Packed courthouse for Mount Pulaski trial re-enactment

Courthouse can be seen on PBS Thursday at 7:30 p.m.

[February 10, 2009]  MOUNT PULASKI -- The "1854 Cast Iron Tombstone Trial" in which Abraham Lincoln and Judge David Davis participated was re-enacted Sunday for its ninth performance in a packed courtroom at Mount Pulaski. This is the very same courtroom that held the original 1854 trial.

For the performance, there was a cast of 11 actors and a five-person jury selected from the audience. Three women were in the jury box, something that was not allowed in those days, as all jury members had to be male, 21 years of age, a business merchant or property owner, white, and not presently or previously in trouble with the law in a serious way.

Following the jury’s verdict, the actual judgment rendered in 1854 was revealed.

Professional Lincoln impersonator Joe Woodward was making his second appearance. He is a stunning likeness to the beardless, younger Lincoln and delivers his lines beautifully. Woodard is the actor who performed in a PBS production that was taped last spring by WILL-TV.

The documentary is being aired several times in the coming weeks. Thursday at 7:30 p.m. is the next scheduled airing (first one was Monday evening). These airings have been picked up by the national PBS sydicate and will be shown by PBS affiliates throughout the country.

All of the court scenes of several central Illinois trials in which Lincoln participated were filmed at the Mount Pulaski Courthouse State Historic Site, but the courtroom was changed around to match the courtrooms in other courthouses. Mount Pulaski served as the Logan County seat from 1848 to 1855.

A few local Mount Pulaski townspeople and several Mount Pulaski high school students are extras in the program.

The documentary tells the story of some of the cases Abraham Lincoln tried and people he met during this critical period of his life.

"That's where he really got a sense of the various kinds of problems people faced," said historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. "I think it was the root of his political education."

Abraham Lincoln rode on horseback approximately 450 miles throughout 14 counties during each spring and fall session of the old Illinois 8th Judicial Circuit. He accompanied Judge David Davis, who became a very close friend and was his campaign manager in the Chicago Wigwam Convention of 1860. Lincoln appointed Davis to the United States Supreme Court in 1862.

A second cast iron tombstone trial was held in the Logan County seat of Lincoln in 1857. Unfortunately, that courthouse burned to the ground late in the same year. But, since the verdicts of both tombstone trials were appealed to the Illinois State Supreme Court, information about the trials is available.

Interestingly, the Illinois State Supreme Court did not hand down its verdicts on the two appeals until 1864, when President Lincoln was immersed in the tribulations of the great war between the states. It is on record that his Springfield law partner, William Herndon, wrote a letter to the president about the appeal verdicts. It is not on record whether or not Lincoln had the time to read this letter and reflect on those two trials held less than 10 years previously in the towns of Mount Pulaski and Lincoln.

[Text from file received from Phil Bertoni]