February 12th, Pasty Central Day in History
This is the birthday of our country’s 16th President, Abraham Lincoln. It’s a little known fact that Mr. Lincoln visited the U.P., or at least its southern shore, on a Great Lakes voyage in 1848 from Buffalo to Chicago aboard the Michigan built SS Globe.
On the trip, besides passing through the straits of Mackinac, Lincoln observed another ship snagged on a sandbar off Lower Michigan’s shoreline. Perhaps this was the inspiration for one of Lincoln’s three patents, a device for lifting boats off shoals.
The only other recorded visit by Lincoln to Michigan was in 1856 as the only out-of-state speaker before a crowd of 20,000 at Kalamazoo in a rally for the new Republican Party. Abraham Lincoln, born on this day in 1809. Pasty Central Day in History, February 12th.