Mount Pulaski Cemetery
     www.mtpulaskiil.com

    Tickets:  217 792 5442
 Seating is limited in this original courtroom of the Illinois 8th Judicial Circuit (1848-1854) - where both Mr. Lincoln and Judge Davis worked!
Cast:

 Presiding Judge: David Davis
Defendant:  Reuben Miller, Mnard County
Lawyer for Defendant:  Abraham Lincoln
Plaintiff:  Nathaniel Whitaker
Lawyer for the Plaintiff:  David Campbell
Bailiff:  Sheriff John C. Hurt
Preacher:  Rev. Uriah Schwalb
Bartender:  Raspus Finfrock
Wife of Defendant:  Mrs. Miller
Wife of Plaintiff:  Mrs. Matilda Whitaker
Forman of the Jury
Jury -  to be selected that day
- The re-enactment ending will depend 
  upon the voting of this particular jury –
________________________

Research Documents:
-Photocopies of 1854 & 1855 Lincoln & Mt. 
     Pulaski Tombstone appeal trials from
     Illinois Supreme Court manuscripts
-History of Logan County; Stringer, 1911
-One Hundred Years – Mt. Pulaski, 1836-1936
-James Hickey; former curator of the A. Lincoln
     Collection at Springfield Library
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Abraham Lincoln and his law partner, William Herndon, defended Reuben Miller in two Cast-Iron Tombstone trials alleging that there was no fraud, drunkenness or worthlessness in the patent rights.  While the Lincoln Illinois courthouse fire of 1857 destroyed most of the Mt. Pulaski and Lincoln county seat records, some information of these two trials has been preserved due to their appeals to the Illinois State Supreme Court.  Due to lack of a court transcription, this re-enactment has been edited for entertainment value.  The actual judgment rendered by each trial and its appeal will be revealed at the end of the re-enactment.

Cast-Iron Tombstone Trial  
 8th Circuit Court - Mount Pulaski Courthouse - 1854

Re-enactment & Historical Reading
  Mount Pulaski Courthouse
 Mount Pulaski, IL.

Show time:  Saturday, Sept. 6, 2008 – 4:00 pm
 During Town’s Annual Fall Festival (Sept. 4 – 5 – 6)

[a second performance may be offered at 8 pm, Sept. 6]

Lincoln in 1857.  Davis

http://www.mtpulaskiil.com/mtpulaskiilWEBsite/Courthouse/TombstoneTrial/trial.4.jpg

 Principal participants:
Abraham Lincoln - Lawyer for the defendant, Ruben Miller of Menard County
David Davis - Judge of the 8th Circuit Court, which covered approximately  
                            450 miles through 14 counties
Nathaniel Whitaker - Plaintiff, owner of the Mount Pulaski House Hotel

This trial is only one of four known trials held in the Mount Pulaski Courthouse during the mid 19th Century [1848 – 1854].  All paper work of all the other trials and judgments that were written in Mount Pulaski’s courthouse were destroyed in the 1857 courthouse fire in Lincoln, Illinois.  All records from the Mount Pulaski courthouse had been transferred to this new location in December, 1854, when the county seat was voted to be moved from Mount Pulaski to Lincoln, IL.  The town of Lincoln was now more populated.  It was more centrally located and now on the train line from Chicago to Springfield.