One of the most telling indications of the toll that the Civil War had on President Abraham Lincoln are before and after pictures, taken when he took office, and after his years in the White House, prior to his assassination.

There is no record that “Honest Abe” ever set foot in Montour County, but he crossed paths, and had other unique ties, in both life and death with some of the Danville boys. 

Benjamin Smithers of Danville was a member of Thompson’s Independent Battery of Pittsburgh after enlisting in 1863. While serving at Camp Barry in Washington two years later, Smithers was enjoying himself in a restaurant at the rear of Ford’s Theater. On the night President Lincoln was shot, John Wilkes Booth walked in, threw a bill on the bar and instructed the man in charge to “give the soldiers a drink.” While Smithers and other soldiers refreshed themselves at Mr. Booth’s expense, he made his way upstairs into the theater and assassinated the President.

John Keim, a Danville bricklayer after the war, joined the Army when he was just 16. While he and two other soldiers passed by the White House one Sunday morning, on a whim, they asked a guard if they could see the President. After stepping inside, the guard came back, and much to their surprise, ushered them into a room where Lincoln was sitting in a chair. Keim said the President held a Bible in one hand and rose to shake their hands. When he came to Keim, the President asked him his age. Keim lied and said he was 18. Looking a bit incredulous, Lincoln simply smiled and said, “Oh well, the boys make brave soldiers.” It was a moment the Montour County man would always cherish.

One of the youngest persons to ever enlist during the Civil War was ten-year-old Charles Peter Harder of Danville. He was just ten years and six months old when he became a drummer boy.  A few years later, as part of the 187th Pennsylvania Regiment, he had the honor of escorting Lincoln’s body from the B & O Railroad Station to the statehouse in Philadelphia. While Charlie played the drum, Joseph Frame of the 187th played a bass horn in a band also assigned to meet the funeral train. We also know that some other Danville men, members of the 187th, took part in events for the slain president. John Sechler was one of eight men who flanked the coffin drawn through the streets of Philadelphia by six white horses. I.T. Patton was one of the soldiers who called for crowd control, as people pressed forward to glimpse the horse-drawn hearse. Benton B. Brown of Danville was one of the guards surrounding the body as it lay in state in that City. Theodore Steiner of Danville was a brakeman on the funeral train that carried the president’s body from Baltimore to Harrisburg.  Before he was called to the pulpit, Charles Raver of Danville was a member of an Independent Cavalry Company. He rode beside the hearse and was one of eight men, four on each side, who supported a huge flag spread over the top of the hearse. Montour County’s last living link to the President was William Jones. The county’s last Civil War veteran had served with several units during the war, including Company H of the 93rd Pennsylvania Regiment. He had the opportunity to shake hands with the president during one of Lincoln’s review of troops. “Jonesie”, died in October of 1943. 

Another Lincoln story involves a man born in Danville. A bronze statuette in the Washington National Cathedral is one of the most unusual Lincoln images in Washington D.C. Just 38 inches high, it rests on a limestone base in the building's northeast stairwell. It's the only known sculpted work of Abraham Lincoln kneeling in prayer.

The statuette, sculpted by Herbert Spencer Houck, who was born in Danville, was donated to the cathedral by his sister, Mrs. Florence N. Hildrup.

Houck was born in 1876 in Danville. We know that a Reverend Henry A. Houck was a Methodist minister who served in Danville at Saint Paul’s Methodist church between 1876 and 1878. According to Civil War historian Randy W. Hackenburg a native of Danville, prior to the war Reverend Houck served as a Chaplain in the 205th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment from September 5th 1864 until being mustered out on June 2nd of 1865. Hackenburg, in his book “They Paid the Price, Montour Countians in the Civil War” said the unit was stationed near Petersburg Virginia at that time and saw heavy fighting. He ministered in a number of Methodist churches following the Civil War including the one in Danville.

I am going to make an assumption that Herbert is the son of Reverend Henry Houck. Herbert served in World War I, enlisting at Carlisle as part of the 108th Field Artillery of the National Guard at the age of 38. He realized his gift as a sculptor some years later.

Now here is where the story behind the statuette of Lincoln Kneeling in Prayer becomes a bit uncertain. An unsubstantiated story says the inspiration for the pose came from Houck's grandfather, a Civil War chaplain who claimed he found the president kneeling among the leaves near the battlefield at Gettysburg before his famous address. Could it be that it was Herbert’s father who shared that story with his son?

President Lincoln was no stranger to prayer. According to reporter Noah Brooks, "Prayer and reading of the Scriptures was his constant habit." Lincoln told Brooks, "I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go."

One sad note on the life of sculptor Herbert Spencer Houck. He was found dead in his New York apartment in 1931 with a bullet wound to the head. His body was returned to his former home in Carlisle, where the Sentinel newspaper reported he was buried on June 3rd,1931.