New Salem: A History of Lincoln's Alma Mater

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FOUNDING OF NEW SALEM

Sangamo country is gently rolling prairie with tall grasses, wildflowers and timber consisting of oak, elm, ash, walnut, maple, sycamore, hickory, cottonwood and nut- and fruit-bearing trees. In the early nineteenth century, there were good sources of potable water from the Sangamon River and its tributaries.¹

In 1829, eleven years after Illinois became the twenty-first state, New Salem was founded on a bluff above the Sangamon River at a place where the river bends sharply north from its westerly course. The founders were James Rutledge, born in South Carolina on May 11, 1781, and John M. Camron, born in Georgia in 1790. Its life span can be measured in what the poet Robert Burns described as short and simple annals, lasting from 1829 to 1840, when it no longer existed.

Rutledge and his family moved from South Carolina to Georgia, then to Tennessee and later to Henderson County, Kentucky. There, on January 25, 1808, he married Mary Ann Miller (born on October 21, 1787, near Winsboro, South Carolina). In 1813, James, Mary Ann and the first three of their eventual ten children moved to White County, Illinois. During their time there, the Rutledges had four more children. John Camron, a nephew of Mary Ann Rutledge, followed the same path from Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky and into White County, Illinois.

Rutledge and Camron later moved to Sangamon County, where they settled on Concord Creek, entered land and made plans to construct a dam and mill. The depth and flow of water was not enough to operate mill machinery, so in July 1828, they entered land a few miles farther south on the Sangamon River and filed a petition with the state legislature to dam the river. The petition was granted in early 1829. Meanwhile, in the autumn of 1828, the two families settled on land entered on the bluff overlooking the west bank of the river and built log homes.

Rutledge and Camron were not the first to occupy the site. Archaeological evidence indicates that prehistoric Native Americans occupied the site; before 1828, pioneer settlers did as well.²

There were two smaller streams in the vicinity of New Salem, one located south between two bluffs and known as Green’s Rocky Branch and another to the north known as Bale’s Branch. Both of these emptied into the Sangamon River.

Once permission was granted by the state, work on the dam commenced by sinking log cribs side by side into the river. These were filled with rocks hauled to the site by local farmers. A combination grist- and sawmill was constructed of heavy timbers, and the whole structure was set onto pillars made of rock-filled wooden cribs. The gristmill was completely enclosed, while the room for the saw was a roofed shed open at two ends. A split-log bridge connected the mills to the bank at the bottom of the bluff. Notwithstanding the extreme simplicity of this mill, it was a ‘big thing’ in that early day, for mills were so scarce…that people came from a distance of fifty and even one hundred miles in every direction, to have their grain ground in this mill. Such was the patronage given to this enterprise, that the proprietors determined to lay out a town adjoining the mill property.³ A contemporary account describes the mill’s operation:

John Camron (pictured) and James Rutledge founded New Salem in 1829. Camron’s trade was that of millwright, but he was also an ordained Cumberland Presbyterian minister. From Thomas P. Reep, Lincoln and New Salem.

In those days people went to mill on horseback; if a farmer wanted to send four sacks to mill he sent four boys with a two bushel sack on each horse, and it was sometimes said that he would fill grain in one end and a rock in the other end to balance. It might have been the case when it was a jug in one end. Fancy, if you please, forty horses hitched up the sides of a steep hill with their heads forty-five degrees higher than their hams, and forty boys fishing or in swimming, or playing fox and geese on the bottom of the Miller’s Half Bushel, and you have a good idea how the boys spent their time when they went to mill.…The mill ran all year.⁴

This is the only picture in existence of the actual surroundings and the original grist- and sawmill at New Salem. From Thomas P. Reep, Lincoln and New Salem.

On October 23, 1829, John Camron, the holder of the land title, secured the services of surveyor Reuben S. Harrison to plat the site (originally known as Camron’s Mill), and the town of New Salem was born. Harrison’s certification reads as follows:

State of Illinois

Sangamon County.

I Reuben S. Harrison, Surveyor, do hereby certify that at the request of John Cameron [sic], one of the proprietors, I did survey the town of New Salem, of which the within is a complete Plat, that all of the lots are 115½ feet front, and 115½ feet back, the Main Street is 60 feet in width, and runs West and South to the Public Square, from thence West 15 degrees South, that all the other streets are running square across the Main Street.

Given under my hand this 23d day of October, 1929.

