"Mrs. Lincoln told me herself all the circumstances of her engagement to Mr. Lincoln, of his illness, and the breaking off of her engagement, of the renewal, and her marriage. So I say I do not believe one word of this dishonorable story about Mr. Lincoln."
LINCOLN'S MARRIAGE LICENSE AND MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE.—NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.
Photographed for MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE from the original, now on file in the county clerk's office, Springfield, Illinois. It has hitherto been commonly supposed that the original marriage license issued to Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd in 1842, with the officiating-minister's certificate of marriage attached to it, was one of the interesting documents in what was formerly the Keys Lincoln Memorial Collection. Nicolay and Hay reproduced it in their biography of Lincoln, and other publications have made it appear authentic. Messrs. Keys and Munson, who formed the collection in which the certificate was first exhibited, called it a duplicate, and Mr. William H. Lambert of Philadelphia, who owns it now, supposed, in buying it, that it was a duplicate. Mr. Lambert, however, in showing us the certificate, called attention to a suspicious circumstance connected with the license. The seal of the county court stamped upon it was dated "1849." It was difficult to reconcile this with the fact that the marriage occurred in 1842. The inconsistency was covered up in certain facsimiles which have been published, by a stroke of the pen; the date of the seal was changed to fit the date of the marriage. Mr. Lambert's suggestion led to an investigation for this Magazine. A search in the county clerk's office at Springfield brought to light the real and only "original" license, stowed away in a dusty pigeon-hole, untouched in thirty years. This is the license which is reproduced above. Beneath the license is the Rev. Charles Dresser's certificate of the marriage. The bogus document was made out on the blank form in use in the county clerk's office in 1865—a form quite different from that used in 1842. This form was not used prior to 1865, and never after February 3, 1866. So it seems most probable that the spurious license was procured soon after Mr. Lincoln's assassination. The handwriting is that of N.W. Matheny, then, as in 1842, the county clerk, a gentleman of high character, who no doubt furnished the copy for a perfectly proper purpose. It will be observed that the genuine license bears no seal. This is due to the fact that prior to 1849 the county court did not have a seal; indeed, before that year, such a tribunal as the "county court" was unknown to the judiciary system of the State. The certificate attached to the counterfeit license, of course, was not written by the Rev. Charles Dresser (for he was then dead), but, like the license itself, was made out by the county clerk.—J. McCan Davis.
Another prominent member in the same circle with Mr. Lincoln and Miss Todd is Mrs. B.T. Edwards, the widow of Judge Benjamin T. Edwards, and sister-in-law of Mr. Ninian Edwards, who had married Miss Todd's sister. She came to Springfield in 1839, and was intimately acquainted with Mr. Lincoln and Miss Todd, and knew, as well as another could know, their affairs. Mrs. Edwards is still living in Springfield, a woman of the most perfect refinement and trustworthiness. In answer to the question, "Is Mr. Herndon's description true?" she writes:
"I am impatient to tell you that all that he says about this wedding—the time for which was 'fixed for the first day of January'—is a fabrication. He has drawn largely upon his imagination in describing something which never took place.
"I know the engagement between Mr. Lincoln and Miss Todd was interrupted for a time, and it was rumored among her young friends that Mr. Edwards had rather opposed it. But I am sure there had been no 'time fixed' for any wedding; that is, no preparations had ever been made until the day that Mr. Lincoln met Mr. Edwards on the street and told him that he and Mary were going to be married that evening. Upon inquiry, Mr. Lincoln said they would be married in the Episcopal church, to which Mr. Edwards replied: 'No; Mary is my ward, and she must be married at my house.'
"If I remember rightly, the wedding guests were few, not more than thirty; and it seems to me all are gone now but Mrs. Wallace, Mrs. Levering, and myself, for it was not much more than a family gathering; only two or three of Mary Todd's young friends were present. The 'entertainment' was simple, but in beautiful taste; but the bride had neither veil nor flowers in her hair, with which to 'toy nervously.' There had been no elaborate trousseau for the bride of the future President of the United States, nor even a handsome wedding gown; nor was it a gay wedding."
Two sisters of Mrs. Lincoln's who are still living, Mrs. Wallace of Springfield, and Mrs. Helm of Elizabethstown, Kentucky, deny emphatically that any wedding was ever arranged between Mr. Lincoln and Miss Todd but the one which did take place. That the engagement was broken after a wedding had been talked of, they think possible; but Mr. Herndon's story, they deny emphatically.