The Stevens Stone House

The Stevens Stone House. Looking for Lincoln. , Samuel Stevens came from Charlestown, New Hampshire, with Samuel West and Lewis Sargent. The two men operated a grain mill and speculated on land. Samuel Stevens started building a stone house in 1832, in anticipation of his marriage to Lucetta Putnam. Family legend states that Lucetta's father would not allow her to move to "untamed" Illinois until she had a suitable house in which to live. In July of 1836, Samuel finished the house, located on the Springfield to Terre Haute Road. In October 1838, the couple's son Phineas was born. One year later, however, Samuel died; and, since Phineas was a minor, Lucetta had to sue her son asking the court to assign her the dower. The court assigned a guardian to safeguard Phineas' interest, and the guardian did not contest the suit. The young lawyer Abraham Lincoln wrote the final decree, which named three commissioners, Henry Giger, James Bowling, and Lucetta to assign and convey the dower to Lucetta. , In 1838 Mary Hunt sold 240 acres of land to Samuel Stevens, which he secured with a mortgage. When Stevens died, he had not yet paid for the land. Lincoln petitioned the court to foreclose on the mortgage. The court ordered the foreclosure and awarded $2,566.08, which included the purchase price of the property and the interest. The estate was unable to pay, so the court ordered the land to be sold to pay the debt. Mary Hunt purchased the property at auction for $1440., The Springfield to Terre Haute Road was used by Abraham Lincoln on numerous occasions passing by the Stevens Stone House, on his way to and from Major Warnick's home east of Rochester. Lincoln supposedly split eight thousand rails for which he was paid in jean cloth. The cloth was woven by Mrs. Warnick, and Lincoln was paid at the rate of one yard of cloth for each one thousand rails. , In the 1850's rabies ran rampant in Springfield, and Lincoln's son Robert was bitten by a dog. Lincoln took him to Terre Haute, Indiana to be treated with a Mad Stone - a hairball taken from a deer's stomach, which was soaked in milk and placed on the wound. Apparently the stone worked, as Robert was the only Lincoln child to reach adulthood.