NIGHT VISITOR There is a story about Abraham Lincoln spending spending a night in the Shenandoah Valley which has no historical basis whatsoever, but that doesn't stop it from being told and re-told now and then.
The usual account tells of a time when Abraham Lincoln "was on his way back to Washington" suggesting he had frequently traveled in the southland area. The basis of the story seems to hinge on a letter said to have written by Lincoln to an innkeeper in the Valley - some tellings insist that the keeper of the inn lived at what is now known as Lacey Springs. It is also said he told Governor Stewart, of Virginia, that he had spent the night in an inn operated by none other than one his own cousin. Acting then on the urging from the Governor of Virginia wrote such a letter regrets to his cousin the innkeeper. The letter explained that he had not been aware of the connection at the time of his visit. One reads of people who say they had seen and handled the letter but not the past fifty or more years. We known not where it ended up; who might have it. No one seems to want to know.
Abraham Lincoln was about eight or nine year old when his father Thomas Lincoln was killed by Indians and he'd been about three or four when they left the Lincoln homestead near Linville, Rockingham County, Va. The boy had sopped up family history eagerly, however, and, most likely, would have actually sought out and found a relative with whom to spend the night had he been that close to the home place in his adult years.
The majority of Lincoln-lore writers tell the story but mark it as fiction... some was one's fantasy... some local person who was, ,perhaps, seeking some way to establish a closer relationship to a famous name. They speak of the story as being a fable and I have yet to find one such writer who points to a major flaw in the story. The Commonwealth has never had a Governor named Stewart - either elected or appointed! No siree! Not even a Lt.Gov!.
A.L M. August 3, 2005 [c355wds]
