It was in August, 1832, that Lincoln made his unsuccessful canvass for
the Illinois Assembly. The election over, he began to look for work.
One of his friends, an admirer of his physical strength, advised him
to become a blacksmith, but it was a trade which would afford little
leisure for study, and for meeting and talking with men; and he had
already resolved, it is evident, that books and men were essential to
him. The only employment to be had in New Salem which seemed to offer
both support and the opportunities he sought, was clerking in a store;
and he applied for a place successively at all of the stores then
doing business in New Salem. But they were in greater need of
customers than of clerks. The business had been greatly overdone. In
the fall of 1832 there were at least four stores in New Salem. The
most pretentious was that of Hill and McNeill, which carried a large
line of dry goods. The three others, owned by the Herndon Brothers,
Reuben Radford, and James Rutledge, were groceries.