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Writer's pictureMarvin Lindsay

Abe Lincoln Slept (in church) Here


The February, 2019 issue of Rural Missouri magazine contains an article by Jo Ann Trogdon detailing the legend that Abraham Lincoln once visited Columbia. One story goes that the future President tried to attend the 1840 Whig Party State Convention in Rocheport, but his steamboat ran aground. Instead he called on the future First Lady, Mary Todd, at the home of her uncle David, a Columbia resident. A variation of the story maintains that Lincoln made it to the convention, but upon meeting Mary, lost interest in politics for a while. Katherine Helms' The True Story of Mary: Wife of Lincoln claimed that while the grounded steamship prevented Lincoln from attending the convention, he "did not fail, however, to reach Columbia, and the next Sunday he and Mary were occupying the Todd pew in the Presbyterian Church."

Trogdon notes that Helms' book was "replete with invented conversations and unsubstantiated details," but since we're talking about First Presbyterian Church here, I am going to say that this detail is 100%, absolutely, positively true! Why, I would go so far as to claim that FPC taught the 16th President everything he knew about honesty... if he stayed awake through the sermon.

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