Abe's statue at Hodgenville Square assumes an otherwordly stance
in the dead serious realm of mash-up fiction and Tim Burton cinema
Photo of Abe by Ron Fritze  ~  June 17, 2012

The Childhood Homes Are Real Enough,
But an Axe-Wielding Vampire Hunter?

Abe Lincoln and His
Mash-Up Secret Occupation

By Ron Fritze from Athens, Alabama
Filed on July 9, 2012
Posted on July 16, 2012

Let me state up front, I am a Lincoln fan. In fact, I am so much of a fan that I am even willing to go see Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, despite suffering the cruel mockery of Twylia my significant other. Positive sentiment toward Lincoln is not popular in some circles — I know that — but I have to stick with my fellow Hoosier. As another Hoosier Kurt Vonnegut has pointed out, we all belong to the same granfaloon.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) was the sixteenth president of the United States, and in that office led us through the greatest crisis of our nation. Outraged Kentuckians and Illini will object to my claiming Lincoln for Indiana. In fact, I am willing to share. Lincoln was truly a great man, so there is a lot of him to go around for all three states. The basis for Indiana’s claim is that Lincoln spent his formative years there. Due to losing his land in Kentucky to faulty titles, Thomas Lincoln, Abe’s father, moved the family across the Ohio River into Indiana in 1816. There they lived until 1830 when they moved to Illinois. So, from about the age of eight to twenty-one, Abraham Lincoln lived in Indiana.

For now let’s look at Lincoln in Kentucky, the state of his birth. Over the years I have driven through Kentucky on I-65. If you have made this journey, you know that just a little south of Elizabethtown you’ll see signs for Lincoln’s birthplace and childhood home. Im my duty as a son, I drive from Athens, Alabama, to Fort Wayne, Indiana, a couple of times during the summers. It is an eight-hour journey, and I almost always stop and spend the night both going and coming with my dear and long-time friends Brian and Karen Coutts in Bowling Green, Kentucky. That reduces the travel time between Bowling Green and Fort Wayne to about five-and-a-half hours.

The Gollehar Cabin at Knob Creek is similar
to the famous log cabin of Abraham Lincoln's birth.
Photo by Ron Fritze  ~  June 17, 2012

Shawnee or Vampire?

Several years ago, I decided I would pause along the way to visit historical sites. There’s a lot to see in this great world, and a goodly portion is right in our own backyard — wherever you may live. This time, when 17 June 2012 rolled around, it was time to see the Lincoln birthplace and childhood home.

Abraham Lincoln was named after his grandfather Abraham. The elder Abe was the first Lincoln to settle in Kentucky in 1781. It was not a long stay. Shawnee Indians killed Abe in front of his eight-year-old son Thomas in 1786 — that is, unless you go with the version in Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, where a vampire did the evil deed.

Thomas Lincoln (1778-1851) had to make his way on his own after that. Despite this rough start, Thomas beghan to acquire land, and in 1806 he acquired a wife, Nancy Hanks (1784-1818), who lived with her aunt and uncle in Elizabethtown. There is no portrait of Nancy, but reports are that she was an attractive woman. The reconstruction of her appearance on display at the Lincoln Birthplace visitors’ center shows an extraordinarily handsome woman.

Thomas Lincoln bought Sinking Spring Farm in 1808. His son Abraham was born there in 1809. A legal dispute in 1811 caused Thomas to lose title to Sinking Spring, so he moved to Knob Creek farm about eight miles away. The Lincoln family lived there until 1816 when another legal dispute deprived Thomas Lincoln of that farm, too. At that point Thomas decided to move to the Indiana Territory, where land titles were more secure and there was no slavery.

The Hodgenville Square with the Lincoln Museum on the right.
Photo by Ron Fritze  ~  June 17, 2012

A Statue, a Nice Little Museum,
And Bits of Lincoln Everywhere

Exiting I-65, I headed toward Hodgenville about eight miles east of I-65. The signage for the Lincoln sites is a bit sparse and hard to read from the car, but I managed to turn at the right place. Coming into Hodgenville, I followed the signs to the Lincoln Museum. The town has a square with a big statue of Lincoln in the middle. Various other businesses sport the Lincoln name. As for the museum, it is private, so there is a modest admission charge of three dollars for adults. The collection consists of a series of displays of various points in Lincoln’s life — not much in the way of authentic Lincoln association artifacts but still informative. There is also some art featuring Lincoln. The guy working the desk was friendly and helpful. He gave me directions for getting to the birthplace and the childhood home.

