In September 1858, during the height of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, Illinois senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas came to Danville between their formal encounters in Charleston and Galesburg to greet the people of Old Vermilion. Banners and flags adorned the town and spanned its streets, and parades led supporters to a grove of maple trees near here. Douglas spoke at a rally on September 21st, and Lincoln addressed those at a barbecue in his honor the next day. Democratic and Republican newspapers each claimed the larger crowd for their own candidate, and both events were said to have drawn more people than Danville’s entire population, as visitors came from throughout the area. Lincoln lost the Senate seat to Douglas in 1858, but he carried Vermilion County, and two years later he received the most votes there again while also winning the state and the nation to become America’s sixteenth president.
