FIRST INDEPENDENT WORK.—FIRST APPEARANCE IN SANGAMON COUNTY.—VISIT TO
NEW ORLEANS IN 1831.
Through the summer and fall of 1830 and the early winter of 1831, Mr.
Lincoln worked in the vicinity of his father’s new home, usually as a
farm-hand and rail-splitter. Most of his work was done in company with
John Hanks. Before the end of the winter he secured employment of which
he has given an account himself, though in the third person:
“During that winter Abraham, together with his step-mother’s son, John
D. Johnston, and John Hanks, yet residing in Macon County, hired
themselves to Denton Offutt to take a flatboat from Beardstown,
Illinois, to New Orleans, and for that purpose were to join him (Offutt)
at Springfield, Illinois, so soon as the snow should go off. When it did
go off, which was about March 1, 1831, the country was so flooded as to
make travelling by land impracticable; to obviate which difficulty they
purchased a large canoe and came down the Sangamon River in it from
where they were all living (near Decatur). This is the time and manner
of Abraham’s first entrance into Sangamon County. They found Offutt at
Springfield, but learned from him that he had failed in getting a boat
at Beardstown. This led to their hiring themselves to him for twelve
dollars per month each, and getting the timber out of the trees, and
building a boat at old Sangamon town, on the Sangamon River, seven miles
northwest of Springfield, which boat they took to New Orleans,
substantially on the old contract.”
Sangamon town, where Mr. Lincoln built the flatboat, has, since his day,
completely disappeared from the earth; but then it was one of the
flourishing settlements on the river of that name. Lincoln and his
friends, on arriving there in March, immediately began work. There is
still living in Springfield, Illinois, a man who helped Lincoln at the
raft-building—Mr. John Roll, a well-known citizen, and one who has been
prominent in the material advancement of the city. Mr. Roll remembers
distinctly Lincoln’s first appearance in Sangamon town. “He was a tall,
gaunt young man,” he says, “dressed in a suit of blue homespun jeans,
consisting of a roundabout jacket, waistcoat, and breeches which came to
within about four inches of his feet. The latter were encased in rawhide
boots, into the tops of which, most of the time, his pantaloons were
stuffed. He wore a soft felt hat which had at one time been black, but
now, as its owner dryly remarked, ‘was sunburned until it was a combine
of colors.’”
Mr. Roll’s relation to the new-comer soon became something more than
that of a critical observer; he hired out to him, and says with pride,
“I made every pin which went into that boat.”
LINCOLN’S POPULARITY IN SANGAMON.
It took some four weeks to build the raft, and in that period Lincoln
succeeded in captivating the entire village by his story-telling. It was
the custom in Sangamon for the “men-folks” to gather at noon and in the
evening, when resting, in a convenient lane near the mill. They had
rolled out a long peeled log, on which they lounged while they whittled
and talked. Lincoln had not been long in Sangamon before he joined this
circle. At once he became a favorite by his jokes and good-humor. As
soon as he appeared at the assembly ground the men would start him to
story-telling. So irresistibly droll were his “yarns” that, says Mr.
Roll, “whenever he’d end up in his unexpected way the boys on the log
would whoop and roll off.” The result of the rolling off was to polish
the log like a mirror. The men, recognizing Lincoln’s part in this
polishing, christened their seat “Abe’s log.” Long after Lincoln had
disappeared from Sangamon “Abe’s log” remained, and until it had rotted
away people pointed it out, and repeated the droll stories of the
stranger.
[Illustration:
THOMAS LINCOLN’S HOME IN ILLINOIS.
This cabin was built by Thomas Lincoln in 1831, on Goose Nest Prairie,
in Coles County, Illinois, where he had taken up forty acres of
land. It was situated nine miles south of Charleston, on what is
called Lincoln’s Lane. Here Thomas Lincoln died in 1851. The cabin
was occupied until 1891, when it was bought by the Lincoln Log Cabin
Association to be shown at the World’s Fair in 1893.
]
AN EXCITING ADVENTURE.
The flatboat was done in about a month, and Lincoln and his friends
prepared to leave Sangamon. Before he started, however, he was the hero
of an adventure so thrilling that he won new laurels in the community.
