“Subscribed and sworn to before me, this March 20, A.D. 1882. N. C. Butler, Clerk United States Circuit Court, First District, Indiana. By J. W. Wartmann, Deputy Clerk.”
This affidavit attracted wide attention, and the “New York Christian Advocate,” the leading organ of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in its issue of April 13, 1882, raised several pertinent questions:
1. Was Christopher Columbus Graham, at ninety-eight years of age, in full possession of his faculties?
2. Why had he not given his precious information before to the public?
3. Was there a Methodist preacher named Jesse Head?
These questions called out a large number of answers. The Rev. William M. Grubbs, of the Southwest Indiana Conference, stationed at Castleton, Marion County, in answer to the editor’s first point gave a brief history of Dr. Graham, and explained why he “should never have been heard of before as the possessor of this precious information”:
“The Doctor himself was a man of more than ordinary intelligence, almost a Chesterfield in manners, and a leader for years of the Whig party—a great friend of Henry Clay—and unless he has greatly degenerated, he is now, at ninety-eight years, a good specimen of ‘the fine old Kentucky gentleman.’ Additional to the fact that he has been quite deaf for many years, he is a great lover of nature in its varied forms. As an evidence of this, at the time I was their guest, in 1855, he had been absent six months in the mountains of Kentucky, pursuing his favorite studies in natural history, geology, etc. Thus, though on good terms with his family, his habits became those of the student and the recluse. The family told us pleasantly that such was his passion for nature in its wildest forms that they did not know when he would think of paying them a visit. The last time I saw him was in Louisville, Kentucky, arranging his large cabinet of natural history, geology, etc., for the Library Association of that city, to which he had sold the same for quite a large sum. Since the death of his wife and the marriage of his daughters, I think he has had no settled home—something of a rover—with ample means and friends everywhere. It is not, therefore, surprising that his habits of indifference to passing events and themes kept him ignorant of the mooted point that he sets to rest by his late statement.”
The Rev. John R. Eads, pastor of the Danville, Kentucky, Methodist Episcopal Church, wrote of Dr. Graham: “I have never heard his veracity or his integrity questioned.” Of Jesse Head he said: “He is remembered by some of the old people of this community.” He added:
“You seem surprised that the testimony of Dr. Graham to the ‘precious information’ which he communicates should not have been procured earlier. I frankly confess that, while I am a native of central Kentucky, and have spent most of my life here, I never heard before, so far as I can now remember, a question raised as to the legal marriage of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks. Thinking this might be exceptional in my case, I have taken the pains to-day to ask others if they ever heard such a question raised, and they tell me they have not. I feel quite sure that there must be very few people in central Kentucky who ever heard of a doubt expressed concerning the legal marriage of Thomas Lincoln.”
Letters were received from the Rev. R. T. Stephenson of Shelbyville, Kentucky, and others, supplying information as to who the Rev. Jesse Head was and what were his relations to the Methodist Episcopal Church. The facts, however, are all given in condensed shape in the following: