Pekin memories of Abraham Lincoln

By Jared L. Olar

Local History Program Coordinator

For this third in our series of Pekin Bicentennial Black History Month articles, we’ll highlight a selection of just a few of the many stories of Abraham Lincoln and his ties to Pekin. These stories span Lincoln’s life and career as a prairie lawyer and politician.

Lincoln’s broken oar (1832):

The first time Abraham Lincoln ever came to Tazewell County was in 1832. After the Black Hawk War during which Lincoln served in the Illinois Militia, Lincoln took a canoe down the Illinois River on his way back home to New Salem. As he neared Pekin, Lincoln’s oar broke, so he stopped his canoe on the riverbank at Pekin, carved himself a new oar, and then shared a hot meal with some of Pekin’s pioneer residents before resuming his trip down the river.

This drawing by the late Dale Kuntz depicts Abraham Lincoln’s first visit to Pekin in 1832, when his canoe oar broke here while on his way home to New Salem after serving in the Black Hawk War.

Bailey v. Cromwell (1841):

Pekin co-founder Nathan Cromwell was a land speculator who owned many lots in early Pekin. He died in St. Louis, Missouri, while on his way to Texas to start another land speculation scheme there. Cromwell is also known to history as the (purported) owner of an African-American indentured servant named Nance Legins-Costley (1813-1892). Cromwell purchased Nance in Springfield and brought her to Pekin in 1829. Nance, however, insisted that she was free because she had never given her consent to become an indentured servant as Illinois law required of all contracts of indentured servitude.

This lot was part of the estate of Pekin co-founder Nathan Cromwell (1784-1836), and Abraham Lincoln was retained as an attorney in the settlement of Cromwell’s estate. This detail from an 1877 aerial map of Pekin shows what this particular lot, on the south side of the 500 block of Court Street, looked like at that time.

Before leaving for St. Louis, Cromwell sold Nance to another early Pekin settler named David Bailey, who promised to pay Cromwell $376.48 for Nance. However, when he learned Nance insisted she was free, Bailey (of an abolitionist family), let Nance live as a free woman and declined to pay off the promissory note to the Cromwell Estate. The Cromwell Estate then sued Bailey in Tazewell County Circuit Court in the 1838-9 case of Cromwell & McNaghton v. Bailey. The firm of Stuart & Lincoln represented Bailey, and Lincoln presented clear evidence that there was no proof Nance was ever Cromwell’s indentured servant, but nevertheless the court ruled in favor of the Cromwell Estate and ordered Bailey to pay $431.97.

This drawing by the late Dale Kuntz depicts what Nance Legins-Costley of Pekin may have looked like during the course of the trials that confirmed that she and her children were free. Despite her insistence that she was no one’s slave, Pekin co-founder Nathan Cromwell brought Nance to Pekin in 1829 as an indentured servant, and in 1836 he purported to sell her to another Pekin co-founder, David Bailey, for a promissory note of $376.48. Bailey allowed Nance her rightful freedom and declined to pay the promissory note, which resulted in a Tazewell County lawsuit that provided Abraham Lincoln his first opportunity to grapple with legal questions related to slavery.

Bailey then appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court in the 1841 case of Bailey v. Cromwell & McNaghton. During arguments on 23 July 1841, Lincoln pointed out that the Chief Justice had no papers saying he was an indentured servant and therefore he was considered a free man; that several lawyers in the court had no indentured servitude papers and they were free men; and Nance had no such papers either, so the Court must rule that she is a free woman. Justice Sidney Breese therefore ruled that Nance and her three children Amanda, Eliza Jane, and William Henry were free. Thus, Nance and her children were the first African-American slaves to be freed through the direct help of Abraham Lincoln. (Her son William Henry Costley later served in the 29th U.S. Colored Troops in the Civil War, and was present in Galveston, Texas, at the first Juneteenth.)

The Pekin Agreement (1843):

Lincoln’s first political campaign was 28 years before he became president. In 1832, he was one of 13 men seeking a Sangamon County seat in the Illinois House of Representatives. Lincoln only garnered 657 votes, however, for his service in the Black Hawk War had limited his ability to campaign.

Two years later, Lincoln again sought the same seat in the Illinois House, coming in second and losing by only 14 votes. In that election, Lincoln ran as a member of the Whigs, a conservative party that was one of the predecessors of the Republican Party. Trying a third time for the same seat in 1836, Lincoln was victorious, defeating 16 other candidates (including four of his fellow Whigs). Lincoln was reelected to the Illinois House in 1838, but came in fifth in a very crowded field in 1840, losing to another member of the Whig Party.

Three years after that, Lincoln first began to set his sights on a national office, hoping to win his party’s nomination for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives for the 7th Congressional District of Illinois (which then encompassed the counties of Sangamon, Morgan, Scott, Cass, Menard, Tazewell, Logan, Putnam, Woodford, Marshall, and Mason).

It was Lincoln’s political ambitions in 1843, and those of two other prominent Illinois Whigs, that led to “the Pekin Agreement.” This was a pact arranged at the convention of the Illinois Whig Party, which was held in Pekin on 1 May 1843. At the Pekin convention, the Illinois Whigs were divided among the supporters of Lincoln, Gen. John J. Hardin, and Edward Dickinson “E. D.” Baker, each of whom hoped to be the candidate for the 7th Congressional District seat. For the sake of party unity, it was apparently agreed that the three men would serve only one two-year term in Congress. Hardin got their party’s nomination coming out of this convention, while Lincoln’s resolution was approved that Baker should be the party’s nominee in the 1844 Congressional election.

After Baker’s term, however, the Pekin Agreement collapsed. This is how the “Papers of Abraham Lincoln” database describes the agreement, how it fell apart, and the effect it had on Lincoln’s career in politics:

“At a Whig convention in Pekin in May 1843, an agreement was made between Lincoln, Edward D. Baker, and John J. Hardin that seemed to establish a one-term limit on the prospective Whig congressmen. Hardin and Baker having each served one term, Lincoln believed that the 1846 nomination should have been his. While Lincoln set out to solidify his support in the district, Hardin proposed that the convention system for the nomination be thrown out in favor of a primary election. Lincoln rejected Hardin’s proposal on January 19, 1846, and Hardin subsequently declined the nomination entirely.”

