William Henry Herndon (December 25, 1818 - March 18, 1891) was President Abraham Lincoln's law partner and biographer. He was a founder of the new Republican Party and the mayor of Springfield, Illinois. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik released Herndon's Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life in 1889. Jesse William Weik (November 25, 1857 - August 18, 1930) worked with William Herndon on the first definitive biography of Abraham Lincoln, which was published in 1889. Weik was born in the Indiana town of Greencastle. His father immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1848, and his mother was a Cincinnati native. His education, which began in Greencastle's public schools, was finished at Indiana Asbury College (now DePauw University), where he got an A.B. in 1875 and a Master of Arts in 1883. He passed the bar exam in 1880 but never practiced. In 1882, he was appointed as a special examiner for the United States Pension Bureau, and he was assigned to investigate the merits of various pension claims in the Springfield, Illinois, area. While in the latter location, he began to learn about Abraham Lincoln's life and history.
