No photo of original available.
If you have any information on the original please email me at k_tuason@hotmail.com or
call me at 765-342-4850 |
Lincoln
For
Posterity
The calendar for 1931 carried a reproduction of a painting of the Lincoln
Home in Springfield, Illinois believed to be painted by Fletcher C.
Ransom.
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Fletcher Ransom
Oil Painting Lincoln,
the
Arbiter
Sports
as we know them—baseball, football, bowling, golf—were far in the future
when Abraham Lincoln lived in the little frontier town of New Salem,
Illinois. Nevertheless, the pioneer had his amusements. House raisings,
husking bees, and wedding dances broke the monotony of life for early
settlers and their families, while the men often found pleasure in such
sports as wrestling, horse racing, and shooting for a beef.
In the latter class—”for men only”—was gander pulling, which
the artist has
depicted here. The neck of a gander was greased, and then the bird was
hung head down from a projecting limb. The horseman who could ride by at
full speed and pull off the gander’s head won both the contest and the
gander.
At New Salem, where he lived from 1831 to 1837, Lincoln was famed as a
wrestler, but in other sports he was more often found as judge or umpire
than as participant. His neighbors knew him to be honest, fair, and
cool-headed, and he was their unanimous choice for this most hazardous of
occupations. Thus early were manifest qualities which the American people
were later to recognize and trust.
PAUL
M. ANGLE, Librarian,
Illinois State Historical Library.
Painting
by Ransom
Year published—1944
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Fletcher Ransom
Oil Painting
Lincoln,
the
Lawyer
In
1834, after he had been a resident of New Salem, Illinois, for three
years, Abraham Lincoln began to study law. In the eyes of many of his
friends and neighbors, the mere fact that he was a law student qualified
him to draw mortgages and deeds, and even to try minor cases, although
such unlicensed practicing was then, as now, illegal.
In this painting the artist has pictured one of Lincoln’s early trials
which came to grief. In dispute was the ownership of a hog. Lincoln’s
clients were the Trent Brothers; the defendant was his good friend Jack
Kelso. Holding the scales of justice was Bowling Green, the corpulent
justice of the peace of New Salem. At the trial Lincoln introduced three
witnesses who swore that the hog belonged to the Trents, but Kelso had no
one to support his claim. The justice of the peace, nevertheless, awarded
the hog to Kelso. When Lincoln protested that the verdict was against the
preponderance of evidence, Green delivered a little homily which the
aspiring youth probably never forgot. “Abe,” he said, “the first
duty of a court is to decide cases justly and in accordance with the
truth. I know that shoat myself, and I know it belongs to Kelso and that
the plaintiffs and their witnesses lied!
PAUL
M. ANGLE, Librarian,
Illinois State Historical Library.
Painting
by Ransom
Year published—1943
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Fletcher Ransom
Oil Painting
Pioneer
Transportation
In
the spring of 1831 Abraham Lincoln, twenty-two years old and free from
family obligations, began life on his own responsibility. His first
venture was a flatboat trip to New Orleans as the hired hand of a
back-woods promoter, Denton Offut by name. Lincoln, with Offut and two
others, built the boat on the Sangamon River near Springfield, loaded it
with produce, and launched it on the spring-swollen stream.
Twenty miles distant, at the little village of New Salem, a mill dam
obstructed the river. There, half-over, the flatboat stranded. Water
splashed into the stern, and pessimists among the villagers on the river
bank predicted that it would soon sink.
But one member of the crew—notably long, angular and awkward— had no
intention of allowing the boat to founder. Under his orders the stern was
unloaded until the craft righted itself. Then, with the village cooper’s
auger a hole was bored in the bow and the water allowed to run out. Next,
the hole was plugged and the balance of the cargo unloaded. Relieved of
the weight of water and load, the boat slid easily over the dam. The cargo
was reloaded, and the voyage continued.
Three months later Abraham Lincoln walked into New Salem, where he was
to make his home for six years, and found himself locally famous as the
man who had saved Denton Offut’s flatboat from what had looked like
certain destruction.
PAUL
M. ANGLE, Librarian,
Illinois State Historical Library.
Painting
by Ransom
Year published—1941
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Fletcher Ransom
Oil Painting
Lincoln, the Soldier
When the Black Hawk War broke out in the
spring of 1832, young Abraham Lincoln was clerking in a store at New
Salem, Illinois. The business was failing and he knew it, so he joined a
company of mounted volunteers. To his surprise, he was elected captain.
