Pike Symposium

Pike Bicentennial Commission
Sponsors Lincoln Symposium

     Pike County can claim the distinction of furnishing three private secretaries to President Abraham Lincoln.
     Their stories will be among the topics covered during the Pike County Lincoln Symposium at the Red Dome Inn, Pittsfield, beginning at 6 p.m. Friday, February 29.
     Speakers will be Tom Schwartz, Illinois State Historian, and Dr. James Cornelius, curator of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Cost is $25, including dinner.
     Lincoln, a frequent Pittsfield visitor, met John Nicolay when Nicolay worked for the Pittsfield Free Press. In 1860 Lincoln hired the gaunt young man to help him with correspondence during the presidential campaign. Nicolay would continue to serve the Sixteenth President until Lincoln’s death five years later.
     Lincoln had known Hay’s father Charles, a physician, and his uncle, Springfield lawyer Milton Hay. Young Hay was as cheerful as Nicolay was sober. Lincoln was said to have looked upon both as a father on sons.
     Nicolay and Hay would publish a ten-volume biography of Lincoln.
     Lincoln’s least known private secretary, also a Pike Countian, was Charles Henry Philbrick of Griggsville. A graduate of Illinois College in Jacksonville, Philbrick joined Lincoln during the last months of his administration.

John
Nicolay

John
Hay

More Information

Further information about the Lincoln Symposium is available at www.pikelincoln.com or by e-mail request to kzimmerman@casscomm.com.