As the summer of 1833 went on, the condition of the store became more
and more unsatisfactory. As the position of postmaster brought in only
a small revenue, Lincoln was forced to take any odd work he could get.
He helped in other stores in the town, split rails, and looked after
the mill; but all this yielded only a scant and uncertain support, and
when in the fall he had an opportunity to learn surveying, he accepted
it eagerly.
The condition of affairs in Illinois in the thirties made a demand for
the services of surveyors. The immigration had been phenomenal. There
were thousands of farms to be surveyed and thousands of "corners" to
be located. Speculators bought up large tracts, and mapped out
cities on paper. It was years before the first railroad was built
in Illinois, and as all inland travelling was on horseback or in the
stage-coach, each year hundreds of miles of wagon road were opened
through woods and swamps and prairies. As the county of Sangamon was
large and eagerly sought by immigrants, the county surveyor in 1833,
one John Calhoun, needed deputies; but in a country so new it was no
easy matter to find men with the requisite capacity.
[Illustration: CONCORD CEMETERY.
From a photograph by C.S. McCullough, Petersburg, Illinois. Concord
cemetery lies seven miles northwest of the old town of New Salem, in a
secluded place, surrounded by woods and pastures, away from the world.
In this lonely spot Ann Rutledge was at first laid to rest. Thither
Lincoln is said to have often come alone, and "sat in silence for
hours at a time;" and it was to Ann Rutledge's grave here that he
pointed and said: "There my heart lies buried." The old cemetery
suffered the melancholy fate of New Salem. It became a neglected,
deserted spot. The graves were lost in weeds, and a heavy growth of
trees kept out the sun and filled the place with gloom. A dozen years
ago this picture was taken. It was a blustery day in the autumn,
and the weeds and trees were swaying before a furious gale. No other
picture of the place, taken while Ann Rutledge was buried there, is
known to be in existence. A picture of a cemetery, with the name of
Ann Rutledge on a high, flat tombstone, has been published in two or
three books; but it is not genuine, the "stone" being nothing more
than a board improvised for the occasion. The grave of Ann Rutledge
was never honored with a stone until the body was taken up in 1890
and removed to Oakland cemetery, a mile southwest of Petersburg.--_J.
McCan Davis._]
With Lincoln, Calhoun had little, if any, personal acquaintance, for
they lived twenty miles apart. Lincoln, however, had made himself
known by his meteoric race for the legislature in 1832, and Calhoun
had heard of him as an honest, intelligent, and trustworthy young man.
One day he sent word to Lincoln by Pollard Simmons, who lived in the
New Salem neighborhood, that he had decided to appoint him a deputy
surveyor if he would accept the position.
Going into the woods, Simmons found Lincoln engaged in his old
occupation of making rails. The two sat down together on a log, and
Simmons told Lincoln what Calhoun had said. It was a surprise to
Lincoln. Calhoun was a "Jackson man;" he was for Clay. What did he
know about surveying, and why should a Democratic official offer him
a position of any kind? He immediately went to Springfield, and had
a talk with Calhoun. He would not accept the appointment, he said,
unless he had the assurance that it involved no political obligation,
and that he might continue to express his political opinions as
freely and frequently as he chose. This assurance was given. The
only difficulty then in the way was the fact that he knew absolutely
nothing of surveying. But Calhoun, of course, understood this, and
agreed that he should have time to learn.
With the promptness of action with which he always undertook anything
he had to do, he procured Flint and Gibson's treatise on surveying,
and sought Mentor Graham for help. At a sacrifice of some time, the
schoolmaster aided him to a partial mastery of the intricate subject.
Lincoln worked literally day and night, sitting up night after night
until the crowing of the cock warned him of the approaching dawn.
So hard did he study that his friends were greatly concerned at his
haggard face. But in six weeks he had mastered all the books
within reach relating to the subject--a task which, under ordinary
circumstances, would hardly have been achieved in as many months.
Reporting to Calhoun for duty (greatly to the amazement of that
gentleman), he was at once assigned to the territory in the northwest
part of the county, and the first work he did of which there is any
authentic record was in January, 1834. In that month he surveyed a
piece of land for Russell Godby, dating the certificate January 14,
1834, and signing it "J. Calhoun, S.S.C., by A. Lincoln."
Lincoln was frequently employed in laying out public roads, being
selected for that purpose by the County Commissioners' Court. So
far as can be learned from the official records, the first road he
surveyed was "from Musick's Ferry on Salt Creek, via New Salem, to the
county line in the direction of Jacksonville." For this he was allowed
fifteen dollars for five days' service, and two dollars and fifty
cents for a plat of the new road. The next road he surveyed, according
to the records, was that leading from Athens to Sangamon town. This
was reported to the County Commissioners' Court November 4, 1834.
But road surveying was only a small portion of his work. He was more
frequently employed by private individuals.