Ward Hill Lamon returns to Danville

Jun. 23—After a three-year absence due to Covid, Ward Hill Lamon reenactor Bob O'Connor will return to visit the Lamon House in Lincoln Park in Danville for events including Arts in the Park.

O'Connor, an author and historian who has been portraying Lamon since 2007, lives in Charles Town, W.Va., just a few miles from where Lamon was born in Summit Point, Va., now West Virginia, and where he is buried in Gerrardstown, W.Va.

O'Connor has been a regular guest of Alan and Rebecca Woodrum, who operate the Lamon House as an outreach of the Vermilion County Historical Society, for the Arts in the Park event every year since 2007.

Lamon was born in 1828 in Summit Point, Va., just a few miles from where the author lives.

At age 18, with the encouragement of his cousin Theodore, he moved to Danville to read medicine and become a doctor. Theodore and his two brothers lived in Danville.

Upon reading under Theodore, Lamon decided instead to become a lawyer since Danville was the county seat of Vermilion County and they needed a lot of lawyers. He read law and attended classes at the University of Louisville in Kentucky and then passed the bar exam in both Kentucky and Illinois.

He was assigned to work the Eighth Judicial Circuit of Illinois. It was on the circuit that he became friends with Abraham Lincoln. He and Lincoln became law partners in 1852, with Lamon's office in the Barnum building in downtown Danville. The two of them defended 114 cases as partners for the next four years. In 1856, when Lamon was elected Chief Prosecuting Attorney for the circuit, the partnership dissolved.

When Lincoln was elected President of the United States, he took Lamon with him to Washington. Lamon officially was the United States Marshal of the District of Columbia. Unofficially he was Lincoln's personal bodyguard. (There was no Secret Service at that time.)

Lamon was the perfect bodyguard, as he was 6-foot-4 and weighed 260 pounds. He also carried on his body at all times two Colt .44 pistols, two Bowie knives, a blackjack, a set of brass knuckles and carried an eight-inch sword in the handle of his walking stick. He was a fighter and was willing to take a bullet for Lincoln.

O'Connor will appear as Lamon at the Lamon House in Lincoln Park throughout the days on Saturday and Sunday as part of Arts in the Park. Admission is free but donations are appreciated to help maintain the house. (Note: Ward Hill Lamon never actually lived in the Lamon House which was owned by his relatives.)

O'Connor's two Lamon books, "The Life of Abraham Lincoln As President" and "The Virginian Who Might Have Saved Lincoln," will be available for sale and for the author to sign at the event.

O'Connor will also speak at the Danville Public Library at 3 p.m. on Friday. His topic will be Sarah Slater, the Missing Lincoln Conspirator, one of the author's most recent novels. That event is free and open to the public. The author's entire repertoire of 22 books will be available for sale and for the author to sign at the library event.

O'Connor, the world's only Ward Hill Lamon reenactor, has appeared at hundreds of events since 2007, including at the U. S. Marshal Museum in Fort Smith, Ark.; at the Presidential Museum in Springfield; at the Bloomington Historical Society in Bloomington; and appears annually for multiple programs at First Night Virginia in Charlottesville.

Those who think Lamon was a bad bodyguard are encouraged to attend this event to find out why Lamon was not at Ford's Theater on April 14, 1865, when Lincoln was shot.