Mr. Roll, who was a witness to the whole exciting scene, tells the
story:
“It was the spring following the winter of the deep snow.[13] Walter
Carman, John Seamon, myself, and at times others of the Carman boys had
helped Abe in building the boat, and when he had finished we went to
work to make a dug-out, or canoe, to be used as a small boat with the
flat. We found a suitable log about an eighth of a mile up the river,
and with our axes went to work under Lincoln’s direction. The river was
very high, fairly ‘booming.’ After the dug-out was ready to launch we
took it to the edge of the water, and made ready to ‘let her go,’ when
Walter Carman and John Seamon jumped in as the boat struck the water,
each one anxious to be the first to get a ride. As they shot out from
the shore they found they were unable to make any headway against the
strong current. Carman had the paddle, and Seamon was in the stern of
the boat. Lincoln shouted to them to ‘head up-stream,’ and ‘work back to
shore,’ but they found themselves powerless against the stream. At last
they began to pull for the wreck of an old flatboat, the first ever
built on the Sangamon, which had sunk and gone to pieces, leaving one of
the stanchions sticking above the water. Just as they reached it Seamon
made a grab, and caught hold of the stanchion, when the canoe capsized,
leaving Seamon clinging to the old timber, and throwing Carman into the
stream. It carried him down with the speed of a mill-race. Lincoln
raised his voice above the roar of the flood, and yelled to Carman to
swim for an elm tree which stood almost in the channel, which the action
of the high water changed.
Footnote 13:
1830–1831. “The winter of the deep snow” is the date which is the
starting point in all calculations of time for the early settlers of
Illinois, and the circumstance from which the old settlers of Sangamon
County receive the name by which they are generally known,
“Snow-birds.”
“Carman, being a good swimmer, succeeded in catching a branch, and
pulled himself up out of the water, which was very cold, and had almost
chilled him to death; and there he sat shivering and chattering in the
tree. Lincoln, seeing Carman safe, called out to Seamon to let go the
stanchion and swim for the tree. With some hesitation he obeyed, and
struck out, while Lincoln cheered and directed him from the bank. As
Seamon neared the tree he made one grab for a branch, and, missing it,
went under the water. Another desperate lunge was successful, and he
climbed up beside Carman. Things were pretty exciting now, for there
were two men in the tree, and the boat was gone.
[Illustration:
NEW SALEM.
From a painting in the State Capitol, Springfield, Illinois. New Salem
was founded by James Rutledge and John Cameron in 1829. In that year
they built a dam across the Sangamon River, and erected a mill.
Under date of October 23, 1829, Reuben Harrison, surveyor, certifies
that “at the request of John Cameron, one of the proprietors, I did
survey the town of New Salem.” The town within two years contained a
dozen or fifteen houses, nearly all of them built of logs. New
Salem’s population probably never exceeded a hundred persons. Its
inhabitants, and those of the surrounding country, were mostly
Southerners—natives of Kentucky and Tennessee—though there was an
occasional Yankee among them. Soon after Lincoln left the place, in
the spring of 1837, it began to decline. Petersburg had sprung up
two miles down the river, and rapidly absorbed its population and
business. By 1840 New Salem was almost deserted. The Rutledge
tavern, the first house erected, was the last to succumb. It stood
for many years, but at last crumbled away. Salem hill is now only a
green cow pasture.
]
“It was a cold, raw April day, and there was great danger of the men
becoming benumbed and falling back into the water. Lincoln called out to
them to keep their spirits up and he would save them. The village had
been alarmed by this time, and many people had come down to the bank.
Lincoln procured a rope, and tied it to a log. He called all hands to
come and help roll the log into the water, and after this had been done,
he, with the assistance of several others, towed it some distance up the
stream. A daring young fellow by the name of ‘Jim’ Dorrell then took his
seat on the end of the log, and it was pushed out into the current, with
the expectation that it would be carried down stream against the tree
where Seamon and Carman were.
“The log was well directed, and went straight to the tree; but Jim, in
his impatience to help his friends, fell a victim to his good
intentions. Making a frantic grab at a branch, he raised himself off the
log, which was swept from under him by the raging water, and he soon
joined the other two victims upon their forlorn perch. The excitement on
shore increased, and almost the whole population of the village gathered
on the river bank. Lincoln had the log pulled up the stream, and,
securing another piece of rope, called to the men in the tree to catch
it if they could when he should reach the tree. He then straddled the
log himself, and gave the word to push out into the stream. When he
dashed into the tree, he threw the rope over the stump of a broken limb,
and let it play until he broke the speed of the log, and gradually drew
it back to the tree, holding it there until the three now nearly frozen
men had climbed down and seated themselves astride. He then gave orders
to the people on the shore to hold fast to the end of the rope which was
tied to the log, and leaving his rope in the tree he turned the log
adrift. The force of the current, acting against the taut rope, swung
the log around against the bank, and all ‘on board’ were saved. The
excited people, who had watched the dangerous experiment with alternate
hope and fear, now broke into cheers for Abe Lincoln and praises for his
brave act. This adventure made quite a hero of him along the Sangamon,
and the people never tired of telling of the exploit.”
