Niagara County has had various degrees of contact with United States presidents over the years, but perhaps the most prominent concerned Abraham Lincoln, whom many consider our greatest president.
The Lincoln contacts cannot match those of two "local" presidents, Buffalonians Millard Fillmore and Grover Cleveland. They were lawyers who often handled cases in Niagara County courts. But, of course, they cannot match the renown of Lincoln.
Although much beloved now, many contemporaries of Lincoln in this area did not always agree with Honest Abe. One particular story involves a local disagreement with Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.
While Niagara County in general stood four-square against slavery, some argued against the proclamation freeing slaves as unconstitutional.
A popular Lockport politician and lawyer, Washington Hunt, who once served as New York governor, headed a protest of Lincoln's action. His name was first on a petition circulated against the proclamation. Sixty-six other signatures followed Hunt's name.
The petition was addressed to Lincoln and carried a heading of "A Petition from the people to the President to revoke his Abolition Proclamation and proclaim the supremacy of the Constitution." The petition listed many reasons, but fundamentally stated that the president alone did not have authority to change the Constitution, which they believed freeing slaves did.
Washington Hunt, incidentally, presided over the national convention of the National Constitutional Union Party, which in 1860 put up a candidate in opposition to Lincoln. The petition recommended that negotiation with the South be used rather than emancipation of slaves, but the conflict had grown much too bitter for any sort of negotiations at that time.
The petitioners mitigated their opposition somewhat by stating in a final paragraph that the signers agreed "so far as it may be necessary to employ military power in a constitutional manner to preserve the Union, we are in full support of the Federal Government."
Many Lincoln tidbits have appeared in local newspapers over the years, many of them in Lincoln's birth month of February. One source of Niagara Falls pride is a visit by Lincoln on July 25, 1857, when he signed the register at the venerable Cataract House. He signed it "A. Lincoln and Family."
During that visit, the family also visited Goat Island to view the Horseshoe Falls. At that time, a bridge connected the mainland with little Bath Island on the way to Goat Island, Tolls were charged at a Bath Island booth, and visitors also signed a guest book there, which contained the Lincoln signature.
The president even added his words describing the mighty falls, as many other prominent people have done over the years. Lincoln said, "There is no mystery about the thing itself. Every effect is just as any intelligent man, knowing the causes, would anticipate without seeing it. Its power to excite reflection and emotion is its great charm."
And it appears the First Lady and son took a break from the stresses of the Civil War. The local newspaper of Sept. 4, 1861, reported the following:
"Mrs. Lincoln, wife of the president, arrived here from the east Wednesday and took rooms at the International. She was accompanied by her son Robert and several other gentlemen and ladies. Mrs. Lincoln desired to avoid any formal public demonstration of respect by her friends but received all who chose to call in a quiet unostentatious manner befitting the wife of the head of the nation. Mrs. Lincoln left for the east the following Monday morning."
When Lincoln made the train trip from Springfield to Washington to assume office, he had a stopover in Buffalo. The Lockport newspaper, The Journal and Courier, crowed that half its staff "was in Buffalo to see old Abe." The newspaper also reported that about 30 spectators in the throngs hoping to see Lincoln had their pockets picked of various and sundry amounts.
Apparently, getting to Lincoln was not as easy as John Wilkes Booth seemed to make it. The Lockport Union Sun of Feb. 11, 1909, carried an article written by Rev. Francis T. Hoover, of Cambria, about his visit to Gettysburg to listen to Lincoln's short speech, which has become world renowned. The reverend reported he was impressed by the speech but disappointed because afterwards he was not able to fight his way close enough to shake the president's hand.
The Feb. 12, 1955 Niagara Falls Gazette carried a brief about the late Max M. Oppenheim, who had obtained a vest once worn by Lincoln and presented it to the Lincoln Museum in Washington, D.C., in 1940.
As a personal aside, I might mention that Oppenheim was a prominent businessman and realtor from whom my parents purchased their first home in Niagara Falls in 1933.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Oct. 5, 2010 |