Amador ledger. (Jackson, Amador County, Calif.) 1875-19??, 1906-08-31
Early Home Town SHE
To Be Public Park.

William Randolph Hearst has pur-
chased and presented to the old Salem
chautauqua association at Petersburg
the site of the old village of New
Salem, to be converted into national
park and kept forever as a memorial
of Abraham Lincoln, who once lived
there and kept store. The purchase
includes the site of the old store and
old mill. famous in history. The
purchase was completed yesterday,
and the price paid to the Bayles
estate, the present owners, was S12,
600. There are sixty acres in the site.
The announcement of the purchase
and donation was made to-day at the
Old Salem chautauqua, where the
editor made an address to a large
crowd. 1t was received with applause,
especially by the people of the city
of Petersburg. The place has been a
mecca for pilgrims for years past.
The village of New Salem has a
place in history from the fact that
it was the home of Abraham Lincoln
for six of the most eventful years in
his life. He arrived there as young
man, stranger, who had done moth.
ing hitherto except to split rails and
to build a fiat boat and make a
journey thereon to New Orleans. At
New Salem Lincoln was mill hand,
a storekeeper, a postmaster, sur
veyor, budding lawyer, successful
candidate for the legislature. 1t was
from there that he went to Spring
field to enter upon his larger career.
New Salem was founded by James
RutIedge and John Cameron, in 1929.
In that year they built dam across
the Sangamon river and erected a
mill. Under date of October %, 1920,
Reuben Harrison, surveyor, certified
that at the request of John Cameron,
one of the proprietors, l did survey
the town of New Salem. =" The town
within two years contained dozen
or fifteen houses, nearly all of them
built of logs. New Salem's popula-
tIon probably never exceeded 100 per-
sons. Its Inhabitants and those of
the surrounding country were mostly
southerners- natives of Kentucky
and Tennessee-though there was an
occasional Yankee among them. The
place began to decline soon after
Lincoln left it, in 1887. Peters, burg
had sprung up two miles down the
river, and rapidly absorbed Its
population and business. By 1910
New Salem was almost deserted. The
Rutledge tavern, the first house
erected, was the last to succumb. 1t
stood for many years, but at last
crumbled away. For many years
Salem hill has been only a COW
pasture.
Lincoln's first sight of the town
was in April, 1881, when he and his
crew were detained in getting their
fat boat over the RutIedge and Came
ron m i'll dams. When Lincoln walk
ed into New Salem three months later
he was. remembered by many as the
ingenious fiat boatman who had freed
his boat from the water, and thus
gotten 1T over the mill dam, by re-
sorting to the extraordinary expedient
of boring hole in the bottom. He
was to clerk for Denton Offutt, who
was to open a store; but Ofutt's
goods had not yet arrived, and Lin
coin spent some weeks in "loating. !"
He became an active citizen at once.
In August he was clerk of election.
He did odd jobs, including the pilot
ing of fiat boat down the Sangamon
to the illinois. After some time
spent with Ofutt, Lincoln, in part
nershlp with one William Berry,
bought all the stores in New Salem.
the young men giving their notes,
neither having any money. The
venture was unfortunate, Berry turn
ing out badly and Lincoln having the
firms debts to pay-a load he carried
for nearly twenty years. While stores
keeper he was also postmaster and
surveyor. LincoIn's bent for politics
developed at once; he was a candidate
for the legislature the year after
his arrival at the frontier town,
being beaten. Ten years ago several
of Lincoln's contemporaries at New
Salem we're living, but all are now
believed to be dead. Globe Demo-
cIat.