[Illustration:
THE NEW SALEM MILL TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO.
After a painting by Mrs. Bennett; reproduced, by permission, from
“Menard-Salem-Lincoln Souvenir Album,” Petersburg, Illinois, 1893.
The Rutledge and Cameron mill, of which Lincoln at one time had
charge, stood on the same spot as the mill in the picture, and had
the same foundation. From the map on page 116 it will be seen that
the mill was below the bluff and east of the town.
]
A SECOND ADVENTURE.
The flatboat built and loaded, the party started for New Orleans about
the middle of April. They had gone but a few miles when they met with
another adventure. At the village of New Salem there was a mill-dam. On
it the boat stuck, and here for nearly twenty-four hours it hung, the
bow in the air and the stern in the water, the cargo slowly setting
backward—shipwreck almost certain. The village of New Salem turned out
in a body to see what the strangers would do in their predicament. They
shouted, suggested, and advised for a time, but finally discovered that
one big fellow in the crew was ignoring them and working out a plan of
relief. Having unloaded the cargo into a neighboring boat, Lincoln had
succeeded in tilting his craft. Then, by boring a hole in the end
extending over the dam, the water was let out. This done, the boat was
easily shoved over and reloaded. The ingenuity which he had exercised in
saving his boat made a deep impression on the crowd on the bank, and it
was talked over for many a day. The proprietor of boat and cargo was
even more enthusiastic than the spectators, and vowed he would build a
steamboat for the Sangamon and make Lincoln the captain. Lincoln himself
was interested in what he had done, and nearly twenty years later he
embodied his reflections on this adventure in a curious invention for
getting boats over shoals.
[Illustration:
A MATRON OF NEW SALEM IN 1832.
This costume, worn by Mrs. Lucy M. Bennett of Petersburg, Illinois,
has been a familiar attraction at old settlers’ gatherings in Menard
County for years. The dress was made by Mrs. Hill of New Salem; and
the reticule, or work-bag, will be readily recognized by those who
have any recollection of the early days. The bonnet occupied a place
in the store of Samuel Hill at New Salem. It was taken from the
store by Mrs. Hill, worn for a time by her, and has been carefully
preserved to this day. It is an imported bonnet—a genuine
Leghorn—and of a kind so costly that Mr. Hill made only an
occasional sale of one. Its price, in fact, was twenty-five dollars.
]
[Illustration:
A NEW SALEM BONNET.
]
NEW ORLEANS IN 1831.
The raft over the New Salem dam, the party went on to New Orleans,
reaching there in May, 1831, and remaining a month. It must have been a
month of intense intellectual activity for Lincoln. Since his first
visit, made with young Gentry, New Orleans had entered upon her “flush
times.” Commerce was increasing at a rate which dazzled speculators, and
drew them from all over the United States. From 1830 to 1840 no other
American city increased in such a ratio; exports and imports, which in
1831 amounted to $26,000,000, in 1835 had more than doubled. The Creole
population had held the sway so far in the city; but now it came into
competition, and often into conflict, with a pushing, ambitious, and
frequently unscrupulous native American party. To these two
predominating elements were added Germans, French, Spanish, negroes, and
Indians. Cosmopolitan in its make-up, the city was even more
cosmopolitan in its life. Everything was to be seen in New Orleans in
those days, from the idle luxury of the wealthy Creole to the
organization of filibustering juntas. The pirates still plied their
trade in the Gulf, and the Mississippi River brought down hundreds of
river boatmen—one of the wildest, wickedest sets of men that ever
existed in any city.
[Illustration:
THE SITE OF NEW SALEM AS IT APPEARS TO-DAY.
]
Lincoln and his companions ran their boat up beside thousands of others.
It was the custom to tie such craft along the river front where St.
Mary’s Market now stands, and one could walk a mile, it is said, over
the tops of these boats without going ashore. No doubt Lincoln went,
too, to live in the boatmen’s rendezvous, called the “swamp,” a wild,
rough quarter, where roulette, whiskey, and the flint-lock pistol ruled.
All of the picturesque life, the violent contrasts of the city, he would
see as he wandered about; and he would carry away the sharp impressions
which are produced when mind and heart are alert, sincere, and healthy.
