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Ann Rutledge
Ann Mayes Rutledge (January 7, 1813 – August 25, 1835) was allegedly Abraham Lincoln's first love.
Born near Henderson, Kentucky, Ann Mayes Rutledge was the third of 10 children born to Mary Ann Miller Rutledge and James Rutledge. In 1829, her father, along with John M. Cameron, founded New Salem, Illinois.
Many of the facts of her life are lost to history, but some historians believe that she was the first love of Abraham Lincoln. The exact nature of the Lincoln–Rutledge relationship has been debated by historians and non-historians since 1866.
John McNamar (aka McNeil, 1801–1879), was, according to his son, engaged to marry Ann Rutledge. But McNamar left for New York to bring his family to Illinois and promised to marry Rutledge upon his return. According to his son, "While absent he was taken with a fever and was away three years. In the meantime Ann and Abraham Lincoln became engaged, thinking my father dead. My father, however, returned before the wedding came off." For a time Rutledge and McNamar exchanged letters, but his letters became more formal and "less ardent in tone" and eventually ceased completely. McNamar (who owned the land on which the Rutledges were tenants) never married Rutledge. After she died he married his first wife in 1838.
In 1835, a wave of typhoid hit the town of New Salem. Ann Rutledge died at the age of 22 on August 25, 1835. This left Lincoln severely depressed. Historian John Y. Simon reviewed the historiography of the subject and concluded, "Available evidence overwhelmingly indicates that Lincoln so loved Ann that her death plunged him into severe depression." An anonymous poem about suicide, "The Suicide's Soliloquy", published locally exactly three years after her death, is widely attributed to Lincoln.
After Lincoln's first election as president, Isaac Cogdal, a friend of Lincoln's, ventured to ask whether it was true that Lincoln had fallen in love with Ann. Lincoln is said to have replied:
It is true—true indeed I did. I loved the woman dearly and soundly: she was a handsome girl—would have made a good, loving wife.... I did honestly and truly love the girl and think often—often of her now.
Ann Mayes Rutledge was laid to rest in the Old Concord Burial Ground; however, the body was exhumed and then buried in the Oakland Cemetery in Petersburg, Illinois, when an undertaker became financially interested in the cemetery in 1890. In January 1921, the small, rough stone marking Rutledge's grave was replaced with a granite monument inscribed with the text of the poem "Anne Rutledge," from Edgar Lee Masters's Spoon River Anthology:
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Ann Rutledge
Ann Mayes Rutledge (January 7, 1813 – August 25, 1835) was allegedly Abraham Lincoln's first love.
Born near Henderson, Kentucky, Ann Mayes Rutledge was the third of 10 children born to Mary Ann Miller Rutledge and James Rutledge. In 1829, her father, along with John M. Cameron, founded New Salem, Illinois.
Many of the facts of her life are lost to history, but some historians believe that she was the first love of Abraham Lincoln. The exact nature of the Lincoln–Rutledge relationship has been debated by historians and non-historians since 1866.
John McNamar (aka McNeil, 1801–1879), was, according to his son, engaged to marry Ann Rutledge. But McNamar left for New York to bring his family to Illinois and promised to marry Rutledge upon his return. According to his son, "While absent he was taken with a fever and was away three years. In the meantime Ann and Abraham Lincoln became engaged, thinking my father dead. My father, however, returned before the wedding came off." For a time Rutledge and McNamar exchanged letters, but his letters became more formal and "less ardent in tone" and eventually ceased completely. McNamar (who owned the land on which the Rutledges were tenants) never married Rutledge. After she died he married his first wife in 1838.
In 1835, a wave of typhoid hit the town of New Salem. Ann Rutledge died at the age of 22 on August 25, 1835. This left Lincoln severely depressed. Historian John Y. Simon reviewed the historiography of the subject and concluded, "Available evidence overwhelmingly indicates that Lincoln so loved Ann that her death plunged him into severe depression." An anonymous poem about suicide, "The Suicide's Soliloquy", published locally exactly three years after her death, is widely attributed to Lincoln.
After Lincoln's first election as president, Isaac Cogdal, a friend of Lincoln's, ventured to ask whether it was true that Lincoln had fallen in love with Ann. Lincoln is said to have replied:
It is true—true indeed I did. I loved the woman dearly and soundly: she was a handsome girl—would have made a good, loving wife.... I did honestly and truly love the girl and think often—often of her now.
Ann Mayes Rutledge was laid to rest in the Old Concord Burial Ground; however, the body was exhumed and then buried in the Oakland Cemetery in Petersburg, Illinois, when an undertaker became financially interested in the cemetery in 1890. In January 1921, the small, rough stone marking Rutledge's grave was replaced with a granite monument inscribed with the text of the poem "Anne Rutledge," from Edgar Lee Masters's Spoon River Anthology: