During his twenty years on the Eighth Judicial Circuit, Abraham Lincoln tried numerous cases in the DeWitt County courthouses, including a slander case involving William Dungey. Dungey, “a dark skinned man of Portuguese descent,” had married Joseph Spencer’s sister, and after a bitter dispute between the brothers-in-law, Spencer was by 1855 accusing “Black Bill” Dungey of being a “negro.” In that time and place, proof that Dungey had one-fourth African blood could have cost him his good reputation and his legal rights to marriage, property ownership, voting, and Illinois residency, because since 1819 Illinois laws had permitted pseudo-slavery and discouraged free blacks from residing in the state. Representing Dungey in April 1855, Lincoln charged Spencer with slander, and when the case went before a jury in the fall term of court, Lincoln prevailed. Spencer was found guilty and ordered to pay $600 restitution and $137.50 court costs, while Lincoln charged Dungey $25 for his services and counseled him to avoid an appeal. Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas also served as co-counsel for the defendant in DeWitt County’s first murder trial, one of the very few times they worked as partners. Spencer Turner was charged with causing injuries that led to the death of Matthew Martin, but Lincoln and Douglas argued that Martin died from lying out in the harsh elements rather than from blunt force to the head, and Turner was acquitted in May 1840. On September 8, 1841, Lincoln filed suit to collect his legal fee from Spencer and William Turner after they defaulted on their promissory note. Douglas received his share in currency, but according to local legend, Lincoln had to accept a horse instead, and the horse soon became “stone blind and perfectly worthless.”