The “Abe Lincoln of New Hampshire”
November 1947Dearest Reader,
My mother saved a remarkable number of newspaper clippings following the death of John Gilbert Winant in November 1947. Taken together, they suggest just how deeply his death affected Concord. This clipping from the New York World-Telegram adds something different to the story because of the way it describes the man people believed they had lost.
It calls Winant the “Abe Lincoln of New Hampshire.”
The comparison was partly physical. Winant was tall, thin, somewhat awkward and often rumpled. Contemporary accounts describe him as shy and an uncomfortable public speaker. TIME recalled that even his students at St. Paul’s School thought he resembled Lincoln.
Like the popular image of Lincoln, Winant developed a reputation for identifying with ordinary people despite having been born into privilege. During the Depression, as governor of New Hampshire, he expanded relief efforts and helped struggling communities. The Concord Historical Society records stories of Winant personally giving money to unemployed men and even anonymously paying for breakfasts for men jailed for minor offenses such as vagrancy.
He could also place principle ahead of political loyalty. Although a Republican, Winant supported Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal when he believed those policies were necessary to help people suffering during the Depression. His support for Roosevelt and Social Security damaged his standing within his own party, but he accepted that political cost.
And perhaps this clipping tells me something about my mother as well. She lived in Concord, and Winant was not simply a national figure she read about from a distance. He had taught at St. Paul’s School, served three terms as New Hampshire’s governor and returned to Concord after representing the United States in wartime Britain. He died there on November 3, 1947, at only 58.
The fact that my mother saved so many different accounts of his death makes me think about how large this event must have felt in her community. Each clipping preserved another piece of the story. This one preserved something particularly valuable, not simply what John Winant had accomplished, but how people remembered him at the moment they lost him.
The “Abe Lincoln of New Hampshire” was gone. And my mother thought the words were worth saving.
Dr. Nancy Watson
Washington
Read More From Nancy
Folies Bergere at Dutch Harbor
In November 1943, my father was stationed in the Aleutian Islands, at Dutch Harbor, one of the most remote and strategically important American outposts of World War II. From there, he mailed home small pieces of memorabilia so my mother could glimpse the life he was living at the far edge of the continent. Among those […]
Convalescent Hospital
In July of 1944, letters to my father were addressed to Fort George Wright Hospital in Spokane Washington. Fort George Wright Hospital in 1944 was a key convalescent and rehabilitation facility for the US Army servicemen. Fort George was a US post established beginning in the late 1890s. The hospital was built on-site in 1898 […]
Lt. Douglas McKee Missing in Germany
Among the wartime newspaper clippings preserved by my parents is this article about Lt. Douglas McKee of Martinsburg, West Virginia. The reason this one would have been saved is because Martinsburg was my father’s hometown, and throughout their lives my parents kept newspaper articles that helped preserve the stories of communities that shaped their families. The article reports […]
