Gettysburg College "First Walk" Honors Lincoln

I sometimes search the Internet for news items pertaining to Abraham Lincoln. While searching earlier today, I learned about a tradition at Gettysburg College (Pennsylvania) which I'd never heard of before now.

Each year upon the resumption of the new academic year, Gettysburg College holds "First Walk" for its incoming Freshmen. Older students, faculty, and members of the community escort the Freshmen on a walk which retraces the steps Lincoln took through the town when he was there on November 18 and 19, 1863 for the dedication of the National Cemetery. Lincoln walked with students of Gettysburg College (founded 1832) and this annual walk commemorates the original one.

The "First Walk" participants walk through Gettysburg to the National Cemetery where a speaker addresses the incoming Freshmen.  This year's speaker was Susan Eisenhower, head of the Eisenhower Institute at the college, and a granddaughter of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. She read a few lines from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and encouraged the students to take his challenge to make the nation a better one.

You can read more details about this year's "First Walk" in this article as well as this one. The first link provides video and audio coverage of both the walk and Eisenhower's speech.

It's wonderful that Gettysburg College annually commemorates Lincoln's walk through the small village as he was about to give the greatest speech in United States history.

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Lincoln Document Found In Switzerland

The country of Switzerland is known secretive banking, cheese, neutrality, skiing, and majestic beauty as this image of the Swiss Alps shows. Now it can be known as the site of a recent discovery of a document which contains the handwriting of Abraham Lincoln.

NBC-affiliate station KSDK (St. Louis, MO) reported that researchers with The Papers Of Abraham Lincoln project at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (ALPLM) were contacted by a gentleman from an Australian university.  He remembered seeing a Lincoln document in Switzerland while doing research there, and thought the people at the ALPLM would like to know about it.

The researchers contacted the Bibliotheque de Geneve (Library of Geneva) who confirmed the authenticity of the document in question.  It was written in May 1863 by famed minister and abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher, brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe (author of Uncle Tom's Cabin), as a letter of introduction for a female journalist.  Nearly two years later, Lincoln added his own comment to the letter, stating that while he didn't know the person in question, if Beecher had vouched for her, he would as well.

The Papers of Abraham Lincoln project is actively searching the world for any documents which were written or signed by Lincoln.  This new discovery, while not significantly important, shows that there are hopefully more Lincoln documents waiting to be found.

The entire article from KSDK, complete with the text of the letter, may be found here.

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New Project Marks Lincoln's Visit To Iowa

Sometimes a chance discovery is all the impetus a new historical project needs to get under way.  Council Bluffs, Iowa is the setting for a new effort to commemorate Mr. Lincoln's visit to that city in 1859.  

According to the Omaha World-Herald in an article published on August 12, 2013, a local historical society was looking under a pile of books when he found a plaque which marked Lincoln's visit to Council Bluffs.  His curiosity piqued, the gentleman and other local historians further researched Lincoln's 4-day 3-night visit to the town.  

It seems that Lincoln came to Council Bluffs to look at 17 town lots which his campaign manager Norman Judd had offered to Lincoln as collateral for a personal loan.  He arrived in August 1859 and spent the next few days visiting with Judd, other friends, attending a church service, and giving a speech. Unfortunately, there is no text of that speech and the only account of it is from a Democrat newspaper of the day, which was unkind in its review of his address.

The new project resulting from the discovery of this forgotten plaque aims to mark the location of the original lots which Judd did deed over to Lincoln in November 1859 for that loan which amounted to $3,000. Judd later paid it back in full plus interest to Lincoln's widow Mary and her son Robert in 1867. 

Lincoln's visit to Council Bluffs is actually more important for his later decision to make that city the legal eastern terminus of the first transcontinental railroad built in the United States.  While in Council Bluffs, he met with railroad engineer Grenville Dodge. He peppered Dodge with questions about the possibility of a railroad stretching from the east to west, and asked him where the best route would be.  Dodge replied from the village they were currently standing in across the Platte Valley and then west.  He pointed out its relatively close proximity to all the railroads in and around Chicago and the rest of Illinois. Lincoln accepted Dodge's recommendation only a few years later when Lincoln officially named Council Bluffs, Iowa to be the eastern terminus of the railroad across the nation. The above image is an old postcard which shows a memorial erected in 1911 to Lincoln's visit to the city. It looks out across the Mississippi River to the west, honoring both the railroad and Mr. Lincoln.

The article to which I linked above provides more details about this new effort in Council Bluffs to mark Mr. Lincoln's visit. A project begun after the chance discovery of an old plaque which provided only scant details of that day when Lincoln came to town.  

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Iowa State Fair Honors Abraham Lincoln

(image courtesy Des Moines Register)

The Iowa State Fair is held annually in that state's capital of Des Moines to showcase its industrial and agricultural heritage.  It began in 1854 and is one of the largest annual events in the United States, and has been named as one of the best summer events by such publications as USA Weekend.

One of the highlights of the fair is the "butter cow," a near life-size sculpture of a cow, made from butter.  This is a tradition of the fair, honoring the dairy industry of Iowa.  In addition to the annual butter cow, every year another sculpture made from butter is created to honor something significant to the state or nation.  

This year the fair had a butter sculpture featuring none other than President Abraham Lincoln.  The organizers of the fair decided on Lincoln for a couple of reasons.  This year marks the 100th anniversary of the creation of the Lincoln Highway, the first automobile road to span the entire continental United States.  The Highway crosses Iowa and is the longest continuous such route in that state. Also the sculpture honors Lincoln himself.  This year marks the sesquicentennial of both the Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address. The sculpture shows Lincoln standing with his hat on a small table, speech in his hand, as he is addressing the crowd in Gettysburg on November 19, 1863.  The image above courtesy of Des Moines Register, shows the sculpture. 

The Lincoln sculpture and accompanying butter cow are the creations of artist Sarah Pratt of West Des Moines, Iowa, who is the official sculptor of the fair.  Each sculpture is first created out of a combination of wire, steel, and wood, then covered in butter.  She works in 40 degree temperatures inside the cooler.  According to the fair's website, the butter is often recycled into the following year's sculptures.  

The below is a closeup of the Lincoln sculpture.  

The Iowa State Fair began on August 8 in Des Moines and closes on Sunday, August 18.  There's still plenty of time to visit it and see this wonderful sculpture of Lincoln along with all the other great attractions.  

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