Daniel Grass

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From a letter on file with the Spencer County Historical Society - Rockport, Indiana

Denver Colorado
August 23rd, 1928

My Dear Cousin Laura,

     Thank you for your prompt reply to my letter. I will be greatly pleased if you can secure me a copy of Judge Kiper’s paper on my grandfather, Daniel Grass. I am the only member of my father’s family, of nine boys, that is now living, and any additional information concerning Daniel Grass will add to the family history that I am going to prepare for my children.
     I wish it were possible for me to write something about my grandfather for you pageant that is to be staged during the first week in September. The fact is that about all my knowledge of him was learned from you and others of our relatives when my wife and I visited you some eight or none years ago. My father, Alfred H. Grass, who was the eldest son of Daniel Grass, passed away when I was only ten years of age.
     My oldest brother, Daniel Grass, was the Colonel of the 61st regiment of Illinois Infantry in the Civil War. He was always a leader in whatever was for the best interests of our country. In this way he remembered to some extent the character of the man whose name he bore.
     The are some things, however, about Abraham Lincoln that were told to me by my good mother that may interest those who will be present at you pageant. At the time Lincoln worked on a flat boat he boarded for a few weeks with my father and mother, who were living on the place just south of Rockport where Daniel Grass made his first home. The house is on a bluff that overlooks the riverbank where the boat is said to have been built. When Lincoln first came up the steep path that leads to the house, he was fiercely attacked by a full grown, belligerent pet sheep. This pet sheep was greatly attached to the members of the family, if fact it seemed to have taken upon itself the duty of protecting the home from all strangers. When the sheep spied Lincoln it charged him at full speed with it’s horned head down, evidently with the intent of butting him off the place. Mother said Lincoln stood perfectly still while the sheep came on at full tilt, but just as it reached him he separated his legs and sat down on it. The sheep was unable to escape but while it’s captor held it fast he also rubbed it’s head and played with it until they became good friends. When Lincoln got up and walked on to the house the sheep followed him. After that Lincoln was one of the family so far as the sheep was concerned.
     My father had a small collection of books. Among those that appealed most to Lincoln were “Plutarch’s Lives” and “The Life of Washington”. He would sit in the evening near the table with the rest of the family until the tallow dip had burned out, then would lie down on his back with his head towards the open fire place, so as to get the light upon the page of his book, and there he would often read until after midnight. She said it seemed to her that the boy would bake the top of his head or wear himself out for want of rest, but he was always up in the morning in time for work.
     Four years ago, in this city, I sat in a large, densely packed theater, listening to a play that was called “Abraham Lincoln”. When the curtain went down after the first act, my emotions carried me back to the days my mother told me about, when this same Lincoln had lived for a short time in her home. Little did she then think that more than a hundred years later in the future he youngest son would be sitting in a theater, where the audience was spell bound, as it listened to the plat that was woven about the greatness of Lincoln’s character. Such a revelation could not have seen possible, and yet, the light that came from such fireplaces as here, grew in to a flaming torch that made plain the pathway for him to follow. When that torch fell from his hands it was caught by the American people to be held high for all time, so that we may always see and follow the duties of American citizenship as the were reveled to us by Abraham Lincoln.

Sincerely Yours
John Grass M.D.

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Special thanks to Raymond Dawson and the Spencer County Historical Society for the information about Daniel Grass that came from the following web site

http://www.sspencer.k12.in.us/history/cemetery/danielgrass_bio.html also check out the Olde Rockport Pioneer Cemetery

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Daniel Grass cabin in Lincoln Pioneer Village - Rockport, Indiana