“My father,” says Thomas Watkins of Petersburg, “sold Lincoln the horse, and my recollection is that Lincoln agreed to pay him fifty dollars for it. Lincoln was a little slow in making the payments, and after he had paid all but ten dollars, my father, who was a high-strung man, became impatient, and sued him for the balance. Lincoln, of course, did not deny the debt, and raised the money and paid it. I do not often tell this,” Mr. Watkins adds, “because I have always thought there never was such a man as Lincoln, and I have always been sorry father sued him.”
BOOT-JACK MADE AND USED BY LINCOLN WHEN A YOUNG MAN.
From Libby Prison Museum, Chicago, Illinois. By permission of C. F. Gunther. ]
FACSIMILE OF A LETTER AND RECEIPT WRITTEN BY LINCOLN WHILE POSTMASTER AT NEW SALEM.
Reproduced by permission from “Menard-Salem-Lincoln Souvenir Album,” Petersburg, 1893. ]
CHAPTER XVI. BUSINESS REVERSES.—LINCOLN FOR THE SECOND TIME A CANDIDATE FOR THE LEGISLATURE.—IS ELECTED.
Between his duties as deputy surveyor and postmaster, Lincoln had little leisure for the store, and its management passed into the hands of Berry. 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, lost courage; and when, early in 1834, Alexander and William Trent asked if the store was for sale, an affirmative answer was eagerly given. A price was agreed upon, and the sale was made. Now, neither Alexander Trent nor his brother had any money; but as Berry and Lincoln had bought without money, it seemed only fair that they should be willing to sell on the same terms. Accordingly the notes of the Trent brothers were accepted for the purchase price, and the store was turned over to the new owners. But about the time their notes fell due the Trent brothers disappeared. The few groceries in the store were seized by creditors, and the doors were closed, never to be opened again.
Misfortunes now crowded upon Lincoln. His late partner, Berry, soon reached the end of his wild career, and one morning a farmer from the Rock Creek neighborhood drove into New Salem with the news that he was dead.
The appalling debt which had accumulated was thrown upon Lincoln’s shoulders. It was then too common a fashion among men who became deluged in debt to “clear out,” in the expressive language of the pioneer, as the Trents had done; but this was not Lincoln’s way. He quietly settled down among the men he owed, and promised to pay them. For fifteen years he carried this burden—a load which he cheerfully and manfully bore, but one so heavy that he habitually spoke of it as the “national debt.” Talking once of it to a friend, Lincoln said: “That debt was the greatest obstacle I have ever met in life. I had no way of speculating, and could not earn money except by labor; and to earn by labor eleven hundred dollars, besides my living, seemed the work of a lifetime. There was, however, but one way. I went to the creditors, and told them that if they would let me alone, I would give them all I could earn over my living, as fast as I could earn it.” As late as 1848, 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 these obligations. All the notes, with interest at the high rates then prevailing, were at last paid.