Did Lincoln stop in Hainesville?
Editor's note: This is second part of an article exploring Abraham Lincoln legends in Lake County.
Lincoln lived in New Salem and Springfield, Ill., but his political, military and legal careers took him far from home, including to northern Illinois.
As discussed in part one, there is only one documented visit by Lincoln to Lake County in April 1860, but legends persist of many more.
While a captain in the U.S. Army during the Black Hawk War (1832), Lincoln served three enlistments of approximately 30 days each.
Local legend states that during the war, Lincoln and the troops serving with him marched to the York House Inn in today's northwest Waukegan Township, south of Yorkhouse and Greenbay Roads. However, when the troops were supposedly moving through the area, the inn did not exist.
The York House Inn was a public house built four years after the war in 1836 by Jeremiah Porter, following the establishment of a stage line.
Additionally, documented troop movements reveal that the closest that Lincoln came to Lake County was Janesville, Wis.
Another legend claims that Lincoln spent the night in Hainesville while visiting his friend Elijah Haines.
Haines first met Lincoln in Chicago during the Great River and Harbor Convention of July 1847 as delegates from their regions. This convention was in response to President James Polk vetoing funding for river and harbor improvements in the Great Lakes.
Haines went on to serve in the state legislature, and probably had occasion to meet Lincoln in Springfield, where Lincoln lived and worked.
Because of their friendship it is understandable for locals to believe that Lincoln visited Hainesville. However, there is no documentation of a visit.
Lincoln's position as a trial and appellate attorney on the Eighth Judicial Circuit kept him occupied in central Illinois with occasional trips to Chicago. Taking a 49-mile detour from Chicago to visit a friend isn't impossible, but considering the difficult travel conditions of the day, it would have been highly unlikely and unnecessary when the two men could see each other more easily in Springfield.
It is the great respect so many hold for Lincoln that motivates such legends. He was clearly a man guided by strong beliefs as reflected in his Second Inaugural Address: "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds.... "
• Diana Dretske, author of "Lake County, Illinois: An Illustrated History" is the collections coordinator for the Lake County Discovery Museum. The Lake County Discovery Museum, a department of the Lake County Forest Preserves, is an award-winning regional history museum on Route 176, west of Fairfield Road near Wauconda. The museum is open from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 1 to 4:30 p.m. Sunday. Call (847) 968-3400 for information.