A WAYSIDE WELL NEAR NEW SALEM, KNOWN AS “ANN RUTLEDGE’S WELL.”
He had told her what she had never even suspected before, that John McNeill was not his real name, but that it was John McNamar. Shortly before he came to New Salem, he explained, his father had suffered a disastrous failure in business. He was the oldest son; and in the hope of retrieving the lost fortune, he resolved to go West, expecting to return in a few years and share his riches with the rest of the family. Anticipating parental opposition, he ran away from home; and, being sure that he could never accumulate anything with so numerous a family to support, he endeavored to lose himself by a change of name. All this Ann had believed and not repeated; but now, worn out by waiting, she took her secret to her friends.
With few exceptions, they pronounced the story a fabrication and McNamar an impostor. Why had he worn this mask? His excuse seemed flimsy. At best, they declared, he was a mere adventurer; and was it not more probable that he was a fugitive from justice—a thief, a swindler, or a murderer? And who knew how many wives he might have? With all New Salem declaring John McNamar false, Ann Rutledge could hardly be blamed for imagining that he either was dead or that he had ceased to love her.
ANN’S ENGAGEMENT TO LINCOLN.
It was not until McNeill, or McNamar, had been gone many months, and gossip had become offensive, that Lincoln ventured to show his love for Ann, and then it was a long time before the girl would listen to his suit. Convinced at last, however, that her former lover had deserted her, she yielded to Lincoln’s wishes, and promised, in the spring of 1835, soon after Lincoln’s return from Vandalia, to become his wife. But Lincoln had nothing on which to support a family—indeed, he found it no trifling task to support himself. As for Ann, she was anxious to go to school another year. It was decided that in the autumn she should go with her brother to Jacksonville and spend the winter there in an academy. Lincoln was to devote himself to his law studies; and the next spring, when she returned from school and he was a member of the bar, they were to be married.
A happy spring and summer followed. New Salem took a cordial interest in the two lovers, and presaged a happy life for them; and all would undoubtedly have gone well if the young girl could have dismissed the haunting memory of her old lover. The possibility that she had wronged him; that he might reappear; that he loved her still, though she now loved another; that perhaps she had done wrong—a torturing conflict of memory, love, conscience, doubt, and morbidness lay like a shadow across her happiness, and wore upon her until she fell ill. Gradually her condition became hopeless; and Lincoln, who had been shut from her, was sent for. The lovers passed an hour alone in an anguished parting, and soon after, on August 25, 1835, Ann died.
LINCOLN IN 1858.
After a photograph owned by Mrs. Harriet Chapman of Charleston, Illinois. Mrs. Chapman is a granddaughter of Sarah Bush Lincoln, Lincoln’s step-mother. Her son, Mr. R. N. Chapman of Charleston, Illinois, writes us: “In 1858 Lincoln and Douglas had a series of joint debates in this State, and this city was one place of meeting. Mr. Lincoln’s step-mother was making her home with my father and mother at that time. Mr. Lincoln stopped at our house, and as he was going away my mother said to him: ‘Uncle Abe, I want a picture of you.’ He replied, ‘Well, Harriet, when I get home I will have one taken for you and send it to you.’ Soon after, mother received the photograph, which she still has, already framed, from Springfield, Illinois, with a letter from Mr. Lincoln, in which he said, ‘This is not a very good-looking picture, but it’s the best that could be produced from the poor subject.’ He also said that he had it taken solely for my mother. The photograph is still in its original frame, and I am sure is the most perfect and best picture of Lincoln in existence. We suppose it must have been taken in Springfield, Illinois.”
