Abraham Lincoln and Doctor William H. Fithian developed a friendship after both were elected to the Illinois Legislature in 1834, sharing Whig political views and goals. In 1841 Fithian hired Lincoln to represent him in a court case in Vermilion County, and in later years Lincoln handled a number of Fithian’s legal matters, some reaching the Illinois Supreme Court. When court was in session, Lincoln visited Fithian at his home in Danville, including a notable overnight stay during Lincoln’s 1858 senatorial contest with Stephen Douglas, when a large crowd followed him from the depot to the house and he climbed out a bedroom window to give brief remarks from a second-floor balcony in his stocking feet. Lincoln later wrote to Fithian on August 15, 1860, appealing to him with great confidence for help in a political matter. Fithian, a physician and a real estate investor, store owner, private banker, farmer, state legislator, Black Hawk War volunteer soldier, and Civil War volunteer physician, remained Lincoln’s friend, client, and political supporter for more than thirty years and was a leading Whig and Republican figure on the eastern Illinois prairie. In Vermilion County, James D. Kilpatrick’s weekly newspaper, the Vermilion County Press, strongly supported Lincoln from his unsuccessful Senate campaign until his death. Late in life, when asked about Lincoln, Fithian replied simply, “He was just Lincoln.”
