Ron Keller addresses the LCGHS, revealing Mysteries and Marvels at the Lincoln Heritage Museum

 

[September 21, 2023] 

The September 18 Logan County Genealogical and Historical Society meeting was held at the Lincoln Heritage Museum. Ron Keller, Director and Curator at the Lincoln Heritage Museum gave a presentation titled Marvels and Mysteries.

Before sharing his presentation, Keller gave an update on the museum. When Lincoln College closed in May 2022, Keller said the board of trustees committed themselves to keeping the museum open. He said they know the museum is very crucial to the Lincoln scholarship world, the community, and the economy of the community.

The museum is also important to national and international visitors. Every week, Keller said people from all over the world come to visit the Lincoln Heritage Museum. Just last week, he said there were visitors from the Netherlands, England, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and Spain. People from around 20 to 30 states visit too and Keller said they would not be stopping in Lincoln if it were not for the museum.

Keller is proud of what the museum has been and where it will go in the future. The college is funding the museum and Keller’s salary. He is hoping the museum will be able to stay open as long as possible.

Next, Keller discussed some items in the museum collection connected to Logan County. The collection is predominantly Abraham Lincoln related and there are a lot of unique Abraham Lincoln items.

What Keller wanted to focus on for his presentation was the Logan County history in the museum. Many were items Keller said some people may not know about.

If there was something that piqued people’s interest and they wanted to research it, Keller said to let him know. The vault in the museum is always open for people to come in and do research. The museum is a “laboratory” for people to learn more about history.

Among the many items in the museum Keller marvels, there are also “puzzles” or mysteries he wants to uncover. He is looking for people to fill in missing gaps in information needed and would love to have more volunteers.

The “show and tell” Keller did included a large map of Logan County from 1863 or 1864 during the Civil War. It has the business directory of Lincoln including some elected officials, so Keller went through Logan County records to find out who was in office at these periods. The map lists the towns and the plats of the town at the time. One person said LCGHS has a copy of this map.

When Sally Turner was Logan County Clerk and Recorder, Keller said she gave the museum some old county records. These records had been stored in the basement of the courthouse and Turner felt uncomfortable having these items stuffed in boxes in a damp, non-climate-controlled area.

In the years since the museum got the records, Keller said they have been catalogued. The records go all the way back to 1863 and include pay stubs and records for Logan County soldiers with lists of their names, dates and pay rates. If anyone wants to look up ancestors, Keller said they find their names in these records.

Other records included stray records of lost cattle, horses and sheep from 1870 to the 1890s. Keller said when a student did some research on stray records, the student wondered why so many animals were lost. Since people did not have vehicles, these animals were their mainstays. Keller said some people had to sue to get their animals back.

Polling and election records from the 1870s to 1890s are another collection the museum received. Keller said there are names attached to these records.

All the records are in hard copy and saved on a floppy disk. Unfortunately, Keller does not have a way to open a floppy disk. Keller hopes to enter them into digital records at some point.

One large document given to the museum by Joe and Sudle Mintjal is a Civil War Muster Roll for the 106th Illinois Infantry Company F for the period from February 28 to April 30,1863. This regiment fought in many battles including the Battle of Vicksburg. They were mustered out of service in July 1865 and discharged from Camp Butler, Illinois on July 24, 1865.

The oldest item Keller said the museum has is an 1822 ferry license for Erastus Wright to operate his ferry in Peoria. Wright was a Logan County resident and Keller believes he was the first teacher in the county.

One LCGHS member said Wright moved here from Connecticut in 1821. He taught on Elkhart Hill.

Road petitions from Salt Creek and other places provide a history of the first roads built in the county. Keller said one 1824 road petition relates to a road from Lincoln to Elkhart,

Keller said there are six boxes of an Ed Madigan collection. Madigan grew up in Lincoln and graduated from Lincoln Junior College before he started his own taxicab business.

Madigan served as a member of the Lincoln Board of Zoning Appeals from 1965 to 1969 and was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1967, serving in that role until 1973. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1972 and served nine terms. From 1991 to 1993, Madigan served as Secretary of Agriculture.

There are plaques, awards, photos, and other items in the Ed Madigan collection. Keller said no one here has done research on Madigan, so if anyone is looking for information on him, he could help.

Several records in the museum include Civil War letters. Keller said there are many letters from Joseph Ross, a medical surgeon who served during the Civil War. Following the Civil War, Ross moved to Logan County. In 1866, Ross helped organize Lincoln’s First Presbyterian Church and the county’s first Medical Society. In 1869, Ross was elected as a city alderman, serving several terms. He was later elected to the Illinois House of State Representatives.

Though Keller has never been able to find a photograph of Ross, he has contacted Illinois State Archivist Dave Jones. Jones thinks he may have a photo of Ross. Keller said Ross may go from mystery to marvel if he gets a photograph.

Through reading a book about medical surgeons, Keller discovered surgeons were the least likely to write letters because of the horrific and graphic things they dealt with. In addition, they were often too busy to write letters. Keller is fascinated by Ross’s letters, which do not talk about the weather or the battles or provide news from the front like many soldier’s letters do.

