REPORT OF A ROAD SURVEY BY LINCOLN—HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED.
Photographed for McCLURE'S MAGAZINE from the original, now on file in the County Clerk's office, Springfield, Illinois. The survey here reported was made in pursuance of an order of the County Commissioners' Court, September 1, 1834, in which Lincoln was designated as the surveyor.
It was after he had read the Laws of Indiana that Lincoln had free access to the library of his admirer, Judge John Pitcher of Rockport, Indiana, where undoubtedly he examined many law-books. But from the time he left Indiana in 1830 he had no legal reading until one day soon after the grocery was started, when there happened one of those trivial incidents which so often turn the current of a life. It is best told in Mr. Lincoln's own words.[2] "One day a man who was migrating to the West drove up in front of my store with a wagon which contained his family and household plunder. He asked me if I would buy an old barrel, for which he had no room in his wagon, and which he said contained nothing of special value. I did not want it, but to oblige him I bought it, and paid him, I think, half a dollar for it. Without further examination, I put it away in the store, and forgot all about it. Some time after, in overhauling things, I came upon the barrel, and emptying it upon the floor to see what it contained, I found at the bottom of the rubbish a complete edition of Blackstone's Commentaries. I began to read those famous works, and I had plenty of time; for, during the long summer days, when the farmers were busy with their crops, my customers were few and far between. The more I read"—this he said with unusual emphasis—"the more intensely interested I became. Never in my whole life was my mind so thoroughly absorbed. I read until I devoured them."
A MAP MADE BY LINCOLN OF A PIECE OF ROAD IN MENARD COUNTY, ILLINOIS—HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED.
Photographed from the original for McCLURE'S MAGAZINE. This map, which, as here reproduced, is about one-half the size of the original, accompanied Lincoln's report of the survey of a part of the road between Athens and Sangamon town. For making this map, Lincoln received fifty cents. The road evidently was located "on good ground," and was "necessary and proper," as the report says, for it is still the main travelled highway leading into the country south of Athens, Menard County.
BERRY AND LINCOLN GET A TAVERN LICENSE.
But all this was fatal to business, and by spring it was evident that something must be done to stimulate the grocery sales.
On the 6th of March, 1833, the County Commissioners' Court of Sangamon County granted the firm of Berry and Lincoln a license to keep a tavern at New Salem. A copy of this license is here given: