Winter 2013 friends of the harlan-lincoln house, iowa wesleyan college, 601 n main street, mt. pleasant, iowa 52641 Lynn Ellsworth, Executive Director, [email protected], phone: 319-385-6320 An Evening with Mr. & Mrs. Lincoln provided captivating entertainment H usband and wife team Max and Donna Daniels entertained a large and appreciative audience on October 25 at the Iowa Wesleyan College Chapel. e Daniels are well-known as Lincoln presenters. eir portrayals of Abraham and Mary Lincoln were captivating, moving and factual. During their visit to Iowa Wesleyan, the Daniels toured the Harlan- Friends of the Harlan-Lincoln House at Iowa Wesleyan College news Main Street Cinemas in Mount Pleasant highlighted the Harlan- Lincoln story during the run of the acclaimed Steven Spielberg film “Lincoln” in January. The marquee called attention to the local historic connection to the Lincoln legacy. Friends of the Harlan-Lincoln House provided brochures and posters to bring awareness of the connection to theater-goers. a Celebrating the local connection to latest Spielberg movie Lincoln House. Max said that it was thrilling for him to be in the actual spaces where members of the Lincoln family spent time. He expressed keen appreciation for the Harlan-Lincoln House as an historical treasure. Both enjoyed performing in the renovated Iowa Wesleyan Chapel Auditorium and would welcome an opportunity to return and present a different program in the future. a Special showing of Love and Valor May 17, 7:30 p.m., Iowa Wesleyan College Chapel T hrough special arrangement with the director, Charles Larimer, Friends of the Harlan-Lincoln House will present the final edit version of his film “Love and Valor: One Couple’s Intimate Civil War Letters” at the Iowa Wesleyan College Chapel on Friday, May 17, at 7:30 p.m. ree years ago, Larimer shared an earlier version of the movie with a local audience. Larimer is again offering the showing as a fundraiser for the Harlan-Lincoln House. Tickets may be purchased at the door for $5.00. e film is based on Larimer’s book of the same name. Jacob and Emeline Ritner, the couple who wrote the letters, were Larimer’s great-grandparents. e Ritners lived in Henry County and Ritner served as captain in the 25th Iowa Infantry. a
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Winter 2013
friends of the harlan-lincoln house, iowa wesleyan college, 601 n main street, mt. pleasant, iowa 52641Lynn Ellsworth, Executive Director, [email protected], phone: 319-385-6320
An Evening with Mr. & Mrs. Lincoln provided captivating entertainment
Husband and wife team Max and Donna Daniels entertained a large and appreciative audience on
October 25 at the Iowa Wesleyan College Chapel. The Daniels are well-known as Lincoln presenters. Their portrayals of Abraham and Mary Lincoln were captivating, moving and factual.
During their visit to Iowa Wesleyan, the Daniels toured the Harlan-
Friends of the Harlan-Lincoln House at Iowa Wesleyan Collegenews
Main Street Cinemas in Mount Pleasant highlighted the Harlan-Lincoln story during the run of the acclaimed Steven Spielberg film “Lincoln” in January. The marquee called attention to the local historic connection to the Lincoln legacy. Friends of the Harlan-Lincoln House provided brochures and posters to bring awareness of the connection to theater-goers. a
Celebrating the local connection to latest Spielberg movie
Lincoln House. Max said that it was thrilling for him to be in the actual spaces where members of the Lincoln family spent time. He expressed keen appreciation for the Harlan-Lincoln House as an historical treasure. Both enjoyed performing in the renovated Iowa Wesleyan Chapel Auditorium and would welcome an opportunity to return and present a different program in the future. a
Special showing of Love and ValorMay 17, 7:30 p.m., Iowa Wesleyan College Chapel
Through special arrangement with the director, Charles Larimer, Friends of the Harlan-Lincoln House will present the final edit version of his film “Love
and Valor: One Couple’s Intimate Civil War Letters” at the Iowa Wesleyan College Chapel on Friday, May 17, at 7:30 p.m. Three years ago, Larimer shared an earlier version of the movie with a local audience. Larimer is again offering the showing as a fundraiser for the Harlan-Lincoln House. Tickets may be purchased at the door for $5.00.
