Abraham Lincoln knew Lewistown residents well before his famous speech there on August 17, 1858, through friendships, legal work, and political ties that stretched back to his New Salem years and his service in the state legislature. Harvey Lee Ross first met Lincoln in 1832 while carrying mail on the route between Lewistown and Springfield and often saw him at the Rutledges' home in New Salem, where Lincoln boarded and served as postmaster. Ross became close friends with Lincoln, Ann Rutledge, and David Rutledge, who later moved to Lewistown and practiced law there. Lincoln was also closely connected to Major Newton Walker of Lewistown, who was elected to the state legislature in 1838 and served with Lincoln for two sessions, and Lincoln often visited Walker while conducting legal business in Lewistown. William Proctor and the Phelps family of Lewistown also knew Lincoln through local family and business connections. In 1858, after Lincoln's unanimous nomination on June 16 as the Republican candidate for United States Senator and his delivery of the "House Divided" speech, John W. Proctor and other Fulton County Republicans invited him to speak in Lewistown. Because Stephen A. Douglas was already scheduled to speak there on August 16, Lincoln declined an invitation to appear the same day but agreed to come the following day. On the morning of August 17, Major Walker and John W. Proctor met Lincoln in Havana as he traveled from Bath and escorted him toward Lewistown, where a band, carriages, and horsemen bearing flags marked with the letters A.L. joined the procession. At Proctor's Grove, George Phelps welcomed him, and that afternoon at 2:00 p.m. Judge William Kellogg introduced Lincoln to a crowd of several thousand at the Fulton County Courthouse. Lincoln spoke with exceptional force, delivering a eulogy on the Declaration of Independence later known as the "Return to the Fountain" speech, though no complete text of it survives.