Watch now: David J. Kent Shares His New Book "Lincoln in New England: In Search of His Forgotten Tours"

By: Kelsey Johnston

Baltimore, Maryland

Friday, March 20, 2026

In his new book, "Lincoln in New England: In Search of His Forgotten Tours," David J. Kent takes you along for the ride as he explores Lincoln's two forgotten tours of New England. He shared this ride with the Lincoln Group of DC in an exhilarating discussion on March 10.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM1hxPz6CAs

Abraham Lincoln went to New England only twice in his lifetime. During his first trip in 1848 he was an awkward, ungainly westerner, little known to the sophisticated east other than through his reputation for telling funny stories. He was serving his only term as a congressman and charged with going to Massachusetts to campaign for Zachary Taylor, the Whig Party nominee for president.

While speaking in nine locations over nearly two weeks, Lincoln was exposed to the split in the Whig Party between so-called Conscience and Cotton Whigs, and a growing abolitionist movement. He was also influenced by the great transcendentalist writers like Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louisa May Alcott and Nathaniel Hawthorne. While mostly he attracted crowds for his entertainment value, Lincoln came away with a more mature view of himself, his party and the struggles that the nation faced because of slavery.

During the tumultuous 1850s when slavery grew to become the defining issue leading to civil war, Lincoln was out of political office. He struggled to get back into politics, failing in two Senate races in Illinois. The second loss, with its seven highly publicized debates with Stephen A. Douglas, made him a household name. That led to an invitation for his February 1860 speech at Cooper Union in New York City, an address many call “the speech that made Lincoln president.”

Lincoln's February 1860 speech was just the first of what became another two-week jaunt into New England. This trip took Lincoln through Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Connecticut. No longer an unknown and occurring two months before the new Republican Party held its convention to pick a presidential nominee, Lincoln was campaigning for the party’s position on slavery and for his own chances of gaining that nomination.

He spoke in Providence and Woonsocket, Rhode Island, in four cities around Exeter, New Hampshire, where his son Robert was attending preparatory school to get into Harvard, and five stops in Connecticut, including Hartford and New Haven, where he encountered the Wide Awakes, a new grassroots organization that would help Republicans across the north in 1860. He tackled the issues of the day, most notably slavery, and was taken much more seriously than in his 1848 visit, which was largely forgotten.

"Lincoln in New England: In Search of His Forgotten Tours" is told in an entertaining “ride-along” style. That means you get to come along with the author as he visits the places Lincoln visited and tackles the issues Lincoln tackled. The road through the New England landscape on the cover gives a sense of the thousands of miles Kent drove on Lincoln’s trail while also talking with experts and locals about Lincoln’s legacy.

David J. Kent is the immediate past president of the Lincoln Group and serves on the advisory boards of the Abraham Lincoln Institute and the Lincoln Forum. He is a former scientist and an avid traveler.

To join us at a future meeting, become a member of the Lincoln Group. More information on membership can be found here: https://www.lincolnian.org/membership

Follow along as we celebrate Lincoln and the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States at www.Lincoln250.org and on Instagram at A.Lincoln250.