LOOKING FOR WORK.
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 afforded 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 in New Salem which offered both support and the opportunities he sought, was clerking in a store. But the stores of New Salem were in more 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 respectively by the Herndon brothers, Reuben Radford, and James Rutledge, were groceries.
BAD AXE BATTLE-GROUND.
From a copy of a painting by Samuel M. Brookes, in the Museum of the Wisconsin Historical Society. The remnant of Black Hawk’s force was slaughtered here on August 1st and 2d, while attempting to cross the Mississippi. Only about one hundred and fifty of his original band of one thousand escaped.