Lincoln's Farewell to Illinois
The plaque text:
Abraham Lincoln made his farewell address to the people of Illinois at Tolono station February 11, 1861. “I am leaving you on an errand of national importance, attended as you are aware with considerable difficulties. Let us believe as some poet has expressed it, ‘Behind the cloud the sun is still shining.’ I bid you an affectionate farewell.”
Marker placed by Alliance Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, Urbana, Champaign, and the citizens of Tolono. July 1932.
The plaque story:
I was on a weekend road trip with my dad in the late summer of 2004. We had departed Interstate 57 south of Champaign-Urbana to visit a nearby town. Here's my blog entry for September 11, 2004:
We got off the interstate just northwest of Tolono and drove into town on U.S. 45. I noticed while we were heading through that there was a sign for a historical marker. But as we passed the spot indicated -- the entrance to a gas station -- I didn't see a marker. We drove out the south end of town, turned around, and tried again. We turned in at the gravel entrance to the gas station, but still didn't see anything historic looking. But we did see a local constable parked in his Tolono squad car, apparently waiting for speeders . He lowered his passenger-side window as we rolled up.
"We were looking for that historical marker," I said.
"What?" he answered.
"Do you know anything about the historical marker that's supposed to be here?"
"A drunk took it down last winter. State still hasn't put it back up."
"Do you know what it was for? What the marker was for?
"I don't know. State's supposed to put it back up again."
I had my camera out, but I couldn't bring myself to ask whether I could take the officer's picture. I also didn't ask how long he'd been living in the area that he had no idea what this marker was about. Inquiries like that could be a threat to homeland security and speed-zone enforcement. Instead, Dad and I drove off to see Tolono; I was hoping there'd been an old station or stop of some kind I could photograph so I can send a shot to my old friend Gerry, who used to play the song so well. But there's not a whole lot happening in town, certainly no evidence of a rail-passenger platform anywhere. I shot a couple scenes along the Norfolk tracks anyway. Then we headed back to U.S. 45 to go south for a few miles and get back on I-57.
We passed the historical marker sign again, and going by the gas station I finally saw the monument. It was a tablet set into a boulder in among some sort of ever-greenery. The bushes kind of looked like landscaping for the gas station, and the boulder hadn't been visible when we were consulting local law enforcement about markers of historical significance. The police officer had been parked no more than 100 feet from the spot.
We halted again, and it turned out to be worth it this time. The marker commemorates what is said to be Lincoln's last speech in Illinois, on February 11, 1861, during a brief stop on his journey east to be inaugurated. The Lincoln log -- which gives a day-by-day account of this part of the 16th president's life and doings, notes that Lincoln stopped further east, too, in Danville. Though he spoke to a crowd there, his remarks as recorded by reporters were less address-like than the spare, somber words recorded at Tolono
In any case, the poignancy in Lincoln's remarks lies in the fact he returned home to Illinois only when his funeral train bore him back in 1865.