482

378. James Taylor (William H. Herndon Interview).

[1865 — 66]

I came up in the boat with Bogue in 1831 — Knew Lincoln as Early as 1833 I saw him painting a sign in N.S. in 1837. He surveyed, laid off Petersburg — Jack Armstrong used to plague Abe a great deal a bout his — Abe's son, which he had by Mrs Armstrong; it was a joke — plagued Abe terribly —

About the year 1835 the roughs of N Salem and surrounding Country did Cook a live pig in a tin plate stove — did barrel up — put in a hogshead a drunken man and roll him down the hill — Lincoln surveyed land for me.

Rutledge kept a grocery in NS: he saw a fellow in town bare-foot — Wadkins — and told Wadkins if he would cut up an old house that he would give him a pair of shoes: Wadkins started on his job — Abe Saw him — got his axe & helped him to cut up the thing — "Now go get your shoes" Said Abe

Library of Congress: Herndon-Weik Collection. Manuscript Division. Library of Congress. Washington, D.C. 2922; Huntington Library: LN2408, 1:472

nts

Notes.

1. Vincent Bogue of Springfield sponsored the trip of the Talisman up the Sangamon River in April 1832.

2. See §§56, 101.

3. For other versions of this story, see §§259, 343.

4. There were a number of Watkins families in the New Salem area. See §282, where R. B. Rutledge tells a similar story of AL and Ab Trout.