This information is from the website "Lincoln's New Salem."  Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site, about 2 miles South of Petersburg and about 20 miles Northwest of Springfield, is a reconstruction of the village where Abraham Lincoln spent his early adulthood.

    New Salem State Historic Site proudly preserves one of the most historic villages in the Americas. This 19th Century community is accurately restored and adapted to the lifestyles of the 1830's.

    A young Abraham Lincoln decided to live in the village of New Salem while co-piloting a flatboat down the Sangamon, Illinois and Mississippi waterways. New Salem was a growing community, boasting a sawmill and gristmill, a tavern, general stores, a post office, stagecoach stop and several craftsmen.

The Keel Boat and the Flatboat (lower left) were common means of transport
on America's Rivers.  Young Abraham would use the flatboat to move from
Macon County to New Salem, along the Sangamon River.

The sculpture above depicts Abraham on horseback
and reading from a book while riding along.

Abraham would work at many jobs while at New Salem.  He would own his own general store, work at surveying, was postmaster, and would enter the field of law.  Also at New Salem, he would run for his first public office.           The pictures depict the living site, with a rail splitter.  At right is the first Lincoln owned general store, with partner, Berry.

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Lincoln considered the potential of the village boundless and decided to settle there. As the town developed, so did his career. Lincoln developed from a self-admitted "aimless piece of driftwood" to a merchant, surveyor, postmaster and captain of the local militia. And finally it was here, where by the flicker of candlelight, he began to study law.
 

Today, you can touch the history and feel the emotion of yesterday as you walk through the winding paths of the village. Smell the fresh bread baking. Hear the rat-tat-tat of the blacksmith's hammer. Watch the hands of the candle maker dipping the village light. And wonder to the skills of a woman performing magic with her spinning wheel.

A village brought back to life with oxen, farm animals, craftsmen and interpreters giving you a historic overview of an era gone by. And a final walk through the famed New Salem will recreate for you the history you and the family will enjoy.

The six years Lincoln spent in New Salem formed a turning point in his career. Although he never owned a home here, Lincoln was engaged in a variety of activities while he was at New Salem. He clerked in a store, split rails, enlisted in the Black Hawk War, served as postmaster and deputy surveyor, failed in business, and was elected to the Illinois General Assembly in 1834 and 1836 after an unsuccessful try in 1832.
Twelve log houses, the Rutledge Tavern, ten workshops, stores, mills and a school where church services were held have been reproduced and furnished as they might have been in the 1830s. The furnishings, including many articles actually used by the New Salem people of Lincoln's time and others dating back to the same time period, were assembled and donated to the state by the Old Salem Lincoln League. The collection includes such early-nineteenth-century articles as wheat cradles, candle molds, cord beds, flax hackles, wood cards, dough and cornmeal chests and early American pewter.