Ruth Minear Letter - 1975

HASELMAYER, MINEAR, LINCOLN, HARLAN, COLE, CRANE

Posted By: Pat Ryan White (email)
Date: 2/16/2024 at 14:38:15

Dec. 17, 1975

Dear Dr. Haselmayer:

Thank you very much for your Christmas booklet about James Harlan. Harlan has been of interest to me since we lived in the old Harlan house a few months the fall of 1919.

My father was transferred from the Oskaloosa District Superintendency to the Muscatine District of the old Iowa Conference that year and we moved to Mt. Pleasant so my three older brothers could attend Wesleyan. I was a high school junior.

There were no houses available so we were offered the Harlan house and lived there during the fall months until it got so cold we had to move into the old Cole place by Cole’s Pond, now owned, I believe, by the Cranes.

We were told that the Harlan house had been part of the Underground Railway. We searched unsuccessfully for a hiding place in the old house. The old kitchen part and second story bedrooms above the kitchen have since then been removed.

That would have been before James Harlan owned the home, I expect, but the abstract might show who did own it during the pre-Civil War period.

The home was furnished while we lived there. A number of books in the library had Robert Lincoln’s name.

We were told, again I do not know by whom, that the dining table had been in James Harlan’s Washington home and that Abraham Lincoln had eaten dinner at that table the Sunday before he was shot. I have often wondered where that table is now.

Again, thank you for the new information about James Harlan.

Sincerely,
Ruth Minear

Resource owned/provided by Henry County Heritage Trust, Mount Pleasant, Iowa; transcription done by Rebekah Stone, University of Northern Iowa Public History Field Experience Class, Spring 2024.