Wednesday, February 11, 2009 9:46 PM CST
Lincoln family scrapbook on sale today
By BILL LAIR, Managing Editor
blair@jg-tc.com
Family scrapbooks might have limited appeal, unless your name is Lincoln.
“Lincoln Scrapbook” is a 221-page book of news clippings and photos compiled by a Charleston woman who was the great-granddaughter of Sarah Bush Lincoln.
The original scrapbook was made by Harriet Dowling Dice of Charleston, who died in 1932.
She was the granddaughter of Dennis Hanks and Sarah Johnston Hanks.
Dennis Hanks was Abraham Lincoln’s cousin and his wife was the daughter of Lincoln’s stepmother.
According to Nancy Easter-Shick, survivors of Harriet Dowling Dice gave the scrapbook to Charleston attorney Bud Bower in the 1980s. He then passed on the scrapbook to Easter-Shick.
Her brother, Dan, and his wife operate Mudsill Marketing in Indiana. They have made copies of the scrapbook for sale.
The scrapbook was available at the Lincoln-Douglas Debate Reunion Tour last fall. Easter-Shick and her brother are in Springfield today selling the book at Lincoln’s 200th birthday event.
Numerous clippings are about Harriet Dowling Dice’s grandfather, Dennis Friend Hanks, who grew up in the same cabin with his cousin, Abraham Lincoln.
“I love the Dennis Hanks stories,” Easter-Shick said of her favorite parts of the scrapbook.
“He does exaggerate some but Dennis lived with Lincoln part of the time,” she said.
And Hanks had a funny story about going to Washington after the Charleston Riot in 1864 to ask Lincoln to release the Coles County men charged in the incident.
After entering the White House, Hanks was shown to the president’s office.
“I opened the door kinder soft, and at the other end of a big room sat Abe at an old desk worth about six bits. ‘Hey,’ I hollered, ‘you’re a pretty President, ain’t ye?’ He looked up and said, ‘Well, Dennis, is that you?’ and made a run and just gathered me.”
After Hanks explained the situation, Lincoln and Hanks went to see Edwin Stanton, secretary of war, to have the men released.
“(Stanton) didn’t want to let ‘em go; but Abe was kind and made him sign ‘em. When Stanton went out, I said: ‘Abe, if I was as big as you are, I would take Stanton over my knee and spank him.’”
Hanks and his wife lived above a shop on the west side of the Charleston square. He died on Sept. 22, 1892, in Paris.
Hanks was walking to a daughter’s home from the Edgar County Fairgrounds after attending the 30th anniversary of “Emancipation Day,” when he was knocked down by a horse-drawn wagon and died. He was 93.
“Dennis Hanks was something of a character, as were several in the family,” Easter-Shick said. “But Lincoln cared for them. They were his family.”
Dennis and Sarah Johnston Hanks are buried in Charleston’s Old City Cemetery.
Harriet Dowling Dice was born about 1857 in Charleston and died in 1932.
The scrapbook includes a photo of the “John Hall log cabin” at Goosenest Prairie, which is now Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site.
Other clippings include:
n The 1924 dedication of the monument to Thomas and Sarah Bush Lincoln at Shiloh Cemetery.
n A family lawsuit over the Lincoln log cabin land in 1918.
n A copy of a letter from Mary Todd Lincoln to Sarah Bush Lincoln in 1867.
n A copy of a photograph of Lincoln that apparently was taken in Charleston in 1858.
n A news article on Sarah Bush Lincoln in which she says of Lincoln: “I think the first time I saw Abe he was the ugliest chap that ever obstructed my view. But he was honest to the core.”
n Several articles on the state purchasing the Goosenest Prairie farmland where Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site now sits.
n The family giving to the Chicago Historical Society a cane Abraham Lincoln made for Sarah Bush Lincoln and a tri-square and compass Lincoln used to help his father build the log cabin home.
Contact Bill Lair at blair@jg-tc.com or 238-6865.
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