Immediately after the lecture, Mr. Lincoln went to Exeter, N. H., to visit his son Robert, then at school there, and I sent him a check for $200. Mr. Tubbs informed me a few weeks ago that after the check was paid at the Park Bank he tore it up; but that he would give $200 for the check if it could be restored with the endorsement of “A. Lincoln,” as it was made payable to the order of Mr. Lincoln.
After the return of Mr. Lincoln to New York from the East, where he had made several speeches, he said to me, “I have seen what all the New York papers said about that thing of mine in the Cooper Institute, with the exception of the New York Evening Post, and I would like to know what Mr. Bryant thought of it;” and he then added, “It is worth a visit from Springfield, Illinois, to New York to make the acquaintance of such a man as William Cullen Bryant.” At Mr. Lincoln’s request, I sent him a copy of the Evening Post with a notice of his lecture.
On returning from Mr. Beecher’s Church, on Sunday, in company with Mr. Lincoln, as we were passing the post-office, I remarked to him, “Mr. Lincoln, I wish you would take particular notice of what a dark and dismal place we have here for a post-office, and I do it for this reason: I think your chance for being the next President is equal to that of any man in the country. When you are President will you recommend an appropriation of a million of dollars for a suitable location for a post-office in this city?” With a significant gesture Mr. Lincoln remarked, “I will make a note of that.”
On going up Broadway with Mr. Lincoln in the evening, from the Astor House, to hear the Rev. Dr. E. H. Chapin, he said to me, “When I was East several gentlemen made about the same remarks to me that you did to-day about the Presidency; they thought my chances were about equal to the best.”
James A. Briggs.
N.B.—The writers of Mr. Lincoln’s Biography have things considerably mixed about Mr. Lincoln going to the Five Points Mission School, at the Five Points, in New York, that he found his way there alone, etc., etc. Mr. Lincoln went there in the afternoon with his old friend Hiram Barney, Esq., and after Mr. B. had informed Mr. Barlow, the Superintendent, who the stranger with him was, Mr. Barlow requested Mr. Lincoln to speak to the children, which he did. I met Mr. Lincoln at Mr. Barney’s at tea, just after this pleasant, and to him strange, visit at the Five Points Mission School.
J. A. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Lamon, c. i. p. 1.
[2] Addressed to J. W. Fell, March, 1872.