The age-herald., 1897-09-19

F'lt tH hfm, ne lt was dlSeoY ered that ln tac fssograph. ."al form the marriage n- eenses ef the counSy a1ave undergone ssvsfzl changes. Comparison was made and A showed tlha6 the Philadelphia li- censs used in the history was manufac- tuned from form that came into use by the eounag in 1865. A blank of that year had been taken by somebody and filled out with the naimes and dates and stamped with the oldest seal which could be found. tlle one of 1s49, and thus the relic had been manufactured.
 Worst of all was the manipulation Of an almanac to fit the well-known story that MT. Lincoln once cleared a man charged with murder by showing that there was no moon when the chief pros ecuting witness testified that he saw distinctly the fatal thrust given, because the moon was shining. This trial took placs at Beardstown. The defendant was Duff Armstrong, whose mother had taken Lincoln in and befriended him when he first cama to- the county, a poor youth Duff Armstrong is still iv- ing in one of the towns neighboring to Springfield He has sold his trotting
  a Thoroughly upright citizen. The trial took place in 1857. Armstrong was cleared. The story told far and wide was that MT. Lincoln palmed upon the iusy an almanac which showed there was no moon on the night of the homicide, and thus impeached the principal wit ness again Duff Armstrong. There is in the possession of Gunth=r, the Chicago collector of Lincoln relics, a doctored almanac, supported by an array of af- fidavits claiming that it is the one Lin coln used before the jury. It is an al manac of 1854. The has been changed 10 by pen work with considerable skill to fit ths year of the trial. MT. Gunther has no doubt that this almanac was used by Mir. Lincoln. Yet MT. J. McCan Davis, young lawyer of Spring field, has demonstrated that the almanac was not used by MT. Lincoln, and with out attempting to fasten the responsf- bility Of the slander where it belongs, has established that this almanac was fixed within recent years to fit the story.
 The almanac passed through several hands before it reached MT. Gunther It was sold at increasing prices until the present. l|OSSeESOr pdiQ 9oU LOT II. ohO, who had it for time, puts a relic value on it of $1 ,00O. MT. Davis has seen the lawyers who were associated with MT. Lincoln in the defense. He has hunted up the surviving jurors in the case. He has traced the almanac back to it's origin. When the deadlock occurred in the Illinois legislature between Logan and Morrison, about a dozen years ago, it was broken by vacancy in a senatorial district and by the election of a repub- lican named Shaw, the democrats who had a strong normal majority being de- feated by 8 still hunt. Shaw died some years ago, and the story is that this al- manac,I with the year figures changed, was found in one of his books. A man named Husted was the discoverer. He bought some of Shaw's effects, and, ac- cording to his statement, this almanac was among them. Husted claims to have bsen a deputy sheriff at the Arm strong trial, although this is not mat ter of court record. He also claims that Shaw was connected with the same in some way, and thus came into posses sion of the book Husted moved out to Nebraska several years ago. He dis pOSeu or lW9 diIildndc lo d TeSluelll ol Alton, H.. ard after passing through various hands, the relic was unl,oaded on Gunther.
 Mir. Davis has obtained a great deal of cumulative testimony of participants in the trial to show that Mir Lincoln did not use this almanac, and by going back to the astronomical records, he found that Lincoln had no need to take any other ysar to get his almanac evidence to impeaah the witness. The testimony was that the moon was full. and that 1t stood in the heavens about whera the sun is at 10 o'clock in the morning. The almanac for that year showed the jury that upon the night Of the homicide there was a. rev moon about two days old and instead of being in the east, it was almost setting in the west. The Lincoln almanac is the manufactured evidence to support a fake.
 W. B. STEVENS.