Description:

Abraham Lincoln
Springfield, IL, May 16, 1857
Abraham Lincoln Signed Document, He Fights For the Little Guy!
MDS

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Manuscript Document Signed, Bond for Costs in case of Eshrick, Black & Co. v. Tobias, Hittle & Co., filed May 16, 1857, Springfield, Illinois. Lincoln wrote "Assumpsit. / Damage $1500.00" and signed his name. 1 p., 7.875" x 6.75". Expected folds, light edge soiling; irregular left edge.

In March 1856 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, dry goods merchants Tobias, Hittle, and Company of Washington, Illinois, gave dry goods wholesaler Eshrick, Black, and Company of Pennsylvania a promissory note for $831.78, and promised to pay the note six months later. After Tobias, Hittle, and Company failed to pay the note, Eshrick, Black, and Company retained Abraham Lincoln and William H. Herndon and sued in an action of assumpsit in the federal court and requested $1,500 in damages. The Pennsylvania firm may have first contacted Jonathan K. Cooper (1814-1884) and Hugh W. Reynolds (1814-1878), law partners in Peoria, Illinois, ten miles west of Washington, Illinois. They may have asked Lincoln to handle the case in his hometown of Springfield, where the United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of Illinois sat. They wrote this bond for costs and sent it to Lincoln, who added a few details and signed it before filing it with the federal court.

Lincoln filed the declaration in the case on May 16, 1857, and the court issued a summons for the partners in Tobias, Hittle, and Company. On May 28, 1857, Lincoln wrote to Cooper and Reynolds, telling them he had brought the suit in the federal court, and "I suppose a judgment will be had at the ensuing June Term, unless the defendants appear and make a case for a continuance, of the probability of which last, I know nothing." Tobias, Hittle, and Company failed to appear, and the court ruled for Eshrick, Black, and Company and awarded $867.26.

James Tobias (1824-1895) was born in Pennsylvania and married Caroline Hittle (1826-1890), the sister of William Hittle (1826-1900), in 1847. They settled near Washington, Illinois about 1841. After suffering serious loss in a fire on their farm, they moved to Washington, where Tobias went into the mercantile business with R. D. Smith. William Hittle soon joined them, and Jonathan H. Myers joined sometime later. Myers married James Tobias's cousin Caroline Tobias (1833-1867) in May 1855.

Complete Transcript
In the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of Illinois
To June Term 1857
Joseph Eshrick / John S. Black / Robert T. Black
vs
James Tobias / William Hittle & / Jonathan Myers
Assumpsit. / Damage $1500.00
We hereby enter ourselves security for costs in this cause, and acknowledge ourselves bound to pay or cause to be paid all costs which may accrue in this action either to the opposite party, or to any of the officers of this court in pursuance of the laws of this state.
Dated this day of May A.D. 1857
Cooper & Reynolds
A. Lincoln

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  • Dimensions: 7.875" x 6.75"
  • Medium: MDS

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