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Release of Mortgage Taken from Daniel E. Ruckel, 7 July 18531
July 7, 1853
In consideration of Daniel E. Ruckel having perfected the title to the other parcel of ground included in this mortgage I do hereby release from said mortgage the lots therein described as Lots Nine, ten, eleven, and twelve, in Block Three, in Allen’s addition to Springfield. Witness my hand and seal this 7th. day of July 1853.2
A. Lincoln
1This document is attributed to Abraham Lincoln, but the original in his hand has not been located.
2On August 15, 1851, Daniel E. Ruckel signed a promissory note to Lincoln for a $300 mortgage at an interest rate of ten percent per year for several lots of land Ruckel wished to purchase in Springfield, Illinois. He made one payment to Lincoln in January 1854, but died on April 9, 1854, before he could repay the remainder of the debt. Shortly after his death, his brother, Jacob Ruckel, and Richard H. Beach became the administrators of his estate. After Lincoln released the above lots of “Allen’s addition to Springfield” from the mortgage Daniel had owed him, Jacob Ruckel and Beach, as the administrators of Daniel’s estate, likely made another payment in December 1854. In addition, in a receipt dated September 28, 1857, Lincoln noted that he received $300 from Jacob, which was the principal of the mortgage that he originally gave to Daniel. This settled the mortgage in full, and Lincoln noted that he would hand over the original mortgage and note, and that Beach would settle the remaining interest due to Lincoln on the loan.
As noted on the verso of Daniel Ruckel’s original promissory note, Beach indeed made two additional payments—one in 1856 and another in 1857. On September 28, 1857, Jacob and Laura Ruckel also mortgaged to Lincoln, for $500, four lots of land that Jacob had acquired from his brother’s estate. They agreed to repay this mortgage, plus ten percent interest for the year, within one year. This mortgage was extended, but eventually paid in full.
Illinois, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1772-1999, 17 April 1854, Sangamon County (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com, 2015); Mortgage Deed from Jacob Ruckel and Laura Ruckel to Abraham Lincoln, Promissory Note from Jacob Ruckel to Abraham Lincoln; Harry E. Pratt, The Personal Finances of Abraham Lincoln (Springfield: The Abraham Lincoln Association, 1943), 74-75.

Printed Transcription, 1 page(s), Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), 2:201.