My photographer’s alarm went off at 4:30am on Thursday July 25, 2024 and that meant one thing – we had exactly two hours before our twelve-day trip to Kansas City, Missouri was scheduled to begin. Although the primary reason behind the trip was for Tom and his wife Vicki to watch their grandson play in a USSSA sanctioned baseball tournament in the KC area, my camera guy made sure we had plenty of time to visit a laundry list of Presidential sites as well. Since the Opening Ceremonies were slated for July 31st, and the four days of games were set to kick off on the morning of August 1st, Tom’s agenda was filled with Abraham Lincoln sites throughout Illinois as we made the pilgrimage westward to our “No Place Like Home” in the Land of Ah’s.
Our Jeep Grand Cherokee was packed to the brim as the three of us departed home at 6:28am – we were two minutes ahead of schedule. Even though thick fog hampered Tom’s visibility on I-69 all the way through Flint, we arrived on time at the State of Michigan’s Capitol Building in Lansing two hours after we left St. Clair. I was excited to visit the Capitol in my home state; mainly due to the fact I’ve seen Capitol Buildings in thirty-three different states, plus the one in Washington D.C., all in the past eleven years and I’ve yet to step foot in ours.
When we rolled into Lansing, Michigan at 8:30am, it seemed as though we had arrived in a ghost town. There was hardly any traffic on the streets, and we didn’t see many people meandering about the sidewalks either. The lack of people meant one thing for Tom and me – we wouldn’t have to be concerned with our friend Mongo’s famous “Moldenhauer’s One-Person Rule’.
From our parking spot along West Allegan Street near the southside of the Capitol Building, Tom carried me to the east side where I posed in front of a bronze statue dedicated on October 12, 1898 to the memory of Austin Blair, Michigan’s 13th Governor who led the state during our nation’s Civil War. The sunlit eastern side of the 270-foot-tall Capitol Building looked spectacular against the blue morning cloudless sky, but honestly, I wasn’t overly impressed with the building’s grounds or architecture. Michigan’s Capitol didn’t have the “Wow” factor, at least in my painted eyes. But that all changed when my photographer took me through security and into the bowels of our Capitol.
During our self-guided interior tour, I saw the Senate Chamber and the House of Representatives Chamber. But the best part of all was the Rotunda, which featured a floor composed of 976 blocks of translucent glass, and was surrounded by replicas of the 240 battle flags carried by Michigan soldiers during the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and World War I. When Tom set me down in the center of the Rotunda, I looked up to the oculus, or eye of the dome. The view I had gave me a glimpse into the vastness of the universe, represented by a starry sky – or at least that’s what we were told the symbolism of the 64 hand-painted gold and silver stars meant.
Unfortunately, our 45-minute visit of the Capitol didn’t come without some disappointment. When Tom set me on the floor near Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s office, I had hoped the two-term leader of our state would come out of her office and sweep me off my feet. Not only do I think Whitmer will be the first woman President of the United States, but I also think she’s extremely gorgeous and I would’ve screamed like a schoolgirl had she held me in her hands for a photo. But as I stood on the marble floor and looked up at a portrait of Gerald Ford, there was no sign of our beautiful governor. A few minutes later, when Tom asked an official if Whitmer ever meets with the public inside the Capitol, he was told the office we saw was only ceremonial. The guy said her actual office was located in a separate building and Whitmer is hardly ever inside the Capitol. I couldn’t have been more devastated by that news, and I left Michigan’s Capitol with a sour taste in my resin mouth because of the pure waste of taxpayers’ dollars.
Two and a half hours after we left Michigan’s Capitol in our rear-view mirror, we hit a horrible traffic snarl in and around the Gary, Indiana area and we continued at a snail’s pace into Illinois. Throughout that entire ordeal, I was chomping at the bit because I knew we were headed to Presidential sites that I had never visited before, and the anticipation was causing the metal spring in my neck to tingle.
Finally, after what seemed to be an eternity of riding past endless miles of corn and soybean fields, we arrived at the small village of Metamora, Illinois. It didn’t take long for Vicki to find a parking place along the east side of the Village Square, which was where my photographer and I took our first steps back in time – a time when a young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln likely walked in that same square.