I decided to go to the childhood home at Knob Creek first. It was the furthest east, while Sinking Spring was on the way to Bowling Green, so I had to forego visiting in chronological order. In 2001 the National Park Service took over management of Knob Creek Farm. To visit it is a form of time travel. If Thomas or Abraham Lincoln were to see it today, they would have no trouble recognizing the place. Except for the tavern built by Hattie and Chester Howard in 1931, Knob Creek Farm has not changed much. The field farmed by Thomas Lincoln looks much as it did in his day.

Although the log cabin that belonged to the Lincolns is gone, a similar cabin from the neighboring Gollehar family was moved to the farm by the Howards. It is there to be toured — and during my tour, a pleasant ranger was there to answer questions and give directions. There is a three-mile walking path for those with the time to explore Knob Creek, but it was hot and I was in a hurry, so I skipped the path for a short stroll down to Knob Creek. History tells us that Lincoln would have drowned in that creek if not for his friend, the Gollehar’s son, who saw his pal fall into the swift water before pulling the future president back to shore with a branch. There must have been a lot of rain when that near tragedy took place. When I visited the water level was very low. Definitely Knob Creek Farm is worth a visit.

The Lincoln Memorial Building
Photo by Ron Fritze  ~  June 17, 2012

A Greek Temple
With a Log Cabin Inside

Heading back to Hodgenville, I turned south on Highway 31E. A couple of miles later I spotted the entrance to the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace at Sinking Spring Farm. It is also a National Historic Site operated by the National Park Service. I headed for the visitor center, which has some nice displays, including the very attractive but highly speculative portrait of Nancy Hanks. There’s also a Lincoln family Bible. I took the time to watch a short film on Lincoln’s time at Sinking Springs Farm and Knob Creek Farm.

The park is heavily wooded with several hiking paths. Its main attraction is the Lincoln Memorial Building. Looking ever so much like a Greek temple, it shelters a log cabin that is alleged to be the one in which Lincoln was born. Documentation for this claim is lacking or obscure, but no one can dispute that it is an old log cabin. Visitors walk up a big flight of steps to get to the Memorial Building, although a wheelchair accessible path is available. At top is an impressive vista, much more than I had expected.

The story of the Lincoln Birthplace Park is interesting. Like Knob Farm, it was originally in private hands. A New York businessman A. W. Dennett, bought Sinking Spring Farm in 1894 and had the cabin dismantled, then reassembled for a traveling display at various cities around the country. Robert Collier, the publisher of Collier’s Weekly, bought the farm in 1905. The next year he formed the Lincoln Farm Association with Mark Twain, Samuel Gompers, William Jennings Bryan, and others for the purpose of preserving Lincoln’s birthplace and building a memorial on the site. The Association raised $350,000 from 100,000 contributors to build the memorial. President Theodore Roosevelt laid the foundation stone in 1909, and in 1911 President William Howard Taft dedicated the completed structure. Sinking Spring became a national park in 1916 and a National Historic Site in 1959. Again, I would recommend getting off I-65 and checking it out. By the way, in case you are wondering, I decided to forebear from asking the rangers at either park about the vampire situation in the vicinity.

It's True, Believe Me! —
Except for the Vampires and Zombies.

What's up with Lincoln and vampires? Some of you might have noticed that a book titled Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith came out in 2010. It sported a cover with a presidential-era, bearded Lincoln in a defiant stance and holding an axe behind his back. The back cover showed Lincoln from behind, and besides the axe in one hand, in the other hand he holds the severed head of a vampire. Ooohhh! Eeehhh!

