Red Lodge daily news combined with Carbon County news., 1935-02-06
Lincoln IL Is48
BY ELMO SCOTT WATSON

NRYWgW minute rush of finishing up Its
WSNI work before adjourning. That day
15a1Scr one Of its members was twenty=si1
cY0N years old, but 1t is doubtful If he
= paid much attention to the ami
versary. Nor is it likely that his fellow-legis
lators, If indeed they knew about it, took the
trouble to congratulate him and wish him "many
happy returns Of the day." For1he was just ar
obscure member Of the lower house from Sanga
mon county.
He had been an honest but unsuccessful store
keeper In the little hamlet Of New Salem and q
captain Of volunteers in the Black Hawk war
But he had won no particular distinction in that
unimportant conflict, nor had his brief military
career helped him much politically. An unsuc.
cessful candidate for the legislature in the au-
tumn of 1892 he had split rails and done various
other odd jobs to make living while studying
law by himself. Chosen postmaster Of New Sa-
lem he had been successful in his second attempt
to win a seat in the general assembly, but dur
1.-The session now coming to a close he had
done nothing to single him out among his fel-
lows as "comer."
They knew him as drOl fellow who could set
a group off into a gale of laughter with one of
his funny stories, told in his hgh-pitched, sing
song, nasal voice. Yes, Abe Lincoln was good
company" but there was no reason to believe
that he would ever become famous. So the fact
that February 12 was his birthday didn't mean
a thing to the men who sat beside him In a room
IL the little two-story brick building in Van
1alia-the capital Of the sovereign state Of ILL.,
nOis If they could have looked into the future
and seen how that date was observed in every
part of the United States, how their eyes would
have bulged with surprise! Can't you hear them
exclaiming: "In honor of~Abe Lincoln? Why,
faint possible no-howW?
So the celebration" of Lincoln's birthday q
hundred years ago was no celebration at all, for
the very good reason that no one, not even the
man himself, considered it Of any Importance.
But it is worthy of remembrance for the reason
that his biographer, Albert ]. Beveridge, has
pointed out in this paragraph from his abraham
Lincoln, 1SO9-1S5S' (Houghton Miffln company
"Finally, by the dim light Of candles; the gen.
eral assembly finished its work and, sometime
before midnight, February 13, 1885, adjourned
sine die His first legislative experience thus
ended, Lincoln went back to New Salem and
again took up his surveying and handling Of the
scanty mail. The sum of his sojourn in Van
dalia had been the making of friends, lessons
in legislative procedure and manipulation, and
the acquiring Of basic proceduFe- and constitu-
tionaI principles. He had heard great questions
discussed by able and informed men. He had
met cultivated women too and, in short had
visited a new world. Small wonder that, when
he reached New Salem, he plunged into study
with such abandon that his health suffered and
his friends thought him mentally affected. Hence
forth the log-cabin hamlet on the Sangamon |
held little or nothing that was attractive to the
aspiring young Lincoln" J
So perhaps it is not too much to say that the |
greatness that was to be Abraham Lincoln's |
dates from that February day, hundred years
ago, when he turned his back on the scene of |
his first appearance on the stage of public af-
IL.
It were, especially impressive. BeVeridge has
yiven us an excellent description of both. He
writes: Il
Upon the west bluff of the Kaskaskia river
sixty feet above high water, stood in 1884, per-
laps a hundred buildings All but two were of |
wood, some of them frame structures, but most
# them log cabins. A little frame Presbyterian 1
.hurch house, without steeple, nestled on a
ide street, while still smaller building served
or all other religious denominations as well as
or school purposes and public gatherings. =.
i've or six of the bigger houses were taVerns
r boarding places, two of them would accommo-
late thirty or forty persons. though they were
ot entirely finished. =. -
"About eight hundred people, including chill
rem, lived in the town, and the adjacent country
,as scantily settled; but marriages were fire.
uent For the most part the surrounding land
7as heavily timbered, but to the north and west
olling prairies stretched into the horizon. The
Iver bottoms were covered thickly with great
.ees, vines and all manner Of rank vegetation;
nd from this valley came at the seasonable !
me clouds of mosquitoes. - ...v. 49, Z" e.
"The streets of the village were eighty feet !
width, deep with mud or dust, according to !
le weather. There were no sidewalks. Two main |
,ads ran, through the place, one the National /
,ad, scarcely opened as yet in this section, I
ON Washington seven hundred and eighty-one
lies distant to St. Louis eighty-two miles to &
le southwest Mails from Philadelphia and 5
her eastern cities were between two and three I1
eeks on the way, >~ .>@...< Iii