Twenty-eight years later, after he had been nominated for the Presidency
of the United States, he wrote that he had “not since had any success in
life which gave him so much satisfaction” as this honor.
After five weeks Lincoln’s company was disbanded, whereupon he re-enlisted as
a private. In this capacity he served until the war ended. He saw no
action, and in later years he often made light of his military service.
Nevertheless, the war gave him valuable experience and broadened his
horizons measurably. There is reason to think, moreover, that beneath the
surface he was proud of his record. When bounty lands were awarded to
Black Hawk War Veterans he located both his warrants, and he once told his
law partner that he would hold the tracts as long as he lived, no matter
how unproductive they might turn out to be.
In the accompanying painting the artist depicts the people of New Salem
mingling cheers and farewells as Lincoln and some of his men leave for the
campaign.
PAUL
M. ANGLE, Librarian,
Illinois State Historical Library.
Painting
by Ransom
Year published—1940
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Fletcher Ransom
Oil Painting
Lincoln
and Ann Rutledge
For six years—from 1831 to 1837—Abraham Lincoln lived in the little log town of New Salem, Illinois. Penniless at the time of his arrival, he earned a living as clerk,
storekeeper, postmaster and surveyor. Uneducated, he studied grammar,
mathematics and law. In the Black
Hawk War he was elected captain of his company, and then, after one
unsuccessful attempt, he was elected to the legislature by the people
of Sangamon County.
Important
as these achievements were, one episode of Lincoln’s life at New Salem
throws them all into shadow. That is the tragic story of his courtship of
Ann Rutledge.
For a year Lincoln boarded at the home of James Rutledge, one of the founders
of the town.
Ann, his daughter, was there, but Ann was
engaged to a young merchant of the place and Lincoln concealed the admiration he felt for her. Later, however, the merchant left town, and
although he had promised to return, letters from him gradually ceased.
Then Lincoln made his feelings known, and found to his joy that Ann
reciprocated them. The artist, in this picture, has painted what must have
been a typical scene of the courtship.
All went well until the summer of 1835, when an epidemic of fever swept the
country. Ann Rutledge was one of its victims. So intense was Lincoln’s
grief that his friends feared for his sanity. Time, however, brought back
health, though the sweet, fresh memory of Ann Rutledge always remained
with him.
PAUL
M. ANGLE, Librarian,
Illinois State Historical Library.
Painting
by Ransom
Year published—1933
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Fletcher Ransom
Oil Painting
Pioneer
Education
Near the little city of Petersburg, Illinois, stands the restored
village of New Salem—rebuilt by the State of Illinois because it was the
home of Abraham Lincoln from 1831 until 1837.
In the entire village, now nearly completed, only one original structure
is to be found. That is the cooper shop of Henry Onstot, luckily preserved
as a part of a dwelling in Petersburg, and replaced on its former site a
few years ago. There an informed visitor may see in his mind’s eye the
scene which the artist has depicted here—a bronzed young giant in
homespun absorbed in the pages of a book which he reads by the light of
the cooper’s blazing chips and shavings. For at New Salem Lincoln was
preeminently the student, studying grammar so that he might write and
speak clearly, surveying in order to earn a day-to-day living, and the law
to qualify himself for a profession. The Onstot cooper shop is a
weatherbeaten structure with the marks of its age upon it, but it
symbolizes, as no imposing memorial could symbolize, a man’s ability to
overcome the handicaps of poverty and ignorance.
PAUL
M. ANGLE, Librarian,
Illinois State Historical Library.
Painting
by Ransom
Year published—1939
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Fletcher
Ransom
Oil Painting
Postmaster
Lincoln
For
three of the six years of his residence at New Salem, Abraham Lincoln was
the village postmaster. It was not a burdensome occupation, for mail was
delivered to the little settlement overlooking the Sangamon only twice a
week. Still, the small remuneration helped, and the position gave him an
opportunity to read many newspapers which he would not have seen
otherwise.
As postmaster, Lincoln went out of his way to accommodate his patrons.
When he went on a surveying expedition he made it a point to put all the
letters addressed to the people of the neighborhood into his hat and
distribute them along the way, regardless of the fact that the free
delivery of mail was not then a post office function. On occasion, too, he
would make special trips, often walking miles to deliver a letter which he
knew to be impatiently awaited. Kindnesses like these were an expression
of his own friendly nature, but they made him New Salem’s most popular
citizen and contributed to the respect and affection in which he was held
throughout the countryside.
PAUL
M. ANGLE, Librarian,
Illinois State Historical Library.
