It was not only Burns and Shakespeare that interfered with the grocery-keeping; Lincoln had begun seriously to read law. His first acquaintance with the subject had been made when he was a mere lad in Indiana and a copy of the “Revised Statutes of Indiana” had fallen into his hands. The very copy he used is still in existence, and, fortunately, in hands where it is safe. The book was owned by Mr. David Turnham of Gentryville, and was given in 1865 by him to Mr. Herndon, who placed it in the Lincoln Memorial collection of Chicago. In December, 1894, this collection was sold in Philadelphia, and the “Statutes of Indiana” was bought by Mr. William Hoffman Winters, Librarian of the New York Law Institute, and through his courtesy I have been allowed to examine it. The book is worn, the title page is gone, and a few leaves from the end are missing. The title page of a duplicate volume which Mr. Winters kindly showed me reads: “The Revised Laws of Indiana, adopted and enacted by the General Assembly at their eighth session. To which are prefixed the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the State of Indiana, and sundry other documents connected with the Political History of the Territory and State of Indiana. Arranged and published by authority of the General Assembly. Corydon: Printed by Carpenter and Douglass, 1824.”
We know from Dennis Hanks, from Mr. Turnham, to whom the book belonged, and from other associates of Lincoln’s at the time, that he read the book intently and discussed its contents intelligently. It was a remarkable volume for a thoughtful lad whose mind had been fired already by the history of Washington; for it opened with that wonderful document, the Declaration of Independence, a document which became, as Mr. John G. Nicolay says, “his political chart and inspiration.” Following the Declaration of Independence was the Constitution of the United States, the Act of Virginia passed in 1783 by which the “Territory North Westward of the river Ohio” was conveyed to the United States, and the Ordinance of 1787 for governing this territory, containing that clause on which Lincoln in the future based many an argument on the slavery question. This article, No. 6 of the Ordinance, reads: “There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: provided always, that any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labour or service, as aforesaid.”
Following this was the Constitution and the Revised Laws of Indiana, three hundred and seventy-five pages, of five hundred words each, of statutes—enough law, if thoroughly digested, to make a respectable lawyer. When Lincoln finished this book, as he had, probably, before he was eighteen, we have reason to believe that he understood the principles on which the nation was founded, how the State of Indiana came into being, and how it was governed. His understanding of the subject was clear and practical, and he applied it in his reading, thinking, and discussion.
It was after he had read the Laws of Indiana that Lincoln had free access to the library of his admirer, Judge John Pitcher of Rockport, Indiana, where, undoubtedly, he examined many law-books. But from the time he left Indiana in 1830 he had no legal reading until one day soon after the grocery was started, when there happened one of those trivial incidents which so often turn the current of a life. It is best told in Lincoln’s own words.[19] “One day a man who was migrating to the West drove up in front of my store with a wagon which contained his family and household plunder. He asked me if I would buy an old barrel for which he had no room in his wagon, and which he said contained nothing of special value. I did not want it, but to oblige him I bought it, and paid him, I think, half a dollar for it. Without further examination, I put it away in the store, and forgot all about it. Some time after, in overhauling things, I came upon the barrel, and emptying it upon the floor to see what it contained, I found at the bottom of the rubbish a complete edition of Blackstone’s Commentaries. I began to read those famous works, and I had plenty of time; for during the long summer days, when the farmers were busy with their crops, my customers were few and far between. The more I read”—this he said with unusual emphasis—“the more intensely interested I became. Never in my whole life was my mind so thoroughly absorbed. I read until I devoured them.”
From a photograph made for this biography.
ELIJAH ILES, CAPTAIN OF ONE OF THE COMPANIES IN WHICH LINCOLN SERVED AS PRIVATE IN THE BLACK HAWK WAR.
