On March 16, 1906, the General Assembly expressed its "profound satisfaction" at news of the purchase "by the publisher of Collier's Weekly [Robert J. Collier] of the farm in Larue County on which Abraham Lincoln was born" and of his "patriotic offer to present it to the American people to be used as a national memorial park." In response, the General Assembly passed "an act to appropriate Two Thousand Dollars to assist in erecting a tablet in Larue County to the memory of Abraham Lincoln." The governor was to appoint a five-member committee to supervise the project for the tablet which was to be located "on the public square in the town of Hodgenville, Larue County, Kentucky."
Hodgenville Rotary Club and guests at the Lincoln monument, when water was procured from the Lincoln Spring to christen the SS Manhattan. Governor Flem Sampson stands at left, wearing hat. Photograph by S. M. Payne, C. Frank Dunn Collection, Kentucky Historical Society Collections.
