Frontiersman Seth Kinman, Elkhorn Chair, and President Lincoln

By Terry Diener

California Hunter and trapper Seth Kinman lived in Rush Township, Northumberland County, before moving west with his family. Seth was an uncle to one time Northumberland County Sheriff Seth Sharpless. The stories of his adventures are many. I share one from his presentation of an elk horn chair to President Lincoln on November 24^th, 1864. Someone who witnessed the presentation said Kinman was explaining the seven years of hunting that went into its production. He told the president that he had another little keepsake with him in the form of a fiddle, made from the skull of his favorite mule, which when alive, was said to have music in his soul, for the mule would always look around the camps on the plains when he heard music. After the mule had been dead for some time, Kinman passed his bleached bones one day, and the idea struck him that there just might be music in those bones, so he made the fiddle. Later, he took a rib, and some hair from the tail, and made the bow. Much to the amusement of President Lincoln and other spectators, Kinman played “Essence of old Virginia” and “John Brown” on the bones of the mule. Lincoln said that if he could play the fiddle he would ask him for it, but since he could not, the fiddle would be better off in Mr. Kinman’s hands.