The Metamora Courthouse, dating from 1845, retains the atmosphere of those rugged days when Lincoln and his colleagues came here to plead for justice before the bar.
At Metamora, Lincoln sat at this table. The “skirt” was cut away to accommodate his long legs.
The well-worn courthouse doorstep is evidence of one court room visitor’s observations: “Court week is a general holiday. Not only suitors, jurors and witnesses, but all who can spare the time brush up their coats and brush down their horses to go to court.”
An atmosphere of exultation pervaded the Metamora courtroom when Lincoln was present. He was the most popular of all the barristers who traveled the Eighth Circuit.
The Old Cass County Courthouse in Beadstown, Illinois, was the scene of the “Duff” Armstrong murder trial in which Lincoln defended the son of “Aunt Hanna” Armstrong, who had befriended him when he lived in New Salem. During the trial Lincoln proved, by referring to an almanac, that the moon was not shining brightly at the time of the murder. It is said that tears stood in Lincoln’s eyes as he pleaded for the boy’s life and that the hardened pioneer jurymen wept with him. Young Armstrong was acquitted.