FACSIMILE OF AN ELECTION RETURN WRITTEN BY LINCOLN AS CLERK IN 1832.—NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.
From the original now on file in the county clerk’s office, Springfield, Illinois. The first civil office Lincoln ever held was that of election clerk, and the return made by him, of which a facsimile is here presented, was his first official document. All the men whose names appear on this election return are now dead, except William McNeely, now residing at Petersburg. John Clary lived at Clary’s Grove; John R. Herndon was “Row” Herndon, whose store Berry and Lincoln purchased, and at whose house Lincoln for a time boarded; Baxter Berry was a relative of Lincoln’s partner in the grocery business, and Edmund Greer was a school-teacher, and afterwards a justice of the peace and a surveyor; James Rutledge was the keeper of the Rutledge tavern and the father of Ann Rutledge; Hugh Armstrong was one of the numerous Armstrong family; “Uncle Jimmy” White lived on a farm five miles from New Salem, and died about thirty years ago, in the eightieth year of his age; William Green was father of William G. Greene, Lincoln’s associate in Offutt’s store; and as to Bowling Green, more is said elsewhere. In the following three or four years, very few elections were held in New Salem at which Lincoln was not a clerk. It is a somewhat singular fact that Lincoln, though clerk of this election, is not recorded as voting.
Among the other persons yet living who were residents with Lincoln of New Salem or its near neighborhood, are Mrs. Parthenia W. Hill, aged seventy-nine years, widow of Samuel Hill, the New Salem merchant; James McGrady Rutledge, aged eighty-one years; John Potter, aged eighty-seven years; and Thomas Watkins, aged seventy-one years—all now living at Petersburg, Illinois. Mrs. Hill, a woman of more than ordinary intelligence, did not become a resident of New Salem until 1835, the year in which she was married. Lincoln had then gone out of business, but she knew much of his store. “Berry and Lincoln,” she says, “did not keep any dry goods. They had a grocery, and I have always understood they sold whiskey.” Mr. Rutledge, a nephew of James Rutledge the tavern-keeper, has a vivid recollection of the store. He says: “I have been in Berry and Lincoln’s store many a time. The building was a frame—one of the few frame buildings in New Salem. There were two rooms, and in the small back room they kept their whiskey. They had pretty much everything, except dry goods—sugar, coffee, some crockery, a few pairs of shoes (not many), some farming implements, and the like. Whiskey, of course, was a necessary part of their stock. I remember one transaction in particular which I had with them. I sold the firm a load of wheat, which they turned over to the mill.” Mr. Potter, who remembers the morning when Lincoln, then a stranger on his way to New Salem, stopped at his father’s house and ate breakfast, knows less about the store, but says: “It was a grocery, and they sold whiskey, of course.” Thomas Watkins says that the store contained “a little candy, tobacco, sugar, and coffee, and the like;” though Mr. Watkins, being then a young boy, and living a mile in the country, was not a frequent visitor at the store.
A STAGE-COACH ADVERTISEMENT, 1834.
This advertisement appeared in the “Sangamo Journal” in April, 1834, and held a place in the paper through the next three years. As the “Four Horse Coach” ran through Sangamontown and New Salem, it doubtless had Lincoln as a passenger now and then; but not often, probably, for the fare from New Salem to Springfield was one dollar and twenty-five cents, and walking, or riding upon a borrowed horse, must generally have been preferred by Lincoln to so costly a mode of travelling.
CHAPTER XV.
LINCOLN IS APPOINTED POSTMASTER.—HE LEARNS SURVEYING, AND IS APPOINTED DEPUTY SURVEYOR.—THE FIRST WORK HE DID IN HIS NEW PROFESSION.—WHAT HE EARNED.
Even after the license was granted, however, business was not so brisk in Berry and Lincoln’s store that the junior partner did not welcome an appointment as postmaster which he received in May, 1833. The appointment of a Whig by a Democratic administration seems to have been made without comment. “The office was too insignificant to make his politics an objection,” say the autobiographical notes. The duties of the new office were not arduous, for letters were few, and their comings far between. At that date the mails were carried by four-horse post-coaches from city to city, and on horseback from central points into the country towns. The rates of postage were high. A single-sheet letter carried thirty miles or under cost six cents; thirty to eighty miles, ten cents; eighty to one hundred and fifty miles, twelve and one-half cents; one hundred and fifty to four hundred miles, eighteen and one-half cents; over four hundred miles, twenty-five cents. A copy of this magazine sent from New York to New Salem would have cost fully twenty-five cents. The mail was irregular in coming as well as light in its contents. Though supposed to arrive twice a week, it sometimes happened that a fortnight or more passed without any mail. Under these conditions the New Salem post-office was not a serious care.
BERRY AND LINCOLN’S STORE IN 1895.—NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.
From a recent photograph by C. S. McCullough, Petersburg, Illinois. The little frame store building occupied by Berry and Lincoln at New Salem is now standing at Petersburg, Illinois, in the rear of L. W. Bishop’s gun-shop. Its history after 1834 is somewhat obscure, but there is no reason for doubting its identity. According to tradition it was bought by Robert Bishop, the father of the present owner, about 1835, from Mr. Lincoln himself; but it is difficult to reconcile this legend with the sale of the store to the Trent brothers, unless, upon the flight of the latter from the country and the closing of the store, the building, through the leniency of creditors, was allowed to revert to Mr. Lincoln, in which event he no doubt sold it at the first opportunity, and applied the proceeds to the payment of the debts of the firm. When Mr. Bishop bought the store building, he removed it to Petersburg. It is said that the removal was made in part by Lincoln himself; that the job was first undertaken by one of the Bales, but that, encountering some difficulty, he called upon Lincoln to assist him, which Lincoln did. The structure was first set up adjacent to Mr. Bishop’s house, and converted into a gun-shop. Later it was removed to a place on the public square; and soon after the breaking out of the late war, Mr. Bishop, erecting a new building, pushed Lincoln’s store into the back yard, and there it still stands. Soon after the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, the front door was presented to some one in Springfield, and has long since been lost sight of. It is remembered by Mr. Bishop that in this door there was an opening for the reception of letters—a circumstance of importance as tending to establish the genuineness of the building, when it is remembered that Lincoln was postmaster while he kept the store. The structure, as it stands to-day, is about eighteen feet long, twelve feet in width, and ten feet in height. The back room, however, has disappeared, so that the building as it stood when occupied by Berry and Lincoln was somewhat longer. Of the original building there only remain the frame-work, the black walnut weather-boarding on the front end, and the ceiling of sycamore boards. One entire side has been torn away by relic-hunters. In recent years the building has been used as a sort of store-room. Just after a big fire in Petersburg some time ago, the city council condemned the Lincoln store building and ordered it demolished. Under this order a portion of one side was torn down, when Mr. Bishop persuaded the city authorities to desist, upon giving a guarantee that if Lincoln’s store ever caught fire, he would be responsible for any loss which might ensue.