Show LINCOLN AS A STOREKEEPER First a Clerk and Then a fler chant at New Salem AN OLD TAVERN LICENSE IT VA ISSUED TO LCXCOLX IX 1S33 What it Was Probably lorA Time hen AVIiIslcy Was us Legitimate an Article of Merchandise as Coffee Cof-fee or Calico and When Jo Knm fly Vas Without hats Jug Tlie Title Honest Abc BY JOHN M CAN DAVIS Copyright 1S95 by S S McClure Limited One day In April 1S34 a flatboat floated around the bend of the river Sangamon above New Salem an Illinois nois village founded two years before One of the men on board was Denton Offut the owner of the boat another was Abraham Lincoln its builder The boat and its little crew starting at Sangamon Town a few miles up the river were bound for New Orleans Or-leans They were detained at New Salem only long enough to get their boat over the Ilutledge and Cameron mill dam on which it lodged When Lincoln walked Into New Salem three months later he was not altogether a stranger for the people reiembered him as the ingenious flatboatman who a litle while before had freed his boat from water and thus enabled it tr gret over the dam by resorting to the miraculous expedient of boring a hole in its bottom Before return rs from New Orleans Denton OfTut had made up his mind to open a store at New Salem in adition to several other similar > tablishments managed by him at other places and so delighted de-lighted was he with Lincoln whom he had found in the backwoods of Macon county a few months previously that he resolved to place him in charge oC the nw store The precise date of the opening of Denton Offuts store is not known We only know that on July Sth ISHl the county commissioners commission-ers court of Sangamon county granted grant-ed Offut a license to retail merchandise merchan-dise at New Salem that he paid 5 for this license a fee which supposed him to have 1000 worth of goods in stocl We know too if there is any truth Ii tradition that there was a vexatious delay in the arrival of the goods that while Lincoln was waiting at New Salem he piloted down the Pangamrm rnd Illinois rivers as far as Beardstown a flatboat bearing the amily and goods of Dr Nelson who was starting for Texas and that at Epardstown he found Offuts goods waiting to be taken to New Salem The men then strangers to him were James Gouldeby an Ned Potter and Ofut had sent them efter his goods Offut had expected Lincoln to wait at Beardstown until the oxteam arrived ar-rived and the teamsters not having any credentials asked Lincoln to give them an order for the goods This sitting down by the roadside he wrote out and Gouldsby used to relate that i contained a misspelled word which ho corrected but as spelling around New Rem was largely a matter of individual taste It is just as likely as not that Lincoln correctly spelled that word IJL Charge of Denton Offufs Store When the oxen and their drivers returned with the goods the store was opened in a little log house on the brink of a hill almost over the river Lincoln unpacked the goods put on the price mark placed them on the shelves and then sat down to wait for customers Dontun Offut full of business enthusiasm en-thusiasm landed that New Salem had a great future and to merely own a store in the place fell far short of gratifying his ambition So he forthwith leased the Rutledge and Cameron mill Returning to Kentucky to supervise some of his many other widelyscattered enterprises he left Lincoln in charge of the store and the mill millThe frontier store filled a unique place Usually i was a general found store and on Its shelves were most < > l the articles needed in a community com-munity 01 pioneers But to be a place for the sale of dry goods and groceries tas not its only function it was a kind of Intellectual and social centre I Such a store was that of Denton Ot fu Here began Lincolns fame as a i story teller and he could hardly have I 1 chosen suroundings more favorable to the highest development of the art I I I was here too that Lincoln acquired the title of Honest Abea title which conferred upon him by Denton I Offut and adopted by common consent con-sent dune to him ever aftemvard Through no fault of Lincoln Denton Offuts store was shortlived I was in operation less than ten months A constable one morning took possession and the goods were sold to satisfy the claims of a legion of creditors The store buildingwas standing as lat as 1S36 and presumably stood until it I rotted down A slight depression in the earth evidently once a cellar is all that remains of Offuts store Out of this hole in the ground have grown three trees a locust an elm and a sycamore seeming to spring from the same roots and curiously twined together to-gether and high up on the sycamore some genius has chiseled the face of Lincoln Lincoln Goes to War In March 1S32 we find Lincoln dis ributlng hand bills announcing his candidacy for the legislature and in May he was mustered into the military tary service of the state to help drive Black Hawk betk across the Slissis eippl Lincoln was afterwards frank enough to confess that he did not go to war altogether for patriotic motives mo-tives Offufs store had just closed end he had got little out of It except experience and a reputation for integrity in-tegrity two valuable acquisitions but neither of them immediately convertible con-vertible into cash and the fact that i would C ie him the means for the time of making a Ying coupled possibly pos-sibly with the enchantment of adventure adven-ture was what made him an Indian fighter Lincoln though at the time proud of his election as captain of his company never looked upon the Black Hawk war as a serious affair and to speak of its heroes always seemed to him a grotesque joke The war came to an end all too soon Lincoln returned home in August just in time to get beaten for the legislature He now found himself him-self