The final part of Don Cosby’s three-part series on Abraham Lincoln’s journies through Daviess County includes affidavits by those who helped document the former president’s trips.

Following are parts of original affidavits of reputable Daviess County residents, presented as evidence.

Affidavit of John W. Connelly — August 6, 1930

“I am 64 years of age, was born in Daviess County, Ind., and I own the farm formerly owned by Jerry Allen. I resided in the neighborhood of this farm for 23 years and learned from statements made by older men that there was formerly a log cabin on this farm, in 1830, in which Mr. Allen lived, and that the Lincoln party camped overnight at this place on their migration from Indiana to Illinois.

“I was intimately acquainted with Elliott Chappell. He state(d) in my presence a number of times that one day in March, 1830, he and his father were coming home from Washington, and that southeast of my farm a short distance they met a moving party; that after they had reached their own home and done up their work they went to the Allen cabin and visited awhile and found the same moving party camped for the night. Mr. Chappell further stated that there was a very tall young man in the party about Mr. Chappell’s age and that he and this young man became acquainted and sat down on a log near the cabin to talk. They talked a good while and he learned the young man’s name was Abe Lincoln and that they were moving to Illinois.

“In addition to the facts which I have state(d) about Mr. Chappell, when I was a young man there were many old men who had heard the account of the Lincolns camping at the Allen place and it was a matter of common knowledge that these reports were well known all over the county.

John W. Connelly

August 6, 1930

Affidavit of Arsula Itskin (nee Ragsdale).

“My name is Arsula Itskin (nee Ragsdale). I am 49 years old. My mother was the daughter of Elliott Chappell who died at the age of 79 years.

F or the last 12 years of his life, Grandfather Chappell made his home with my father and mother. It was his frequently repeated statement to me and many others that in 1830 the Lincoln-Hanks emigrant party had camped one night on the Jerry Allen farm, now the Connolly farm, near the village of Glendale and that he met the people in the party and had sat down on a log with a tall young man and talked to him and learned that his name was Abe Lincoln.

Grandfather said they were nearly of the same age and he liked the young man and after their arrival in Illinois they corresponded with each other. I saw two of these letters from Abe Lincoln and read them and had them in my hands often.

When Grandfather died, he left them with my mother and before her death she gave them to me. The Lincoln letters, when she gave them to me, were with other papers in a small tin box. In December, 1916, my home in Alfordsville, Ind., was destroyed by fire with all its contents including the small tin box.

I distinctly remember these letters. They were signed “A. Lincoln,” in the style of penmanship that I have often seen in reproductions of the President’s signature.

I have a very clear recollection of one statement in one of the letters that the Lincolns were dissatisfied with their home in Illinois and wished they had stayed in Indiana or Kentucky. I have no recollection of other statements in either of the letters except about getting a letter from Grandfather Elliott Chappell about the crops and weather and that Abe was at work.

If Grandfather ever published these letters, I never heard of it, but he let some of his personal friends read them. He was very closemouthed and while he claimed he voted for Lincoln in 1860 and 1864 because he knew him and they were personal friends, he was a very staunch Democrat and political feeling was so high at that time if his Democratic neighbors had known that he was a Lincoln sympathizer he would have been very unpopular with many of them. He showed us the site of the cabin on the Jerry Allen farm where the Lincolns camped overnight many times and where he and Abe sat on a log and became acquainted and wrote letters to each other after Abe’s arrival in Illinois.

My recollection of the things Grandfather said and of the letters is very clear and distinct. I regret that I did not know the historical value of the letters at that time. I have read this affidavit carefully and it is correct.

Arsula C. Itskin

Subscribed and sworn to before me this Aug. 6, 1930, Ezra Mattingly, Notary Public

Affidavit of Lilly Cosby, 1955

“My name is Lillie Cosby and I am 91 years old and the widow of James Richard Cosby, who was the grandson of Overton Cosby Sr.

“I can well remember it was common knowledge in the Cosby family that Overton Cosby Sr., my husband’s grandfather, traded horses with Thomas Lincoln, and that the Lincoln family camped overnight at the Overton Cosby Sr. farm. I have heard my husband say that Abner Cosby, his father and son of Overton Cosby Sr., owned the first cook stove in Daviess County and that his grandmother Cosby, who was of German descent, was such a good bread baker in baking bread before an open fire that he gave her the cook stove.”

Stephen Myers

Another interesting affidavit about the horse trade dated March 2, 11931, was made by Stephen E. Myers, an attorney, in which he related that Hamlet Allen (who was credited with being the father of Washington High School) was a neighbor boy about 10 years of age.

He lived not far from the Overton Cosby Sr. farm and Mr. Cosby often said in Mr. Allen’s presence that he was proud of the horse trade with Thomas Lincoln.

