Edward Payson Weston, having walked from Boston, arrives in Washington DC four hours late

Edward Payson Weston bet a friend that if Lincoln won the election he would walk from the State House in Boston to the U.S. Capitol in under ten days.  After trial walk of thirty-six miles from Hartford to New Haven on New Year's Day, 1861, he set out on the 478 mile journey.  He reached the U.S. Capitol at five in the afternoon on Inauguration Day, having walked for ten days, four hours, and twelve minutes.  That night he attended the Inauguration Ball and later met Abraham Lincoln who offered to pay for his train-ticket home.  (By John Osborne)