The life of Abraham Lincoln : drawn from original sources and containing many speeches, letters, and telegrams hitherto unpublished, and illustrated with many reproductions from original paintings, photographs, etc. . o stop andvisit awhile. He who received a letter read it and repeatedthe contents; if he had a newspaper, usually the postmastercould tell him in advance what it contained, for one of theperquisites of the early post-office was the privilege ofreading all printed matter before delivering it. Every day,then, Lincolns acquaintance in New Salem, through hisposition as postmaster, be
The life of Abraham Lincoln : drawn from original sources and containing many speeches, letters, and telegrams hitherto unpublished, and illustrated with many reproductions from original paintings, photographs, etc. . o stop andvisit awhile. He who received a letter read it and repeatedthe contents; if he had a newspaper, usually the postmastercould tell him in advance what it contained, for one of theperquisites of the early post-office was the privilege ofreading all printed matter before delivering it. Every day,then, Lincolns acquaintance in New Salem, through hisposition as postmaster, became more intimate. As the summer of 1833 went on, the condition of the storebecame more and more unsatisfactory. As the position ofpostmaster brought in only a small revenue, Lincoln wasforced to take any odd work he could get. He helped inother stores in the town, split rails, and looked after the mill;but all this yielded only a scant and uncertain support, andwhen in the fall he had an opportunity to learn surveying, heaccepted it eagerly. The condition of affairs in Illinois in the early thirtiesmade a demand for the service of surveyors. The immigra-tion had been phenomenal. There were thousands of farms. RUNS FOR STATE ASSEMBLY 99 to be surveyed and thousands of corners to be bought up large tracts and mapped out citieson paper. It was years before the first railroad was built inIllinois, and, as all inland traveling was on horseback or inthe stage-coach, earn year hundreds of miles of wagon roadswere opened through woods and swamps and prairies. Asthe county of Sangamon was large, and eagerly sought byimmigrants, the county surveyor in 1833, one John Calhoun,needed deputies; but in a country so new it was no easy mat-ter to find men with the requisite capacity. With Lincoln, Calhoun had little, if any, personal ac-quaintance, for they lived twenty miles apart. Lincoln,however, had made himself known by his meteoric race forthe legislature in 1832, an
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