportunities it gives me to connect with distant cousins and fellow researchers. Often I track down someone that I’ve concluded is a distant cousin. My approach is to send a polite letter explaining why I think we might be related and an offer to share family information. More often than not I do receive a reply and my newly found cousins seem pleased that I took the effort to find them.
Two sisters, Kitty and Penny, who live in North Carolina, were recently added to my list of cousin connections. They are my mother’s second cousins, although, I don’t think that they ever met my mother. You may recall my recent story about the Louisville lawyer, David Fairleigh. Well, Kitty and Penny, like me, are some of his descendants.
This week Kitty sent me a copy of an old letter that had been passed down in her family. Her copy is not an original, but is a very old photocopy. The letter, from Abraham Lincoln, was written to Samuel Haycraft on May 28, 1860. This was right after Lincoln had secured the nomination of the Republican Party for the upcoming presidential election.
Here is a transcription of the letter:
Springfield, Ills. May 28. 1860
Dear Sir:
Your recent letter, without date, is received. Also the copy of your speech on the contemplated Daniel Boone monument, which I have not yet had time to read. In the main you are right about my history. My father was Thomas Lincoln, and Mr s Sally Johnston, was his second wife-- You are mistaken about my mother -- her maiden name was Nancy Hanks-- I was no[t] born at Elizabethtown; but my mother's first child, a daughter, two years older than myself, and now long since deceased, was-- I was born Feb. 12. 1809, near where Hogginsville now is, then in Hardin County-- I do not think I ever saw you, though I very well know who you are -- so well that I recognized your hand-writing, on opening your letter, before I saw the signature. My recollection is that Ben. Helm was first Clerk, that you succeeded him, that Jack Thomas and William Farleigh graduated in the same office, and that your handwritings were all very similar-- Am I right?
My father has been dead near ten years; but my step-mother (Mrs Johnson) is still living--
I am really very glad of your letter, and shall be pleased to receive another at any time--
Yours very truly
A. Lincoln
Lincoln’s mention of William Fairleigh is of course why the Fairleigh family saved a copy of this letter. William, born in Elizabethtown, KY in 1797, was the grandfather of the previously mentioned David Fairleigh. When still a young man William Fairleigh worked in the Hardin County clerk’s office under the instruction of Benjamin Helm, the Clerk of the Courts, and William’s companions were Samuel Haycraft Jr., and Jack Thomas. William was sworn in as a Deputy Court Clerk of Hardin County in January of 1817, at the age of 19. A few years later, in 1823, Meade County was formed from parts of Hardin and Breckinridge counties, and he was appointed as the new county’s first court clerk. William Fairleigh served at the Clerk of the Circuit and County Courts of Meade County for 35 years.
It is most interesting that Abraham Lincoln, apparently never having met any of these men (the Lincoln family moved to Indiana when Abraham was only seven years old), knew that their hand writings were similar. But we must remember that in Kentucky, county clerks were responsible for the recording of many legal functions including the recording of deeds and mortgages, legal documents, marriage licenses, wills, property taxes and elections. All these were, of course, written out in longhand and I suppose that, as a young trainee, good penmanship was important. It’s not surprising that handwriting styles might have been somewhat similar between the young assistant clerks and their mentor. And we might suppose that Lincoln had seen a number of documents, written by these men, in amongst his father’s legal papers. You might remember that one of the reasons the Lincolns left Kentucky was because of problems establishing legal land claims, a common problem in Kentucky. It is also possible that Lincoln encountered legal documents written by these clerks during his years as a lawyer in Illinois.
Hardin County has had 17 County Clerks since becoming a county in 1793. Samuel Haycraft, Jr., the man to whom Lincoln’s letter was addressed, served longer than any other clerk, from 1817 to 1851. The Lincoln letter was a prized family heirloom of the Haycraft family for many years. Apparently this letter was sold to a New York dealer, by Samuel Haycrafts great-grandson, in 1920 for about $500 ($5000 in today’s dollars). The letter later became the property of a New York collector. It was highly valued because it is apparently the only letter of Lincoln’s to state, in his own handwriting, the date and place of his birth and the names of his father, mother and stepmother. I don’t know who owns the letter now but an image of the letter is included in the Library of Congress’s Abraham Lincoln Papers collection, so perhaps it is now in their possession. There are several other letters written from Lincoln to Mr. Haycraft, which I discovered in researching this letter. I’ll talk about them next week.
The images below are documents written in the hand of Samuel Haycraft Jr., Benjamin Helm and William Fairleigh. Do you think their handwriting is similar? Click on the images for a larger view.
-Mary
Benjamin Helm Document
Samuel Haycraft Jr. Document
William Fairleigh Document
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