Painting
by Ransom
Year published—1942
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Fletcher Ransom
Oil Painting
Colored Lithograph of oil painting. Lincoln high on snowy hill
surveying river below - log cabins and trees.
Size: 16" x 22" Lincoln,
the
Surveyor
A little
more than
a century ago—in February, 1836, a young man known for his honesty, his
great height, and his cleverness at story-telling, spent several days
surveying a tiny village in Central Illinois. Finishing his work, he drew
a careful plat, labeled it the resurvey of Petersburg, February 17, 1836,
and signed his name: “A. Lincoln.”
For three years jobs of that sort had been Lincoln’s chief means of
support. In 1833, after his venture in store-keeping had ended in disaster
and debt, John Calhoun, the surveyor of Sangamon County, had come to his
rescue by appointing him his deputy and assigning him the northern part of
the county (now Menard County) as his field. Calhoun’s successor
retained him in office, with the result that until his removal from New
Salem to Springfield, Lincoln with rod and chain was a familiar figure to
hundreds of Illinois settlers.
Lincoln’s resurvey of Petersburg gave rise to an incident which local
tradition still cherishes, and which the artist has pictured here. Living
in the little town was Jemimah Elmore, the widow of an old friend who had
served in Lincoln’s company in the Black Hawk War. Part of her house,
Lincoln found, would be in a street if the streets were run due north and
south. Sooner or later it would have to be removed, and that would cost
more money than she could afford. But if his compass were set one degree
off north and south, the house could be saved. And so today, because of
the Widow Elmore and Lincoln’s consideration for her, the streets of
Petersburg deviate one degree from the cardinal points of the compass.
In the artist’s portrayal of Lincoln, the Surveyor, presented here the
surveying instruments, known as a circumferator and Jacob’s staff, were
drawn from Lincoln’s original instruments now in possession of the State
of Illinois.
PAUL
M. ANGLE, Librarian,
Illinois State Historical Library.
Painting
by Ransom
Year published—1937
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Fletcher Ransom
Oil Painting
Size: 16" x 22"
Longtime
resident donates Cransom art to Vanderpoel
Lincoln at New Salem, 1834
Two miles southeast of Petersburg, Illinois, the
Sangamon River makes a
sweeping bend at the foot of a high bluff. On this bluff, a century ago, stood
the pioneer village of New Salem. Today, after decades of desertion, the
village stands again, its log cabins rebuilt and its original surroundings
restored by the State of Illinois.
For here, from 1831 to 1837, lived Abraham Lincoln,
who, though he came to the town as an obscure youth, had the courage to
run for election to the state legislature within a year of his arrival.
Defeated, he made a second attempt two years later. This time he
succeeded.
In that summer of 1834—the year of Lincoln’s
second campaign—the residents of New Salem may well have become familiar
with the scene which the artist, with vivid historical imagination, has
presented here—a picture of Lincoln, about to ride away to lay his case
before the voters of the county; saying farewell to Ann Rutledge.
PAUL
M. ANGLE, Librarian,
Illinois State Historical Library.
Painting
by Ransom
Year published—1934
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No photo of original available.
If you have any information on the original please email me at k_tuason@hotmail.com or
call me at 765-342-4850 |
Fletcher Ransom
Oil Painting
Size 16" x 22"
Lincoln,
the
Student
By
his own statement, when Abraham Lincoln settled at New
Salem 1831 could “read, write and cipher to the rule of three, but that was all.” Probably most of his neighbors were no better educated, but
Lincoln differed from them in that he soon set out to make up his
deficiencies. Within a year he was studying grammar. Twelve months later
he was hard at work on trigonometry and surveying. In 1834, encouraged by
John T. Stuart, he commenced the study of law, often walking to
Springfield to borrow Stuart’s copies of Blackstone, Kent, Chitty and
other legal classics. By 1837, when
he left New Salem, he was grounded in the fundamentals
of the English language, he knew the elements of mathematics, and he was
equipped to enter one of the learned professions.
Necessarily, at New Salem Lincoln spent much of his
time in study. In the accompanying picture the artist has depicted what
must have been a frequent scene—Lincoln so deeply absorbed in his books
as to be oblivious of the laughter
of the loungers
in front of Samuel Hill’s store or the gossip of the women
across the street at Hill’s home. In the distance one sees the building
where Lincoln himself tried storekeeping and failed; in the right foreground is
the home
of Peter Lukins, the village shoemaker. All of these structures have been
restored and furnished as they were in the days of Lincoln’s residence
at New Salem.
