The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1906-06-13
BEN HARDlN's CLOTHES.
ehey May Have Changed the Course
of american History.

ehey May Have Changed the Course
of american History.
Singular the coincidence and deserv-
ing mention that three presidents OF
the United States elected to the
worlds highest Office ut five successive
presidential elections should have had
close and direct personal connection
with Kentucky, says the Louisville
Herald. Abraham Lincoln elected in
1860 and in 1864, was born in Hardin
county. Ulysses S. Grant, elected pres
ident in 1868 and 1872, attended the
celebrated Maysville academy, con-
Quoted by Jacob w. Rand and William
| w. Richeson, of that beautiful and his
| torlc little city. Among the school
mates of General Grant at Maysville
were the late Hon. Walter Newman
Haldeman of Louisville, founder of the
Courier-Journal; Hon. Thomas II. Mel
| son, United States minister to Mexico;
! the Hon. William Henry Wadsworth
of the Mexican claims commission;
Richard II. Collins, historian of Ken
lucky, and many others. General
| Grant always entertained a warm feel
ing for Kentucky and delighted when
president to give official recognition to
sons of the old commonwealth on
whose soil he had spent happy days.
So well, indeed, did General Grant
think of Kentuckians that as far back
as the election of 1860 he voted for
John Cabell Breckinridge then re-
garded as first of Kentucky's favorite
sons, for president Of the United
| States.
Not many are aware that James
Buchanan of Pennsylvania, elected
president in 1856, was resident dur
ing an interesting period Of Hardin
county, which had given birth to the
| great American destined to succeed
him in the presidency. 1t was in 1918
that James Buchanan took up his res
idence at Elizabethtown. Five years
before, in the very county Of which
Elizabethtown was then and is now
the county seat, had been born child,
| Abraham Lincoln, destined to achieve
higher honors and greater name in
history than even Buchanan himself,
considered in his day one of the most
fortunate Of American public men.
Buchanan's father had purchased as
an investment some property near
Elizabethtown. Giving it to his son, he
bade him settle in the new land of
promise and grow up with it. Buchan-
an, then three and twenty, college
graduate and a lawyer had little At
ness for the rough and ready sides of
frontier life. Attending the first term
Of court after his arrival, he noticed
among the visiting lawyers the cele-
brated Ben Hardin, in a suit Of un-
bleached tow linen, i'll fitting and bad
ly built, giving its gifted wearer a
clownish appearance. Buchanan felt
surprised to see this ungainly looking
parsonage take seat among the law
yers.
A case was called the third day of
the term in which the pleadings were
very intricate, and after the strictest
English forms before the days Of Chit
| ty. The future presidents wonder was
| inexpressible when he saw Hardin take
hold of this case with astonishing skill
and force. The arguments of the
rough looking Kentucky lawyer were
masterpieces of learning, logic and
clearness. Before he left the courtroom
that day young Buchanan resolved that
where such i'll favored looking lawyers
possessed so much learning and power
there was small show for a budding
Pennsylvania tenderfoot. Rather than
struggle for success at the bar with
such giants as Hardin and his col
leagues he would go back to his native
Keystone commonwealth. Meeting Mr..
Hardin afterward in congress, 1921
%, Mr.. Buchanan declared that he
went to Kentucky expecting to be a
great man there, that so many lawyers
he came in contact with were his
equals and so many again his superiors
that he gave it up.
Thus Ben Hardin's i'll fitting suit of
unbleached tow linen may have chang
ed the whole course of American his
tory.