Breaking news about Abraham Lincoln
One Carter, Hubert, the grandfather of the current owner, kept the Lincoln mallet in his basement, in the rafters.
The thing itself is not that thrilling. It looks like something you might find in a Brown County rummage sale, a rough-hewn mallet made of wood. Its handle is about a foot long and is fixed to a chunk of cherry wood. But look closer and you see why all the fuss is being made about it.
Inlaid with pieces of metal on the mallet's head is this: "A.L. 1829."
The mallet was the actual device a young Abraham Lincoln used to split logs into rails — "the Railsplitter's railsplitter," Indiana Gov. Mike Pence called it Tuesday. During the 1860 presidential race, Lincoln's political handlers touted their candidate's hard-working, blue-collar days as a railsplitter, an everyman.
That a sitting governor would attend a news conference about a 187-year-old mallet makes evident the item's significance. The mallet "tells of the earthy beginnings of this great man," Pence said.
But even more striking than the symbolism is the story of the mallet itself. Despite its age, it has been owned by only one other family after Lincoln. It has been passed from hand to hand, from generation to generation, but never been sold and never misplaced. Abraham Lincoln, at age 21, was preparing to move from Indiana to Illinois and was clearing out some of his things. Lincoln was simplifying. He gave the mallet to a Hoosier neighbor named Barnabas Carter.
Carter, who remained in southern Indiana, gave it to his son. Today Barnabas Carter's great-great-great-great-grandson Keith Carter, who lives in Evansville, owns the mallet. He has lent it to the Indiana State Museum for a year as a way to help celebrate the state's 2016 bicentennial.
Until now generations of Carters had kept the mallet in their houses in Southern Indiana, mostly stowed out of sight, said Tom Brauns, a Carter cousin. One Carter, Hubert, the grandfather of the current owner, kept it tucked away in the ceiling of his basement. He fetched it only when he realized he was suffering from early onset Alzheimer's and might forget about it. He handed it to his son, William Donald Carter, who sequestered it similarly, though in later years set it on his mantel in the living room. When he died, last year at age 82, he left it to his son, Keith.
Keith Carter is the first Carter to show the mallet publicly or even to let on he had it. Historians never knew it existed.
Keith, 60, an executive at an Evansville manufacturing concern whose hobby is collecting rare books, did not attend Tuesday's unveiling. "Keith is a real quiet, reserved person," said his cousin. He did not return a reporter's phone call.
Lincoln autographs can be had on eBay for less than $10,000, but the cash value of the Railsplitter's railsplitter is uncertain (in 1996 John F. Kennedy's golf clubs fetched $773,000). The Indiana State Museum insured the mallet for $250,000. Carter has no plans to sell it, said Steve Haaff, an expert on furniture built by Lincoln's father, Thomas, a skilled carpenter. Haaff consulted with Carter on what to do with the mallet.
Lincoln lived in Indiana from ages 7 to 21. Later, in Illinois, he would become a star, first a successful lawyer, then a U.S. Congressman and finally president.
In Indiana he worked with his hands, under the tutelage of his carpenter father. To split a rail means to split a large piece of wood into a thinner piece of wood in order to make a rail fence. In Lincoln's day splitting a log meant placing a wedge into a crevice of the log, then hammering it home with a long-handled mallet wielded dramatically like a strong man trying to ring the bell at a carnival.
Lincoln doing that — holding a 3-foot long instrument high over his head, about to come down on the wedge, with his shirt sleeves rolled up — was depicted in a famous oil painting. In 1860 the painting was reproduced as a campaign poster for his presidential run.
The mallet unveiled Tuesday with its shortened handle lacked drama. The thinking is that, at some point, the mallet head broke in half — the Railsplitter's railsplitter split — and from its remnants Lincoln crafted a smaller mallet.
Officials at the state museum have examined the mallet's provenance thoroughly and are certain it's authentic. They traced Barnabas Carter to early 19th century Spencer County. Nancy Lincoln, the president's mother, is buried on property once owned by John Carter, Barnabas' brother.
"Mr. Lincoln didn't hand it to me personally," said R. Dale Ogden, the museum's chief curator of history and culture, "but I'd put my reputation — and a chunk of cash — on its authenticity."
Contact IndyStar reporter Will Higgins at (317) 444-6043. Follow him on Twitter @WillRHiggins.