That paved the way for Lincoln’s election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1846. He served a single term in Congress, from 1847 to 1849. Five years later, Lincoln was elected to the Illinois House in 1854, but chose not to take his seat because by then he had his eyes on a seat in the U.S. Senate. But neither in 1854 nor in 1858 (the year of the famed Lincoln-Douglas debates) was Lincoln able to win a Senatorial seat.

In this detail from the front page of The Illinois Gazette of Lacon, 6 May 1843, are found the substance of ‘the Pekin Agreement’ that members of the Illinois Whig Party approved during their party convention in Pekin five days earlier.

Donor to First Baptist Church (1850):

Rev. Gilbert S. Bailey, a friend of Lincoln, organized First Baptist Church of Pekin in 1850 and initiated a building fund campaign. Bailey wrote to Lincoln asking if he would become a subscriber to the building fund. Lincoln’s religious views are hard to pin down (other than being generally Protestant Christian), but in any case Lincoln responded favorably to Bailey’s request, donating what was then a liberal sum of $10 toward the construction of the original First Baptist Church of Pekin, which was built at the southwest corner of Elizabeth and Fifth streets. The original church measured 32 ft. by 44 feet. That site is now the parking lot of the Pekin Township offices, and First Baptist Church is now located at 700 S. Capitol St. The church still has the original subscribers list, including Lincoln’s name, in its records.

A photograph of Old First Baptist Church of Pekin at the southwest corner of Elizabeth and Fifth streets. The original First Baptist Church was built at this site in 1850 and measured 32 ft. by 44 ft. Abraham Lincoln donated $10 toward the construction of the church.

Tazewell County Courthouse stories (1850s):

On a few occasions, Lincoln was called upon to serve temporarily as Acting State’s Attorney of Tazewell County, working as the county’s prosecutor instead of as a defense attorney. One such case was in 1853, when Thomas Delny raped a 7-year-old girl named Jane Ann Rupert, pointing a gun at her head to force her to comply. Just before this case was tried, the State’s Attorney had left on a vacation, so the presiding judge appointed Lincoln as Acting State’s Attorney. The jury found Delny guilty, and the judge sentenced him to 18 years in prison. However, after serving only six years of his sentence, Illinois Gov. William Henry Bissell pardoned Delny and set him free.

This old postcard shows the old Tazewell County Courthouse that served the county from 1850 to 1914, when it was razed to make way for the current, larger county courthouse that opened in 1916.

A humorous episode involving Lincoln occurred during the early days of the 1850 courthouse in Pekin: one day when court was in session, a bat got into the court room and disrupted court proceedings. First the witness testifying on the stand began watching the bat fly back and forth. Then the judge’s attention was diverted to the bat. Then everyone in the courthouse began watching the bat, and a lawyer even jumped up and, taking a bullwhip from his saddlebag, he began snapping his whip at the bat. Finally the judge asked the tall and lanky Lincoln to try to get the bat out of the courtroom. As the judge tried to resume court proceedings and laughter filled the courtroom, Lincoln first tried chasing the bat as he twirled his coat, using it like a net, but when that didn’t work, he grabbed a broomstick and flailed it about, chasing the bat around the courtroom until he finally managed to drive the bat out the window.

Another colorful tale from one of Lincoln’s visits to Pekin is recorded by Eugenia Jones-Hunt (1846-1947) in her book, “My Personal Recollections of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln.” Jones-Hunt includes a story from a man named Seth Thandler, who attended a Republican Party picnic on the Tazewell County Courthouse lawn around 1855. According to Thandler, Lincoln was there, along with Judge Lyman Trumbull (who later co-authored the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery in the U.S.) as well as abolitionist political leaders Isaac Newton Arnold and Rev. Owen Lovejoy. Thandler says that during the picnic, somehow his hat was placed in the coffee boiler — but everyone at the picnic seemed to enjoy the unusual “hat” flavored blend of coffee, for they all said the coffee that day was delicious.

Lincoln’s speech in Pekin (1858):

Joshua Wagenseller, a prominent Pekin merchant, was a leading member of the local Whig Party (later a Republican) and a good friend of Abraham Lincoln, who several times visited or stayed at the grand and beautiful Wagenseller house during his visits to Pekin. Lincoln is reported to have given at least one speech from the front porch of the Wagenseller house, which was located at a spot that is now the southwest intersection of Second Street and Broadway. Lincoln and William Kellogg, then a U.S. Congressman, visited Joshua Wagenseller’s home on 5 Oct. 1858 during the period of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Lincoln and Kellogg then gave speeches at the courthouse square — Lincoln in the afternoon (introduced by Judge Bush), Kellogg in the evening.

This 1896 photograph from the collection of Dan Toel shows the old Wagenseller home, formerly located at about the southwest corner of Broadway and present-day Second Street. Among those shown in the photo are members of the Toel and Wagenseller families.

Joshua Wagenseller’s house at the southwest corner of Broadway and “Market” is depicted in this detail of an 1877 aerial map of Pekin. The view looks in a southerly direction. At the western edge of the detail, marked “26,” are the old gas works. Across Main Street from the gas works are two small homes at the location of Jonathan Tharp’s 1824 log cabin, today the site of the former Franklin School. Wagenseller’s home is the grand edifice next to the two small homes.

Here is the account of the “Lincoln Rally” from The Tazewell Register, Thursday, Oct. 7, 1858:

Mr. Lincoln met with a very cordial reception from his friends on Tuesday [Oct. 5], and if they are satisfied with the demonstration, we see no reason why democrats should not be. The procession, numbering about one hundred teams, averaging six persons to a team — one third of whom however, were not voters — passed through the streets several times, and finally brought up at the court-house square, where Mr. Lincoln, accompanied by his abolition friend Webb and others, mounted the stand. T. J. Pickett gave the cue for “three cheers;” after which Judge Bush delivered an address of welcome suitable to the occasion. Mr. Lincoln spoke for about two hours, and then left for Peoria on his way to Galesburg, where he has a discussion today with Judge Douglas.