with nothing to do I was at this time that a New Salem friend l an dmirer of his powerful frame and k gieat strengthadvised Lincoln to become be-come a blacksmith but the advice was very IndifTerently received I was only natural that Lincoln t should go to thi stores In smirch of work for clerkinp in a store was the I most agreeaible employment he hd yet found He applied successively to all I of the stores then doing business In Nevr Salem but they were in greater need of customers than clerks The 3U8tirss had been greatly overdone Josnpetition was too brisk The first ytore at New Salem was opened in 829 by TVflliani Clary and within the ext two years stores were opened by ieorge Wartoerton Henry Simcoe J I Hill QIcNeill James Ilutledge James and Rowan Herndon Reuben I Radford an versatile Deriton Offut all to subsIst upon the patronage of a sparsely settled frontier community In the fall ot 1832 when Lincoln was looking for a job there were at least four stores in New Salem The most pretentious of these was that of Hill aicNeill which carried a large line of dry goods The three othersthose of the Herndon Brothers Reuben Rad ford and James Rutledge were groceries ceres Decides to Buy a Store Failing to secure employment at any I of these stores Lincoln though without with-out money enough to pay a weeks board il advance boldly resolved to buy a store He was not long in find ing an opportunity to purchase James Herndon had already sold out his half interest in the Herndon Brothers store to William F Berry and Rowan Herndon not gftttlng along well with Berry was only too glad to find a pui chaser of his half in the person of pern o Aibe Lincoln Berry was as poor a Lincoln but that was not a serious obstacle for their notes were accepted accept-ed for the Herndon stock of goods They had barely hung out their sign I when something happened which vhrow another store into their hands Reuben Radford had made himself obnoxious t the Clarys Grove boys a reckless gang of rowdies from the Clarys Grove settlement five miles I southwest of New Salemand one night they broke in his doors and windows win-dows and overturned his counters and sugar barrels I was too much for Radford and he sold out next day to William G Green for a 400 note signed sign-ed by Green At the latters request Lincoln made an inventory of the stock and offered him 650 for Ita I propositon that was cheerfully accepted ac-cepted Berry Lincoln being unable to pay cash assumed the 400 note assume payable to Radford and gave Green their joint note for 250 The little grocery owned by James Rutledge was the next to succumb Berry Lincoln bought i at a bargain their joint note taking the place of cash The three stores were consolidated Their agre gate cost must have been not less than 1500 The only store now remaining was the general store of Hill McNeill and if this had been for sale on any 1 terms we may rest assured it would have passed into the hands of Berry A Lincoln But they had secured a monopoly of the grocery business strictly speaking and were probably content Here we see two penniless men within the brief space of a few weeks become the proprietors of three stores and quit buying only because there are no more to purchase The spectacle is a arusing as it Is amazing amaz-ing but the whole transaction aptly attests the unfaltering faith which the people of New Salem had in Lincolns honesty confidence which as we I shall see was not misplaced William F Berry the partner of I Lincoln was the son of a Presbyterian minister the Rev John Berry who I lived on Rock Creek live miles from I New Salem The son had strayed from the footsteps of the father for he was 113 hard drinker a gambler a fighter I and a VCr wicked young man Singular it may seem that Lincoln should have picked out such a partner but in truth he did not select Bill Berry tout rather accepted him as a partner from the force of circum tances It required only a little time to make it plain that the partnership was wholly uncongenial Lincoln displayed I dis-played little business capacity He loved books as Berry loved liquor and hour after hour he was stretched out on the counter of the store or under te fa shade tree reading Shakespeare or Burns or any book he could borrow He trusted largely to Berry and Berry rapidly squandered the profits of the business in riotous living The I firmly bound unto the county commissioners 1 commis-sioners of Sangamon county in the full sum of three hundred dollars to I which payment well and truly to be made we bind ourselves our heirs executors exe-cutors and administrators firmly by these presents sealed with our seal and dated this 6tih 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 otihemvise to remain in full force forceABRAHAM ABRAHAM LINCOLN Seal war F BERRY SeLL BOWLING GREEN Seal This bond appears to have been written by the clerk of the commissioners commis-sioners court and Lincolns name was signed by someone other than himself him-self very likely his partner Berry Did Lincoln Keep Hotel Why Berry Lincoln procured this license and what use they actually made of i can only be surmised Its discovery is of comparatively recent date Two or three biographers who have written in late years make a casual allusion to it and saythat no tavern was ever actually conducted I I r I i I i rIi j 7 L I TH li Lw1r I s 3rgg JIi I w1r h I I I BERRY AND 1IXCOlXS STORiiJ AS IT NOW APPEARS by Berry Lincoln and a careful I inquiry elusion has fully confirmed this con All the known facts make i probable prob-able that the license was procured to enable the firm to retail the liquors which they had in stock We may accept ac-cept this theory without reflecting in the slightest degree upon the character charac-ter of Lincoln In a community in I which liquor drinking was practically universal at a time when whisky was I as