After a painting by the late Mrs. Obed Lewis, niece of Major Iles, and owned by Mr. Obed Lewis, Springfield, Illinois. Elijah Iles was born in Kentucky, March 28, 1796, and when young went to Missouri. There he heard marvellous stories about the Sangamon Valley, and he resolved to go thither. Springfield had just been staked out in the wilderness, and he reached the place in time to erect the first building—a rude hut in which he kept a store. This was in 1821. “In the early days in Illinois,” he wrote in 1883, “it was hard to find good material for law-makers. I was elected a State Senator in 1826, and again for a second term. The Senate then comprised thirteen members, and the House twenty-five.” In 1827 he was elected major in the command of Colonel T. McNeal, intending to fight the Winnebagoes, but no fighting occurred. In the Black Hawk War of 1832, after his term as a private in Captain Dawson’s company had expired, he was elected captain of a new company of independent rangers. In this company Lincoln reënlisted as a private. Major Iles lived at Springfield to the end of his life. He died September 4, 1883.
But all this was fatal to business, and by spring it was evident that something must be done to stimulate the grocery sales.
On the 6th of March, 1833, the County Commissioner’s Court of Sangamon County granted the firm of Berry and Lincoln a license to keep a tavern at New Salem.
It is probable that the license was procured to enable the firm to retail the liquors which they had in stock, and not for keeping a tavern. In a community in which liquor-drinking was practically universal, at a time when whiskey was as legitimate an article of merchandise as coffee or calico, when no family was without a jug, when the minister of the gospel could take his “dram” without any breach of propriety, it is not surprising that a reputable young man should have been found selling whiskey. Liquor was sold at all groceries, but it could not be lawfully sold in a smaller quantity than one quart. The law, however, was not always rigidly observed, and it was the custom of storekeepers to treat their patrons. Each of the three groceries which Berry and Lincoln acquired had the usual supply of liquors, and it was only good business that they should seek a way to dispose of the surplus quickly and profitably—an end which could be best accomplished by selling it over the counter by the glass. To do this lawfully required a tavern license; and it is a warrantable conclusion that such was the chief aim of Berry and Lincoln in procuring a franchise of this character. We are fortified in this conclusion by the coincidence that three other grocers of New Salem—William Clary, Henry Sinco, and George Warberton—were among those who took out tavern licenses. To secure the lawful privilege of selling whiskey by the “dram” was no doubt their purpose; for their “taverns” were as mythical as the inn of Berry and Lincoln. Lincoln may, of course, have desired to go into the tavern business and so have taken out a license, but it is certain that he never realized his ambition and that it was only in the grocery that he sold liquor.
A DISCHARGE FROM SERVICE IN THE BLACK HAWK WAR SIGNED BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN AS CAPTAIN.—NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.
The license issued to Berry and Lincoln read as follows:
Ordered that William F. Berry, in the name of Berry and Lincoln, have a license to keep a tavern in New Salem to continue 12 months from this date, and that they pay one dollar in addition to the six dollars heretofore paid as per Treasurer’s receipt, and that they be allowed the following rates (viz.):
| French Brandy per ½ pt. | 25 |
| Peach Brandy per ½ pt. | 18¾ |
| Apple Brandy per ½ pt. | 12 |
| Holland Gin per ½ pt. | 18¾ |
| Domestic per ½ pt. | 12½ |
| Wine per ½ pt. | 25 |
| Rum per ½ pt. | 18¾ |
| Whiskey per ½ pt. | 12½ |
| Breakfast, dinner or supper | 25 |
| Lodging per night | 12½ |
| Horse per night | 25 |
| Single feed | 12½ |
| Breakfast, dinner or supper for Stage Passengers | 37½ |
who gave bond as required by law.
At the granting of a tavern license, the applicants therefor were required by law to file a bond. The bond given in the case of Berry and Lincoln was as follows:
Know all men by these presents, we, William F. Berry, Abraham Lincoln and John Bowling Green, are held and firmly bound unto the County Commissioners of Sangamon County in the full sum of three hundred dollars to which payment well and truly to be made we bind ourselves, our heirs, executors and administrators firmly by these presents, sealed with our seal and dated this 6th day of March A.D. 1833. Now the condition of this obligation is such that Whereas the said Berry & Lincoln has obtained a license from the County Commissioners Court to keep a tavern in the Town of New Salem to continue one year. Now if the said Berry & Lincoln shall be of good behavior and observe all the laws of this State relative to tavern keepers—then this obligation to be void or otherwise remain in full force.
This bond appears to have been written by the clerk of the Commissioners’ Court; and Lincoln’s name was signed by some one other than himself, very likely by his partner Berry.