The crowd in town was easily estimated, and we think we are liberal enough allowing three thousand, including men, women, and children. Of course, besides the democrats, there was a large number of old line whigs present who have no idea of amalgamating with abolitionists, even to oblige Mr. Lincoln.

Trumbull was not here to take the place assigned in the bills, but Judge Kellogg was on hand, and spoke in the courthouse at night. We were not present, but understand he appeared as the peculiar advocate and representative of Lyman Trumbull, and repeated the charges for which Judge Douglas had branded Trumbull as “an infamous falsifier.”

We have conversed with a number of democrats who were in town on Tuesday and Saturday, and they assure us that the two meetings demonstrate beyond a doubt that the county is sure to go for Douglas.

And here is the account of Lincoln’s speech from the Peoria Transcript, Tuesday, 5 Oct. 1858:

Mr. Lincoln was welcomed to Tazewell county and introduced to the audience by Judge Bush [John M. Bush, probate judge in Pekin] in a short and eloquently delivered speech, and when he came forward, was greeted with hearty applause. He commenced by alluding to the many years in which he had been intimately acquainted with most of the citizens of old Tazewell county, and expressed the pleasure which it gave him to see so many of them present. He then alluded to the fact that Judge Douglas, in a speech to them on Saturday, had, as he was credibly informed, made a variety of extraordinary statements concerning him. He had known Judge Douglas for twenty-five years, and was not now to be astonished by any statement which he might make, no matter what it might be. He was surprised, however, that his old political enemy but personal friend, Mr. John Haynes [sic – James Haines] — a gentleman whom he had always respected as a person of honor and veracity—should have made such statements about him as he was said to have made in a speech introducing Mr. Douglas to a Tazewell audience only three days before. He then rehearsed those statements, the substance of which was that Mr. Lincoln, while a member of Congress, helped starve his brothers and friends in the Mexican war by voting against the bills appropriating to them money, provisions and medical attendance. He was grieved and astonished that a man whom he had heretofore respected so highly, should have been guilty of such false statements, and he hoped Mr. Haynes was present that he might hear his denial of them. He was not a member of Congress he said, until after the return of Mr. Haynes’ brothers and friends from the Mexican war to their Tazewell county homes—was not a member of Congress until after the war had practically closed. He then went into a detailed statement of his election to Congress, and of the votes he gave, while a member of that body, having any connection with the Mexican war. He showed that upon all occasions he voted for the supply bills for the army, and appealed to the official record for a confirmation of his statement.

Mr. Lincoln then proceeded to notice, successively, the charges made against him by Douglas in relation to the Illinois Central Railroad, in relation to an attempt to Abolitionize the Whig party and in relation to negro equality.

After finishing his allusions to the special charges brought against him by his antagonist, Mr. Lincoln branched out into one of the most powerful and telling speeches he has made during the campaign. It was the most forcible argument against Mr. Douglas’ Democracy, and the best vindication of and eloquent plea for Republicanism, that we ever listened to from any man.

Seth Kinman and his chairs (1865):

One of Pekin’s early hotels was the Eagle Hotel, located on the south side of Court Street at the intersection of Front Street (now within Pekin Riverfront Park). Pekin’s pioneer historian William H. Bates confusingly claimed Tazewell House/Bemis House was later located on the same site, but Tazewell House was on the north side of Court Street, across the street from where the Eagle had previously been. The Eagle Hotel first opened its doors in 1848, and it was owned and operated by a Tazewell County pioneer named Seth Kinman (1815-1888), who later headed out West and became a renowned mountain man and hunter in California.

This photograph card showing California mountain man Seth Kinman was preserved in the 1914 Tazewell County Courthouse cornerstone time capsule. IMAGE COURTESY OF TAZEWELL COUNTY COURTS ADMINISTRATOR COURTNEY EETEN

Abraham Lincoln is not known to have stayed at the Eagle during his visits to Pekin, but more usually stayed at Tazewell House across the street. Nevertheless, Seth Kinman was a friend and great admirer of Lincoln. On 26 Nov. 1864 during a visit to the White House, Kinman presented the president with a unique chair that he had made out of elk horn and bear claws. He later gave a similar chair to President Andrew Johnson. As sharp as the antlers and claws were, Lincoln and Johnson probably would have had to take special care if they’d ever tried to sit in them. Presumably these unusual gifts were meant to be decorative only.

This photograph card showing an elk horn chair that Seth Kinman made and gave to President Abraham Lincoln was preserved in the 1914 Tazewell County Courthouse cornerstone time capsule. IMAGE COURTESY OF TAZEWELL COUNTY COURTS ADMINISTRATOR COURTNEY EETEN

The year after presenting the chair to Lincoln, Kinman returned to Washington, D.C. Kinman claimed to have been a witness to Lincoln’s assassination at The Ford Theatre, and newspaper reports on Lincoln’s funeral mention that Kinman walked in Lincoln’s funeral procession.

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Light and shadow: A review of Pekin’s African-American history and historiography

By Jared L. Olar

Local History Program Coordinator

As Pekin’s Bicentennial Year continues and we now find ourselves in Black History Month, it is fitting that we turn our attention now to Pekin’s African-American history. Compared to most other areas of our city’s history, this is an aspect of Pekin’s history that has been little researched and whose stories have been little told (which is why I have made it a point over the past five years or so to devote time to researching and writing about Pekin’s Black History here at “From the History Room”).

In fact, up till now the most extensive account of Pekin’s African-American history in the standard published works on Pekin’s history is that found in the 1974 Pekin Sesquicentennial volume. While the Sesquicentennial’s account is far from uninformative, the very nature of a celebratory commemorative historical volume dictates that its treatment of its topics will be more in the nature of a review or survey – and one that will tend to downplay or overlook aspects of history that are unpleasant, lamentable, scandalous, or matters of controversy or contention. Yet I also find it a regrettable omission that the Sesquicentennial’s author did not tell the story of Pekin’s Christian ministers, Rev. Lewis Andrew of First United Presbyterian Church and Rev. Larry Conrad of First Methodist Church, who with their Marquette Heights colleague Rev. David B. Jones answered the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call to clergy to come to Alabama in March 1965 in the struggle for civil rights for America’s blacks, as was reported in the Pekin Daily Times back then. However, the Sesquicentennial author did make sure to tell (on page 180) of Sen. Everett M. Dirksen’s crucial role in getting the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed.

