McClures Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 4, March, 1896 | Page 5

know, was that of Hawthorn against Woolridge.
He made his first appearance in court in October, 1836.
Although he had given much time during this year to politics and the
law, he had by no means abandoned surveying. Indeed he never had
more calls. Surveying was particularly brisk at the moment, and he
frequently was obliged to be away for three and four weeks at a time,
laying out towns or locating roads. "When he got a job," says the Hon.
J.M. Ruggles, a friend and political supporter of Mr. Lincoln, "there
was a picnic and jolly time in the neighborhood. Men and boys would

gather around, ready to carry chain, drive stakes, and blaze trees, but
mainly to hear Lincoln's odd stories and jokes. The fun was
interspersed with foot races and wrestling matches. To this day the old
settlers around Bath repeat the incidents of Lincoln's sojourns in their
neighborhood while surveying that town."
[Illustration: NINIAN W. EDWARDS., JOB FLETCHER, SR.,
WILLIAM F. ELKINS., ROBERT L. WILSON., JOHN DAWSON.
MEMBERS OF THE SANGAMON COUNTY DELEGATION IN
THE TENTH ILLINOIS ASSEMBLY--THE DELEGATION
KNOWN AS THE "LONG NINE."
NINIAN W. EDWARDS was born in Kentucky in 1809, a son of
Ninian Edwards, who in the same year was appointed Governor of the
new Territory of Illinois. Mr. Edwards was appointed Attorney-General
of Illinois in 1834; in 1836 was elected to the legislature; was reëlected
in 1838; served in the State Senate from 1844 to 1848, and again in the
House from 1848 to 1852. He was a member of the constitutional
convention of 1847. He died at Springfield, September 2, 1889.
JOB FLETCHER, SR., was born in Virginia in 1793; removed to
Sangamon County, Illinois, in 1819. In 1826 he was elected to the
Illinois House of Representatives, and in 1834 to the State Senate,
where he served six years. He died in Sangamon County in 1872.
WILLIAM F. ELKINS was born in Kentucky in 1792. He went to
Sangamon County, Illinois, in 1825. In 1828, 1836, and 1838 he was
elected to the legislature. In 1831 he raised a company for the Black
Hawk War, and was its captain. In 1861 President Lincoln appointed
him Register of the United States Land Office at Springfield, an office
which he held until 1872, when he resigned. He died at Decatur,
Illinois, 1880.
ROBERT LANG WILSON was born in Pennsylvania in 1805. In 1831
he went to Kentucky; in 1833 removed to Sangamon County, Illinois;
in 1836 was elected to the Illinois House. He removed to Sterling,
Illinois, in 1840, and died there in 1880. For some years he was

paymaster in the United States Army.
JOHN DAWSON was born in Virginia in 1791; he removed to
Sangamon County, Illinois, in 1827. He was elected to the lower house
of the legislature in 1830, 1834, 1836, 1838, and 1846. He was a
member of the constitutional convention of 1847. He died November
12, 1850.
The other members of the "Long Nine" were Abraham Lincoln, Daniel
Stone, Andrew McCormick, and Arthur Herndon.]
LINCOLN IN THE TENTH ASSEMBLY OF ILLINOIS
In December Lincoln put away his surveying instruments to go to
Vandalia for the opening session of the Tenth Assembly. Larger by
fifty members than its predecessor, this body was as much superior in
intellect as in numbers. It included among its members a future
President of the United States, a future candidate for the same high
office, six future United States Senators, eight future members of the
National House of Representatives, a future Secretary of the Interior,
and three future Judges of the State Supreme Court. Here sat side by
side Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas; Edward Dickinson
Baker, who represented at different times the States of Illinois and
Oregon in the national councils; O.H. Browning, a prospective senator
and future cabinet officer, and William L.D. Ewing, who had just
served in the senate; John Logan, father of the late General John A.
Logan; Robert M. Cullom, father of Senator Shelby M. Cullom; John A.
McClernand, afterward member of Congress for many years, and a
distinguished general in the late Civil War; and many others of national
repute.[2]
[Illustration: ELIJAH PARISH LOVEJOY.
From a silhouette loaned by Mr. Owen Lovejoy of Princeton, Illinois.
Elijah Lovejoy was born in Maine in 1802. When twenty-five years old
he emigrated to St. Louis, where he at first did journalistic work on a
Whig newspaper. In 1833 he entered the ministry, and was soon after
made editor of a religious newspaper, the "St. Louis Observer." Mr.

Lovejoy began, in 1835, to turn his paper against slavery, but the
opposition he found in Missouri was so strong that in the summer of
1836 he decided to move his paper to Alton, Illinois. Before he could
get his plant out of