Bald

Until I went through the inherited family photographs, looking specifically at hairlines, it never occurred to me how generously my ancestors had been supplied with hair. It turned white, often when they were quite young; it became wiry and (evidently) difficult to manage, but, for the most part, they had lots of it.

"Nances from Illinois" McCullough & Woldrige, Petersburg, IL

I wouldn't say the man on the left in this picture is bald; however, it does appear he is headed in that direction. And, of course, you note that he has a vague resemblance to someone else you've seen before, especially on a $5 bill. Hopefully, that is not why my great-grandmother, Dora, wrote "Nances from Illinois" on the back, and these really *are* Nances from Illinois. Because the Nance family did, indeed, have connections to Abraham Lincoln.

The gateleg table

One of the inherited antiques with which my brother and I grew up was a walnut gateleg table. It was an incredibly useful piece of furniture as well as being very pretty, but my favorite bit was the "secret" drawer. Like many such tables, there was a shallow but long drawer concealed by the leaves. It was our de facto storage spot for family keepsakes, mostly military insignia and medals, a few bits of good jewelry no one ever wore, and odd stamps and coins that someone guessed might be valuable (they weren't). I loved to pull the treasures out and examine them, of course. Once I took everything out, I could remove the very yellowed newspaper clipping that lined the space. It featured a long, sensationalized story purporting to describe the chaste but ardent romance alleged to have occurred between Abraham Lincoln and Ann Rutledge. The relationship ended when Ann died of typhoid in 1835, and the article -- as well as many later biographies -- claim that her death affected Lincoln profoundly for the remainder of his life. Other writers refute this completely, saying it was all made up after Lincoln's death by (variously) the owner of the cemetery that acquired Ann's body and created a tourist-attraction memorial for her, friends of Lincoln's who hated his wife and wished her harm, or by people who had known Ann and wanted to trade on reflected fame.

I hope my family wasn't among the latter. There was a handwritten note attached to the article that said "Ann Rutledge was related to Harriet Nance." But if anyone ever made a big deal over that relationship, it had died down long ago. My mother had also found it and read it when she was a girl, and didn't know any more than I did.

Research showed the note was correct; my great-great grandmother, Harriet Malinda Hornbuckle Nance, was the daughter of Tilman Hornbuckle and Nancy Officer Rutledge. Nancy's father, William Rutledge, and Ann's father, John James Rutledge, were brothers, making Nancy, born in 1812, and Ann, born in 1813, first cousins. Both girls were born in Kentucky and moved to Illinois with their families about 1820. Ann's father was one of the founders of New Salem, Illinois, in 1829, while Nancy's family settled in the same county, Sangamon, but closer to the town that would eventually become the county seat, Petersburg. By the time a 21-year-old Abraham Lincoln came to New Salem in 1831, Nancy Rutledge was married and had a baby boy. In 1834, 165 men cast votes in the county election for Sheriff, including several Nances, Hornbuckles and Rutledges. Abraham Lincoln was the election clerk. He stayed in New Salem until he won a seat in the General Assembly in 1837 and then moved to Springfield. He met and married Mary Ann Todd there in 1842. And, of course, five days after Lee surrendered on behalf of the Confederate Army, Lincoln was assassinated, on April 14, 1865.

I don't think there's much doubt that Lincoln knew Ann Rutledge; his arrival in town had to be very welcome and remarked upon -- an ambitious young man that wasn't close kin had to cause a buzz among the "spinsters" like Ann. I imagine Nancy's family was devastated by Ann's death, as well as the many others taken by typhoid during that horrible epidemic. In 1853, Nancy's husband, Tilman Hornbuckle bought land in Boone County in the brand new state of Iowa. In 1855, daughter Harriet married her beau, Lewis Nance, in Petersburg. Lewis' parents had migrated from Kentucky to Illinois along with the rest of the Sangamon County bunch, and Lewis' youngest brother had been named after the moderately famous neighbor who had gone on to serve four terms in the state legislature: Abraham Lincoln Nance. The next year, Tilman and Nancy and Harriet and Lewis all relocated to Iowa and began farming near the little town of Swede's Point.

In 1861, Civil War was declared. Harriet's brother, George Washington Hornbuckle, enlisted. He was 21 when he died during the Battle of Chattanooga.

From the US Adjutant General's Military Records Collection

The Hornbuckles, the Rutledges, the Nances were all staunch Union supporters. Part of the motivation for their move north from Kentucky had been a repudiation of slavery. I've no doubt that they believed fervently in Lincoln's actions.

And yet... the gawky young man who had lived next door, who had courted Nancy's cousin, and been given shelter among whomever had a bed or haymow to spare... the boy they had nurtured was now the President who asked for the life of their son. Was it harder than responding to an impersonal summons, having intimate knowledge of both the amazing gifts and inevitable foibles of the galvanic figure setting the nation's course? When they learned GW had been killed, did they publicly accept the necessity for such sacrifice while privately cursing someone who had been a friend?

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I wish I knew who the "Nances from Illinois" were in the picture. I suspect they were Lewis Nance's older brothers, contemporaries of Abraham Lincoln. But, while I expect they acknowledged that, yes, they had known Abraham Lincoln, I don' think they traded on that brush with greatness; they knew better than most that he was, after all, just a man.