Today is the birth anniversary of one of the most intriguing figures in West Virginia history, who played a key role in American history.
You may not know his name, but someone I’m sure you do know, considered him his best friend.
Ward Hill Lamon was born in Summit Point in the Eastern Panhandle, on Jan. 6, 1828. He grew up in Mill Creek, better known these days as Bunker Hill. In fact, the log cabin where HIll grew up is still standing.
Lamon may have been technically born in Virginia, but it was his best friend, Abraham Lincoln, who was in the White House, when our state, West Virginia, came to be in 1863.
Lamon was the yin to Lincoln’s yang.
Lamon was one of Lincoln’s most trusted friends and served as his self-appointed bodyguard. Lincoln disliked the effects of alcohol and wasn’t known for excessive swearing. Lamon was characterized by most historians as hard-drinking and hard-fighting and once bragged that he smoked as many as fifteen cigars in a day.
Lamon’s father was a doctor, but rather than follow in his dad’s footsteps, at the urging of his cousin Theodore, left home at age 18 for Danville, Illinois, where he developed a taste for the law. After taking classes at the University of Louisville, he passed the bar and that’s where his friendship with Lincoln began.
Lemon was the junior partner of Lincoln’s firm beginning in 1852, ending four years later, when Lamon was elected prosecuting attorney to the Eighth Circuit Court of Illinois in 1856. But the friendship between Lamon and Lincoln continued, despite Lamon’s Southern pro-slavery leanings.
Lamon was involved in many of the most significant events in Lincoln’s rise to power. At the Republican National Convention in Chicago in 1860, Lamon helped tilt the nomination in Lincoln’s favor, by printing up extra tickets for the event, filling the hall with Lincoln supporters, while supporters of William Seward were left outside without seats.
On the trip to Washington for the inauguration, it was Lamon who was convinced that an assassination threat was real as they approached Baltimore. Lincoln and Lemon slipped through the city in the middle of the night, avoiding danger.
Lemon was the marshal in charge of the dedication of the National Cemetery in Pennsylvania in 1863 and introduced the President when Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. He was seemingly always by Lincoln’s side and often slept just outside the White House bedroom to watch over the president.
Lamon’s absence on the night of Lincoln’s assassination at Ford’s Theatre in 1865, is one of the tragic “what ifs” of history. It was Lincoln himself who ordered him to go to Richmond, for business related to the Reconstruction. Lamon made Lincoln promise not to go out at night, but tragically the President broke that promise.
After Lincoln’s death, his book about him in 1872 was controversial because it portrayed him as a man who had dealt with religious skepticism, bouts of depression and other personal traits some of his admirers found less than flattering.
Lamon also had some political ambitions. In 1876, he was considered for the Republican nomination for governor here in West Virginia and in that same year, ran for Congress, but lost to B. F. Martin by 222 votes.
He spent his final years being cared for by his daughter Dorothy, dying in 1893 at the age of 65 in Martinsburg.
Ward Hill Lamon, a West Virginian who was truly an eyewitness to history in one of our nation’s most turbulent times. Born on this date, January 6, 1828.