While his wife was busy checking out a few local stores along the square, Tom carried me past a bronze statue of Lincoln and across East Partridge Street where I got my first glimpse of an impressive two-story brick building that featured a white bell tower on its roof. It was the Metamora Courthouse; an incredibly historic structure as it’s one of only two surviving courthouses in the entire state of Illinois where Abraham Lincoln practiced law.
Since the historic building was temporarily closed for some reason, the two of us stood outside where we envisioned the tall, rail splitting lawyer as he walked through the front doors to defend his clients. Metamora was just one of the 14 county courthouses throughout Lincoln’s 8th Judicial Circuit, which spanned some 10,000 square miles – or roughly the size of Maryland. And that’s an enormous area considering Abe travelled by horse and buggy along poorly maintained dirt roads. But Lincoln loved his job and the friends he made along the way, even though he was away from home for three months at a time from 1843 to 1857.
It was in that final year when Lincoln’s legend grew larger than life in Metamora, Illinois, which was also the reason for the life-sized bronze statues of the future President and a crusty old woman that had been erected across the street from the courthouse.
On April 14, 1857, just eight years to the day before President Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theater, 70-year-old Melissa Goings clobbered her husband Roswell over the head with a chunk of firewood after the well-to-do farmer and heavy drinker tried to strangle her. A few days later, the well-known wife beater died from his injuries and Melissa was charged with first-degree murder. Mrs. Goings’ trial date was set for October 10, 1857, which set the stage for the famous lawyer from the Lincoln & Herndon Law Firm, Abraham Lincoln.
During the trial on that cool October day, Abe’s plea for additional time to prepare the case fell on deaf ears from the judge. As the well-publicized trial proceeded, Melissa Goings suddenly disappeared during a short recess. When the judge asked Lincoln where his client was, Abe’s wit emerged after the bailiff accused the lawyer of “running her off”. Lincoln stood up and said to the judge, “Your honor, I did not chase her off. She simply asked me where she could get a good drink of water, and I said…Tennessee has mighty fine drinkin’ water.” Legend has it that this was received with uproarious laughter from a thoroughly entertained crowd of sympathetic spectators who were seated inside the Metamora Courthouse.
For roughly 45 minutes, Tom and I sat on a picnic table in Metamora Village Square and thought about the legend of Abraham Lincoln and his infamous case with Melissa Goings. The funny part was the fact that Lincoln was never sanctioned or held in contempt of court, nor was there any evidence that Abe played any part in the escape. It was very possible, however, that Lincoln’s integrity and well-deserved reputation, along with the will of the townspeople who believed Melissa acted in self-defense, that persuaded the sheriff to turn a blind eye to the law and let true justice play out the way it did.
During the fourteen-plus years he practiced general, unspecified law, Abraham Lincoln served as criminal defense counsel; he handled divorce and family-law cases; he oversaw the passage of estates through probate; and was available to handle a wide variety of civil suits and disputes. Over the years, Lincoln handled roughly 70 cases in the Metamora Courthouse, including two murders and two cases of fugitives from slavery. But more importantly, especially for his future and for the future of our nation, the friendships Abraham Lincoln made and the oratory skills he obtained during those trials helped him gain national attention and the nomination in 1860 as the Republican candidate for President of the United States. One of the next stops of the day was a site only 16 miles away and was where Lincoln’s spoken words launched him into the national spotlight and into the history books – and I couldn’t wait to get there.
With Vicki once again behind the wheel of the Jeep, we left Metamora and headed southwest for roughly 25 minutes where we stopped to visit several Presidential sites in Peoria, Illinois. Not only did Tom plan on us seeing the spot where Abraham Lincoln delivered his famous “Peoria Speech”, but he was also focused on taking me to the Soldiers and Sailors Monument which was dedicated by President McKinley; the Hotel Pere Marquette where Truman and Ford once stayed; and Courthouse Square where Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy each had delivered campaign speeches.
Even though it was 3:20pm on a Thursday afternoon, we got lucky when my photographer’s wife found a parking spot on Adams Street in front of Peoria’s historic Courthouse Square. That location proved pivotal as each of the Presidential sites on Tom’s agenda were within easy walking distance from the Jeep, which was important to my two companions as the afternoon temperature had reached 94 degrees with high humidity.