On 20 March 1965, in the midst of the 1960s struggle for African-American civil rights, the front page of the Pekin Daily Times brought the news that two Pekin clergymen and one Marquette Heights clergyman had answered Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. call for Christian ministers to come to Selma, Alabama, to march for voting rights for African-Americans. The story of these three ministers will be told in full next week at “From the History Room.”

Sen. Everett M. Dirksen of Pekin visits the Lincoln Memorial.

In this article, I do not hesitate to discuss some of these difficult or unpleasant matters, for I am of the opinion that Pekin’s story should be honestly told, including the brighter and delightful aspects as well as the darker and unpleasant episodes – if for no other reason than to illustrate just how very far Pekin has come from its darker days and how many positive changes have taken place since then.

Nance Legins-Costley

One of the strengths of the Sesquicentennial’s treatment of Pekin’s African-American history is its account of Nance Legins-Costley (1813-1892), whose story has been spotlighted many times in recent years and who, along with her son Pvt. William Henry Costley of the 29th U.S. Colored Infantry, is now rightly honored with historical markers and a downtown Pekin park named and dedicated in her honor. Nance Legins-Costley is one of Pekin’s most notable and historically significant pioneer settlers, and she was also Pekin’s first known black resident. Pekin’s earliest historical records show that Nance and her family were loved and honored by their community.

But prior to 1974, no standard published work on Pekin’s history had ever tried to tell her story – especially the story of the important court case that secured freedom for herself and her children. The Sesquicentennial tells Nance’s story on pages 5-6 and gives a very informative account of the 1838-39 Cromwell v. Bailey and 1841 Bailey v. Cromwell cases.

Unfortunately our knowledge of Nance and her family in the 1970s was incomplete, so the Sesquicentennial’s writer could not provide any information on Nance’s family or Nance’s final years and death in Peoria and burial in Moffatt Cemetery. It was only in 2019 that Nance’s date of death and place of burial were discovered by Debra Clendenen of Pekin and announced for the first time anywhere here at “From the History Room.” Even so, the Sesquicentennial’s account was a big step forward for Pekin’s African-American historiography, and helped give later researchers such as Carl Adams a place from which to start.

Nance Legins-Costley’s historical marker at Legins-Costley Park in downtown Pekin.

Lloyd J. Oliver’s marriage

After the story of Nance Legins-Costley, past Pekin historical works have often retold the story of the marriage of Lloyd J. Oliver of Pekin, an African-American hero of the Spanish-American War. The Sesquicentennial volume also retells this story on pages 154 and 175, though it repeats a mistake regarding Oliver’s Christian name, and the maiden name of his wife Cora, that dates back to Ben C. Allensworth’s 1905 “History of Tazewell County.” Allensworth misread Oliver’s first name as “Howard” instead of “Lloyd,” and misread his wife’s name as Cora “Hoy” instead of “Foy.” Despite that confusion of names, the marriage of Lloyd Oliver and Cora Foy is one of the best remembered events of Pekin’s African-American history, because the organizers of the 1902 Pekin Street Fair chose to honor Lloyd Oliver’s service to his country by making the marriage of this African-American war hero from Pekin a central event of the Street Fair, and thousands of people crowded downtown Pekin to witness the wedding and celebrate their union.

This photograph of African-American Spanish-American War soldiers was originally printed with the caption, “Some of our brave colored Boys who helped to free Cuba.” Lloyd J. Oliver of Pekin served in the Regular Army during the war, his regiment suffering great casualties in the capture of San Juan Hill. PHOTO COURTESY THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

The Ku Klux Klan in Pekin

The 1974 Sesquicentennial does not shy away from a discussion of the darkest and most shameful episode in Pekin’s history, when our city was home to the Ku Klux Klan’s Illinois regional headquarters. On page 83, the Sesquicentennial volume tells of the Klan’s control of the Pekin Daily Times in the early 1920s, reducing the city’s primary newspaper to a mouthpiece of racist, nativist, anti-immigrant, and anti-Catholic bigotry. According to the Sesquicentennial volume, the years when the Pekin Daily Times was owned and operated by three leading Klansmen were also years of careless mismanagement of the newspaper, for although the newspaper had produced bound volumes of its pre-1914 issues, “apparently those volumes disappeared during the Klan years.” As popular as the KKK in Pekin was in certain circles back then, there was also strong opposition and disgust, as indicated by the fact that the Pekin Daily Times then alienated so many of its subscribers that it almost went under.

Another reference to the KKK is found on page 106, in the tragic story of the deadly January 1924 Corn Products explosion. Describing the community’s rescue and relief efforts, the volume says, “Allegedly, the Pekin Ku Klux Klan was also on hand. Thirty-six of its members divided into three shifts to aid in the relief, providing food for the Salvation Army tent; trucks and drivers for transporting both men and materials; and aid to bereaved families in the form of food, fuel, and clothing.”

There was no “allegedly” about it – the Pekin Klan, which had dubbed itself “The All-American Club” – was then an established presence like the men’s clubs and community service groups that were popular at the time, and their members were also affected by the tragedy like everyone else in Pekin. The KKK was also known for ostentatious displays of public charity. The Sesquicentennial on page 109 also mentions that when fire destroyed the Hummer Saddlery on 1 Nov. 1924, the Pekin Klan “offered assistance, including the use of the ‘Klavern’ on First Street (the old Pekin Roller Mills Building).”

