Tazewell County Courthouse and Lincoln Courthouse Marker

The current Tazewell County Courthouse was built in 1914-1916. It replaced a somewhat smaller courthouse located on the same site, which stood from 1850 to 1914. Prior to 1850, Tremont was the county seat and the location of a domed Neo-Classical county courthouse. Before Tremont became the county seat in 1836, Pekin was briefly the de facto county seat, but there was not a specially-built courthouse structure in Pekin in the early 1830s. Tazewell County's original county seat was Mackinaw, where a log cabin was built in 1827 to serve as a courthouse -- but the place smelled like a pig pen because pigs would wallow under the building and would squeal when court was in session.

Abraham Lincoln lawyered in both the Tremont county courthouse as well as the new Pekin county courthouse that opened in 1850. Lincoln's time spent in the Tazewell County Courthouse is commemorated by a Lincoln County Courthouse Marker outside the entrance. The marker was placed in 1922 by the Daughters of the American Revolution as one of the historical markers along the route of the old Eighth Judicial Circuit which Abraham Lincoln would ride when he was an attorney in Illinois. It was rededicated in a ceremony on George Washington's Birthday, 21 Feb. 2022. It is traditional for new lawyers in Tazewell County to rub Lincoln's nose on the marker "for good luck" before entering the courthouse.

Some of the court records that document Lincoln's presence in the Tremont and Pekin courthouses are still kept in the archives of the Tazewell County Courthouse or are displayed inside, but many others have been transferred to Springfield for safe keeping. The courthouse also has the threshold stone of Pekin's old Tazewell House hotel, where Lincoln and other notable attorneys often stayed during their visits to Pekin. On the west lawn of the courthouse is the Tazewell County War Memorial, which displays a complete list of all of Tazewell County's war dead from every war that America has fought. That includes the list of the county's fallen Civil War soldiers who fought when Lincoln was Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. armed forces.

A humorous episode involving Lincoln occurred during the early days of the 1850 courthouse in Pekin: one day when court was in session, a bat got into the court room and disrupted court proceedings. First the witness testifying on the stand began watching the bat fly back and forth. Then the judge's attention was diverted to the bat. Then everyone in the courthouse began watching the bat, and a lawyer even jumped up and, taking a bullwhip from his saddlebag, he began snapping his whip at the bat. Finally the judge asked the tall and lanky Lincoln to try to get the bat out of the courtroom. As the judge tried to resume court proceedings and laughter filled the courtroom, Lincoln first tried chasing the bat as he twirled his coat, using it like a net, but when that didn't work, he grabbed a broomstick and flailed it about, chasing the bat around the courtroom until he finally managed to drive the bat out the window.

Another colorful tale from one of Lincoln's visits to Pekin is recorded by Eugenia Jones-Hunt (1846-1947) in her book, "My Personal Recollections of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln." Jones-Hunt includes a story from a man named Seth Thandler, who attended a Republic Party picnic on the Tazewell County Courthouse lawn around 1855. According to Thandler, Lincoln was there, along with Judge Lyman Trumbull (who later co-authored the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery in the U.S.) as well as abolitionist political leaders Isaac Newton Arnold and Rev. Owen Lovejoy. Thandler says that during the picnic, somehow his hat was placed in the coffee boiler -- but everyone at the picnic seemed to enjoy the unusual "hat" flavored blend of coffee, for they all said the coffee that day was delicious.

On a few occasions, Lincoln was called upon to serve temporarily as Acting State's Attorney of Tazewell County, working as the county's prosecutor instead of as a defense attorney. One such case was in 1853, when Thomas Delny raped a 7-year-old girl named Jane Ann Rupert, pointing a gun at her head to force her to comply. Just before this case was tried, the State's Attorney had left on a vacation, so the presiding judge appointed Lincoln as Acting State's Attorney. The jury found Delny guilty, and the judge sentenced him to 18 years in prison. However, after serving only six years of his sentence, Illinois Gov. William Henry Bissell pardoned Delny and set him free.