soon returned from a walk of a dozen miles with the coveted prize. He
devoted himself to the new study with that peculiar intensity of
application which always remained his most valuable faculty, and soon
knew all that can be known about it from rules. He seemed surprised,
as others have been, at the meager dimensions of the science he had
acquired and the ease with which it yielded all there was of it to the
student. But it seemed no slight achievement to the New Salemites, and
contributed not a little to the prevalent impression of his learning.

His name is prominently connected with an event which just at this
time caused an excitement and interest in Salem and the neighboring
towns entirely out of proportion to its importance. It was one of the
articles of faith of most of the settlers on the banks of the Sangamon
River that it was a navigable stream, and the local politicians found
that they could in no way more easily hit the fancy of their hearers
than by discussing this assumed fact, and the logical corollary
derived from it, that it was the duty of the State or the nation to
clear out the snags and give free course to the commerce which was
waiting for an opportunity to pour along this natural highway. At last
one Captain Vincent Bogue, of Springfield, determined to show that the
thing could be done by doing it. The first promise of the great
enterprise appears in the "Sangsmo Journal" of January 26, 1832, in a
letter from the Captain, at Cincinnati, saying he would ascend the
Sangamon by steam on the breaking up of the ice. He asked that he
might be met at the mouth of the river by ten or twelve men, having
axes with long handles, to cut away the overhanging branches of the
trees on the banks. From this moment there was great excitement,--
public meetings, appointment of committees, appeals for subscriptions,
and a scattering fire of advertisements of goods and freight to be
bargained for,--which sustained the prevailing interest. It was a day