If Lincoln could meet you in person, he might tell you his first visit to
this town near Petersburg, Illinois, was unintended. As a crew
member of a flatboat bound for New Orleans in 1831, his boat became
stranded on a milldam by the Sangamon River.1. Lincoln Statue at New Salem
As you approach the Visitor Center at New Salem State Park you will see this
famous Avard Fairbanks statue. It depicts Abraham Lincoln symbolically laying down his
axe and picking up his law books because Lincoln began a serious study of the
law here after years of working odd jobs.
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