Wednesday, August 27

Vacation --Day 1... New Salem, IL

On the first day of our vacation this year we visited New Salem, IL. Home of Abraham Lincoln, in his younger years. He came to this town on a flat boat, and after a time decided to stay for awhile, open a mercantile store, which by the way, went bust. He did some land surveying in this town, as well, but lost his surveying equipment, to pay off debts he owed from his store. These items were auctioned off, but the high bidder ended up giving the tools back to Abe as he felt he was a respectable citizen of the community, and probably felt a little sorry for him. Abe was respected in New Salem, and decided to become a lawyer. Abe was pretty much self educated, and could be found around town with his nose in a book, sitting under a tree, more than not. Here is our tour of New Salem.
Here is the old fashioned lumber mill, that is on the same waterway, that Abe Lincoln arrived in his flat boat on. The kids are taking turns turning the water wheel. Much of the water is dried up, from lack of rain.
117 steps each way. Not bad going down. Knocks the breath out of you coming back up.
Truthseeker and Thumbody, sitting at a desk in the old schoolhouse/church.
Truthseeker and my Grandma, resting on a bench. You can see a few log houses in the background. The complete town is built up around these log cabins standing where the originals stood, so many years ago. I would say that there are at least 12 log cabin plantations, 2 general mercantiles, a post office, drs office, tavern (which by the way was a B&B back then.) No alcohol was served in them. There were many gardens in each homestead. Grandma asked one of the workers, what some of the plants were. The lady said that many of the plants in the gardens are from pioneer seeds. We were wondering whether or not they used the garden vegetables or let them turn to seed. Too bad they don't have a farmer's market stand set up by the gift shop. You would think that it would provide them with more income.
More resting pictures by a log cabin. We did a lot of walking that day.
This is the teacher's desk that goes with the student's desk above. There was enough room for about 10 students tops. It was also their church. I can't imagine fitting more than 20 people in there. But they must have. The date above the fireplace reads: Sept. 12, 1912.
One of the rebuilt pioneer homes. The CCC's rebuilt New Salem right before WWII. My grandma told me that a couple of her brothers were in the CCC's. Not in Illinois though.
Truthseeker on a statue of Abe Lincoln. It was a fun day. Make sure you check out tomorrow's post for Day 2 of our vacation. After our very long and hot tour of New Salem, my Grandma treated us all to an ice cream cone in the gift shop. I picked coconut/pecan. Oh my, was it good! It really cooled us off. Thanks Grandma!

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