the 1870 Pekin City Directory, that Cromwell was assisted by his wife Ann Eliza in the naming of the streets. 19th century Pekin was the residence of Nance Costley, known to history as the first enslaved person to be freed with the help of Abraham Lincoln. She was auctioned off to Nathan Cromwell in 1827 and brought to Pekin. Her original case was part of a Probate Court hearing regarding the estate when he died in 1836. David Bailey, a local merchant of abolitionist leanings, sought the help of an attorney friend after he (and Nance) lost the case. Abraham Lincoln argued the case in 1841 at the Illinois Supreme Court, citing the Illinois Constitution and Northwest Ordinance. Justice Breese determined that Nance was a free person and reversed the Circuit Court ruling, stating that “it is a presumption of law, in the State of Illinois, that every person is free, without regard to color,” and “the sale of a free person is illegal”. After her freedom was legally secured, she remained in Pekin with her husband and children. In William H. Bates’ 1870 Pekin City Directory, Nance was included in an entry of notable citizens:“With the arrival of Major Cromwell ... came a slave. That slave still lives in Pekin and is now known, as she has been known for nearly half a century ... (as) ‘Black Nancy.’ She came here a chattel. ... But she has outlived the age of barbarism, and now, in her still vigorous old age, she sees her race disenthralled; the chains that bound them forever broken, their equality before the law everywhere recognized and her children enjoying the elective franchise.”Lincoln attended the Whig Convention that was held in Pekin on May 1, 1843. He was among several local Whig politicians who wanted to serve in the U.S. Congress. To keep from splitting the Whig vote, the competitors agreed to support each other for one term each in Congress. Lincoln ran and was elected to the 30th United States Congress in 1846, and retired at the end of the term. This single term in Congress was Lincoln's only experience in Washington before he was elected president. Although Illinois was a "free" state, pro-slavery sentiment was predominant throughout southern and central Illinois, which had been largely settled by Southerners, some of whom were slaveholders before the state was admitted to the union. Cities with pro-slavery