Elkhart’s central location, fertile soil, and timberland drew its first settlers in 1818, when James Latham and his son Richard chose the hill’s western slope for their home, and the Latham families soon built a double cabin, planted corn, added a four-horse mill, and later established the Kentucky House stagecoach stop in 1828 on Edward’s Trace, an important stop on the Springfield to Bloomington Stage Line where Abraham Lincoln, David Davis, John Logan, and Stephen Douglas, riders of the 8th Judicial Circuit, were well known and where, according to Richard Latham, Lincoln and Douglas first verbally sparred. Robert Latham later helped route the Chicago-Alton Railroad through Elkhart and Lincoln, increasing the fortunes of many, including John D. Gillett, a Short Horn cattle baron, land investor, and co-founder and developer of the City of Lincoln who was also a client, supporter, advisor, and friend of Abraham Lincoln and the father-in-law of Richard J. Oglesby. Oglesby, elected Governor of Illinois in 1865, 1872, and 1884 and serving as United States Senator from 1873 to 1877, led the Republican Party at the Decatur Convention, where he introduced Abraham Lincoln as the Railsplitter Candidate. Gillett joined the Honorary Body Guard that accompanied Lincoln to the inauguration, and Joseph Dalby of Elkhart was represented by the Lincoln-Herndon law offices in a successful landmark case against the Chicago-Alton Railroad. As governor, Oglesby led Illinois as the first state to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment in February 1865; after receiving word of Lee’s surrender, he went to Washington and arrived on April 14 in time to be the president’s last visitor, then later joined the vigil at Lincoln’s deathbed after declining supper and the theater. Oglesby also led the funding and dedication of Lincoln’s Tomb and backed Lincoln Park on Chicago’s lakefront; after retiring to Elkhart in 1889, he built Oglehurst from the original Latham cabin, and when that house was lost to fire and replaced by a grander mansion, it was from this home in 1899 that his body began its final journey to the Gillett Chapel, where Governor Tanner had Lincoln’s burial flag draped on Oglesby’s casket and 4,000 mourners, including Robert Todd Lincoln, attended the funeral.