[June 11, 2014]SPRINGFIELD - A backwoods cabin,
a combination of teacher, preacher and farmer, and a room full of
poor, virtually illiterate children. That was the scene nearly 200
years ago when a teacher named Caleb Hazel encountered a student
named Abraham Lincoln.
Now Hazel’s slate, one that may very well have been used by
Lincoln in that Kentucky classroom, has been donated to the Abraham
Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.
The slate was donated by Hazel’s descendants: cousins Cathy Bowers
Dixon; Marcia Lynn Tenney; Richard Douglas Byers; and Sue Ellen
Sparks, in memory of their grandfather Erma Maurice Bowers. Hazel’s
son was also a teacher and kept his father’s slate. Once Lincoln
became famous, the family held onto the slate generation after
generation.
The slate is 16 inches tall by 12 inches wide – larger than a
standard computer screen. The wood frame has a hole so the slate
could be hung on the cabin wall. Hazel likely used it to explain
lessons to the whole class and then let each student come up to
practice their writing or arithmetic.
The slate will be displayed in the museum’s Treasures Gallery." The
display will also include a page covered with teenaged Lincoln's
math practice, the earliest surviving writing from the future
president, and a quill pen from his White House years.
“The descendants of Caleb Hazel have done a tremendous service by
donating this slate so that everyone can see and learn from it,”
said Amy Martin, director of the Illinois Historic Preservation
Agency. “The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum has
benefited greatly from the generosity of people who want to share
their Lincoln artifacts with the world.”
Lincoln listed Hazel as the second of his five teachers when
he wrote a brief autobiographical sketch in 1860. Lincoln was 7
years old when his parents scraped together a little money to
send him and his sister, 9-year-old Sarah, to school after the
1816 harvest.
“As much as we prize Lincoln for his leadership in saving the
Union and ending slavery, we greatly admire him as a writer. He
was also very good with numbers, and here is the earliest
surviving item to illustrate his boyhood beginnings at both of
those skills. Lincoln proved that any kid could start small and
become expert, maybe end in greatness,” said Dr. James
Cornelius, curator of the presidential library’s Lincoln
Collection.
