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Whittling was a common pastime for men in an era where most men carried a pocketknife and life moved at a much more leisurely pace.  Lincoln was among those who practiced this quaint hobby; there are recollections of him whittling as he listened to political and religious speeches, as he observed courtroom proceedings, and as he sat talking with friends. 

A recently unearthed letter from one of Lincoln’s Springfield acquaintances provides a charming anecdote of the future President’s fondness for whittling.

W.T. Scherr arrived in Springfield in 1847 as a young clerk in James L. Lamb’s store.  In this capacity Scherr saw Lincoln many times over the years and remembered him as “a jovial, full of fun man, a heap of jokes,” and one who was always whittling: “In court while most lawyers made notes, he with his retentive memory did not seem necessary to use these, but if could get a nice pine stick, soon had a nice pile of shavings about him.”

It was a mindless, relaxing habit, one that Lincoln engaged in with any piece of wood handy.  Occasionally this got him into trouble.  Scherr recalled: “Our counters were fine cherry, narrow beaded strips.  [Lincoln] was over 6 feet and sometimes would (if no customers by) squat on one, his long legs hanging over.  One morning he did so, out came knife, in moment he’d chip’d into a bead but I stop’d him, ‘Oh! Mr Lincoln this is our fine counter.’ He hopped off quick.”

It wasn’t the only time Lincoln carelessly destroyed someone’s property with this penknife.  Scherr related the following story in his letter:

“We got most our goods from New York and Philadelphia in large pine cases, one especial style called W case, being of uniform size.  The lid made of two pieces, tongue and grooved.  At that early day the farmers had but few barns or grainary, we sold the boxes for grain at $1.25, same as cost in the East.  The morning referred to Mr. Lincoln came, one [box] stood on pavement in front of store.  We took off the lids carefully and only tacked them on, leaving a small crack.  [Lincoln] passed ‘time of day.’ ‘How goes it boys?’ throwing himself at length, hips and elbow, left side on the box.

“The crack was too enticing, out came his knife chip came off one side of lid.  I told the two fellow clerks, ‘keep still, let’s see what he’ll do.’ Slap went a chip off the other side.  He then told us some of his yarns, until he had a hole cut into which could almost put a good size baby head. 

“I then exclaimed, ‘Oh! Mr. Lincoln look what you’ve done to our box.’ 

“He seemed entirely oblivious as to what had done. ‘Boys what do you do with these boxes?’

“I told him.

“‘What you get for them?’

 “‘Oh we get $1.25.’

“‘Well it will make kindling won’t it?’

“’Certainly’

“’Well, charge it to me, send it up to my house.’

“’I guess we don’t do that.  We can get anyhow $1.00 and you have entertained us enough for the difference,’ I said.”[1]

Lincoln continued his habit of whittling the rest of his life.  He even had a penknife in his pocket the day he was shot.  One wonders if the Civil War hadn’t kept his hands literally and figuratively full, if some of the chairs and tables in the White House wouldn’t have borne evidence of his knife.

[1] W.T. Scherr to Elliott, 8 February 1912, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.

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Who doesn’t dream of finding another copy of the Gettysburg Address tucked in the pages of an old book at a flea market, or perhaps stumbling across Lincoln’s lost letters to his wife in a forgotten corner of a musty attic?   While it is reasonable to assume that all of Lincoln’s papers have been accounted for and there is nothing more to find, history suggests otherwise.  A tantalizing letter from Chauncey Black to David Davis written in 1870 raises the possibility that the Holy Grail of Lincoln studies – a journal kept by Lincoln during the Civil War – might exist, undiscovered.

Shortly after Lincoln’s death his law partner, William H. Herndon, started interviewing people who knew Lincoln.  He amassed a vast archive of letters and interview notes full of reminiscences of Lincoln with the intention of writing a biography of his dearly departed friend and mentor.  As Herndon described it: “I have spent…more than a thousand doll’s in getting the facts…I had advantages that no other man had or ever can have…Knew where to go – to whom to – what strings to pull, &c…the manuscripts are of incalculable value to any man who may wish to write a biography of Mr. Lincoln – no true biography can be written without them.”[1]

The biography was slow in coming, however.  Herndon’s fortunes took a turn for the worse after the Civil War and he found himself in dire financial straits.  Desperately in need of cash, he sold his precious manuscripts to another of Lincoln’s fellow lawyers, Ward Hill Lamon, for $2000.  Lamon also intended to publish a biography of Lincoln, and hired a man named Chauncey F. Black as his ghostwriter.

Black knew that David Davis was in possession of Lincoln’s personal papers, which had been packed up at the White House and shipped to Davis’s residence in Bloomington. (These papers now comprise the Robert Todd Lincoln collection at the Library of Congress).  Chauncey, no doubt relying on information provided to him by Lamon, wrote Davis asking for access to the papers.  In particular, he wanted access “to the Journal which Mr. Lincoln kept in sundry blank books during the whole, or at least the most critical part, of his administration.  Lamon thoroughly understands its character and value.  It is this which he most desires and which you have it in your power to furnish.”[2]

Needless to say, the implications of this letter to Lincoln scholarship are astounding.  Did Lincoln actually keep a journal during the Civil War?  Although he was an intensely private man and not known to keep a journal at any other point in his life, he did occasionally jot notes and lists down in blank books such as the one mentioned by Black.  It is entirely possible that he used such a journal as an outlet for the immense pressure placed on him by the Civil War.  Also, as historian Willard King pointed out, “Lamon’s assertion of its existence is entitled to weight – during Lincoln’s presidency no one but his family lived closer to the President than Lamon.”[3]

Davis, while unfamiliar with the journals in question, did not deny their existence.  He wrote to Black’s father: “the journal he speaks of is, doubtless, in the boxes, but I have no knowledge on the subject, for I did not superintend the packing of the boxes.”[4]

Lamon never put his hands on the journals, and neither has anyone else.  Their existence and location remains a mystery.  Did Lincoln actually keep such journals?  If so, what happened to them?  Were they lost in Washington D.C. during packing?  Where they lost somewhere in Bloomington while the papers were in the care of David Davis?  Did Robert Todd Lincoln remove and destroy them before giving his father’s papers to the Library of Congress?  The world may never know…but on the other hand, the world just might wake up one day to an exciting headline: “Lincoln’s Lost Journals Found.”