PAUL
M. ANGLE, Librarian,
Illinois State Historical Library.
Painting
by Ransom
Year published—1935
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If you have any information on the original please email me at k_tuason@hotmail.com or
call me at 765-342-4850 |
Fletcher Ransom
Oil Painting
Lincoln,
the Wrestler
In
the summer
of 1831 the little
frontier town of New Salem gained a new resident. His name was Abraham
Lincoln, and he came to work in a general store which Denton Offut, with
whom he had just made a flat-boat trip to New Orleans, was establishing in
the village.
The people of New Salem had a habit of putting newcomers to the test,
especially when their employers bragged of their strength, as Offut
bragged of Lincoln. So a wrestling match with Jack Armstrong of nearby
Clary’s Grove, champion of the neighborhood, was arranged. The town
turned out to see the fun, and bets of all sorts were placed on the
contestants. Like so much of the past, the outcome of the match is hidden
in the haze of uncertainty; but whether Lincoln threw Armstrong, as some
say, or whether the contest ended in a draw, as others maintain, this at
least is certain: the men were ever afterward bound together by the
strongest ties of friendship. Jack Armstrong supported Lincoln in every
venture of his New Salem days, while the measure of Lincoln’s affection
may be found in the fact that many years afterward, when one of Jack’s
sons was charged with murder, Lincoln volunteered to defend him and
successfully cleared his name.
PAUL
M. ANGLE, Librarian,
Illinois State Historical Library.
Painting
by Ransom
Year published—1938
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No photo of original available.
If you have any information on the original please email me at k_tuason@hotmail.com or
call me at 765-342-4850 |
Fletcher Ransom
Oil Painting
Abraham
Lincoln
at New Salem,
Illinois
Late
in July, 1831, Abraham Lincoln, twenty-two years old, uneducated,
penniless, settled at New Salem, a small pioneer village twenty miles
northwest of Springfield. There he lived until the spring of 1837,
supporting himself by a variety of occupations—storekeeper, soldier of
the Black Hawk War, postmaster and surveyor. There, in a community which
never had a hundred inhabitants, he successfully sought election to the
legislature and prepared himself for admission to the bar.
After
flourishing for a few years the village of New Salem disintegrated. On its
site, now a state park, several of the log cabins in which its citizens
lived have been reconstructed, but only one of the original buildings is
still standing. That is the cooper shop of Henry Onstot, located at the
western limit of the village.
Henry Onstot made casks and barrels. In the process shavings accumulate, and
shavings make a fire by which a man hungry for the printed page can read.
Such a man was Abraham Lincoln during his residence at New
Salem.
He studied grammar so that he might write and speak correctly; to earn a
living from day to day he learned surveying; to prepare himself for the
future he studied law. And, since he worked with an intensity which made
the hours of daylight all too short, there were many nights when he lay
prone before the fire in the cooper shop, deriving knowledge from the book
before him and unconsciously learning the even more important lesson of
self-reliance.
Outwardly
the Onstot cooper shop is only a relic of a dead village, but in a deeper
sense it is the symbol of a man’s successful effort to overcome the
handicaps of poverty and ignorance.
PAUL
M. ANGLE, Librarian,
Illinois State Historical Library.
Painting
by Ransom
Year published—1932
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If you have any information on the original please email me at k_tuason@hotmail.com or
call me at 765-342-4850 |
Lincoln,
the Rail Splitter
Also a
color copy of calendar at Calendar art of the 1940's.
In
the spring of 1860 the Republicans of Illinois were meeting at Decatur.
Suddenly, on the floor of the convention,
an old man appeared with two
fence rails which supported a banner inscribed: “Abraham Lincoln— the
Rail Candidate for President in 1860.” Then and there, amid wild cheers,
Lincoln became the “Rail-Splitter.” Throughout the campaign, and long afterward, the sobriquet clung to him.
Nor was it inappropriate. As a youth in Indiana and Illinois Lincoln had
split rails, Thousands of them, and his great strength made him unusually
proficient at the task. Even at New Salem, where he lived from 1831 to
1837, he occasionally “hired out” as a farm laborer and engaged in
this commonest of frontier occupations. Thus the artist has pictured him,
swinging his maul on the banks of the winding Sangamon in the cool dawn of
a summer day. Doubtless he was grateful for the end of the day, and
certainly he had no suspicion that the task at which he worked would one
day furnish a meaningful symbol to millions of his fellow citizens.
PAUL
M. ANGLE, Librarian,
Illinois State Historical Library.
Painting
by Ransom
Year published—1936
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