President Abraham Lincoln spoke September 30th, 1859 at the Wisconsin State Fair. This campaign speech was his only speech on agriculture. He would create the U.S. Department of Agriculture two years after being elected as President of the United States. In recognition of then-Candidate Lincoln’s speech, a granite marker with a brass plaque was placed by the 4th Congressional District Read more...
Abraham Lincoln, on his way to the White House to be inaugurated as President, stopped by Dwight L. Moody’s Sunday School in “Little Hell” I was once as poor as any boy in this school, but I am now President of the United States, and if you attend to what is taught you here, some of you may yet be Read more...
Newton Bateman (1822-1897) was born in poverty in New Jersey, moved to Illinois, started a school in St. Louis, then became Illinois Superintendent of Public Instruction, and authored the Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois. While Bateman was a student at Illinois College here in Jacksonville, Lincoln was a state legislator representing nearby in New Salem, in the also nearby Springfield. They Read more...
General Sickles: Well, Mr. President, I beg pardon, but what did you think about Gettysburg? What was your opinion of things while we were campaigning and fighting up there?” “O,” replied Mr. Lincoln. “I didn’t think much about it. I was not much concerned about you!” “You were not?” rejoined Sickles, as if amazed. “Why, we heard that you Washington Read more...
Born in Virginia, and raised in Kentucky, Peter Cartwright (1785-1872) was a carnal frontier adolescent. At 16, he attended a revival meeting was “soundly converted.” To this meeting I repaired, a guilty, wretched sinner. On the Saturday evening of said meeting, I went, with weeping multitudes, and bowed before the stand, and earnestly prayed for mercy. In the midst of Read more...