legitimate an article of merchan I dise as coffee or calico when no family I fam-ily was without a jugwhen the minister min-ister of the gospel could take his dram without any breach of propriety propri-ety it is not surprising that a reputable repu-table young man should have been found selling whisky I Possibly because harboring a foolish I fear of doing an injury to his reputation repu-tation Lincolns biographers have said practically nothing upon the subject I but the facts are too interesting to be suppressed even if the suppression of any facts concerning Lincoln were justifiable I In the days when Lincoln kept a grocery liquor was sold at all groceries gro-ceries but it could not be lawfully sold in a less quantity than one quart The law however was not always rigidly observed and it was the custom cus-tom of storekeepers to set up the drinks to their patrons Each of the three groceries which Berry Lincoln Lin-coln acquired had the usual supply of liquors and the combined stock must have amounted almost to a superabundance super-abundance I was only natural and only a stroke of business that they I should seek a way to dispose of the surplus quickly and profitably an end I which could be best accomplished by I selling it over the counter by the I glass To lawfully do this required a I tavern license and it is a warrantable conclusion that such was the chief aim of Bern Lincoln in procuring a franchise ct this character We are fortified in this conclusion by the coincidence coin-cidence that three other groceries of New Salem William Clary Henry Sin I coe and George Warburton were among those who took out tavern licenses censes To secure the lawful privilege of selling whisky by the dram was no doubt their purpose for their taverns were as mythical as the inn of Berry Lincoln The partnership of Berry Lin I f l F = t rh f = f I J l iil rJ = rwJB I lm It p = I tr = lJJf V J r I I I I = r r1j d < 1 rI I New Salem Front n Pnlntiiipr ia the State House Springfield Illinois only wonder is that the disaster which at last came was so Ions delayed Berry tc Lincoln Get n Tavern Li CCI1HC On the 6th of March 1S33 the county commissioners court of Sangamon fcounty granted the firm of Berry TJincoln a license to keep a tavern at New Salem A copy of this license is here given 1 Ordered that William F Berry into in-to name of Berry 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 addi-tion to the six dollars heretofore paid as per treasurers receipt and that they be allowed the following rates viz French Brandy per If pt 23 Peach Brandy per If pt 18 Apple Brandy per If pt 12 Holland Gin per If pt 18 Domestic per 1 pt 12 ½ Wine per Y pt 25 Rum per If > pt 18 4 Whisky per Y pt 12 ½ Breakfast dinner or supper 25 Lodging per night 12 ½ Horse per night 25 Single feed 12 ½ Breakfast dinner or supper for stage passengers 37 ½ who gave bond as required by ianv d this Is a copy of the bond according ac-cording to law furnished by the firm Know all men iby these presents we William F Berry AJbraham Lincoln and John Bowling Green are held and I coin was not dissolved until the spring of 1S34 about a year and a half after I their joint career began From and after May 7th 1833 until they ceased doing business their store was the postoffice and Lincoln was the postmaster post-master Surprise has been frequently expressed that President Jackson should ever have appointed a Whig to an office but the fact that Lincoln kept the only grocery in New Salem Sa-lem and that he was honest and popular evidently outweighed all partisan par-tisan objections which might have been raised As times dragged along the management manage-ment of the business drifted drifed more and more into the hands of Berry Lincoln Lin-coln had learned surveying and he was frequently called to the country The stock of groceries was on the wane The numerous obligations of the firm were maturing with no money to meet them Both members of the firm in the face of such obstacles ob-stacles had lost courage and when Alexander and William Trent one day asked if the store was for sale an affirmative answer was most eagerly given A price was agreed upon and the sale was made Now neither Alexander Alex-ander Trent nor his brother Bill had any money but as Berry Lincoln had bought without money i seemed only fair that they should be willing to sell on the same terms Accordingly the notes of the Trent brothers were accepted for t1e t purchase price and the store was turned over to the new t1rned yO I J owners But about the time their notes I fell due the Trent brothers disappeared disappear-ed The few groceries in the store were goceries seized by creditors and the doors were I closed never to be opened again Misfortunes now crowded upon Lincoln I Lin-coln His late partner Bill Berry soon reached the end of his wild career ca-reer Badly broken in health he sought the shelter of his fathers roof and one morning a farmer from the Rock Creek neighborhood drove Into New Salem with the news that Bill Berry was dead deadTe appalling debt which had accumulated ac-cumulated was now thrown upon Lin i colns shoulders I was then too common com-mon a fashion among men who become j i 1 be-come deluged in debt to clear out in the expressive language of the pioneer pion-eer as the Trents had done but in this as in most respects Lincoln was unfashionable He quietly settled down among the men he owed and promised to pay them For fifteen years he carried his burdena load I which he cheerfully and manfully bore i but one so heavy that he habitually spoke of it as the national debt As late as 1S43 so we are informed by Mr Herndon Mr Lincoln then a member of Congress sent home money saved from his salary to be applied on this obligation All the notes with interest at the high rates then prevail ing were at last paid Lincoln was still Honest Abe I |