The Sesquicentennial on page 172 devotes two rather oddly-worded paragraphs to the subject of the KKK in Pekin, as follows:

“It would be misleading to state that the Ku Klux Klan did not exist in Pekin; in fact, it is fairly certain that Pekin was the headquarters for a Klan — to be precise, organization number 31 of the Realm of the Invisible Empire, whose Grand Titan, in 1924, was recorded as one O. W. Friedrich. Further, the Klan, for a time at least, had their Klavern located at the Old Pekin Roller Mills Plant. The group owned the Pekin Daily Times in the early ‘20’s, and its meetings, policies, and plans were front page news, and its ‘good works’ much praised.

“In all fairness, though, it should be pointed out that the Klan was one of the leading social organizations of the day, and many people belonged in order to participate in the group’s activities, much as one might today belong to some fraternal organization. There seems to have been a distinct inner circle, relatively small in number, and a larger, more social outer circle Much more could be said, but it would serve no real use in this type of publication.”

The choice of words – “It would be misleading,” “In all fairness” – bespeak the writer’s understandable discomfort and abashedness, even shame, regarding this aspect of Pekin’s history. Not only would it be “misleading” to state the KKK wasn’t in Pekin, it would be flat out false. And the apologetic paragraph, “In all fairness . . .,” tends to excuse the KKK’s members for the racism (a word that never appears in the Sesquicentennial) that was so prevalent in America in that era, and that was intrinsic to the Klan’s central aims. This account also must be faulted for failing to acknowledge the Pekin Klan’s hateful intimidation of blacks, Jews, and recently-arrived ethnic families. A more forthright overview of Pekin’s Klan years can be found on pages 21-22 of the late Robert B. Monge’s “WW2 Memories of Love & War: June 1937-June 1946,” which says:

“The decade of the twenties and early thirties brought the KU KLUX KLAN to Pekin. Their ceremonial headquarters were on the second floor of the Pekin Daily Times building located at the southeast corner of Fourth and Elizabeth Streets. The Klan owned and published the paper during 1923, 1924 and 1925, praised its ‘good works’ and gave front page coverage of its meetings, policies and plans.

“For a time it was district headquarters for all the Klan chapters in Illinois. It was a terribly low period for the immigrants who lived here and they were the main target of the KLAN. They were devastated by the Klan’s acts of intimidation. Huge crosses were burned on the land known as Hillcrest Gardens (the present site of Pekin Insurance Company) to intimidate the immigrants. Many of these families huddled in fear in their homes nearby; however, the immigrant men were ready with shotguns just in case they were threatened physically.”

An image from a darker time, this illustration appeared in a Pekin Daily Times advertisement for a major Ku Klux Klan gathering in Pekin — the “Klantauqua” — that took place in late August 1924.

The presence – and absence – of African-Americans in Pekin

Finally, the Sesquicentennial on pages 175-176 devotes eight full paragraphs to Pekin’s African-Americans, and attempts to address the troubling absence of black people from Pekin for most of the 20th century. Much of this account is quite interesting and generally informative, and it covers much of the same ground that this weblog’s 2020 “From the Local History Room” series on Pekin’s African-Americans covered, only in less detail than we have been able to provide here.

The Sesquicentennial account is notably sensitive about Pekin’s reputation and does not acknowledge the role that racist attitudes and the KKK’s presence had, instead blaming the past absence of blacks here on economics and education (which were indeed reasons, albeit certainly not the only reasons). Understandably, the Sesquicentennial volume, written as part of a celebration of Pekin, would not be the appropriate publication to grapple with such issues. Here, then, is the Sesquicentennial’s account, in which he names several individuals and families who have become very well known to me over the past few years):

“But one ethnic element important in earlier generations has slowly become ‘invisible.’ Blacks came to this town by at least 1830 in the person of Nancy, the employee (sic – indentured servant) of the Cromwells discussed in the Overview, and many are mentioned throughout the long period ending after World War I. They had difficulties here, but not the kind of troubles the myth-makers would have us believe.

“The principle problem was the necessity of learning the German language—a barrier to many whites during the same period. Another drawback was the Blacks’ lack of skills, an inevitable problem in an era in which most of them remained uneducated. Nevertheless, they found jobs and homes for their families in the frontier community. According to Bates’ Directory, Nancy apparently lived the remainder of her life in Pekin (a period of about thirty-five [rather, 50] years) after the celebrated Supreme Court appeal argued by A. Lincoln.

“By 1845 the ten-person family of Moses Shipman and the Peter Logan family of four, along with at least six other Blacks, lived in the town. The families of Charles Cramby and John Winslow appear in the records of 1855, as does Benjamin Costly. During the Civil War, no less than ten Blacks from Pekin served in various elements of the Union Army, including Private Thomas Shipman of Company D, 29th United States (Colored) Infantry, who was killed in combat near Hatcher’s Run, Virginia, on March 31, 1865.

“The post-war amendments to the United States Constitution and the new 1870 Constitution of Illinois brought about new openness for the Blacks. Schools and voting were opened to them. The legendary former Sheriff, hero of the Mexican-American War, William A. Tinney (says Chapman in 1879), ‘distinguished himself in his old days by being the first white man in Pekin to lead a Negro to the polls to vote . . .’ Unfortunately, we cannot determine which black resident it was who voted.

“Dozens of others, with both good and poor reputations, lived in Pekin through the years. Anderson Blue, James Lane, and other names appear. ‘James Arnold Washington Lincoln Jackson Gibson’ was the mascot of Company G, 5th Illinois Infantry of the Spanish-American War; and a veteran of that conflict, Howard (sic – Lloyd) Oliver, returned to Pekin in 1902 to marry Miss Cora Hoy (sic – Foy).

“Then there was ‘Rastus’ Gaines. He is fondly remembered by older citizens as the cheerful, businesslike porter of the old Tazewell Hotel. As the Reverend Erastus Gaines, he made his mark as an evangelist in both Pekin and Peoria. Says one who knew him at the turn of this century, ‘He was uneducated, but within his abilities, he could give a good talk and could get his message across  . . . . While we kidded him a lot . . . we liked him a great deal.’

“Sam Day, Al Oliver, the families of McElroy, Houston, and Good are names which can yet be recalled by the elder citizens of present-day Pekin. Walter Lee was for many years the masseur at the Pekin Hospital, and for a time had a private practice in the Arcade Building. Many others have come and gone.

