tion as President, Governor Morgan of New York was of the number, a man of great height and brawn. "Pray, Governor, how tall may you be?" was Mr. Lincoln's first question. There is a story told of a poor man seeking a favor from him once at the White House. He was overpowered by the idea that he was in the presence of the President, and, his errand done, was edging shyly out, when Mr. Lincoln stopped him, insisting that he measure with him. The man was the taller, as Mr. Lincoln had thought; and he went away evidently as much abashed that he dared be taller than the President of the United States as that he had dared to venture into his presence.

Governor Hoyt tells an excellent story illustrating this interest of Lincoln's in manly strength, and his involuntary comparison of himself with whoever showed it. It was in 1859, after Lincoln had delivered a speech at the Wisconsin State Agricultural Fair in Milwaukee. Governor Hoyt had asked him to make the rounds of the exhibits, and they went into a tent to see a "strong man" perform. He went through the ordinary exercises with huge iron balls, tossing them in the air and catching them, and rolling them on his arms and back; and Mr. Lincoln, who evidently had never before seen such a combination of agility and strength; watched him with intense interest, ejaculating under his breath now and then, "By George! By George! When the performance was over, Governor Hoyt, seeing Mr. Lincoln's interest, asked him to go up and be introduced to the athlete. He did so; and, as he stood looking down musingly on the man, who was very short, and evidently wondering that one so much smaller than he could be so much stronger, he suddenly broke out with one of his quaint speeches. "Why," he said, "why, I could lick salt off the top of your hat."

His strength won him popularity, but his good-nature, his wit, his skill in debate, his stories, were still more efficient in gaining him good-will. People liked to have him around, and voted him a good fellow to work with. Yet such were the conditions of his life at this time that, in spite of his popularity, nothing was open to him but hard manual labor. To take the first job which he happened upon-rail-splitting, ploughing, lumbering, boating, store-keeping-and make the most of it, thankful if thereby he earned his bed and board and yearly suit of jeans, was apparently all there was before Abraham Lincoln in 1830, when he started out for himself.

LINCOLN, OFFUTT, AND GREEN ON THE FLATBOAT AT NEW SALEM.

From a painting in the State Capitol, Springfield, Illinois. This picture is crude and inaccurate. The flatboat built by Lincoln, and by him piloted to New Orleans, was larger than the one here portrayed, and the structure over the dam belittles the real mill. There was not only a grist-mill, but also a saw-mill. The mill was built in 1829. March 5, 1830, we find John Overstreet averring before the County Commissioners "that John Cameron and James Rutledge have erected a mill-dam on the Sangamon River which obstructs the navigation of said river;" and Cameron and Rutledge are ordered to alter the dam so as to restore "safe navigation." James M. Rutledge of Petersburg, a nephew of the mill-owner, helped build the mill, and says: "The mill was a frame structure, and was solidly built. They used to grind corn mostly, though some flour was made. At times they would run day and night. The saw-mill had an old-fashioned upright saw, and stood on the bank." For a time this mill was operated by Denton Offutt, under the supervision of Lincoln. A few stakes, a part of the old dam, still show at low water.

CHAPTER VIII.

FIRST INDEPENDENT WORK.-FIRST APPEARANCE IN SANGAMON COUNTY. VISIT TO NEW ORLEANS IN 1831.

HROUGH the summer and fall of 1830 and the early winter of 1831, Mr. Lincoln worked in the vicinity of his father's new home, usually as a farm-hand and rail-splitter. Most of his work was done in company with John Hanks. Before the end of the winter he secured employment of which he has given an account himself, though in the third person:

"During that winter Abraham, together with his step-mother's son, John D. Johnston, and John Hanks, yet residing in Macon County, hired themselves to Denton Offutt to

take a flatboat from Beardstown, Illinois, to New Orleans, and for that purpose were to join him (Offutt) at Springfield, Illinois, so soon as the snow should go off. When it did go off, which was about March 1, 1831, the country was so flooded as to make travelling by land impracticable; to obviate which difficulty they purchased a large canoe and came down the Sangamon River in it from where they were all living (near Decatur). This is the time and manner of Abraham's first entrance into Sangamon County. They found Offutt at Springfield, but learned from him that he had failed in getting a boat at Beardstown. This led to their hiring themselves to him for twelve dollars per month each, and getting the timber out of the trees, and building a boat at old Sangamon town, on the Sangamon River, seven miles northwest of Springfield, which boat they took to New Orleans, substantially on the old contract."

