organizer did he make any especial impression on the body.


THE STORY OF ANN RUTLEDGE.

In the spring of 1835 the young representative from Sangamon returned
to New Salem to take up his duties as postmaster and deputy surveyor,
and to resume his law studies. He exchanged his rather exalted
position for the humbler one with a light heart. New Salem held all
that was dearest in the world to him at that moment, and he went back
to the poor little town with a hope, which he had once supposed honor
forbade his acknowledging even to himself, glowing warmly in his
heart. He loved a young girl of that town, and now for the first time,
though he had known her since he first came to New Salem, was he free
to tell his love.

One of the most prominent families of the settlement in 1831, when
Lincoln first appeared there, was that of James Rutledge. The head of
the house was one of the founders of New Salem, and at that time the
keeper of the village tavern. He was a high-minded man, of a warm and
generous nature, and had the universal respect of the community. He
was a South Carolinian by birth, but had lived many years in Kentucky
before coming to Illinois. Rutledge came of a distinguished family:
one of his ancestors signed the Declaration of Independence; another
was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States by
appointment of Washington, and another was a conspicuous leader in the
American Congress.

The third of the nine children in the Rutledge household was a
daughter, Ann Mayes, born in Kentucky, January 7, 1813. When Lincoln