Springfield churches celebrate bicentennial, 150 year anniversaries sj-r.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from sj-r.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Classes for the university were first held at Major s Hall where Lincoln delivered his Lost Speech
Emery s new book is the first to examine in depth Lincoln s ties to Illinois State University
Abraham Lincoln had numerous and important ties to the founding of Illinois State University, the latest book from Carlinville historian Tom Emery shows.
Without Lincoln s hand in the process, Emery said, the university, set up as a training school for teachers in 1857, might not have been located in Bloomington.
The university, Emery added, was one more association the 16th president had with Bloomington, a city key in Lincoln s political ascension.
Abraham Lincoln s father, Thomas Lincoln, was an ensign in the Kentucky state militia.
According to Abraham Lincoln s public accounts, his father, Thomas Lincoln, came off as a shiftless, jobless wanderer who could barely scratch out his name, said Springfield historian and author Wayne C. Temple.
Like a lot of politicians, Temple said, Lincoln wanted to show how he had risen above childhood disadvantages to the highest office in the land, but he did so at the expense of his father.
Thomas Lincoln s reputation only disintegrated, Temple said, because of Lincoln biographies like the one written by his former law partner, William Herndon.