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Lincoln's Plug Hat

Lincoln's Plug Hat image
Parent Issue
Day
16
Month
March
Year
1894
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

There are enough, of f anny incidents reported of Mr. Lincoln 's hat to make it "fabled in song and illumined in story." For example, it served as a football on the night of bis election to the presidency, when the ladies at the old homestead testified their glee over his good fortune. The scène would have done credit to the great game between Y ale and Princetonon Manhattan field. This is the story as told by an eyewitness: "A few of us ladies went over and helped Mrs. Lincoln prepare a littlesupper for the friends of Mr. Lincoln, who had been invited in tohear the returns. Every half hour or so we would pass around coffee and cakes. About 1 o'clock in themorningenoughhad been learned to warrant the belief that the rail splitter had been elected. I tbink it was wben we heard the news from New York. The men rushed on Mr. Lincolu and shook his hands, while some of the women actnally hugged him, and - -I might as well admit it- I kissed him. "Then some one went into the hall and took from the rack the old silk hat ■that he wore, and which was as long as a joint of stovepipe and about as shapely to my mind, and it was tnrown up to the ceiling. As it carne down some one gaye it a kick, and then the women joined in the fun, and we played football with-that hat until itwasan indistinguishable mass. We were simply yond control. What a ridiculous scène it would have been to one looking in -without knowing what prompted it! ■'It was all the more so, so f ar as I was concerned, for originally I had been a Seward wouaan. While the convention was in session in Chicago we were waiting to hear the news. It had been arranged in case Lincoln received the nomination to flre a cannon. Mynearst neighbor was a Mrs. Dubois, with whom I had several friendly spats dnring the campaign preceding the nomination. I heard the cannon shot, and the next moment I saw Mrs. Dnbois running across the street. She had been inaking a shirt for her husband, who was about the sizeof the late Judge David Davis, so you may have some idea of the size of the garment she was waving. She rushed into the house and ftaunted it in my face. It made me naad, and I sat down and began crying. The good woman put her arms around me, begged my pardon and kissed me, and from that time we were Lincoln women. She took part in the football match." As if not content with his 6 feet 4 or o inches of gaunt statnre, Lincoln had his now historie hat made fully a foot high, with a brim almost as big as a sonthern sombiero. It seemed to have been a combination of all styles then in existence, and in this respect it reflected his own early experience in having been a storekeeper, soldier, surveyor and íinally a solicitor. It was a veritable ■joint of stovepipe," and its remarkable and romantic brim made it alike serviceable in rain or shine. It inight have been called with propriety a "plug agly," after the name of the mob in Baltimore that threatened him in his jonrney to the capital. During Lincoln's great debate with Douglas the hat fairly loomed into space. The smallness of the latter's stature cansed him to be nicknamed "The Little Giant, " and when Lincoln stood beside him with his hat on the tliiïerence between the two seemed all bot immeasurable. Curiously enough, when Mr. Lincoln carne to be inangurated at Washington and took off his üat on the stand preparatory to making his inaugural address Douglas held the high hat so that no careless person ïnight put his foot in it. Representativo Springer, who hails from Lincoln's old home, knew the hat well, and inspeakingof itrecently said: "Mr. Lincoln's high hat was the most indispensable thing of his whole outfit. In it he carried all his valuable papers. In fact, it was a sort of file rack. Here weie all the briefs of his various law cases. Curionely enough, he carried the accounts in bis head, and that is why fae lost so mach money. Had he reversed the process and kept his accounts in his hat and the cases in his head, he would have been better off. His hat served for his satcbel on a journey, and all that was needed besides this were his saddlebags and his horse. It was large and capxcions, and a great many tlocuments and data could be crowded into it without seriously dii2omrncding the wearer." But Mr. Lincoln had still a better use for hiü valuable tile, which seema to have had more virtues than those rehearsed in the nursery tale of ' ' Jack and the Beanstalk." When he was postmaster at New Salein, his hat became a roost important part of his office equiptnent. As soon as the mail was received each day the young postmaster would pnt the letters in his hat and take a stroll through the village. The villagers knew that he was a peripatetic postoffice, and of course everybody was ansious to kcow the conteutsof theht, which seemed to promise as much to them as a hat in the hands of a sleight

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Subjects
Ann Arbor Argus
Old News