McClures Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 | Page 5

John Clary, the head of the numerous Clary family which settled in the
vicinity of New Salem in 1818. He was born in Tennessee in 1815 and
died in 1880. He was an intimate associate of Lincoln during the latter's
New Salem days.]
Under this stimulus Lincoln's ambition increased. "I have talked with
great men," he told his fellow-clerk and friend, Greene, "and I do not
see how they differ from others." He made up his mind to put himself
before the public, and talked of his plans to his friends. In order to keep
in practice in speaking he walked seven or eight miles to debating clubs.
"Practising polemics" was what he called the exercise. He seems now
for the first time to have begun to study subjects. Grammar was what
he chose. He sought Mentor Graham, the schoolmaster, and asked his
advice. "If you are going before the public," Mr. Graham told him,
"you ought to do it." But where could he get a grammar? There was but
one, said Mr. Graham, in the neighborhood, and that was six miles
away. Without waiting further information the young man rose from
the breakfast-table, walked immediately to the place, borrowed this rare
copy of Kirkham's Grammar, and before night was deep into its
mysteries. From that time on for weeks he gave every moment of his
leisure to mastering the contents of the book. Frequently he asked his
friend Greene to "hold the book" while he recited, and, when puzzled
by a point, he would consult Mr. Graham.
Lincoln's eagerness to learn was such that the whole neighborhood
became interested. The Greenes lent him books, the schoolmaster kept
him in mind and helped him as he could, and even the village cooper
let him come into his shop and keep up a fire of shavings sufficiently
bright to read by at night. It was not long before the grammar was
mastered. "Well," Lincoln said to his fellow-clerk, Greene, "if that's
what they call a science, I think I'll go at another." He had made
another discovery--that he could conquer subjects.
[Illustration: SITE OF DENTON OFFUTT'S STORE.
From a photograph taken for this Magazine.

The building in which Lincoln clerked for Denton Offutt was standing
as late as 1836, and presumably stood until it rotted down. A slight
depression in the earth, evidently once a cellar, is all that remains of
Offutt's store. Out of this hole in the ground have grown three trees, a
locust, an elm, and a sycamore, seeming to spring from the same roots,
and curiously twined together; and high up on the sycamore some
genius has chiselled the face of Lincoln.]
Before the winter was ended he had become the most popular man in
New Salem. Although in February, 1832, he was but twenty-two years
of age, had never been at school an entire year in his life, had never
made a speech except in debating clubs and by the roadside, had read
only the books he could pick up, and known only the men who made
up the poor, out-of-the-way towns in which he had lived, "encouraged
by his great popularity among his immediate neighbors," as he says
himself, he decided to announce himself, in March, 1832, as a
candidate for the General Assembly of the State.
[Illustration: ZACHARY TAYLOR.
At the breaking out of the Black Hawk war, Zachary Taylor, afterwards
general in the Mexican War, and finally President of the United States,
was colonel of the First Infantry. He joined Atkinson at the beginning
of the war, and was in active service until the end of the campaign.]
A CANDIDATE FOR THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.
The only preliminary expected of a candidate for the legislature of
Illinois at that date was an announcement stating his "sentiments with
regard to local affairs." The circular in which Lincoln complied with
this custom was a document of about two thousand words, in which he
plunged at once into the subject he believed most interesting to his
constituents--"the public utility of internal improvements."
[Illustration: BOWLING GREEN'S HOUSE.
From a photograph taken for this Magazine.
Bowling Green's log cabin, half a mile north of New Salem, just under
the bluff, still stands, but long since ceased to be a dwelling-house, and
is now a tumble-down old stable. Here Lincoln was a frequent boarder,
especially during the period of his closest application to the study of the
law. Stretched out on the cellar door of his cabin, reading a book, he
met for the first time "Dick" Yates, then a college student at
Jacksonville, and destined to become the great "War Governor" of the

State. Yates had come home with William G. Greene to spend his
vacation, and Greene took him around to Bowling Green's house to
introduce him to "his friend,