Jack Berry speaks at the Lincoln statue re-dedication
On June 20th, the OLBC helped celebrate Juneteenth with the re-dedication of George Waters statue of Lincoln in the Portland Park Blocks. A granite stone, noting the OLBC, was placed at the foot of the statue, first dedicated in 1928. There were several speakers at the re-dedication and a recital of Lincoln's Second Inaugural by Lincoln actor Steve Holgate.
The OLBC was pleased to have Jack Berry at the re-dedication. Jack's relationship to Lincoln is outlined in his remarks:
As I understand it, I'm here because it was thought appropriate to have someone with family ties to the venerated figure say a few words. My great great grandfather's half brother, William Berry, was the senior partner in the Lincoln-Berry Store, which is all over the internet. You can even buy a kit and build your own model.
While anything but a Lincoln scholar, I've had this reason to peruse a number of the biographies. All, save one, paint a dismal picture of the role my ancestor played in events leading to the failure of that enterprise. The store, in Abe's interesting language, ?winked out.?
Whiskey was apparently the loss leader at the Lincoln-Berry Store and the consensus is that my kinsmen, who was called ?Whistling Billy,? drank down the inventory. Lincoln famously didn't drink, case closed.
Ah, but in ?Berry and Lincoln, Frontier Merchants,? Zarel C. Spears and Robert S. Barton, hold that Berry was one of the most unjustly maligned men in American history. While the claim rings sweetly in the ears of all Berries, it could be a trifle out of proportion. The dent the Berries have made in American history would not be spotted by inspectors at a car rental agency.
And it must be acknowledged that an ancestor of Spears was married to one Mary Harriet Berry, who insisted until her death in 1913, at the age of 91, that her brother Billy was the best person on earth. The possibility of special pleading should probably be entertained. But Spears and Barton probably did delve into documents associated with New Salem in the 1830s more deeply than most scholars and an amazing lot of it survives. The town itself ?winked out? not long after the store. Both assumed that navigation on the Sangamon River would produce a boom. That didn't happen.
But let's get to the real significance of the Lincoln-Berry connection, the fallout.
How useful politically was it for Lincoln to be widely known as ?Honest Abe?? The handle was bestowed after he made good to creditors of the store. And biographers are unanimous in siting the legal education of the Emancipator in the Berry-Lincoln Store. Lincoln made lemonade out of the absence of business by studying law after someone dropped off a barrel that was full of the works of Blackstone instead of whiskey. Would be really prefer a chain of Abraham Lincoln department stores?
And what was his early legal specialty? In his book, ?Lincoln the Lawyer,? Brian Dirck had this to say: ?Insofar as Lincoln specialized in any area of the law, he was a debt-collection attorney.?
William Berry died, probably of malaria, not of cirrhosis of the liver, at the age of 28. According to Spears and Barton, he was a constable and was attending college. I'm inclined to give the kid a break.
Lincoln referred to his owings as ?The National Debt? and in no way will I attempt any defense of my kinsman that diminishes the stature of the reality alluded to by this statue. The Berry family has always held the person we are trying to imagine in the highest possible regard and is pleased by the association, however dicey it has been.
The National Debt owed to Lincoln can be paid down only by taking on the Plantations of today. And, in trying to be real under the crushing weight of this greatness (gesturing toward the statue), it helps to remember that Lincoln like to laugh.
We might even get a wink.
