Salem."[A] The store and mill were, however, so far only in Offutt's
imagination, and Lincoln had to drift about until his employer was
ready for him. He made a short visit to his father and mother, now in
Coles County, near Charleston (fever and ague had driven the Lincolns
from their first home in Macon County), and then, in July, 1831, he
drifted over to New Salem, where, as he says, he "stopped indefinitely
and for the first time, as it were, by himself."

[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE HILL ABOVE SANGAMON RIVER, LOOKING TOWARD
THE SITE OF NEW SALEM.]

"The village of New Salem, the scene of Lincoln's mercantile career,"
writes one of our correspondents who has studied the history of the
town and visited the spot where it once stood, "was one of the many
little towns which, in the pioneer days, sprang up along the Sangamon
River, a stream then looked upon as navigable and as destined to be
counted among the highways of commerce. Twenty miles northwest of
Springfield, strung along the left bank of the Sangamon, parted by
hollows and ravines, is a row of high hills. On one of these--a long,
narrow ridge, beginning with a sharp and sloping point near the river,
running south, and parallel with the stream a little way, and then,
reaching its highest point, making a sudden turn to the west, and
gradually widening until lost in the prairie--stood this frontier
village. The crooked river for a short distance comes from the east,
and, seeming surprised at meeting the bluff, abruptly changes its
course, and flows to the north. Across the river the bottom stretches
out, reaching half a mile back to the highlands. New Salem, founded in
1829 by James Rutledge and John Cameron, and a dozen years later a
deserted village, is rescued from oblivion only by the fact that
Lincoln was once one of its inhabitants. His first sight of the town