menu


Statement regarding Larrance’s Post Office Chart, 10 November 18581
Springfield, Ills. Novr 10. 1858
I have ^Having^ hastily examined “Larrance’s Post-office Chart” and considered the principle upon which it is arranged, I think it will prove to be a great convenience to Post-Masters and others whose business lead them to search out particular localities upon maps.2
A Lincoln3
1Abraham Lincoln wrote and signed this document.
2According to a statement by two of Isaac Larrance’s children written in 1925, on the date that Lincoln wrote this statement, Larrance called on Lincoln at the latter’s office in Springfield. There Larrance showed Lincoln one of his publications of a map and accompanying diagram, designed to allow a user to find a location instantly. This publication may have been Larrance’s Post Office Chart: Diagram of the State of Illinois (Cincinnati: I. A. Pittman, 1858).
Larrance’s children also reported that at this November 10, 1858 meeting between Larrance and Lincoln, Lincoln’s recent electoral loss to Stephen A. Douglas in the 1858 race for the U.S. Senate was mentioned, causing Lincoln to remark: “I did not expect to be elected, I was killing bigger game.”
69 Cong. Rec. 3312 (1927); The Lincoln Collection Formed by Emanuel Hertz New York City Sold by His Order: Part One Autographs (New York: Anderson Galleries, 1927), 39.
3No response to this statement by Larrance has been located. Larrance reprinted this statement as a testimonial in at least one of his subsequent publications.
Isaac Larrance, Larrance’s Post Office Chart, and Maps of Ten States (Cincinnati: I. A. Pittman, 1866), n.p.

Copy of Autograph Document Signed, 1 page(s), Abraham Lincoln Association Files, Lincoln Collection, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (Springfield, IL).