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A Map of Lincoln’s State with a Lincoln Forgery

Fine example of Finley’s separately-issued map of Illinois, published in 1833. This is the so-called "Lincoln Forgeries" copy, part of a larger hoax to sell items supposedly owned by the sixteenth president.

The map is hand colored according to county and includes a number of early towns, roads and settlements. The National Road is shown extending to St. Louis. It has oversized Cook, La Salle, Jo Daviess and Putnam Counties, along with areas identified simply as "Attached To" each of these counties. An annotation describes the use of township survey information on the map.

On the verso of the map remains the evidence that this map was part of a famous fraudulent scheme to pass the map off as having previously been owned by Abraham Lincoln. The note states:

This map is from the collection of Abraham Lincoln and was given to her coachman P. Brown by Mrs. Lincoln in 1866

The verso is signed by Brown and notarized by the attorney Frank Thatcher. The latter, probably without knowing, was engaged by Eugene Field II and Harry Dayton Sickles to notarize the gifts. They produced over 100 forgeries as Lincoln memorabilia from 1931 up to the 1940s and were never charged with these crimes.

As noted by Rachael Bell in Abraham Lincoln's Most Notorious Forgers:

The American poet Eugene Field passed down his unique gift of writing to his son and namesake, Eugene Field II, whom he affectionately nicknamed Pinny. However, unlike his father, little Eugene's gift . . . in reproducing the writing style of other people, especially that of Abraham Lincoln.

Between the 1920s and late 1930s, Eugene II was known to have forged Lincolns signature in many books that had been previously owned by his grandfather. The forged volumes, which he sold off to dealers and collectors often read, “This is my book/Abraham Lincoln,” or other inscriptions with similar phrasing. Hamilton stated that although Eugene’s forgeries were brilliantly executed, they lacked credence simply because Lincoln would never have penned so childish and egotistical a statement.

Nevertheless, Eugene profited greatly from his counterfeit signatures and sometime during the 1920s or 30s he entered into a partnership with another fraudster named Harry D. Sickles. Together the men forged countless documents and signatures and sold them for large sums of money. It was believed that Harry and Eugene falsified more than 100 Lincoln documents. They were also known to have forged numerous documents and signatures of other famous figures such as Rudyard Kipling, Theodore Roosevelt and Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), as well as several others. The men continued producing forgeries up until the 1940s and were never formally charged for their illegal reproductions. . . .

For original article: www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/scams/lincoln_forgers/4.html

While the map itself is not a forgery, its roll in this fascinating bit of collector's history adds a marvelous anecdote to its provenance.