Seth Grahame-Smith came to fame as an author of mash-up novels. Mash-ups are a new genre of fiction that involves combining an existing work of fiction or historical setting with elements of vampire, zombie, or other horror fiction. Grahame-Smith got his start with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which interweaves the actual plot of Pride and Prejudice with Elizabeth Bennet’s zombie-slaying adventures. And yes, Mr. Darcy also fights zombie as well. This book came out in 2009 and was very successful, probably because it had such a quirky plot. By the way, the book was published by Quirk Books, and that is no coincidence. Its success encouraged Grahame-Smith to write another mash-up. The result was Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. Mash-ups by other authors — Android Karenina by Ben Winters and Queen Victoria Demon Hunter by A.E. Moorat are typical of the genre — have also hit the market.

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter follows the premise that vampires exist and that they were active and powerful in the Antebellum United States. The fictional modern author of the book — a struggling writer at that — meets a somewhat mysterious man named Henry. One day the mysterious Henry gives the author a package containing the journals of Abraham Lincoln. These amazing documents are be a record of Abraham Lincoln’s struggles with vampires.

An Unpaid Debt
Leads Abe into Vampire Fighting.

Abraham Lincoln’s family suffered a number of casualties from vampire attacks. His grandfather Abraham is actually killed by a vampire, and not by marauding Shawnees as conventional history records. Later, when Thomas Lincoln moves the family to Indiana, he contracts a debt with a local businessman, Jack Barts, but is unable to repay. It turns out that Barts is a vampire who retaliates for the unpaid debt by killing Lincoln’s mother, Nancy Hanks, along with Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Tom Sparrow. Enraged, the young Abraham is able to kill Bart (a cripple) with a stake to the heart, a classic vampire slayer's move.

It’s interesting that the vampires who fall to Lincoln’s vengeance don’t burst into flame or blow up in a violent puff of ashes. Instead, the Lincoln vamps die like a human would die when inflicted with a mortal wound, although they do assume their genuine vampire appearance with fangs and coal black eyes.

The problem for the young Abe is that most vampires are a lot more formidable than Barts. When the teenage Lincoln tries to kill another vampire, who turns out to have the appearance of a sweet little old lady, he suffers a near fatal drubbing. Only the intervention of a character named Henry Sturges saves Lincoln’s life. The redoubtable Henry is a vampire himself, but he is a good vampire, shades of Angel! He teaches Lincoln how to fight and to kill vampires. By the way, in the book, unlike the movie, vampires can kill other vampires.

Henry Sturges is revealed to be one of the lost colonists of Roanoke. A vampire named Thomas Crowley accompanied the colonizing fleet as its physician. On the voyage over to America, a couple of people die mysteriously. The trend continues on land. During a vampiric rampage, Crowley transforms Henry into one of his kind during wanton slaughter of the other colonists. Besides carving “Croatoan” on a tree, according to Henry, one desperate colonist tried to carve “Crowley,” but only got as far as “Cro” before the vampire killed him.

Henry Sturges trains Abe to kill vampires, employing the wood-choppers axe as his primary weapon. Sturges sends a letter to Abe, identifying vampires who need killing. According to Sturges, vampires who need killing are those who prey on the weak and the innocent. Despite his good intentions, Henry craves blood, too, and needs to feed like any good vampire. He and his fellow good guys feed on humans who need killing, e.g., murderers, rapists, sadists, and other evil folk who ally themselves with the bad vampires or identify themselves as members of the Tea Party. Soon after these revelations, Lincoln gets an additional reason for wanting to destroy vampires — one of them killed his first love Ann Rutledge.

Immorality and Inhumanity
Are a Cruel Diet for Vampires
In the Slave Culture of the South.

Most Americans in the Antebellum United States aren't aware that vampires truly exist. Over time, however, Lincoln comes to realize that some of his fellow Americans do know of the existence of vampires. He also learns that vampires are very powerful in the South, where they prey on slaves. Vampires own slaves and ally themselves with slaveholding humans. The vampires feed on unwanted slaves, that is, the old and infirm who can't work enough to pay for their keep. In this unholy alliance, vampires get food and the human slave-owners get rid of slaves incapable of hard work. Good for vamps and slave holders. Very bad for the hapless slaves.