Some of Ross’s letters were read aloud by Keller. In these letters Ross chides his wife for not writing him often enough. For example, in one letter, Ross says “you say you have written seven times and I have received only five [letters].” Ross listed the dates he had written his wife and told her he would be better pleased if she would write “oftener.”

In another letter, Ross said some in his unit got letters every week. A letter Ross started with “my dear little wife” told her he envied her getting three or four letters a week from him. Meanwhile, Ross said he had to wait a whole month to get a letter from her. Ross tells his wife he is not scolding her but is begging her and entreating her to write “oftener.”

Because Ross was a medical surgeon during the war, he saw some horrible wounds. Keller finds the detail Ross went into a December 11, 1863, letter from Prairie Grove, Arkansas interesting.

In the letter, Ross said he does not like to see people butchered up, but when it is necessary to cut, he would rather do it than not. Ross does not want to give a long description of the horrid nature of wounds he has seen so as not to shock her sensibilities. However, Ross said he had seen wounds of every conceivable nature: legs shot off, faces shot off and bodies disemboweled. Ross had seen more dead than he had ever seen in his life.

A July 4,1863, letter Ross wrote about the Battle of Vicksburg showed he understood how important the battle was. Ross said his heart was full and he could scarcely talk about anything else. He felt it was one of the greatest fourth of July’s in the country and felt confident about his side’s victory.

After seeing the first regiment of “colored” troops he had ever seen in Memphis, Ross wrote to his wife that it looked odd but great to see their black faces peeking out in federal uniform. Ross said they presented a fine appearance and looked like real soldiers.

The site of those fellows armed for their families and country was evidence to Ross that “God is on our side.” In his letter dated June 11, 1863, Ross said these people still needed justice done to them in full. They had yet to be recognized and treated as human beings and brothers possessing the rights to personal and political freedom.

From reading the view Ross expressed in this letter, Keller found Ross to be very equalitarian. Ross viewed racism and slavery as an ugly sin the nation was guilty of, feeling the nation was suffering the punishments and vengeance of heaven as a result.

Because Keller is still researching Joseph Ross’s life, he is not sure if he practiced medicine in the county as someone asked. Someone else pointed out that since Ross started a medical society here, it seems likely he did practice medicine in the county.

Abraham Lincoln owned a “lot” of land on the square until the day he died. Keller said Lincoln acquired the land from Primm. After Lincoln died, the land was bequeathed to his family. Keller said the Logan County Treasurer John Jenkins received a letter from Judge David Davis asking that the taxes on the lot be removed on behalf of Lincoln’s family.

Davis was a Supreme Court Justice by that time, so Keller said he had a lot of pull. Jenkins wrote Judge Davis back and said the taxes would be forgiven and the Lincoln family had nothing to worry about.

A funeral train schedule for Abraham Lincoln is another part of the museum collection. This schedule lists all the places where the funeral train stopped including Atlanta, Lincoln, and other places in the area.

Several years ago, Lincoln College graduate David Shroyer gave the college glass negatives from local photographer Walter Tandy. Tandy was a photographer in the area from the 1870s to the early part of the 20th century. Some of the glass negatives are also at Lincoln Public Library.

Former Lincoln College student David Doolin has scanned all 130 glass negatives.

About one third of the negatives have been developed and blown up. Keller said he and others have been able to identify who or what is in some of them.

The fifteen photos Keller showed everyone included ones of the old Adams School, Jefferson School, Madison School, and the three sister’s houses. Other photos show Elkhart Bridge and the old power plant south of town.
Photos of people included local teacher Herbert Merry, an unidentified African American man, a man and boy, and several children. One has people in a horse drawn wagon with Lincoln College’s University Hall in the background.

A photo album Keller bought online has photos of the first Lincoln College President Anzo Freeman taken at Albert’s Studio. The album also contains photos of many other people and the Lizzie Freeman house. Keller would like to find out where that house is.

When someone asked Keller about the album, he said he bought the album because it had once belonged to Freeman.

Writings in the museum collection now include two poems by James Hart, a student or protégé of Judge Lawrence Stringer. Keller handed out copies of these long poems. One is titled “Lincoln’s Last Journey” and talks about Lincoln’s body travelling to its burial site in Springfield. The other one is “Lincoln’s Own Town,” which Keller said is about Lincoln, Illinois.

Most of the items Keller said the museum has are from Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War era. To find out more about the history of the county, Keller said people should visit the Logan County Genealogical Society building on North Chicago Street. As Keller said, both the museum and the historical society have a story to tell.

The Lincoln Heritage Museum hours are Tuesdays through Fridays from 9-4 and Saturdays from 1 to 4. Keller said admission is one dollar.

After Keller’s presentation, he left several items out for people to look at more closely.

The next Logan County Genealogical and Historical Society meeting will be Monday, October 18 at 6:30 p.m. at their building at 114 N. Chicago Street. LCGHS president Bill Donath will be on the 1883 Zora Burns murder, which happened in Lincoln.

[Angela Reiners]