The film is based on Larimer’s book of the same name. Jacob and Emeline Ritner, the couple who wrote the letters, were Larimer’s great-grandparents. The Ritners lived in Henry County and Ritner served as captain in the 25th Iowa Infantry. a
March 5 The Garretson Family: Pioneers, Inventors, and Abolitionists Cathy Garretson Helman, a rural Salem native, will speak on her family history. The story of the Garretson family is one Henry County family’s story in the settlement of America. From a shipwreck off the coast of Long Island in 1657 to Jackson Township, Henry County, Iowa in 1837, notable characters, events and initiatives are all part of the Garretson family story. The arrival in Iowa included involvement in the Underground Railroad in and near Salem.
March 12 – Religion and the Civil War Larry Mitchell, former pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Mount Pleasant, will provide an overview
on evangelicalism, revivalism, and abolitionism, denominational splits leading up to the War, and Lincoln’s theology as shown in his writings.
March 19 The Impact of Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Life Among the Lowly on American Culture Joy Lynn Conwell, Circulation/Special Collections Associate at Chadwick Library, Iowa Wesleyan College, will present a look at the history and impact of the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Published in 1852, this anti-slavery novel
was the second best-selling book of the 19th Century, following the Bible. When President Lincoln met author Harriet Beecher Stowe, he stated
“So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.” Editions of the book held in the Special Collections of Iowa Wesleyan College will be on display. Those attending the lecture are invited to bring their personal copies of the book.
March 26 The Union Block: Past, Present, and Future Pat White, local researcher and historian, and Lisa Oetken, director of Mount Pleasant’s Main Street program, will speak about the history, current focus and future of one of the area’s most historically significant buildings.
Harlan-Lincoln House featured in Des Moines Register article
Brown Bag Lecture SerieS MarcH 2013This year marks the 10th anniversary of this annual series of presentations on historical topics. The Brown Bag Lectures are held Tuesdays in March at noon in the International Room of Chadwick Library at Iowa Wesleyan College. Audience members are encouraged to bring their lunch. The programs are free and open to the public.
Tours offer first-hand look at House
During the past few months, groups touring the Harlan-Lincoln House have included a class of Iowa Wesleyan
international students, the Midwest Old Threshers Log Village Explorer Post, Mt. Pleasant Christian School 4th and 5th graders, a Cadillac
LaSalle car club from Des Moines, women’s groups and family groups. A Lincoln enthusiast from Des Moines was delighted at what he found at the Harlan-Lincoln House and declared that it was a “diamond in the rough.” a
Iowa Wesleyan College international students visited the Harlan-Lincoln House.
An article in the January 14 edition of the Des Moines Register identified the connections Abraham Lincoln had to Iowa. Featured prominently was the Harlan and Lincoln family connections, and information on the Harlan-Lincoln House. A photo of the House accompanied the article. a
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University, the scriptabout a college-agedson’s surprise visit backhome with his girlfriendwas the winner of Tall-grass’ seventh annualIowa Playwrights Work-shop. It’s been polishedover the last fewmonthswith feedback from pub-lic readings and the usualrehearsals Tallgrassdevotes to all of its plays,by Pulitzer winners andnewbies alike.
The workshop’s direc-tor, Erica Spiller, won thefirst contest seven yearsago with a script shewrote as a senior atSimpson College.
“I hadn’t planned for itto go any further. Mymother spotted a note inthe paper and made sureI submitted it,” she said.
It turned out to be asmart move.
“Having that playstaged, seeing it live andgetting the feedbackfrom Tallgrass and theaudience gave me theconfidence to know that Ireally did have the abilityto write, that I couldpursue it further,” shesaid. She now has a mas-ter’s in English literatureand teaches writing atKaplan University.
She’s seen a handful ofplaywriting projectsemerge in the last fewyears. Actors at StageW-est and the Des MoinesCommunity Playhouse
read fresh scripts everymonth, usually fromestablished writers butnot always. The DesMoines Social Club orga-nizes page-to-stageevents, and area schools—Drake, Simpson, DesMoines Area Community
College — often hostfestivals of short plays.The 711Theatre Project,in which teams haveseven days to produce11-minute plays fromscratch, has become afrenzy of creativity ev-ery summer.