“Why is there now this tear in the ethnic fabric of Pekin? Pure economics. When the depression bore down on everyone in the thirties, many persons lost savings, jobs, housing – everything. Black or white, they had to ‘double up’ with friends or relatives to make ends meet. Even though the language barrier no longer exists, and the myth about Pekin’s attitudes have been proven false, Blacks simply have not returned to again add their contribution to the cultural richness of the city which was among the first to recognize them as partners in the progress of an expanding community.”

William Edward “Rastus” Gaines, porter at the Tazewell Hotel in downtown Pekin, born 3 April 1878 in Washington, Georgia, son of Jesse and Mary (Tate) Gaines, died after 25 April 1942 probably in Baltimore, Maryland. PHOTO COURTESY TAZEWELL COUNTY GENEALOGICAL & HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Any discussion of the African-American experience in Pekin should include not only the stories of Pekin’s black families during the 19th and early 20th centuries, but will have to address Pekin’s reputation as a “Sundown Town,” a community unwelcoming to or hostile to blacks.  As we’ve mentioned here before, Pekin’s reputation predates the arrival of the Klan, but the Klan’s strong presence here certainly terrified Pekin’s small population of blacks. U.S. Census statistics show only four blacks in Pekin in 1900 (there were more than that), in 1910 only eight, in 1920 (just before the KKK arrived) a total of 31, in 1930 only one – and in 1940 not a single black person was left in Pekin, something that would not change until the 1990s.

Unlike other Midwestern communities, Pekin never had any city ordinances dictating that blacks had to be out of town by sundown – “unofficial” social pressure and intimidation were certainly present, though. The widespread story of a “sundown” sign on the Pekin bridge remains one of the unresolved mysteries of Pekin’s past, because no direct evidence has ever been produced that Pekin really had such a sign posted on its bridge, the way other “lily-white” Illinois communities posted anti-black signs at their town or city limits. If there ever was such a sign, it was not authorized by Pekin’s city government, and it was probably long gone by the 1960s if not earlier.

The fact that the story has long been so widespread suggests that it is based on truth, and yet the absence of any photographic evidence also suggests that the story could be only a legend. In my own research, the closest I’ve ever come to evidence for the bridge sign is a 14 Oct. 2010 Pekin Daily Times Letter to the Editor written by Randy Hilst, who said he had found the sign (or “a” sign) in an old house in Pekin that had KKK robes and relics. Hilst wrote, “I had the sign verified as to being old by a lady who lived in Peoria, who used to do appraisals at the Illinois Antique Center in Peoria. She said it was the first she had seen but always believed they did exist. We also talked about the possibility that they may have had to be replaced from time to time, so who knows how many were actually made and how many ‘knock-offs’ were made by local racists at the time.”

Until solid documentation is found that might shed light on the old story of the bridge sign, it can only remain a haunting echo of a past that was vastly different from contemporary Pekin’s increasingly racially diverse community.

Next week, “From the History Room” will again feature an article in keeping with Black History Month, telling the story of the three Pekin-area ministers who joined the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to march for African-American civil rights in Alabama in 1965.

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A Pekin Union Army soldier in a Confederate Army cemetery?

By Jared L. Olar

Local History Specialist

An undated article clipping from the Pekin Daily Times in the files of the Pekin Public Library’s Local History Room tells of a Civil War soldier from Tazewell County who was buried in a Confederate Army cemetery.

The article, headlined “Confederate cemetery holds Tazewell County soldier,” was probably published about 20 years ago [NOTE: It was published 13 April 2001]. It tells of how the newspaper was contacted by a photographer from the Griffin Daily News in Griffin, Ga., seeking information on Corp. Nathan Kellogg, who was one of four Union soldiers to be buried in Griffin’s Stonewall Cemetery, a city cemetery with a large burial section for soldiers of the Confederate States of America. To find a gravestone for a Union soldier in a Confederate cemetery is highly unusual.

Corp. Kellogg’s headstone is shown in Stonewall Cemetery in this Find-A-Grave photo submitted by Michael Dover.

Corp. Nathan Kellogg’s headstone in Stonewall Cemetery is shown in this Find-A-Grave photo submitted by Michael Dover.

The Pekin Times article provides fascinating information, but is incomplete and somewhat inaccurate, for, as we shall see, it is incorrect about where Corp. Kellogg’s remains are now buried.

Kellogg belonged to a family of pioneers who lived on land that was then outside of Pekin but is now within Pekin’s city limits. Two brothers of this family are notable figures in the early history of Pekin and Tazewell County: Nathan Benjamin Kellogg Sr. (1793-1853) and Benjamin Kellogg Jr. (1806-1855).

They were among the 14 children of Benjamin Kellogg Sr. (1761-1821) and Luranah Spaulding (1766-1834), natives of Massachusetts who had settled in New York. Both Nathan and Benjamin Jr. were born in Kinderhook, New York, and came to Tazewell County in the early 1830s.

Nathan is listed on page 713 of Charles C. Chapman’s 1879 “History of Tazewell County,” where it says he served as Tazewell County Coroner from 1842 to 1848. He married twice, first to Magdalen Esselstyne (1792-1826), with whom he had four sons and a daughter, and a second to Alzina (Pennoyer) Woodrow (1805-1884), with whom he had four daughters and three sons. His youngest son was Nathan Benjamin Kellogg Jr., the Civil War soldier who had been buried in Stonewall Cemetery.

