The Sangamon River was part of the water route system used to transport goods to the Mississippi River. One of the hazards of travel on the Mississippi, or any other river, was navigating around sandbars. The Sangamon River was where Lincoln conceived his idea for a means of moving boats across shallow water. The invention, which was never built, is the first and only patent ever held by a president of the United States. A model that Lincoln built himself is housed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.
A drawing of the flotation device patented by Lincoln to move boats across sandbars. Lincoln received a patent for the device in 1849. It was never built. A model sits in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.
Lincoln’s next job was less physical, and more mentally challenging. In March 1831, a business acquaintance of Lincoln’s, Denton Offutt, offered Lincoln a job as clerk in charge of Offutt’s store and mill in New Salem, Illinois. This was one of the significant turning points in Lincoln’s life. Thomas Lincoln would relocate for the last time to Coles County, Illinois, where he would live out the rest of his life. Lincoln chose to step out into the world alone, for the first time without a paternal guardian, and remain in New Salem to work for Offutt.
Within a year, Offutt’s fortunes changed for the worse and Lincoln found himself out of a job. Before he could pursue other employment, the Black Hawk War erupted. In 1832, a treaty dispute led to the formation of a militia company in New Salem. Young Abraham Lincoln was elected their captain and got his first taste of being elected to office. Even though he never saw fighting, Lincoln did experience the hardships of soldier life for three months. However, he had made an important discovery. He enjoyed being a candidate for election, and so returned to New Salem with the intent of entering politics.
Lincoln realized that people loved to hear his tall tales as much as he loved to tell them. The value of such a talent to a politician was not lost on him. In 1832, he announced his candidacy for the Illinois General Assembly and began ‘stumping’.
‘Stumping’ is a term that originated on the American frontier. A speech given by a candidate running for public office provided rare entertainment and usually drew a crowd. The candidate required a perch that allowed him to be seen and heard over the heads of his audience. Tree stumps were usually readily available in growing communities where land was being cleared, and candidates made use of them as a podium from which to speak.
Although he was generally known as a gentle man, an event that took place when Lincoln gave his first speech shows that he wasn’t afraid to use force when he felt it was needed. Lincoln stopped in the middle of the speech to remove a heckler. He walked through the crowd, lifted the man by collar and belt, and tossed him away before finishing his speech.
Lincoln was to lose the election. Politicians needed supporters then, just as they do today, but he had little education, no money and no powerful friends – all crucial in the pursuit of election. He was disappointed, but far from discouraged. He would make another attempt at election and indeed would never lose one again, or so he claimed. (His actual political history includes losing the Whig Party nomination to the United States House of Representatives in 1844. In 1858, he ran for the United States Senate seat held by Stephen Douglas and lost by eight votes.)
While he waited for his next opportunity to run for office, Lincoln took up whatever odd jobs he could find to make his living. With a partner, he bought goods on credit and opened a store in New Salem, Illinois. It failed and put him deeper into debt. He became postmaster of New Salem and tried his hand at surveying. He borrowed the two basic tools of the trade: a surveyor’s chain, used to measure distance, and a compass, used to determine direction. In his own words, he said that he ‘studied Flint and Gibson a little’, and ‘went at it’. It wasn’t lucrative, but Lincoln managed to earn enough to support himself and pay off his debts.
It was in 1834 that he and Major John Todd Stuart met following their election to the Illinois State Legislature. Stuart was a lawyer by trade and offered to lend his law books to Lincoln. Between legislative sessions, Lincoln studied, and in 1836, earned his law licence. He moved to Springfield, Illinois, a year later to join Stuart in his law practice.
Major John Todd Stuart, Lincoln’s law partner in Springfield, Illinois.
Once again, Lincoln’s gift for oration proved an asset. He was as successful at arguing in court as he was at giving speeches. Lincoln was re-elected to the state legislature in 1836, 1838 and 1840. He declined to accept the 1840 legislative term to focus on his law career. He and Stuart were partners for four years. He partnered for three years with Judge Stephen T. Logan, until 1844, when Lincoln became partners with William Herndon. They remained partners until Lincoln’s death, after which Herndon became one of Lincoln’s many biographers.
Home of Abraham and Mary Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois. Image c. 1909.
As Lincoln’s political career evolved, so did his private life. Among Lincoln’s papers can be found three letters written to a woman named Mary Owens. Mary was the daughter of Nathanial Owens, a plantation owner from Green County, Kentucky. She had a sister who lived in New Salem, Illinois, and Mary paid a visit there in 1833.
Lincoln had met Mary during that visit, and when her sister planned a trip home to Kentucky in 1836, she posed a question for Lincoln. She asked him if he would marry Mary, if the sisters came back to New Salem together. Lincoln, in jest, said that he would.
He regretted his words when Mary Owens arrived in Springfield as a woman who considered herself engaged to be married. Not only was Lincoln shocked that he had been taken seriously, the Mary Owens of 1836 was not the same woman he recalled from 1833. In a letter to a friend, he described her as ‘over-sized, weather beaten, and in want of teeth’. Lincoln had given his word that he would marry the woman and determined that he would find some good in her. He decided that she was intelligent and had a ‘handsome face, if not pretty’.
Meanwhile, he wrote three letters to her discouraging the marriage. In the second, dated 7 May 1837, he told her that he was unhappy living in Springfield, Illinois, and discouraged her from moving there. He also said that he could not provide the kind of life to which she was accustomed and that the hardship such a life would bring would make her unhappy. In the third letter, 16 August 1837, he concluded by telling her, ‘If it suits you best not to answer this – farewell – a long life and a merry one attend you.’ It was the last of their correspondence.
It is possible that Lincoln’s reluctance to marry was due to another relationship that had ended in heartbreak. William Herndon claimed that Lincoln’s first love was a woman named Ann Rutledge of New Salem, Illinois. Ann was engaged to someone else, but promised to marry Lincoln after her fiancé released her. The fiancé eventually ceased communication with Ann, but in 1835, she succumbed to an outbreak of typhoid that swept through New Salem. Lincoln was so grief-stricken that his friends removed items such as his shaving razor and described him as being ill with melancholy.
Another old friend of Lincoln’s, Isaac Cogdal, asked Lincoln if he really was in love with Ann. His reply was this: ‘It is true – true indeed I did. I loved the woman dearly