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526. Anna Miles Herndon (William H. Herndon Interview).
[September 13, 1887]
My wife's mother, step mother, was a Rickard and my wife says — on further Examination that she understood her mother to Say Susan, but that it may have been Sarah: She says that she has heard Mrs Butler — a Rickard as well as her step mother a Rickard say that Lincoln did Court Sarah and that She would not have him — Lincoln. Sarah married badly and Mrs Butler & my wifes mother both, Rickards have often Said — both of them Rickards & now dead, that Sarah ought to have taken Lincoln as she did so badly with Barrett. (I guess there is no doubt of all this H) Lightfoot's Evidence I read to my wife and that suggested to her the whole story. I then referred her to the word Sarah and Speeds letter to me. She now says that she guesses that it was Sarah. — probably not Susan. She Says see Miss Butler and write to Mrs Barrett all of which I shall do. My wife further Says that the question formerly put to her was a special one — namely the one about Susan, She supposing that I well Knew Lincoln's courtship for Sarah or that she would have told it as She understood it.
Library of Congress: Herndon-Weik Collection. Manuscript Division. Library of Congress. Washington, D.C. 3417