The other prominent member of the Tazewell County Kelloggs, Benjamin Jr., was a successful merchant, land owner, and local political official who was a friend of Abraham Lincoln. The “Papers of Abraham Lincoln Digital Library” website provides this summary of Benjamin Kellogg Jr.’s life and career:

“Benjamin Kellogg, Jr. was a prominent merchant, landowner, and town and city official in Pekin, Illinois. In 1829, he and his partners established Crain, Kellogg, & Company, the first mercantile business in Pekin. Kellogg began purchasing public land in September 1832, when he bought 160 acres in Mason County, becoming the first person to purchase land in what would become Allen Grove. Between 1832 and 1855, he purchased thousands of acres of public land in Mason, Tazewell, McLean, and Logan counties. Kellogg was also active in Pekin’s civic affairs. At the first town elections held in July 1835, he won election as town clerk, and in August, he became treasurer of the Board of Trustees. He won a second term as town clerk in 1836. When Pekin received its charter as a city in 1849, Kellogg became the first city clerk, holding that job until October 1850. In 1850, he was working as a clerk and owned $20,000 worth of real estate. Eager to get a railroad through Pekin, in 1853, Kellogg and a partner personally subscribed $100,000 for the Mississippi and Wabash Railroad. Abraham Lincoln represented Kellogg in numerous cases in the Tazewell County Circuit Court.”

In addition to the cases in which Lincoln represented him, Benjamin Jr. was also a key witness in the 1839 Tazewell County Circuit Court case of Cromwell & McNaughton v. Bailey, in which the estate of Nathan Cromwell asked the court to require that David Bailey of Pekin pay off a promissory note for the purchase of the Cromwell’s indentured servant Nance. Bailey had declined to pay the note because Nance said she was a free person and had never consented to a contract of indentured servitude. In his testimony, Benjamin Jr. confirmed that Nance had always insisted on her freedom. The court ruled against Bailey, though, so Bailey retained Lincoln to appeal the verdict to the Illinois Supreme Court in the 1841 case of Bailey v. Cromwell & McNaughton. Agreeing with Lincoln’s arguments, the Illinois Supreme Court overturned the Tazewell County court decision and declared that Nance and her three eldest children were free.

That case touched on the wider question of the morality of human slavery which later helped to spark the destructive fires of the Civil War. In that conflict, Nathan B. Kellogg Sr.’s youngest son Nathan B. Jr., who was born in Tazewell County on 11 Oct. 1846, stepped up to fight for the Union cause. His Union Army service records say he was a farmer living at Pekin, and give his physical description as 5 feet 8 inches in height, with a light complexion, gray eyes, and light-colored hair.

His service records show that he enlisted on 16 June 1862 and was mustered into the 85th Illinois Infantry, Co. F., at Peoria on 27 Aug. 1862. Though only in his teens, Nathan Jr. was consumed with patriotic zeal for his country. This is evident from his service records: although he was only 15 years old at the time, his records indicate that he lied about his age so he could enlist, claiming to be 17 at enlistment and 18 when he was mustered in.

Corp. Kellogg enlisted for three years of service, but he did not make it to the end of those three years. He was mortally wounded in the Battle of Peach Tree Creek in Georgia on 19 July 1864. Taken captive by the Confederate Army, he was taken to a military hospital at Griffin, Georgia, where he succumbed to his wounds the next day. He was one of approximately 1,900 Union casualties and 2,500 Confederate casualties of that battle. Of this battle, Union Maj. Gen. J. D. Cox said, “Few battlefields of the war have been strewn so thickly with dead and wounded as they lay that evening around Collier’s Mill.”

Kellogg’s service record notes his capture at the battle with the comment, “In Parole Camp Captured At Peach Tree Creek Ga.” Due to his death, he was not officially mustered out of service until 5 June 1865, almost a year after his death.

As this record shows, Corp. Nathan B. Kellogg Jr. of Pekin was one of four Union soldiers who were buried in Stonewall Cemetery, Griffin, Georgia, immediately after their deaths during the Civil War.

Corp. Kellogg was buried in nearby Stonewall Cemetery alongside many Confederate soldiers who had fallen in battle. There, in a Confederate Army burying ground, his bones rested for the next three years, when his remains, along with those of three other Union soldiers that had been buried in Confederate cemeteries, were transferred to Marietta National Cemetery in Marietta, Georgia.

The headstone of Corp. Kellogg of Pekin stands among the thousands of Civil War dead in Marietta National Cemetery, Marietta, Georgia, in this photograph submitted to Find-A-Grave by Davis E. McCollum.

The headstone of Corp. Nathan B. Kellogg Jr. of Pekin on Marietta National Cemetery, Marietta, Georgia, where Kellogg’s remains have been interred since 1867, is shown in this photograph submitted by Find-A-Grave user “Janet.”

Although his remains have been in Marietta since 1867, a local resident of Griffin, Ga., named Mrs. C. Robert Walker apparently came across a record of Kellogg’s burial in Stonewall Cemetery in 1960 and, not knowing of his removal to Marietta, ordered a Civil War soldier’s headstone for the plot where his remains once had lain.

And so, Corp. Nathan Benjamin Kellogg Jr. of Pekin is currently memorialized in two separate cemeteries in the South, with a headstone marking the empty grave where once he lay in Stonewell Cemetery, and another marking his actual grave in Marietta National Cemetery.

On 22 Sept. 1960, Mrs. C. Robert Walker of Griffin, Georgia, applied to have a Union soldier Civil War headstone placed on the plot where Corp. Nathan Kellogg of Pekin had been buried in 1864. She did not know, however, that Kellogg and three other Union soldiers buried in Stonewall Cemetery, Griffin, had been moved to Marietta National Cemetery, Marietta, Georgia, in 1867.

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Memorial park planned to honor Nance Legins-Costley and remember Moffatt Cemetery

By Jared Olar

Library Assistant

It was two summers ago that “From the History Room” was the first to announce the recent discovery of the death record and the final resting place of Nance Legins-Costley (c.1813-1892), who is remembered as the first slave freed by Abraham Lincoln. We now know that Nance, along with her son Leander and probably her husband Benjamin also, was buried at the defunct Moffatt Cemetery that was located near the intersection of South Adams and Griswold streets in Peoria.

This is a rendering of the proposed Freedom & Remembrance Memorial Park and its monuments. PHOTO COURTESY OF PEORIA FREEDOM & REMEMBRANCE MEMORIAL PARK TEAM

In the more than two years since Nance’s death and burial record was found in the Peoria County Undertaker Records, a group of interested volunteers has begun a project to create a special memorial to honor Nance Legins-Costley and the thousands of Peorians who were laid to rest at the former Moffatt Cemetery.

