Pomona resident got to observe Abraham Lincoln at his best - Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
Brady, a longtime Pomona resident, banker and rancher, was then a 24-year-old farmer called to serve on a jury in Beardstown, Illinois, in 1858. He observed the tall, lanky Lincoln prepared to defend William “Duff” Armstrong who was facing a... While the audience was undoubtedly smaller, Lincoln’s performance in this trial perhaps prepared him for his debates with Stephen A. Douglas three months later that helped first propel him into the limelight. Brady told J. R. Gridley, who wrote a 1910 paper on the trial in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, that at first glance he wasn’t impressed by Lincoln as the trial got underway on May 7, 1858. “In this ‘backwoodsy’ appearance,... Under questioning by Lincoln, Allen maintained that he was 150 feet away but he could identify Armstrong because of light from the full moon. Lincoln was very particular to have him repeat himself a dozen or more times during the trial about where the moon was located,” recalled Brady to Gridley, who later. Source: www.dailybulletin.com
