The Lincoln statue at Centre College, created by renowned Louisville artist Ed Hamilton, commemorates the many ties Lincoln has to the selective liberal arts college founded in Danville in 1819. Hamilton’s sculpture depicts a young Lincoln holding one of several law books loaned to him by Centre alumnus John Todd Stuart, Class of 1826. In addition to encouraging Lincoln to study the law, Stuart was eventually his first law partner, and the two were in practice together from 1837-1841. Lincoln would have also been well acquainted with Centre College through his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, since two of her brothers—her full brother, George Rogers Clark Todd, and a half-brother, Samuel Todd—graduated from Centre in 1843 and 1848, respectively. John C. Breckinridge, Class of 1838, the youngest-ever American vice president, ran against Lincoln for president in 1860, and Joseph Holt, Lincoln’s judge advocate general and eventual prosecutor of the assassination conspirators, also attended Centre. Dr. Lyman Beecher Todd, an 1851 Centre graduate and a Lexington physician related to Mary Todd Lincoln, was at Lincoln’s bedside during his final hours.