Originally published in the Iroquois County Times-Republic on Friday, February 5, 2016. See the original article here.

Iroquois County has many ties to President Abraham Lincoln.

One mentioned at last night’s Illinois Humanities Program at the Watseka Public Library is Henry Bacon, who was born in Watseka and later built the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.

Last night’ Lincoln, portrayed by Illinois Road Scholar Kevin Wood, expressed his appreciation of the dedicated monument.

Lincoln gave a brief history of his life, often throwing in a sample of a few of his more memorable speeches and explained the relevance of the speech to the time given.

“Four score and seven years ago….”, he explained the truths of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to be self evident was referencing 87 years prior when the Declaration of Independence was signed. Unfortunately, as he saw it, not everyone got the same rights and freedoms.