Here is a screenshot of what the Lincoln household recorded on the census.. Johnson is recorded as a servant, while Dinkell, 14 years old, has nothing next to him. Who were these two and how did they come to be living with Lincoln the year he was elected?
In addition, Lincoln wrote an estimated personal estate value of 12,000. Was this a lot at the time? How would it stack up against a national average household value?
Domestic workers. It is surmised that M. Johnson was "Mary", a domestic worker who Mary Todd Lincoln referred to in a letter who was hired to help during the winter, and had also been employed by the Lincolns the year before.
Phillip Dinkell was probably the son of a nearby neighbor in Springfield who house-sat for the Lincolns while they were away. If that is the case, then he is likely possibly the one who answered the census, since the Lincolns would have been out, or else "Mary" did. Though considering the ages of the Lincolns are all given correctly, possibly not.
Katherine Mentz writes in The Lincoln Home: Lincoln Home National Historic Site, Springfield, Illinois, Volume 2, Issue 2 that M. Johnson was likely an Irish immigrant, because the Lincolns had "a succession of Irish girls" that worked for them as domestic workers dating back to at least 1850. Mary Todd Lincoln had written to her sister in 1856 about dealing with "the Wild Irish" in her housekeeping duties.
Mentz goes on:
"Herndon, in his biography of Lincoln, commented that Mary had difficulty keeping servants because of her "peculiar nature;" however, most families had difficulties keeping hired help for any length of time. Population studies have shown that nineteenth century domestic workers were very transient.
"There is evidence that Mary had at least one servant for several years. In a letter, written to Hanna Shearer on October 2, 1859, she remarked that "Mary, the same girl I had last winter is still with me, a very faithful servant, has become as submissive as possible."
""Mary" also may be the same "M. Johnson," a hired girl listed as residing in the Lincoln household in the 1860 Census. In addition to M. Johnson, the 1860 Census listed a fourteen-year-old boy, Phillip Dinkell, as a member of the household. One neighborhood boy reminisced that Mr. Lincoln used to pay him five shillings a night to stay in the house while he was away. Staying overnight at the Lincolns' may have been one of Phillip's major duties. A Mrs. Dinkell, according to the Springfield City Directory, lived not far from the Lincolns and she may have been Phillip's mother. It seems likely, however, that Phillip also performed other chores. With Lincoln's political campaigning and the additional entertaining the Lincolns were doing in the years after they enlarged their house, they probably needed additional help. Up to that time, however, it seems they had only one servant. Emilie Todd recalled that just one girl helped Mary during her visit in 1854-55. Certainly while campaigning, Lincoln had little time for the chores he used to do when they first moved into the house."
Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 1 by Michael Burlingame has a little bit more information about the Dinkell or "Dingle" family. Phillip's mother, Barbara, was a widow, according to the 1860-61 Springfield City Directory, and lived on Edwards Street between Eighth and Ninth streets, just a block and a half away from the Lincolns. Phillip Dinkell was probably the same person who was born in Germany about 1845, appeared on the Union army rolls from Sangamon County, Illinois, in 1862-63, and died of consumption in 1865.
