Bank Founder John Wolf Took
Abraham Lincoln For A Ride

John Wolf drove to Cherry Grove, Illinois, from Maryland in a covered wagon in 1840. Two years later he bought a farm north of what later became Lanark.

According to his granddaughter, Grace M. Wolf (a Carroll County resident who talked with other members of the Wolf family and thoroughly researched the story), John Wolf did indeed take Lincoln for a ride -- a very famous ride at that.

Wolf was in Freeport on August 27, 1858, having delivered a load of grain from Lanark in his Conestoga wagon pulled by four horses. So was Lincoln who had come out from Chicago on the Illinois Central Railroad to debate Stephen Douglas in the second of a series of meetings throughout the state.

Lincoln supporters asked John Wolf if he would transport their man in his wagon from the Brewster Hotel to the speakers platform two blocks away in a nearby grove. Being a Lincoln admirer, Wolf was happy to oblige.

Someone came up with an additional team, so with six horses - Wolf riding the left horse of the wheel pair - they made the trip in plenty of time for Lincoln to lead off the debate promptly at 2 p.m. The Democratic "Freeport Bulletin," and obviously no friend of Lincoln's, reported, "Mr. Lincoln was placed in or near the rear of the box on the wagon as his legs extended forward several feet and resembled the skeleton of some greyhound.  He is as queer looking as he is queer spoken." Another and kindlier source reported that "the 'railsplitter' with a few of his friends sat upon common chairs in the box of the wagon which resembled a large flat boat."  Douglas' supporters had secured a handsome carriage and matched pair of horses for their man, but when the Senator saw Lincoln leave the Brewster Hotel in a farm wagon, he decided to walk. Lincoln lost the debate and the Senatorial race but took a giant step toward winning the Presidential election two years later.

John Wolf retired from the Bank he founded some twenty years after his meeting with Lincoln and died in February 1896.