Lincoln, already the scion of a long family tradition of anti-slavery sentiment, is especially disgusted and outraged by the immorality and inhumanity of this cruel arrangement. As he enters politics, he discovers that politicians are more aware of the existence of vampires than the general population. Some politicians are even bought and sold by the vampires. Mercifully for us, we live in an age where are politicians are not for sale at any price. Que?

Here's our future president posing with Edgar Allan Poe
at Mathew Brady's Washington, D.C., studio on February 4, 1849
— or so it goes with the myth-making machine of the Internet.

Poe Tells a Tale of the Blood Countess.

Along the way, Lincoln comes into contact with Edgar Allan Poe. It should come as no surprise that Poe knows of the vampires and is fascinated by them. But he is not a vampire. As an aficionado of quaint, curious, and forgotten lore, Poe informs Lincoln about the reasons why the United States is afflicted with such a big vampire problem. Poe tells of the “Blood Countess” Elizabeth Bathory (1560-1614), who slaughtered 600 peasant girls with the help of an ancient, female vampire named Anna Darvulia. As evidence of the slaughter reached an intolerable and undeniable extent, the authorities arrested Bathory. She was tried and imprisoned in solitary confinement in a tower where she died in 1614. Bram Stoker would later use her story as a partial inspiration for his novel Dracula.

Bathory’s atrocious behavior led to a massive outcry. Other monstrous and obscene acts by other vampires are discovered about the same time. The reaction was a general and sustained persecution and hunt for vampires throughout Europe. Fortunately for the vampires, the Americas beckoned as a new safe-haven.

With the aid of Henry Sturges, Lincoln progresses from being a mere vampire hunter to being an anti-vampire and anti-slavery politician. He also meets and marries Mary Todd, wresting her from the potential future of a boring marriage to Stephen Douglas. Douglas also operates on the edge of the world of the bad vampires, who want to dominate the United States and turn all humans into their slaves. When the Civil War begins, Douglas sees the light and staunchly supports Lincoln, an act that causes the vampires to murder him.

The Undead Side with the Confederacy.

Meanwhile, Henry Sturges reveals to Lincoln that he is part of a network of good vampires who want the evil ones defeated. Lincoln is their vehicle of victory. They help him to become president. It turns out that Senator and Secretary of State William Seward is also a determined enemy of vampires and has done some vampire hunting of his own. On the other hand, President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis turns out to be a major collaborator with the agenda of the evil vampires.

Once the Civil War gets started, the evil vampires fight for the Confederacy and help it to win the First Battle of Bull Run. Vampires also murder Willie, the Lincoln’s little boy. After the Battle of Antietam, Lincoln suspects that General George McClellan might be a vampire and brings his trusty axe to a meeting. Fortunately for McClellan, he demonstrates his human bona fides, but Lincoln still fires him as commander of the Army of the Potomac. He also issues the Emancipation Proclamation, which frees the slaves of the South. The proclamation leads to the slaves fleeing to Union Armies and even some slave uprisings against vampire masters.

As the defeat of the Confederacy looms, the vampire actor John Wilkes Booth hatches a plot to assassinate Lincoln, Grant, Seward, and others. The idea is to decapitate the government and military of the Union. Wilkes, however, only succeeds in killing Lincoln. Or so it seems.... You’ll need to check out the book to find out what Grahame-Smith says really happened. Let me also say that the book is a smooth, enjoyable, and easy read if you like that sort of story. Also, in proper mash-up fashion, it weaves the fictional aspects of the story smoothly into the real history. Grahame-Smith’s books are successful enough to have attracted filmmakers, including the odd and zany Tim Burton.

Benjamin Walker as Axe-Wielding Abraham Lincoln

This Is No Laughing Matter.

If you've been watching or reading reviews of the film version of Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, you’ve probably noticed that the critical reception is mixed. Based on the title, clearly a lot of critics expected the movie to be a slapstick parody. In fact, the movie takes its premise that vampires were terrorizing Antebellum America and that Abraham Lincoln was a prodigious vampire killer very seriously. The book does as well. Reviewers with expectations of a farce did not do their homework and read the book. Shame on them. Abraham Lincoln appears to be getting the same treatment as John Carter.