Sangamon town, where Mr. Lincoln built the flatboat, has, since his day, completely disappeared from the earth; but then it was one of the flourishing settlements on the river of that name. Lincoln and his friends, on arriving there in March, immediately began work. There is still living in Springfield, Illinois, a man who helped Lincoln at the raft-building—Mr. John Roll, a well-known citizen, and one who has been prominent in the material advancement of the city. Mr. Roll remembers distinctly Lincoln's first appearance in Sangamon town. "He was a tall, gaunt young man," he says, "dressed in a suit of blue homespun jeans, consisting of a roundabout jacket, waistcoat, and breeches which came to within about four inches of his feet. The latter were encased in rawhide boots, into the tops of which, most of the time, his pantaloons were stuffed. He wore a soft felt hat which had at one time been black, but now, as its owner dryly remarked, 'was sunburned until it was a combine of colors.""

Mr. Roll's relation to the new-comer soon became something more than that of a critical observer; he hired out to him, and says with pride, "I made every pin which went into that boat."

LINCOLN'S POPULARITY IN SANGAMON.

It took some four weeks to build the raft, and in that period Lincoln succeeded in captivating the entire village by his storytelling. It was the custom in Sangamon for the "men-folks" to

This cabin was built by Thomas Lincoln in 1831, on Goose Nest Prairie, in Coles County, Illinois, where he had taken up forty acres of land. It was situated nine miles south of Charleston, on what is called Lincoln's Lane. Here Thomas Lincoln died in 1851. The cabin was occupied until 1891, when it was bought by the Lincoln Log Cabin Association to be shown at the World's Fair in 1893.

gather at noon and in the evening, when resting, in a convenient lane near the mill. They had rolled out a long peeled log, on which they lounged while they whittled and talked. Lincoln had not been long in Sangamon before he joined this circle. At once he became a favorite by his jokes and good-humor. As soon as he appeared at the assembly ground the men would start him to story-telling. So irresistibly droll were his "yarns" that, says Mr. Roll, "whenever he'd end up in his unexpected way the boys on the log would whoop and roll off." The result of the rolling off was to polish the log like a mirror. The men, recognizing Lincoln's part in this polishing, christened their seat "Abe's log." Long after Lincoln had disappeared from Sangamon "Abe's log" remained, and until it had rotted away people pointed it out, and repeated the droll stories of the stranger.

AN EXCITING ADVENTURE.

The flatboat was done in about a month, and Lincoln and his friends prepared to leave Sangamon. Before he started, however, he was the hero of an adventure so thrilling that he won new laurels in the community. Mr. Roll, who was a witness to the whole exciting scene, tells the story:

"It was the spring following the winter of the deep snow.* Walter Carman, John Seamon, myself, and at times others of the Carman boys had helped Abe in building the boat, and when he had finished we went to work to make a dug-out, or canoe, to be used as a small boat with the flat. We found a suitable log about an eighth of a mile up the river, and with our axes went to work under Lincoln's direction. The river was very high, fairly booming.' After the dug-out was ready to launch we took it to the edge of the water, and made ready to let her go,' when Walter Carman and John Seamon jumped in as the boat struck the water, each one anxious to be the first to get a ride. As they shot out from the shore they found they were unable to make any headway against the strong current. Carman had the paddle, and Seamon was in the stern of the boat. Lincoln shouted to them to head up-stream,' and 'work back to shore,' but they found themselves powerless against the stream. At last they began to pull for the wreck of an old flatboat, the first ever built on the Sangamon, which had sunk and gone to pieces, leaving one of the stanchions sticking above the water. Just as they reached it Seamon made a grab, and caught hold of the stanchion, when the canoe capsized, leaving Seamon clinging to the old timber, and throwing Carman into the stream. It carried him down with the speed of a mill-race. Lincoln raised his voice above the roar of the flood, and yelled to Carman to swim for an elm tree which stood almost in the channel, which the action of the high water changed.

"Carman, being a good swimmer, succeeded in catching a branch, and pulled himself up out of the water, which was very cold, and had almost chilled him to death; and there he sat shivering and chattering in the tree. Lincoln, seeing Carman

*1830-1831. "The winter of the deep snow " is the date which is the starting point in all calculations of time for the early settlers of Illinois, and the circumstance from which the old settlers of Sangamon County receive the name by which they are generally known, "Snow-birds."