Tom decided to pick the low-hanging fruit first as we walked about 100 feet from where we were parked and up to the 68-foot-tall granite monument known as the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, which was located at the southeast corner of the Peoria County Courthouse Square. The monument was impressive, especially with a huge mural of Abraham Lincoln looking over the site. But we were there to honor a different President – William McKinley, who dedicated the monument on October 6, 1899 in front of a crowd of 70,000 people. During the ceremony, McKinley said to the throng of onlookers, “This monument awakens sacred memories, fellow citizens, and that is its purpose. It was erected … that it might for all time perpetuate a glorious page of American history. It tells the whole story of war, the siege, the march, bivouac, battle line, the suffering, sacrifices of the brave men, who from ‘61 to ‘65 upheld the flag.” The 25th President went on to add, “Six thousand school children with flags in their hands and love of country in their hearts and I could not but think, as I looked at the glorious process, that my country is safe.”
The Soldiers and Sailors Monument was sculpted by Peoria native Fritz Triebel in his Rome, Italy studio and featured bronze figures set alongside the granite base and shaft. A bronze eagle with an eleven-foot wingspan adorned the top of the monument. But there was one statue in particular which caught my attention – it was a bronze figure of a woman inscribing words onto the scroll which stated: “We write on page of granite what they wrought on field of battle.” As I stood on the base of the monument and looked up at those eloquent words, I knew in my resin heart that President McKinley had also read those same words in 1899.
Just forty-five years before President William McKinley came into town to dedicate Peoria’s new monument, Abraham Lincoln arrived as a lawyer with aspirations to renew his role as a national political leader. Those aspirations came in the form of a speech Lincoln delivered at the Peoria County Courthouse on October 16, 1854. During his oration, which was nearly 17,000 words in length and took nearly three hours to deliver, Lincoln spoke out against the institution of slavery and the newly adopted Kansas-Nebraska Act. Not only did the prairie lawyer despise slavery, his ‘Peoria Speech’ attacked the morality of slavery itself, stating in part, “If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that `all men are created equal;’ and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man’s making a slave of another.”
To commemorate Lincoln’s ‘Peoria Speech’, a bronze statue called ‘Lincoln Draws the Line’ was created by sculptor John McLarey and was dedicated on October 14, 2001 outside of the Peoria County Courthouse. When Tom placed me alongside the life-sized bronze figure of Lincoln, I looked at the wall to my left which explained the symbolism of the site. The etched words on the polished granite wall read: “Lincoln Draws the Line. Abraham Lincoln delivered his “Peoria Speech” on October 16, 1854, in the midst of the struggle against slavery and its extension. Here, from the Peoria County Courthouse, he drew the line against the extension of slavery. Lincoln reaffirmed “The ancient faith and creed of freedom and justice” upon which this nation was founded.”
Abraham Lincoln’s attacks on the Kansas-Nebraska Act marked his return to political life and he used that platform to catapult his ambitious efforts towards the White House just six years later.
When Tom and I were finished with our photos at the Lincoln ‘Peoria Speech’ site, my photographer noticed a14-story brick building, located about a block away, as it towered over the other nearby businesses. Once Tom realized that massive structure was the Hotel Pere Marquette and the next destination on our agenda, the three of us made the short walk north along Main Street.
Now known as the Peoria Marriott Pere Marquette, the large hotel was built in 1926 and is the last surviving example of an upscale 1920s hotel in Peoria. The 288-room hotel has endured extensive renovations at least five different times over the past one hundred years, but to me, it was still a Presidential site.
On October 26, 1944, Harry S Truman was returning to Independence, Missouri following the Democratic National Convention held in Chicago. At that convention, President Franklin D. Roosevelt named Truman as his Vice-Presidential running mate. When the train stopped in Peoria, Truman stayed overnight in the Hotel Pere Marquette.
A second Presidential visit came to the hotel when Vice President Gerald R. Ford stayed at the Pere Marquette on March 5, 1974, which was roughly five months before Richard Nixon resigned from office. The funny part of that visit was a local maid claimed Ford did not leave her a tip. Maybe, just maybe, Ford knew about Truman’s visit in 1944 and instead of leaving a dollar or two tip, Jerry said the Buck Stops Here!