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter came to our local theater in Athens. The original plan was to catch a matinee on 3 July with my bud Al Elmore, a fellow explorer of potentially dubious movies of a non-chick-flick nature. By movies of a non-chick-flick nature, I mean any movie that Twylia would not be caught dead watching. Arriving at the usually reliable Cinemagic, I discovered they had dumped Abe in mid-week for the new Spiderman. Al and I regrouped and tracked it down at the Monaco over in Bridge Street in Huntsville. Interestingly, Twylia actually contemplated going with us since the film’s vampire lead is played by Rufus Sewall, a big favorite of hers. But she opted instead for cruising the stores of the Bridge Street outdoor mall.

Lugosi, Buffy, Louisiana, Twilight

What about the movie? I thought it was pretty good — but please don’t assume that I’m an unquestioning vampire film fanatic. Bela Lugosi good. Buffy the Vampire Slayer also good. True Blood, not to my taste. And I lived in Louisiana for five years! Yes, it is above average kinky there in the vampire centre of the Universe, but not that kinky! Twilight, fugetaboutit!

The film departs in some significant ways from the book. Jack Barts of the movie is not crippled and Lincoln fails to kill him on the first attempt. Henry Sturges has to rescue young Abe before he is slain by the superior power of his vampire foe. Sturges then trains Abe how to fight and destroy vampires with sustained success.

In the film, instead of a series of nasty vampires, Lincoln and Sturges face the threat of a singular vampire leader, the ancient (5,000 years old) and menacing Adam, who is played by Rufus Sewall. This gives the cinematic story a dramatic focus that a faithful adaptation of the book would have lacked. Besides, Rufus also caught Twylia’s attention, confirming his drawing power for a key demographic, but she didn’t want to see him as a vampire.

The action of the book is compressed and truncated in its motion-picture manifestation. Some characters are left out, including poor Ann Rutledge. The film also inserts a major African-American character, Will Johnson, who did not exist in the book. In the film Will and Abe knew each other as little boys before the death of Lincoln’s mother and are later reunited. The Will Johnson character strengthens the connection between vampiric cruelty and the institution of slavery.

The Old Silver Bullet Trick

After the Civil War breaks out, the Lincolns suffer the loss of Willie to Adam’s female assassin Vadoma. Undeterred, Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation. This action leaves the South desperate, and the vampires provide a goodly supply of undead soldiers for the battle of Gettysburg. The first day is a Union disaster, thanks to the seemingly immortal and forever undead Confederate soldiers. But Lincoln remembers that silver is good vampire slaying material. So, gathering up the silver of Washington, D.C., he has it molded into silver bullets and forged into silver bayonets.

With the munitions properly tweaked, the trick becomes how to deliver the deadly supplies to the Union army at Gettysburg. Adam and his vampiric minions are planning on intercepting the precious cargo and insuring the defeat of the Union army and the cause of freedom for humanity. Let’s just say that Lincoln, William Johnson, Joshua Speed, and Henry Sturges save the day with some considerable help from Mary Todd Lincoln and a large band of runaway slaves. As an action sequence, the act of getting the silver munitions to the field of battle stands at the top of several over-the-top scenes designed to impart action and epic excitement to the film. Even though the United States survives to fight another day, we also know that Lincoln will die. . . . Or so it seems.

Just as the film is not particularly faithful to the book, it is not faithful to the historical background as well. Besides all that is left out, the film also has Thomas Lincoln dying while Lincoln was still a child. I have no idea why these decisions were made. They were unfortunate and unnecessary but ultimately not fatal to the story. Despite these historical flaws, I still recommend Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter — but then I recommended John Carter, the great box office dud, so what do I know?

One last note: Benjamin Walker, who plays Lincoln, bears such a strong resemblance that you’d think he was made expressly for the role. That is a nice plus. Besides, how many other movies offer more scenes of fancy axe-work than a Paul Bunyan cartoon? If you find one, let me know.