TomDeiker, a localplaywright and retiredIowa Department ofHuman Services official,compiled a list of 11 suchopportunities statewidefor a seminar a whileback at DMACC. Hisgroup, the Iowa Script-
writers Alliance, invitesanybody with a pen andpaper to bring up to 15pages to monthly script-reading meetings. Actorscan come and practicereading lines cold. Oth-ers come to offer feed-back or simply listen in.
The important thing isto just keep at it. At lastcount, Deiker has written92 plays. Forty-six havebeen staged by a total of35 theaters in 17 states.
“There are more than700 community theatersin the United States,” hesaid. “Many of them arehappy to do play compe-titions or workshops,knowing they’ll get freescripts.”
And a growing num-ber of them happen to behere.
PLAYSContinued from Page 1E
LEARNMORE» The Iowa Scriptwriters Alliance meets in Des Moines on the last Tuesday of each month toread and critique screenplays and stage scripts by anyone. www.iowascripts.org» The 711 Theatre Project challenges teams to create 11-minute plays every summer at GrandView University’s Viking Theatre. www.711theatre.com» StageWest’s Scriptease series presents a new script on the last Tuesday of each month at theFirst Unitarian Church. www.stagewestiowa.com» Actors read a script on the first Monday of each month at the Des Moines Community Play-house. www.dmplayhouse.com» Tallgrass Theatre accepts submissions year-round for its annual Iowa Playwrights Workshop.www.tallgrasstheatre.org» Several other groups invite submission for full-length productions or short-play festivals,including: the City Circle Acting Co. in Coralville, www.citycircle.org; Davis County Players inBloomfield, www.daviscountyfinearts.com; Dreamwell Theatre in Iowa City, www.dreamwell.com; and Shelterbelt Theatre in Omaha, www.shelterbelt.org.
only means of large-scaletransportation, had triedunsuccessfully to blockits construction.
When the steamboatEffie Afton struck one ofits piers andburned, dam-aging the bridge, theboat’s owners initiated alawsuit against the RockIsland Railroad, claimingthe bridgewas a hazard tonavigation and should bedismantled.
Lincoln, by then a re-spected Springfield, Ill.,lawyer, was hired to de-fend the railroad. Hiswork resulted in a hungjury that historians sayhelped hasten the end ofthe riverboat era and in-crease the pace of expan-sion into Iowa.
3 1858: Lincoln, aspir-ing U.S. senator,visits BurlingtonNominated to run
against incumbent Ste-phenA.Douglas for a seatin theU.S. Senate, Lincolnfinally accepted one ofseveral requests, whichhistorians believe startedaround 1844, to visit Bur-lington, Ia., thenan impor-tant political center in thestate.Aspartof thehistor-ic Lincoln-Douglas de-bates, Lincoln traveled toGalesburg on Oct. 7. Bur-lington, about 46 mileswest, provided an oppor-tunity to respond to argu-ments Douglas had madethere on a recent visit.
Among accounts of theOct. 9 visit was one byClark Dunham, editor ofThe Burlington HawkEye, who described Lin-coln coming down thestairs at his hotel, theBar-ret House, to meet a localdelegation with his armsstretched high as hestruggled to pull a fresh,boiled shirt over his head.Lincoln later spoke atGrimes House, a hallowned by Iowa Gov.JamesW. Grimes, and thenextdayvisitedGrimesathis home before leavingtown.
4 1859: Lincoln visitsDubuqueTraveling with clients
from the Illinois CentralRailroad on a break froma trial in Galena, Lincolnmade a side trip to Du-buque in 1859.
The party reportedlystayed at the extravagantJulienHouse hotel, an im-pressive structure thatgreeted travelers cross-ing the Mississippi Riverinto Iowa.
While theoriginalhotelwas destroyed by fire in1913, its elegant replace-ment completed in 1915 isstill open as the Hotel Ju-lien Dubuque.
51859: Lincoln travelsto Council BluffsInwhatmay have been
Lincoln’s most significantIowa visit, he traveled toCouncil Bluffs a year be-fore becoming a seriouschallenger for the Repub-lican nomination forpresident.
After a speech in theKansas Territory, Lincolnarranged a trip up theMissouri River to CouncilBluffs to survey parcelsof landhis friend,NormanJudd, had offered as secu-rity on a loan. He alsomade arrangements for aspeechon“political issuesof the day,” which gath-ered a packed house forwhat the Council BluffsNonpareil then describedas a “masterly and unan-swerable speech.”