Back outside in the heat, I sweated resin bullets inside the camera case while Tom and Vicki made the two-block hike to the next Presidential site, which was in Courthouse Square and nearly in front of our Jeep. I watched as my photographer pulled a photo out of his back pocket as he tried to align the image with the current surroundings, but at the end of the day, he was forced to guess where JFK had stood for his speech. After all, the landscape and buildings have likely changed over the past 64 years.
At noon on Monday October 24, 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy delivered a campaign speech from Courthouse Square in Peoria. The entire square, and the street in front of the square, was jammed with enthusiastic supporters who were eager to hear what the young Senator had to offer just 16 days before Election Day. Although JFK had five stops to make on that Monday, his powerful and energetic style helped deliver the message loud and clear.
“If you live in Peoria or Illinois or in the United States, you know what this administration has done, the basis upon which Mr. Nixon runs for the Presidency, that we have never had it so good, is wholly wrong. This country cannot afford to stand still anymore. Mr. Nixon runs on the slogan, “We’ve never had it so good”, and I run on the slogan that we are going to have to do better.”
As I stood where the two of us thought Kennedy was positioned during his Courthouse Rally, it was as though I could still hear his Boston accent echoing throughout the square when he spoke to the large crowd. “All around the globe we hear the rumble of distant drums. I want to beat that drum here in the United States. I want us to begin to sing again that this society of ours and this economy can provide for our people and provide an example to freedom all around the globe, and on that basis and on that issue, I ask your support and help in this campaign.”
After his speech, Kennedy was asked by a reporter why Presidential hopefuls and Presidents visit the River City. JFK smiled and said, “It’s nothing to do with Peoria’s size. Peoria is a ‘sounding board.’ Not only does it have the right mixture of people for accurate political surveys, but next to Chicago, it is in the center of a ‘Swing State.’”
And that sounding board came into effect sixty years before Kennedy’s appearance at Courthouse Square when a larger-than-life energetic politician rode into town to ask the citizens of Peoria for their vote during the 1900 Presidential election. The candidate was not William McKinley, who was the incumbent Republican nominee, but instead was McKinley’s running mate Theodore Roosevelt. Even though TR believed the office of Vice President was relatively trivial and powerless, his popularity around the country helped McKinley secure his re-election bid. Less than one year after Roosevelt’s campaign stop at Peoria’s Courthouse Square on October 8, 1900, TR became the 26th President of the United States when President McKinley was assassinated in Buffalo, New York.
Even with the heat and humidity sapping their energy, my two companions were able to visit each of the Presidential sites in just over an hour. But back in the Jeep, I watched as my photographer guzzled two bottles of flavored water in record time – Tom said he felt dehydrated and a bit weak in the stomach from the heat. I wasn’t surprised as the only thing I saw my fat friend eat all day was a few snacks he and his wife had packed for the trip.
The clock on the Jeep’s dashboard read five o’clock when we arrived at the Holiday Inn Express in Morton, Illinois, which was only a ten-mile drive from Peoria’s Courthouse Square. While Vicki registered in the hotel’s lobby, my photographer unloaded their gear onto a luggage cart and brought their stuff to their room. Tom immediately placed me near the television set, which proved to be a lot cooler than standing in that padded camera case.
For dinner, Tom and Vic had their taste buds set on Thursday turkey dinners at Cracker Barrel, which was located across the parking lot from our hotel. When the two of them returned, I noticed my photographer had purchased a dozen bottles of Moxie soda pop at the restaurant – which was Tom’s personal and tasteful tribute to Calvin Coolidge.
Exhausted from a full day of travel and visiting numerous Presidential sites, plus the fact we gained an extra hour when we entered the Central Time Zone, Tom extinguished the lights in the room shortly before 10pm. Once again alone with my thoughts, a famous tune popped into my resin head – a tune which I couldn’t help but alter some of the lyrics. And that was partly due to my excitement centered on the next day’s Presidential sites – which was a full day of walking in the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln.
“Hello darkness, my old friend. I’ve come to talk with you again. Because a vision I kept a-thinkin’, about a day with Abraham Lincoln. And the vision that was planted in my brain, still remains, within the sound of silence. In restless dreams I stood alone, on dirt streets or cobblestone. I’ll see the places where Lincoln walked; and visit sites where Ol’ Abe talked; when my eyes get stabbed by the flash from the years gone by, it’s no wonder why, I love the sound of silence.”