As regular readers of this weblog will recall, Nance came to Pekin in the 1820s as an indentured servant of Pekin co-founder Nathan Cromwell. Even though Illinois was nominally a free state, under Illinois law at the time slavery existed in the form of indentured servitude. However, the law stipulated that a person could not become an indentured servant against his will, and Nance vehemently and steadfastly maintained that she never agreed to be anyone’s slave.

Shown is a memorandum from the Tazewell County court file of the 1838 case of Cromwell vs. Bailey, which was the legal prelude to the 1841 Illinois Supreme Court case of Bailey vs. Cromwell. The memorandum was written by Tazewell County attorney William Holmes, who assisted Abraham Lincoln in the case. In the memorandum may be read the momentous words, “was then and still is a free woman,” signaling that the case wasn’t really about an unpaid debt, but addressed the question of whether or not Nance Legins-Costley and her children were free or slaves. IMAGE COURTESY OF CARL ADAMS

Three times Nance sought relief from the courts, and the third time was a charm. In the case of Bailey vs. Cromwell, in July of 1841 Lincoln argued successfully before the Illinois Supreme Court convened at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Springfield that Cromwell never had legal title to Nance’s service and therefore Nance and her three children were free. Justice Sidney Breese issued the ruling confirming Nance’s freedom on July 23, 1841. It was a significant legal precedent that confirmed Illinois’ standing as a free state and led to the end of indentured servitude in Illinois.

As we have recalled several times here, Nance and her husband Benjamin Costley and their eight children lived in Pekin until circa 1870, when they moved to Peoria. After Ben’s death in 1883, Nance lived for a while with her youngest child James Willis Costley in Minneapolis, where her oldest son Bill also lived during the 1880s. After Bill’s death in 1888, however, we find Nance back in Peoria, living with her oldest child, Amanda (Costley) Lewis, with whom she spent her final years. Nance passed away at home on April 6, 1892, and was buried in old Moffatt Cemetery.

Nance Legins-Costley and her kin were among the approximately 2,500 people from the Peoria area who were buried in Moffatt Cemetery during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Among those interred there were 48 Civil War veterans, including Pvt. Nathan Ashby, formerly of Pekin, an African-American who served in the U.S. Colored Troops and was an eyewitness of the first “Juneteenth” in Galveston, Texas, in 1865.

On Memorial Day in 2017, this temporary Civil War memorial was placed and dedicated on Griswold Street near the former site of Moffatt Cemetery in Peoria, to honor the Civil War veterans buried there. One of them, Nathan Ashby, was a resident of Pekin when he volunteered for the 29th U.S. Colored Infantry in 1864, and went on to become a eyewitness to the first Juneteenth in June 1865. PHOTO COURTESY OF PEORIA FREEDOM & REMEMBRANCE MEMORIAL PARK TEAM

Moffatt Cemetery was founded by Peoria pioneer settler Aquilla Moffatt as early as 1836, but was closed in 1905 and fell to ruin, and finally was destroyed in the 1950s and the land rezoned to light industrial. Although many of Moffatt Cemetery’s burials were relocated, the vast majority apparently were left in situ, and today are paved or built over – forgotten for many decades, their burial records lost. Only the names of the Civil War veterans buried there were remembered.

In 2016, however, Bob Hoffer of the Peoria Historical Society and Peoria County Genealogical Society made a significant discovery in his search for the grave of his wife’s great-grandfather Mans Nelson – he found and photographed the crumbling pages of the old Peoria County Undertaker Records, which include information on which cemetery a person was buried in. Thanks to those records, we again know the names of most of the approximately 2,500 people who were buried at Moffatt Cemetery.

A photo montage of grave stones and monuments in the former Moffatt Cemetery, from the 13 Sept. 1936 issue of the Peoria Journal-Transcript. PHOTO COURTESY OF PEORIA FREEDOM & REMEMBRANCE MEMORIAL PARK TEAM

In 2020, Hoffer and other citizen volunteers launched a project to create a memorial park near the site of the former Moffatt Cemetery, where monuments and markers would be erected to ensure that the people buried at the cemetery are, in Hoffer’s words, “Forgotten no more.”

Besides Hoffer, the core members of the volunteer team are David Pittman, a Peoria area community activist, Peoria Park District advocate, and member of the Executive Committee of the Peoria Branch NAACP; Carl Adams, a Lincoln historian who literally wrote the book on Nance Legins-Costley; Joe Hutchinson, a member of the Peoria County Genealogical Society and Officer in the Sons of the Union Veterans of the Civil War; and Bill Poorman, a writer and media producer and Lincoln enthusiast.

The core team invites other volunteers and allies to participate in and support the project as well.

Their proposal is to convert a small area of land at the northwest corner of South Adams and Griswold – just south of where the cemetery used to be – into “Freedom & Remembrance Memorial Park.” At the park will be placed special monuments to memorialize the remarkable life of Nance Legins-Costley, the Union soldiers who were buried in Moffatt Cemetery, and all of the other everyday Peorians who were laid to rest there, some of whom never had a grave marker to help people remember them.

In addition, an Illinois State Historical Marker will be placed at the park, telling the story of Nance Legins-Costley and how she and her three eldest children, Amanda, Eliza Jane, and William Henry, were freed from slavery in 1841 with the assistance of Abraham Lincoln. No more will Nance lie forgotten under a parking lot.

Shown here is the site of the proposed Moffatt Cemetery memorials and park. PHOTO COURTESY OF PEORIA FREEDOM & REMEMBRANCE MEMORIAL PARK TEAM

At this point, the Peoria Freedom & Remembrance Memorial Park project is approaching the point where it can begin fundraising for the park and the monuments. However, donations can now be made to pay for the Illinois State Historical Marker, which requires private funds to pay for the creation and setting of the marker. Checks for the marker may be mailed to:

Illinois State Historical Society
Nance/Lincoln Project (on the memo line)
P.O. Box 1800
Springfield, IL 62705-1800

For more information on the project, visit the website at www.peoriafreedompark.org, or the project’s Facebook page, “Peoria Freedom & Remembrance Memorial Park”.

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