Reuben Harrison⁵

In a letter to William Herndon dated June 4, 1866, John McNamar declared:

I however, Claim to be the first Explorer of Salem as a business point, Mr Hill (Now Dead) and myself—purchased Some Goods at cincinnatti [sic] and Shipped them to Saint Louis whence I set out on a voyage of Discovery on the prairies of Illinois…soon came across a Noted Character who Lives in this vicinity by the name of Thos. Watkins, who set forth the beauties and other advantages of Camerons [sic] Mill as it was then called I accordingly came home with him visited the Locality contracted for the Erection of a Magnificent Store house for the Sum of fifteen Dollars…. Others soon followed.⁶

Villages like New Salem were the commercial centers for the surrounding areas, which included farms and homesteads consisting of a few log houses sited near trees and streams. New Salem had a grist- and sawmill, cooperage, blacksmith shop, hatter shop, wheelwright and cabinetmaking shop, carding mill and wool house, tannery, several stores (some of which also served as taverns), shoemaking and leather repair shop, ferry, two doctors, an inn and a school that doubled as a church meetinghouse. The stores sold a limited variety of comestible and dry goods and, if so licensed, liquor by the drink. The village residents also produced items for themselves, including soap, clothing, candles, bedding and other household necessities. Businesses were set up in a room in residents’ houses or were located nearby. The village was sited along a road that facilitated travel to and from the outlying areas; however, travel was very difficult during wet seasons. A stage line passed through New Salem, connecting it to towns such as Springfield. New Salem’s settlers dreamed of the day when the Sangamon could be made navigable so that goods could be easily transported from entrepots farther away. Hunting and fishing provided food, and the settlers planted gardens and kept livestock at New Salem, including horses, cattle, hogs, sheep, oxen and chickens. The vegetable gardens, located near the houses, contained white beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, peas, onions, cucumbers, turnips, asparagus, beets, carrots, lettuce, radishes, pepper grass, tomatoes and seed corn. Residents picked crab apples, plums and cherries from nearby trees and consumed dried fruit that was usually imported from New Orleans.⁷

For amusement, the residents had races, wrestling and shooting matches, dances, house raisings, quilting bees and barbecues. Residents also engaged in political and camp meetings, debates, temperance and literary societies and the simple activity of sitting around talking. Not to be forgotten was gander pulling, in which a live goose with a well-greased head was attached to a rope or pole that was stretched across a road; a man riding on horseback at full gallop would attempt to grab the bird by the neck in order to pull the head off. Despite such pastimes, life on the frontier could be brutal and often exacted its toll through extreme weather events and diseases beyond the capacities of mid-nineteenth-century medicine. T.G. Onstot remembered:

At the time that Mr. Lincoln lived Salem was a great place of resort for the young men. Boys from Clary’s Grove, Wolf county, Sangamon and Sand Ridge would gather together at Salem on Saturday and there indulge in horse racing, foot racing, wrestling, jumping, ball playing and shooting at a mark for beef. A beef always had five quarters when shot for. The hide and tallow made the fifth quarter. The boys also indulged in gander pulling, which was, I think a western game.⁸

John McNamar’s letter to William Herndon of November 25, 1866, offered the following description of the inhabitants of New Salem:

Its history, the manners habits and customs of the People of those days was of that Primitive order that usually characterize New Settlements with an abundance of the necessities of life, its luxuries were unknown or uncared for Lavish hospitality and Brotherly love abounded and every where [sic] the Latch string hung out to all comers, The Majority of the Citizens were professing Christians or church members.⁹

Religion played a part in the lives of these pioneer residents of New Salem. There were no purpose-built churches, so meetings were held in schoolhouses or private residences. At annual camp meetings, a central structure was usually erected. Here, the people gathered to sing and listen to preaching. The families lived in shelters set up around the central meeting place. Women prepared the meals for the campers in a location behind the campsites.¹⁰

The largest denominations were the Hardshell Baptists, Cumberland Presbyterians and Methodists. Peter Cartwright, a Methodist circuit rider, preached at Pleasant Plains near New Salem and at camp meetings. These gatherings were often characterized by emotional outbursts, including much jerking of the bodies of those present.¹¹

According to pioneer T.G. Onstot:

There was sound preaching in those days. The preachers preached hell and damnation more than they do now. They could hold a sinner over the pit of fire and brimstone till he could see himself hanging by a slender thread, and he would surrender and accept the gospel that was offered to him.¹²

In the book The History of Menard and Mason Counties, Illinois, is found this observation:

Often the pioneer preacher, with no companion but the horse he rode, would start across the wide prairies, with no guide but the knowledge he had of the cardinal points, or, perhaps, a point of timber scarcely visible in the dim and hazy distance, and, reaching the desired settlement, would present the claims of the Gospel to the few assembled hearers, after the toilsome and lonely day’s journey; then after a night of rest in the humble cabin and partaking of the simple meal, he again enters upon the journey of the day, to preach again at a distant point.¹³

Often, rowdies who had been drinking would show up and create a commotion, while valiant attempts were made to put them onto the path of righteousness and conversion.

The 1834 Gazeteer of Illinois,