They Saw Lincoln Too

Over the last 15 years, I've done a lot of blog posts on President Abraham Lincoln with a Lorain County connection. 

On this post, we met a Wellington man who owned an 1860 Presidential Campaign Medal from Lincoln's bid for the highest office in the land; and this post featured a Lorainite who compiled a reference book of Lincoln's speeches, letters and papers. And yesterday's post was about a Lorain woman with a land grant document that Lincoln signed that she was putting up for sale.

But more importantly, we also met folks who saw Lincoln – both alive and in death. This post explained how Mrs. Margaret Harvey of Lorain saw him twice – once when Lincoln was passing through Cleveland on the way to his inauguration, and again in that city after his assassination, when he was lying in state on Public Square. And this post included more reminisces by Mrs. Harvey, as well as the story of John J. Gregory, an Amherst man who saw Lincoln speak in Columbus during his campaign for re-election. 

Well, you can add a few more Lorain Countians to this list of those who saw the Great Emancipator.

Here's the first one. The article below, which ran in the Lorain Journal on February 13, 1929, under the heading, "News of Lorain-co and the Vicinity," tells of Arthur E. Smith, a Wellington man who, like Mrs. Harvey, also saw the President on the way to his inauguration.

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SAW LINCOLN

Arthur E. Smith, one of Wellington's life-long citizens, is one of the few Lorain-co people who saw Abraham Lincoln.

It will be exactly 68 years ago this Friday that old Dr. Smith, honored and respected family physician, took his son, then aged 7 years, to the Union depot, Cleveland, to see Abraham Lincoln, en route to his inauguration at Washington.

Smith can plainly remember how his Dad perched him upon his shoulder as the train came in from the west, and how his father told him to "watch for the tall man as he came from the train."

Smith was very deeply impressed when he saw Lincoln as he was greeted by the reception committee.

When asked how Lincoln looked, Smith replied, "Just like this pictures."

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This next story has an interesting angle. It ran in the "As Is" column written by Carrie Lee MacPherson and appeared in the Lorain Journal on July 11, 1929. It's about Grandma Snyder of 1319 Sixth Street, and her thoughts as to whether or not Abraham Lincoln and his wife got along. Grandma Snyder sets the record straight with her own eyewitness account.

It's kind of cute and nice that Grandma Snyder took the opportunity to do her best to rebut the kind of unscrupulous gossip about Lincoln that was taking place at that time, and still goes on today.