More on Lincoln

Mark, research genealogist extraordinaire, found more information on Nancy Potter and Bowling Green, friends of Mr. Lincoln. Sounds like very close friends, in fact. Check this out! Mark, would you mind sending me the source info, so I can link it in the sidebar? Thanks, again, Mark!

(Nancy Green nee Potter, was the aunt of Andrew Jackson Potter, father to Milo Dock.)

Some of those whom Mr. Lincoln met in New Salem took a somewhat paternal interest in Mr. Lincoln. Democratic Justice of the Peace Bowling Greene was called a almost a second father to Mr. Lincoln by businessman Abner Y. Ellis and as a lending library by James Short. ⁷ Ellis said that Mr. Lincoln said that "he owned more to Mr Green for his advancement than any other Man."⁸ New Salem chronicler Thomas P. Reep wrote how Justice Greene gave Mr. Lincoln an unusual lesson in the law. The case involved ownership of a hog that was claimed by both Jack Kelso and the Trent brothers. "Lincoln, appearing for the Trent brothers, proved by three witnesses that the hog belonged to them. Kelso testified that the hog belonged to him, but he was unsupported by witnesses." To Mr. Lincoln's surprise, Greene ruled for Kelso. "Mr. Lincoln "then called the attention of the court to the rule of evidence, which required a case of fact to be determined in accordance with the greater weight of preponderance of the testimony. Green replied, 'Abe, the first duty of a court is to decide cases justly and in accordance with the truth. I know that shoat myself, and I know it belongs [to] Kelso and that the plaintiffs and their witnesses lied."⁹

Historian Michael Burlingame noted that "In Greene's court, Lincoln argued minor cases even before he had obtained a license. The rotund judge loved jokes, and Lincoln's sense of humor amused him vastly; he also respected the young man's intellectual ability and allowed him to peruse the law books in his small personal library. Although he was the leading Democrat in New Salem, Greene urged Lincoln, a Whig, to make his second run for the state legislature [in 1834]. A temperance advocate, Greene was a cultivated man of refined manners, and his authority as an arbiter of disputes was widely respected." ¹⁰

At Bowling Greene's Masonic funeral in 1842, Mr. Lincoln was called to give a eulogy: "He looked down a few moments at the face of his friend," wrote fellow attorney Henry Rankin. "His whole frame began trembling with suppressed emotion. He then turned and faced the friends who filled the room and crowded the doorways and stood outside around the open windows. He spoke a few words, - broken sentences only, - tremulous vibrations of the thoughts he found it impossible to coherently articulate. Tears filled his eyes. He vainly struggled to regain that self-control under which he had always held his feelings before these friends on so many occasions. He had no words that could express adequately the thoughts that thronged him as he stood beside the body of his friend whose life had been so near his, and had meant so much to him."¹¹ At the funeral's conclusion Mr. Lincoln took Mrs. Greene on his arm and escorted her to the cemetery.

and more:

Historian Michael Burlingame wrote: "As a young legislator, he was, a colleague recalled, 'very awkward, and very much embarrassed in the presence of ladies.' A New Salem woman remembered that 'Lincoln was not much of a beau and seemed to prefer the company of the elderly ladies to the young ones.' Those more mature women included Hannah Armstrong, Nancy Green, and Mrs. Bennett Abell, who were in effect surrogate mothers."¹¹