Newly revealed Abraham Lincoln artifact: “The rail splitter’s rail splitter”

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Published: Friday, 12 February 2016 19:10

INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana State Museum unveiled a previously unknown artifact that connects Abraham Lincoln to his life in Indiana. The museum Tuesday (Feb. 9) displayed his bench mallet, “the rail splitter’s rail splitter.”

“The tool that we have, was lost to history up until now. And it was made and used by Abraham Lincoln right here in Indiana’s own Spencer County,” said Tom King, president and CEO of the Indiana State Museum. “And here it has stayed until today, marked with his initials and the date. This tool is a crafted and then recrafted into what is known as a bench mallet by Lincoln’s own hands.”

Abraham Lincoln inlaid his bench mallet with his initials and the year 1829. Photo by Rachel Hoffmeyer, TheStatehouseFile.com

The mallet is a rare find that shows Lincoln’s Hoosier roots. The Lincolns lived in southern Indiana from 1816 to 1830, but there are not many artifacts from Lincoln’s time in Indiana.

“It tells of the earthly beginnings of a man who is not just celebrated in this state or just celebrated in America,” said Gov. Mike Pence. “But I will tell you – when I was telling Indiana stories in China last year, the Chinese people revered Abraham Lincoln as almost no other American for his character and his strength and his wisdom.”

The mallet has been passed down five generations of the Carter family and is currently owned by Keith Carter of Evansville and his sister Andrea Solis of Saline, Michigan.

“They had it on display on a mantle in their house for their family. The best kept secret in Spencer County,” said Steve Haaff, an expert on the furniture the Lincolns made while living in Indiana.

But the new generation of Carters wanted to share the artifact with the state of Indiana. Auditor of State Suzanne Crouch said a man who lives in the district she served as a state representative contacted her with information about the mallet.

Steve Haaff, expert on Lincoln furniture made in Indiana, called the mallet “Spencer County’s best kept secret.” Photo by Rachel Hoffmeyer, TheStatehouseFile.com

“In Spencer County they knew about it,” said Crouch. “They were trying to figure out how to make this go bigger and how to share it with people of Indiana.”

Before Tuesday, the most well known artifacts from Lincoln’s time in Indiana were pages from his arithmetic book that he made for himself. There is a page that resides at the Indiana Historical Society and one at the Lilly Library at Indiana University.

“When the Lincolns left Indiana for Illinois in 1830 there wasn’t really a whole lot of reason to maintain objects that belonged to Abraham Lincoln,” said Dale Ogden, chief curator of history and culture at the Indiana State Museum. “He was a southern Indiana farm boy. He wasn’t Abraham Lincoln, the great emancipator, quite yet.”

Lincoln used the mallet to drive iron wedges into logs to create split-rails for fences. The head of the mallet was made out of a tree root-ball, but eventually broke in half. Instead of throwing it away, Lincoln turned it into a bench mallet that he used to drive pegs into furniture. He discarded the long handle that was on it and replaced it with a shorter handle. The mallet wasn’t inlayed until after it was broken in 1829.

Gov. Mike Pence and Tom King, president and CEO of the Indiana State Museum unveil Abraham Lincoln’s bench mallet. Photo by Rachel Hoffmeyer, TheStatehouseFile.com

The mallet will be on display to the public beginning on February 12, Lincoln’s birthday, at the Indiana State Museum and will be on loan to the museum until the end of the year.

“I know that this will be cherished by Hoosiers,” said Pence. “But I have every confidence that it is going to draw people from around the country and around the world who will come to see those initials and when they do they will know Abraham Lincoln was a Hoosier.”

Article writer Christina Ramey is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.