Former
8th Judicial Circuit sites receive Lincoln Portrait for the
Bicentennial
Send a link to a friend
[October 29, 2017]
LINCOLN
- Before Abraham Lincoln became the most revered President in
American history, he rode the 8th Judicial Circuit as a lawyer and
sometimes as a sitting judge, arguing for rich and poor clients and
helping serve the cause of justice in the early years of the Prairie
State.
|
Unlike the Lincoln of the Civil War years, the
circuit-riding Lincoln was beardless. After he received the
Republican nomination for President in May 1860, Lincoln was
photographed on June 3, 1860, by renowned Chicago photographer
Alexander Hesler at a sitting in what is now the Old State Capitol
in Springfield.
That photograph, one of the most iconic of the pre-presidential
candidate Lincoln, now becomes part of the Illinois State Historical
Society's Illinois bicentennial celebration as five 30-inch by
40-inch framed canvas portraits were presented to the Logan, McLean,
Woodford, Livingston, and Ford County Courthouses, all of which are
in the original 8th Judicial Circuit and now in the 11th Judicial
Circuit. The Lincoln canvases are a gift from the Jerome Mirza
Foundation, a Bloomington not-for-profit organization founded by the
late Jerome Mirza, a Bloomington- and Chicago-based lawyer and past
president of both the Illinois State Bar Association and the
Illinois Trial Lawyers Association. He passed away in 2007.
The five framed Lincoln canvases, each inscribed with a donor plate
acknowledging the gift of the Mirza Foundation and the Illinois
State Historical Society (ISHS, established in 1899), are part of a
larger effort by the ISHS to place a Hesler Lincoln photograph in
every courthouse in the state for the 2018 Illinois bicentennial. To
date more than 20 portraits have been hung in Illinois courthouses,
many sponsored by individuals and anonymous donors. The Mirza
Foundation gift is the largest to date.
[to top of second column] |
![](../images/ads/current/castlemanor_sda_FINANCIAL_2017.png)
![](../images/102617pics/Portrait%20Pic%201_small.jpg)
Presenting the Lincoln Hesler canvases were Bloomington lawyer
and author Guy Fraker (Lincoln's Ladder to the Presidency: The 8'" Judicial
Circuit, 2012); Judge Thomas Harris, a Justice of the Fourth Judicial Appellate
Court; and William Furry, Executive Director of the Illinois State Historical
Society. Accepting the donation in Logan County was Logan County State’s
Attorney Jonathan Wright.
[Text from Illinois State Historical
Society via Jonathan C. Wright
Logan County State’s Attorney]
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2017/Oct/26/images/ads/current/cca_laptop-sda021709.png) |