In this month spent in New Orleans Lincoln must have seen much of
slavery. At that time the city was full of slaves, and the number was
constantly increasing; indeed, one-third of the New Orleans increase in
population between 1830 and 1840 was in negroes. One of the saddest
features of the institution was to be seen there in its most aggravated
form—the slave market. The better class of slave-holders of the South,
who looked on the institution as patriarchal, and who guarded their
slaves with conscientious care, knew little, it should be said, of this
terrible traffic. Their transfer of slaves was humane, but in the open
markets of the city it was attended by shocking cruelty and degradation.
Lincoln witnessed in New Orleans for the first time the revolting sight
of men and women sold like animals. Mr. Herndon says that he often heard
Mr. Lincoln refer to this experience. “In New Orleans for the first
time,” he writes, “Lincoln beheld the true horrors of human slavery. He
saw ‘negroes in chains—whipped and scourged.’ Against this inhumanity
his sense of right and justice rebelled, and his mind and conscience
were awakened to a realization of what he had often heard and read. No
doubt, as one of his companions has said, ‘slavery ran the iron into him
then and there.’
“One morning, in their rambles over the city, the trio passed a slave
auction. A vigorous and comely mulatto girl was being sold. She
underwent a thorough examination at the hands of the bidders; they
pinched her flesh, and made her trot up and down the room like a horse,
to show how she moved, and in order, as the auctioneer said, that
‘bidders might satisfy themselves’ whether the article they were
offering to buy was sound or not. The whole thing was so revolting that
Lincoln moved away from the scene with a deep feeling of ‘unconquerable
hate.’ Bidding his companions follow him, he said: ‘Boys, let’s get away
from this. If ever I get a chance to hit that thing’ (meaning slavery),
‘I’ll hit it hard.’”
[Illustration:
MR. LINCOLN IN 1857.
The original of this picture is an ambrotype owned by C. F. Gunther of
Chicago, who bought it from W. H. Somers of El Cajon, California.
Mr. Somers bought the original directly from the artist, a Mr.
Alschuler of Urbana, Illinois. In a recent letter he explains why he
bought the picture: “At the time I was clerk of the circuit court,
and was about as well acquainted with Mr. Lincoln as with most of
the forty-odd lawyers who practised law in the circuit. Of course I
was then quite a young man, and the fall term of 1857 was my first
term as clerk. On the opening day of court, which was always an
interesting occasion, largely because we were curious to see what
attorneys from a distance were in attendance, while sitting at my
desk and watching the lawyers take their places within the bar of
the court-room, I observed that Mr. Lincoln was among them; and as I
looked in his direction, he arose from his seat, and came forward
and gave me a cordial hand-shake, accompanying the action with words
of congratulation on my election. I mention this fact because the
conduct of Mr. Lincoln was so in contrast with that of the other
members of the bar that it touched me deeply, and made me, ever
afterwards, his steadfast friend.”
Mr. J. O. Cunningham, who was present when the picture was taken,
writes us as follows of the circumstances: “One morning I was in the
gallery of Mr. Alschuler, when Mr. Lincoln came into the room and
said he had been informed that he (Alschuler) wished him to sit for
a picture. Alschuler said he had sent such a message to Mr. Lincoln,
but he could not take the picture in that coat (referring to a
linen-duster in which Mr. Lincoln was clad), and asked if he had not
a dark coat in which he could sit. Mr. Lincoln said he had not; that
this was the only coat he had brought with him from his home.
Alschuler said he could wear his coat, and gave it to Mr. Lincoln,
who pulled off the duster and put on the artist’s coat. Alschuler
was a very short man, with short arms, but with a body nearly as
large as the body of Mr. Lincoln. The arms of the latter extended
through the sleeves of the coat of Alschuler a quarter of a yard,
making him quite ludicrous, at which he (Lincoln) laughed
immoderately, and sat down for the picture to be taken with an
effort at being sober enough for the occasion. The lips in the
picture show this.”
]
Mr. Herndon gives John Hanks as his authority for this statement. This
is plainly an error; for, according to Mr. Lincoln himself, Hanks did
not go on to New Orleans, but, having a family, and finding that he was
likely to be detained from home longer than he had expected, he turned
back at St. Louis. Though there is reason for believing that Lincoln was
deeply impressed on this trip by something he saw in a New Orleans slave
market, and that he often referred to it, the story told above probably
grew to its present proportions by much telling.