A NEW SALEM INTERIOR, SHOWING GENUINE NEW SALEM COSTUMES AND FURNITURE STILL EXTANT.
Reproduced by permission from “Menard-Salem-Lincoln Souvenir Album,” Petersburg, Illinois, 1893. ]
The frontier store filled a unique place. Usually it was a “general store,” and on its shelves were found most of the articles needed in a community of pioneers. But to be a place for the sale of dry goods and groceries was not its only function; it was a kind of intellectual and social centre. It was the common meeting-place of the farmers, the happy refuge of the village loungers. No subject was unknown there. The _habitués_ of the place were equally at home in discussing politics, religion, or sports. Stories were told, jokes were cracked and laughed at, and the news contained in the latest newspaper finding its way into the wilderness was repeated again and again. Such a store was that of Denton Offutt. Lincoln could hardly have chosen surroundings more favorable to the highest development of the art of story-telling, and he had not been there long before his reputation for drollery was established.
But he gained popularity and respect in other ways. There was near the village a settlement called Clary’s Grove. The most conspicuous part of the population was an organization known as the “Clary’s Grove Boys.” They exercised a veritable terror over the neighborhood, and yet they were not a vicious band. Mr. Herndon, who had a cousin living in New Salem at the time, and who knew personally many of the “boys,” says:
“They were friendly and good-natured; they could trench a pond, dig a bog, build a house; they could pray and fight, make a village or create a State. They would do almost anything for sport or fun, love or necessity. Though rude and rough; though life’s forces ran over the edge of the bowl, foaming and sparkling in pure deviltry for deviltry’s sake, yet place before them a poor man who needed their aid, a lame or sick man, a defenceless woman, a widow, or an orphaned child, they melted into sympathy and charity at once. They gave all they had, and willingly toiled or played cards for more. Though there never was under the sun a more generous parcel of rowdies, a stranger’s introduction was likely to be the most unpleasant part of his acquaintance with them.”