Soon after Abraham Lincoln struck out on his own, he settled in a frontier town named New Salem, Illinois. Lincoln had helped to move a boat that gotten caught in the river next to the town, and he decided to stay. One of his early occupations was storekeeper. He went into business with another man who turned out to be drunk and the business failed. There is almost nothing left of the original New Salem. The town was built on the assumption that it would prosper from the river that flowed by it. Unfortunately the river was too narrow and shallow and could not support merchant shipping. Today, most of what there is came from a Depression era government project in which previously unemployed workmen rebuilt the town to make it look like was in Lincoln's time. They didn't get everything right. For example it is now believed that the Lincoln store was located 10 or 20 yards behind the location of this structure. Here are couple of pictures of the interior. It might have been fun to have gone through the cash drawer of the original store. All sorts of coins might have been it, including very few U.S. coins. In 1832, it was estimated that there more people living in the United States than U.S. coins in circulation. Given the condition of this 1832 dime, I dare say it did not spend much time in circulation or cash drawers, but it did exist at the time. Lincoln ran for a seat in the Illinois State Legislature in 1832. He finished 8th in a field of 13 candidates and did not win a seat. He did get 277 of 300 votes that were cast in New Salem. Lincoln was elected to the legislature in 1834 and quickly became one its leaders.
Here is the only building in the re-built New Salem that was there when Lincoln lived there, the cooper's shop. Even this building is not quite original. It was dismantled, moved somewhere else and then brought back.
Cool. Thanks for sharing. Those would have been the real early days. His house in Springfield is still there and mostly original, right in the middle of town. I've been through it.
Which is fortunate. Regrettably the Lincoln birthplace cabin is likely nothing of the original and much more likely an 1890's attempt at creating something to fool people into believing it was the original.
Here is the Lincoln house in Springfield. It is interesting to note that Lincoln added to the house as his income and his family grew. There were models of it in its earlier years. Early version Middle version Ultimate version I read that there was "history huckster" in the late 19th century who was showing off the birthplaces of Lincoln and Jefferson Davis at country fairs at the like. Both were log cabins. When he got done in one place, he would disassemble them and move them to the next venue. When he re-built them, he often interchanged the parts! Neither was probably the real thing.
