[iv-55] Works, ii, 96.
[iv-56] This deed may be found in Coles County Deed Records, G, p. 5. Of the same date, October 25, 1841, entered in Mortgage Record, i, p. 43, is an instrument whereby Abraham Lincoln binds himself and his heirs to convey the property to John D. Johnston or his heirs, after the death of the parents, upon repayment of the two hundred dollars, without interest and without regard to any increase in the value of the tract.
[iv-57] For further light on these matters the reader is referred to the letters from Lincoln to Johnston in Works, ii, 135, 144-46, 147-53; and to the deed published in Gridley, 145-46.
[iv-58] Lincoln’s ownership of this land, in the town named for him, is further evidence of his ready amiability toward friends, where monetary matters were concerned. The lot, situated on the south side of the court-house square, had belonged to James Primm, a well-known court official and public man of Logan County. Finding himself in financial difficulties, he had borrowed four hundred dollars on his promise to pay, which Lincoln obligingly endorsed. But when the time for payment arrived, the maker of the note was unable to meet it, so the endorser had found himself obliged to pay. Lincoln did so, and some time later Primm, by way of reimbursement, had given him a deed of the lot. (See Stringer, i, 221-22.)
[iv-59] E. J. Edwards, in New York Times, January 24, 1909. For other accounts see: Raymond, 100; Browne, 314-15; Curtis’s Lincoln, 45; Ward, 281; Thayer, 313-14; Lincolnics, 93-94. As having a further bearing on the question of Lincoln’s estate in 1860, these references may be serviceable: Works, vi, 31; Arnold, 83, 154-55; Whitney, 26; Herndon, i, 91-92; Oldroyd, 32; Lamon, 472; Lamon’s Recollections, 20; Holland, 127; Hobson, 100-04; Browne, 200-01; Rice, 587; Curtis’s Lincoln, 74; McClure’s Magazine, March, 1909, pp. 514-15; New York Times, October 1, 1911, p. 10.
CHAPTER V
[v-1] Lamon, 126; Works, xi, 97; see, also, the Autobiography, in Works, vi, 31.
[v-2] Works, vi, 31.
[v-3] Address to the People of Sangamon County, March 9, 1832, in Works, i, 8.