Lincoln was intro-duced toGrenvilleDodge,a civil engineer workingfor the Mississippi andMissouri Railroad. Rival-ry for therailroad’sexten-sion pointwestward led to
a conversation on one ofthe broad porches of thePacific House Hotel inwhich Lincoln questionedDodge, who made a casefor Council Bluffs— laterLincoln’s choice for therailroad’s eastern termi-nus.
6 1860: Iowans helpLincoln win thepresidencyJosiah B. Grinnell of
Grinnell andHendrik Pie-ter Scholte of Pella wereamong the delegates whosupported Lincoln at theRepublican National Con-vention in Chicago. AndIowa Gov. Samuel Kirk-wood of Iowa City, for-merly ofOhio, is noted forhaving used his connec-tions to win support awayfrom rival Salmon P.Chase of Ohio.
Scholte later wrotecampaign endorsementsforLincoln and translatedcampaign materials intoDutch and German. Healso attended the inaugu-ration inWashington,D.C.Kirkwood was laterIowa’s war general underLincoln.
7 1861: President Lin-coln consults JamesHarlan, beginning abond between thetwo families.Illinois native James
Harlan moved to Iowa in1843, serving as a teacherand lawyer before beingnamed president of theMount Pleasant Colle-giate Institute, now IowaWesleyan College. Elect-ed to the U.S. Senate in1855, he became one ofLincoln’s trusted advis-ers, even escorting firstlady Mary Lincoln at thesecond inauguration in1865. Lincoln’s eldest son,Robert, escorted SenatorHarlan’s daughter, Mary,to the inauguration ball.
8Lincoln’s IowalegacycontinuesUpon the news of Lin-
coln’s death on April 15,1865, Iowansgrieved inanoutpouring that includedpublic meetings wherethey openly wept. In IowaCity, a mile-long proces-sion wound through thestreets on April 19.
The romance betweenLincoln’s son, RobertTodd Lincoln, and IowanMary Eunice Harlanforged a lasting Iowa tie.The two married in 1868,and in the late 1870s and1880s, brought their chil-dren to spend summers inthe Mount Pleasant homebuilt byMary’s father.Ar-tifacts there today in-clude a section of the coatLincoln was wearing atthe time of his assassina-tionand themourningveilworn by Mary Todd Lin-coln. Their three chil-dren’s heights in 1883 arestill recorded on a door-way in the home, whichcan be visited by appoint-ment with Lynn Ells-worth, executive directorof Friends of the Harlan-LincolnHouse, at 319-385-6320 or [email protected].
LINCOLNContinued from Page 1E
DORIS KEARNSGOODWINWhat: Presidential historianand Pulitzer Prize-winningauthor Doris Kearns Goodwinis the featured speaker at theGreater Des Moines Part-nership’s annual dinner Tues-day. Her best-selling book,“Team of Rivals: The PoliticalGenius of Abraham Lincoln,”inspired Steven Spielberg’sOscar-nominated film, “Lin-coln.”When: The Partnership’sannual dinner, which cele-brates successes in the busi-ness community, starts at5:30 p.m. Tuesday with asocial hour. The dinner andprogram begin at 6:30 p.m.Reserve tickets at www.desmoinesmetro.com/annualdinner. General seating is$125 per person or $1,250per table.
Howwe compiled this story: Grant Veeder’s(left) article, “Abraham Lincoln and the Hawk-eye State,” published in Iowa Heritage Illustrat-ed Winter 2008, was referenced, along withartifacts, interviews and records from the StateHistorical Library of Iowa, the State HistoricalSociety of Iowa, and the Council Bluffs PublicLibrary, as well as Iowa Public Television, the
Davenport Public Library, Pella Historical Village, IowaWesley-an College, the Union Pacific Railroad Museum, PBS, Universityof Iowa Press, The Lincoln Institute, the National GovernorsAssociaiton, the Wisconsin Historical Society and the AbrahamLincoln Presidential Library and Museum websites.
The Harlan-Lincoln house in Mount Pleasant, Ia. SPECIAL TOTHE REGISTER