Mr. Allen was quoted as saying he was told by Mr. Cosby the Lincoln mare was crippled from a sprain so that the movers could not make good time traveling with her and that he traded a good traveling horse to Thomas Lincoln.

Ziba Cosby

Another of the more interesting affidavits is the one made by Ziba F. Cosby and it concerns the Lincoln horse trade:

“State of Indiana, Daviess County, SS:-1930

Ziba Cosby being duly sworn on oath deposes as follows:

I was born on a farm in section 18, township 2 north, range 6 west, in Daviess County, Ind., April 2, 1854. Washington Cosby Sr., now deceased, was my father. His father was Overton Cosby Sr., one of the first settler(s) of this county. He resided with my father for several years before his death, which occurred Dec. 18, 1859. I well remember him.

Jacob and James Cosby were my uncles, both older than my father. The lived in the same neighborhood where my grandfather and father lived until they moved into Washington, and I saw them and talked to them and heard them talk to numerous people hundreds of times.

Uncle Jacob was born in Kentucky, about 1811. He died in Evansville, Ind., when he was about 96 ears of age. I have heard him and Uncle James tell the story many times of the movers going from Indiana to Illinois, who stopped and camped overnight at grandfather’s home, and that there was a man named Tom Lincoln in it, who had a cripple(d) mare, and that he and Grandfather traded, so that Lincoln could get a horse that could travel.

(At that time there was a collection of old sheds south of the present house where Frank Raney lives on the Cosby farm, formerly used as part of a brickyard and 200 or 300 feet away was a spring and the movers, Uncle Jake and Uncle James said, camped there that night.

These uncles said Tom Lincoln told Grandfather he needed a horse that could travel, and Grandfather said his horses were out in the woods, and he could not say much about a trade until he got them up, and then Uncle Jake, who was a good hunter, went with Abe Lincoln to find the horses.

Uncle Jake said he killed the biggest deer on that hunt for the horses that he ever saw, and they took it home and gave the movers half of it, and on numerous occasions he showed me a big deer horn in his gunsmith’s shop in Washington and said it was from that deer.

After Abraham Lincoln became president, he told me he had no doubt the President had that deer’s other horn.

Uncle Jake became a gunsmith, and kept a shop of that kind in Washington for a long, long time. Uncle Jake said his father and Tom Lincoln traded, grandfather getting the crippled mare, and that it took her about a year to get over being lame — something was the matter with one foot. Uncle Jake said the mare’s name was Bonnie; that she was with foal; that the foal was a mare, and so was her colt. This colt was named Trimmy, and I have seen grandfather drive this mare many times. He had about the first, if not the first, buggy brought into our part of the county, and he was proud of Trimmy and liked to drive her to the buggy. I have ridden with him many times in the buggy when he had Trimmy hitched to it. Trimmy was getting along in years when Grandfather died, and by recollection is that my Uncle Charles Cosby, living then on an adjoining farm, got Trimmy.

This was a famous mare in our part of the county. She was bay with black mane, tail and legs. Grandfather was very proud of her. I heard my uncles say that Bonnie was Mountain Black on one side and Whip and Snap on the other. I know nothing of these breeds of horses, but I know Trimmy was a fine looker and stepper.

“I knew about all of the first settlers of our part of the county up and down Portersville Road from my earliest recollections, and it was among them common knowledge that the Lincoln moving party stayed one night at the Jerry Allen farm, now Connelly farm, and the next night at my grandfather’s farm, and that they made a short journey to the last-name place because the mare had got so lame they could not travel any faster. It is about five miles from one of these places to the other. I have heard them talk about it time after time.

“The Portersville Road in 1830, I have learned, did not run where it does now; it was a short distance west at grandfather’s place, running near to the site of the present Raney house and the campers stayed west of the road that night.

“After I got old enough to know the people who lived along the Portersville Road as early as 1830, they all spoke of the Lincoln party going that way. This was talked about both before and after Abraham Lincoln became president.

“Uncle Jacob Cosby died at Evansville, as stated, and I saw and talked to him the last time when he was around 90 years old. His mind and memory were clear and distinct at that time. He loved to hunt all of his life, and was reputed to be one of the best hunters and marksmen in the county for a long time.

“My Uncle James, who also told me the same story about the Lincoln family camping at the Allen and Cosby farms, lived to a ripe old age and died in 1902 when he was over 80 years of age.”

In addition to the previous affidavits mentioned, several other highly respected citizens also offered sworn affidavits. Those include Enoch Johnson, Charles McDonald, Steven Myers, Frank Cross and Solen Mathers. As previously mentioned, generally speaking these affidavits, while equally important tended to offer duplication of the facts and would only tend to lengthen the article.

Through the years I have had a number of people inquire concerning this story and it has been briefly printed in 1957 by the Washington Times-Herald.

Due to the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s migration, I hope these facts prove to clarify what many feel is a very important chapter in the Lincoln story.