DECATUR - When he was in kindergarten at Dennis School, Jeff Deremiah first touched a piece of history.
Mildred Price, the Dennis principal at the time, carried a 2-foot-long, V-shaped dark walnut board from classroom to classroom every year, a day or two before Lincoln's Birthday.
The principal told the children that Abraham Lincoln himself used this boot jack, an instrument used to remove stiff leather boots in the 19th century.
"She said it was used in the first business in Macon County, Jimmy's Renshaw's tavern and general store," Deremiah said. "The way the story goes, he delivered his (first political) speech barefoot, and he took his boots off with that."
Deremiah, 61, probably the biggest private collector of Lincoln documents and artifacts in Macon County, never has been far from the influence of the nation's 16th president.
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The owner of about 100 artifacts that Lincoln wrote, wore or touched, Deremiah's family history is filled with stories about the only president who moved from Central Illinois to the White House.
His grandfather's grandfather, Sam McRoberts, was regularly visited by Lincoln in his Springfield bakery. Lincoln counted him as a friend, insisting on giving him legal services free of charge. Deremiah's family roots in Decatur hearken back to the move McRoberts made shortly before the Civil War.
"He had the first grocery and bread delivery wagon in Decatur," said Deremiah, a retired Harristown Grade School teacher. "He had the first brick house in Decatur."
Deremiah, whose most valuable pieces are kept in a bank vault, has also collected documents, artifacts or autographs related to every president.
But there is no question who is the favorite of Deremiah, who has also amassed an impressive mental storehouse of information and anecdotes on Lincoln.
"He was an absolutely wonderful role model because he came from humble beginnings and was able to achieve the presidency," Deremiah said. "Just think what his presidency was like. I don't think the problems we have today are anything like what he had. He had the Civil War. The country separated, and he had to unify them at the end, and he did."
Deremiah admires Lincoln for his courage and strong bond with ordinary people.
"He listened to the common people," Deremiah said. "He would let people come right off the street to the president's office. His aides would let them in. He was very concerned about what was going on. He would actually visit the battlefields. He was a president who was concerned about even the tiniest detail."
With a wide range of documents and artifacts in his collection, including every period of Lincoln's life, Deremiah does not hesitate when asked to pick a favorite.
He believes a handwritten July 1837 document he owns is the earliest Lincoln legal document in private hands. Lincoln was admitted to the Illinois Bar on March 1, 1837. The document involves a dispute over $115, which was won for Abner Ellis by the Lincoln and Stewart law office.
"The document is in Lincoln's handwriting, signed Stewart and Lincoln for plaintiff," Deremiah said. "Ellis was a postmaster in Springfield. He also worked with Lincoln in New Salem. He also worked in Joshua Speed's store, which sold Lincoln the first furniture he ever owned."
Another outstanding item in Deremiah's collection is a large, vellum document signed by Lincoln, granting an officer commission to Daniel Butterfield a few months into the Civil War. It was also signed by Lincoln's first war secretary.
Deremiah said there are several reasons this document is valuable, including that Butterfield, who was awarded a Medal of Honor, later attained the rank of major general and composed the bugle call, taps. It also contains both the president's names.
"Only on the real official documents Abraham Lincoln signed his full name, otherwise it was A. Lincoln," Deremiah said. "On these appointments, he signed his full name. Another thing that makes this document valuable is that Simon Cameron only served as War secretary for 10 months."
Deremiah, who is well-known in Lincoln collector circles, purchased the commission decades ago from Charles Hamilton, a well-known Civil War dealer.
Christopher Schnell, assistant editor of Papers of Lincoln, has examined and catalogued Deremiah's collection. Papers of Lincoln, a project of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum and Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, plans to record and publish images of all Lincoln documents.
"One of the outstanding things about Mr. Deremiah's collection is he has gone out and collected extensively on all the presidents," Schnell said. "He has an amazing assortment of presidential items from our entire history. His Lincoln artifacts are also interesting and outstanding."
Schnell said Deremiah's documents are very important and interesting.
"He has a kind of a bookend of Lincoln's life, spanning from the beginning to his presidency. They are little parts of the puzzle that historians use whenever they try to write a biography of Lincoln."
Deremiah, who receives about 30 catalogues per week from auction houses, is always on the lookout for Lincoln items, although it is rare to find one these days that is priced as reasonably as when he began collecting.
But Deremiah, who works as a substitute teacher, relies on his wits, tenacity and reputation to obtain items, rather than a huge cash reserve. Perhaps the best example of how Deremiah obtains things that others overlook is how he attained Sheriff Price's boot jack.
"I bought that from the estate sale of Mildred Price," Deremiah said. "I think I paid $2. I was the only one who remembered that story, her doing that."
hfreeman@herald-review.com|421-6985
Tracing a tool used by 'The Railsplitter'
A primitive tool that Jeff Deremiah owns may have provided Lincoln with his primary source of income during his early years in Illinois. When Deremiah tells the stories about his rugged-looking maul, a hammerlike primitive tool that he is certain Lincoln used to split rails, one can almost hear the wood splitting under the pressure from the powerful young frontiersman.
This maul once belonged to William Warnick, Macon County's first sheriff. Warnick became a close friend and neighbor to Lincoln, opening his home for the young man to recuperate from a serious case of frostbitten feet.
"Lincoln would have used it," Deremiah said. "Warnick paid him to split rails and put them into fences. He did so many of them. That was his main job here. That's why he got that name, Railsplitter.
"That was owned by the sheriff. That's been in the family for years and years and years. The documentation is there for that piece, including the bill of sale from the sale of Sheriff Warnick's things."
THE NET