[1] William H. Herndon to David Davis, 20 February 1869, Davis Family Papers, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.

[2] Jeremiah S. Black to Davis Davis, 10 August 1870, Davis Papers, ALPL.  In Chauncey Black’s handwriting.

[3] Willard King, Lincoln’s Manager, David Davis  (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960), 275.

[4] David Davis to Jeremiah Black, 19 August 1870. Black papers.

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In the winter of 1849-1850 the town of Boston was rocked by the murder of one of its most prominent citizens.  Dr. George Parkman belonged to one of the city’s wealthiest families and was personally rumored to be worth in the neighborhood of half a million dollars.  He was one of Boston’s best-known moneylenders and could often be seen walking the streets as he collected his rents.

The last time anyone saw Parkman alive was on November 23, 1849.  At 1:45 that afternoon a witness observed Parkman, clad in a purple vest and top hat, walking into Harvard Medical College.  He never came out.

Parkman’s family grew increasingly anxious as the days passed without sign of him.  They contacted the police and printed up thousands of fliers asking for information about him.  Then, on November 30, the janitor at Harvard Medical College made a grisly discovery: the dismembered remains of a human body, which had been bricked up in a wall behind the privy in one of the college’s dissection vaults.  The police were summoned, and a partially burned male torso was discovered locked in a trunk.  The coroner, with help from Mrs. Parkman, identified the remains as those belonging to George Parkman.

The main suspect in the case was Dr. John Webster, a professor at Harvard Medical College.  Deeply in debt, Webster had borrowed several hundred dollars from Parkman, using a collection of minerals as collateral.  Still desperate for cash, Webster also borrowed $1200 from Robert G. Shaw (father of the man who would one day lead Massachusetts’ 54th Regiment during the Civil War), using the same set of minerals as collateral for that loan, too.  Parkman had been furious when he learned of the collateral double-dipping and had gone to Harvard Medical College to confront Webster about it the day he disappeared.  

Webster was indicted for murder on January 26, 1850.  His trial began on March 19 of that year.  Because both the accused and deceased were prominent men in Boston, and because of the gruesome nature of the crime, the trial was sensational and generated massive interest in Boston and around the nation.  Thanks to the new technology of telegraphy, news of the trial was carried in papers around the country.  The newspaper Lincoln took, Springfield’s Illinois Daily Journal, was one of them.  On March 23, 1850 the Journal noted “a despatch from Boston, dated 20th March says – Webster’s trial commenced yesterday.”[1] 

Over the next two weeks the Daily Journal gave periodic updates about the ghastly trial.  A dispatch from Boston of the 22nd summarized the testimony pertaining to the identification of Parkman’s remains.  On the 27th the paper reported that “everything looks dark for Dr. Webster this morning,” as all the evidence seemed to indicate that the doctor was guilty of “a crime too fiendish for devils.”[2] On April 1st the Daily Journal described the trial’s closing arguments, which Webster listened to as “the perspiration rolled from his forehead in large drops, though he did not lose control of himself.”[3] Finally, on April 2, news came from Boston that Webster was found guilty and sentenced to hang.[4] John Webster was executed on August 30, 1850.

Lincoln was Springfield throughout the course of the Webster trial and no doubt would have read about it in the Daily Journal.  He might have had a particular interest in the case as an attorney who occasionally defended accused murderers.  It is clear that the subject of the Webster murder trial was talked about in the Lincoln home, because Lincoln’s seven-year-old son Robert took a macabre interest in Webster’s hanging.  The day after Webster’s death, one of Lincoln’s friends, David Davis, wrote home to his wife: “Poor Dr. Webster was hung yesterday.  It is terrible for his family.  Lincoln says that his little boy has been counting the days, that Dr. Webster has to live & Thursday he said that Thursday was the last night he had to live.  Rather singular that the event should so mark itself…on a child of seven years.”[5]

Two days later Lincoln, and perhaps the precocious Robert, read the Daily Journal’s account of John Webster’s last day on earth: how he breakfasted on tea and bread before ascending the scaffold with firmness; how only thirty people were permitted into the jail yard, but hundreds more watched from windows and rooftops; how a prayer was read and the prisoner was escorted to the scaffold, and finally, how at 9:40 a.m. “the last duty was performed” and “Webster died without a struggle.”[6]

[1] Springfield Illinois Daily Journal, 23 March 1850.
[2] Ibid, Springfield Illinois Daily Journal, 27 March 1850. 
[3] Springfield Illinois Daily Journal, 1 April 1850.
[4] Springfield Illinois Daily Journal, 2 April 1850.
[5] David Davis to Sarah Davis, 31 August 1850, Davis Family Papers, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.
[6] Springfield Illinois Daily Journal, 2 September 1850.

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