Group honors Lincoln’s housekeeper at cemetery

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January 3, 2010

STAFF REPORT The Commercial-News Sun Jan 03, 2010, 07:38 PM CST

DANVILLE — Last month, members of the Ward Hill Lamon Civil War Roundtable gathered at the gravesite of Mariah Vance at Spring Hill Cemetery.

A wreath and grave blanket were placed at her grave, located in the southwest section of Spring Hill near the rear entrance of the cemetery off English Street.

Vance was a laundress, maid and nurse in the Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln household from 1850 until the Lincolns left Springfield to move into the White House after the 1860 election. Vance’s family moved to Danville in 1861 when her husband got a job here as a miner.

Vance’s oral history of life inside the Lincoln home spurred a controversial book, “Lincoln’s Private Life, an Oral History by his Housekeeper, Mariah Vance, 1850-1860,” published in the mid 1990s. Vance’s recollections were put into book form from notes written down by an Attica, Ind., woman who, as a young secretary in Danville, had taken her laundry to Vance in the early part of the 1900s.

Although Vance’s death in 1904 made front-page news in Danville, she was buried in an unmarked grave until the original Ward Hill Lamon Roundtable group had a marker placed there some 60 years later. Current Roundtable member, Kevin Young, who was in grade school at the time, attended the dedication ceremony in 1964 with his parents, who were instrumental in the installation of the marker.

Young said, “I was a budding historian in early grade school back then, but having worked in the history profession most of my adult life, it’s nice to be back here in Vermilion County, and re-exploring areas where I have some personal history as well.”

Larry Weatherford, local historian and also a member of the Roundtable, said, “While the 1990s book has undergone a great deal of criticism based on research and documentation of facts, events and recollection … it’s time to sift through all the information available on Vance and her life to paint a realistic picture of this African-American woman who knew the Lincolns so well.

“Whether we glean more facts on the Lincolns, we at least need to find out the true story of Mariah Vance. And while we are doing that, we may just be able to substantiate at least some of the Lincoln stories, too.”

At the ceremony, Weatherford made some remarks about Vance and her life and times; Young spoke about the installation of the marker in 1964, and Charles Hall read from Lincoln’s Daily Devotional book, which Lincoln carried on the Eighth Judicial Circuit. The Roundtable is researching Vance’s life and history.

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