focused on the immortal Railsplitter at Springfield. All the roads now led to his house. Painters, sculptors, photographers, correspondents arrived by every train. They made his picture, they modeled his bust, they beset him at every turn. He received and with patient grace welcomed the well-nigh interminable line of callers that daily thronged through the doorway of the plain two-story house on Eighth Street. He told them amusing stories and sent them away laughing; but although ordinarily frank and communicative he seemed to draw within his shell whenever the conversation turned on himself or his family history. The situation was more or less delicate, to say the least. Meanwhile word reached him from sources he deemed it unwise to ignore and he was made to realize that the time for reticence and evasion had passed; in other words, that he must take the public into his confidence and tell the whole story.

It was at this juncture that John L. Scripps, the editor of the "Chicago Press and Tribune," appeared upon the scene. He was the authorized biographer of the nominee of the Chicago Convention. Of the visit of Mr. Scripps to Springfield to begin his work it is unnecessary to go into details. It suffices to say that in due time the biography - a pamphlet of thirty-two pages - appeared and was widely distributed. "Lincoln seemed to be painfully impressed," wrote Scripps in a letter to Herndon, after Lincoln's death, which has been turned over to me, “with the extreme poverty of his early surroundings the utter absence of all romantic and heroic elements. He communicated some facts concerning his ancestry which he did not wish to have published and which I have never spoken of

THE JOHN L. SCRIPPS INCIDENT

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or alluded to before." To this man, therefore, Lincoln must have disclosed the facts he had been so persistently withholding from the public. But alas for us, what they were we shall probably never know, for, only a few months after Lincoln's death, the biographer to whom they were communicated himself died without revealing a word!

From Lincoln's halting and evasive demeanor, therefore, it soon became apparent that, somewhere in his ancestral line, there existed a lapse or hiatus or some equally embarrassing circumstance which he saw fit to withhold. The question naturally arose, Where and what was the trouble? We might still be in the dark and as far as ever from a solution of the difficulty but for the timely contribution of Herndon, who came nearer bearing the relation of confidant to Lincoln than any other man in Springfield outside of Joshua F. Speed. Herndon's testimony relates to a revelation made to him by Lincoln under the following circumstances:

"On the subject of his ancestry," writes Herndon, "I only remember one time when Mr. Lincoln referred to it. It was in the fifties when he and I were driving to court in Menard County. The suit we were discussing touched upon the subject of hereditary traits. During the ride he spoke of his mother, dwelling on her characteristics and mentioning or enumerating what qualities he believed he had inherited from her. Among other things I remember he said she was the illegitimate daughter of Lucy Hanks and a well-bred Virginia farmer or planter; he argued that from this last source came his power of analysis, his logic, his mental activity, his ambition, and all the qualities that distinguished him from the other members and descend

ants of the Hanks family. His theory was that, for certain reasons, illegitimate children are sometimes sturdier and brighter than those born in lawful wedlock; and in his case he believed that his better nature and finer qualities came from this unknown, broad-minded Virginian.1 The revelation - painful as it was called up the recollection of his mother, and, as the buggy jolted over the road, he added ruefully, 'God bless my mother; all that I am or ever expect to be I owe to her,' and lapsed into silence. Our interchange of ideas ceased and we rode on for some time without exchanging a word. Burying himself in thought and musing, no doubt, over the disclosure he had just made, he drew about himself a barrier which I feared to penetrate. His words and melancholy tone made a deep impression on me. It was an experience I can never forget. As we neared the town of Petersburg we were overtaken by an old man who entertained us with reminiscences of early days on the frontier. Lincoln was in turn reminded of several Indiana stories, and by the time we had reached the unpretentious court-house at our destination his sadness had passed away."

Fortunately for Herndon his narrative of what Lincoln told him — which may be the same thing Lincoln afterwards confided to John L. Scripps - does not lack for support; for, in its vital or material points, it is corroborated by the testimony of John and Dennis Hanks, the

1 Of course this theory of hereditary or transmitted traits was not original with Lincoln; but it was most impressively illustrated in the history of his own, or rather, the Hanks family. Reared in extreme poverty and denied all early advantages, he was nevertheless able, by virtue of his profound intellect and sheer native powers, to rise to the loftiest niche any American has thus far attained; but, of the seven other children born to Lucy Hanks after the birth of her daughter Nancy · who was Abraham's mother- and their descendants, not one has ever been heard from.

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two most competent of all the witnesses who have thus far attempted to enlighten us regarding the question of Lincoln's family descent. Their recollections, largely in their own handwriting, were recorded within a year after Lincoln's death, and, notwithstanding all that has been said and written on the subject since then, their testimony remains practically uncontradicted. According to Lincoln the two were cousins of each other and first cousins of his mother. Both were born in Kentucky - John, February 9, 1802, and Dennis, May 15, 1799; both died in Illinois; John, July 12, 1890, and Dennis, October 21, 1892.

Before proceeding further with their testimony, however, it will not be out of place to notice here the deductions of Mrs. Caroline Hanks Hitchcock, a lady in Cambridge, Massachusetts-descended from Benjamin Hanks, of Plymouth—who, in 1899, wrote and published a book entitled "Nancy Hanks- The True Story of Lincoln's Mother," containing an account of the author's researches into the early history of the Hanks family and preceded by an introduction by Miss Ida Tarbell. The purpose of the work, as stated, was to "clear the name of Nancy Hanks Lincoln," and great stress is laid on the will of Joseph Hanks executed January 9, 1793, in Nelson County, Kentucky, and found by the author during a visit to that State. In this will the testator, among other things, bequeaths to his daughter Nancy "one heifer yearling called Peidy," whereupon the author at once concludes that she has accomplished her mission, proclaiming that her discovery "settles the question of Nancy Hanks' parentage, showing that she had a father who recognized her in his

will with the same generosity that he did her brothers and sisters." Mrs. Hitchcock's motives are highly commendable and praiseworthy, but unfortunately for the accuracy of her deductions it happens that there were numerous Nancy Hankses in Kentucky in those days, and she fails to furnish the proof that the Nancy Hanks named by Joseph Hanks in his will was the same Nancy Hanks who was married to Thomas Lincoln. Two other facts tend to discredit her conclusion: Lincoln's mother was the daughter of Lucy Hanks, and the latter, we know, had a sister named Nancy. It will be observed that Joseph Hanks in his will makes no mention of a daughter Lucy and that his wife bore the name Nancy.

Dennis Hanks was the natural son of Charles Friend and Nancy Hanks. The latter after the birth of her son was married to Levi Hall and became the mother of several more children. Being as he himself states a "base-born" child, Dennis was not admitted to the Hall household, but was duly turned over to the sheltering care of his mother's sister Elizabeth, married to Thomas Sparrow. The latter were a childless couple and we are told cheerfully took the cast-off waif, caring for him as dutifully and affectionately as if he had been their own child. Nancy Hanks, the mother of Dennis Hanks, had a sister Lucy, who, in 1783, gave birth to a daughter, also called Nancy, to whom was reserved an illustrious maternity in the birth of her son Abraham Lincoln. Who the father of this last-named Nancy Hanks was no one, not even Mr. Lincoln himself, has thus far been able to tell; but we know that after her birth her mother, Lucy Hanks, was married to Henry Sparrow and became the mother of seven more