"THOU SHALT NOT COVET"
The wrestling match, that proved the championship of Sangamon River, established Abe Lincoln with his love of peace and his unlimited reserve of physical power to enforce it, as the peace-maker of New Salem.
The following day John Rutledge called at the store.
John Rutledge, with his partner Cameron, was the founder of New Salem. Some few years before, he had come from Kentucky with his family, bought a farm a few miles to the west, built a mill at New Salem, and opened a store and a tavern.
Within a year, ten log houses had been added to the original two. A cobbler and a blacksmith had shops. Then a few more houses were built, and a cooper mill where crude barrels and kegs were made.
John Rutledge, a descendant of the famous Rutledge family of the Carolinas, possessed the manly qualities of his ancestors in full measure, and pioneer life had by no means obliterated those instincts which make generous friends and progressive citizens.
Mr. Rutledge was also a firm believer in education as the foundation for the future greatness of the new Western country as well as the success of the individual, and it was largely due to his efforts that the Scotch schoolmaster, Mentor Graham, was among the first settlers.
John Rutledge had been into the new store before to look around. Once he had tarried to hear a story. But he was a busy man and had as yet formed no special acquaintance with the much-discussed Abe Lincoln.
This visit was for the purpose of getting acquainted. After Rutledge had warmly congratulated the ungainly clerk, on his insistence on fair play, they sat down to talk, and the conversation turned to a discussion of the widely renowned circuit-rider, Peter Cartwright, who was expected to hold a wonderful meeting in the vicinity of Springfield during the month of September.
Abe Lincoln had heard of Peter Cartwright, the eccentric Methodist exhorter, who was born in a Kentucky cane-brake and rocked in a bee-gum cradle, and could tell many stories about him.