Looking at Lincoln? - Men wonder if Abe, Douglas and even Wallace are in Ottawa photo
Charles Stanley,
[email protected], 815-431-4063 Aug 19, 2010
For decades Lincoln scholars have been tantalized by a photo that possibly included Abraham Lincoln when he was in Ottawa for his first debate with Stephen Douglas on Aug. 21, 1858.
The setting is the two-story house of banker Henry F. Eames, which now stands just east of the 1860 Illinois Appellate Court building on the northeast corner of Columbus and Lafayette streets.
The photograph unmistakably shows two men in stovepipe hats standing next to each other, one much taller than the other. These two men are at the near center of the photo and have long been said to be of Lincoln and Douglas. The carriage in the photograph resembles the one on display at the La Salle County Historical Museum in Utica, which is said to have carried Lincoln to the debate in Ottawa.
Also, standing at the front of the group is a figure who looks strikingly similar to W.H.L. Wallace, the man who had tried to arrange the details of Lincoln’s arrival in Ottawa for the debate and who later as a Brigadier General in the Union Army was killed at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862.
Lloyd Ostendorf knew of the photograph and thought it important enough to include in his survey of all known Lincoln photographs.
Perhaps most important for now, however, is that the elusive original Lincoln-Douglas debate photograph, once regarded as lost, may now be fully examined by Lincoln experts.
The original of this photo is on display at the Marie Louise Olmstead Memorial Museum in Somonauk.