The license seems to have stimulated the business, for the firm concluded to hire a clerk. The young man who secured this position was Daniel Green Burner, son of Isaac Burner, at whose house Lincoln for a time boarded. He is still living on a farm near Galesburg, Illinois, and is in the eighty-second year of his age. “The store building of Berry and Lincoln,” says Mr. Burner, “was a frame building, not very large, one story in height, and contained two rooms. In the little back room Lincoln had a fireplace and a bed. There is where we slept. I clerked in the store through the winter of 1833–34, up to the 1st of March. While I was there they had nothing for sale but liquors. They may have had some groceries before that, but I am certain they had none then. I used to sell whiskey over their counter at six cents a glass—and charged it, too. N. A. Garland started a store, and Lincoln wanted Berry to ask his father for a loan, so they could buy out Garland; but Berry refused, saying this was one of the last things he would think of doing.”
FACSIMILE OF AN ELECTION RETURN WRITTEN BY LINCOLN AS CLERK IN 1832.—NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.
From the original now on file in the county clerk’s office, Springfield, Illinois. The first civil office Lincoln ever held was that of election clerk, and the return made by him, of which a facsimile is here presented, was his first official document. All the men whose names appear on this election return are now dead, except William McNeely, now residing at Petersburg. John Clary lived at Clary’s Grove; John R. Herndon was “Row” Herndon, whose store Berry and Lincoln purchased, and at whose house Lincoln for a time boarded; Baxter Berry was a relative of Lincoln’s partner in the grocery business, and Edmund Greer was a school-teacher, and afterwards a justice of the peace and a surveyor; James Rutledge was the keeper of the Rutledge tavern and the father of Ann Rutledge; Hugh Armstrong was one of the numerous Armstrong family; “Uncle Jimmy” White lived on a farm five miles from New Salem, and died about thirty years ago, in the eightieth year of his age; William Green was father of William G. Greene, Lincoln’s associate in Offutt’s store; and as to Bowling Green, more is said elsewhere. In the following three or four years, very few elections were held in New Salem at which Lincoln was not a clerk. It is a somewhat singular fact that Lincoln, though clerk of this election, is not recorded as voting.
Among the other persons yet living who were residents with Lincoln of New Salem or its near neighborhood, are Mrs. Parthenia W. Hill, aged seventy-nine years, widow of Samuel Hill, the New Salem merchant; James McGrady Rutledge, aged eighty-one years; John Potter, aged eighty-seven years; and Thomas Watkins, aged seventy-one years—all now living at Petersburg, Illinois. Mrs. Hill, a woman of more than ordinary intelligence, did not become a resident of New Salem until 1835, the year in which she was married. Lincoln had then gone out of business, but she knew much of his store. “Berry and Lincoln,” she says, “did not keep any dry goods. They had a grocery, and I have always understood they sold whiskey.” Mr. Rutledge, a nephew of James Rutledge the tavern-keeper, has a vivid recollection of the store. He says: “I have been in Berry and Lincoln’s store many a time. The building was a frame—one of the few frame buildings in New Salem. There were two rooms, and in the small back room they kept their whiskey. They had pretty much everything, except dry goods—sugar, coffee, some crockery, a few pairs of shoes (not many), some farming implements, and the like. Whiskey, of course, was a necessary part of their stock. I remember one transaction in particular which I had with them. I sold the firm a load of wheat, which they turned over to the mill.” Mr. Potter, who remembers the morning when Lincoln, then a stranger on his way to New Salem, stopped at his father’s house and ate breakfast, knows less about the store, but says: “It was a grocery, and they sold whiskey, of course.” Thomas Watkins says that the store contained “a little candy, tobacco, sugar, and coffee, and the like;” though Mr. Watkins, being then a young boy, and living a mile in the country, was not a frequent visitor at the store.
A STAGE-COACH ADVERTISEMENT, 1834.
This advertisement appeared in the “Sangamo Journal” in April, 1834, and held a place in the paper through the next three years. As the “Four Horse Coach” ran through Sangamontown and New Salem, it doubtless had Lincoln as a passenger now and then; but not often, probably, for the fare from New Salem to Springfield was one dollar and twenty-five cents, and walking, or riding upon a borrowed horse, must generally have been preferred by Lincoln to so costly a mode of travelling.