Before June of
that year he had surveyed and located a public road from "Musick's Ferry
on Salt Creek, _via_ New Salem, to the county line in the direction to
Jacksonville," twenty-six miles and seventy chains in length, the exact
course of which survey, with detailed bearings and distances, was drawn
on common white letter-paper pasted in a long slip, to a scale of two
inches to the mile, in ordinary yet clear and distinct penmanship. The
compensation he received for this service was three dollars per day for
five days, and two dollars and fifty cents for making the plat and
report.
An advertisement in the "Journal" shows that the regular fees of another
deputy were "two dollars per day, or one dollar per lot of eight acres
or less, and fifty cents for a single line, with ten cents per mile for
traveling."
While this class of work and his post-office, with its emoluments,
probably amply supplied his board, lodging and clothing, it left him no
surplus with which to pay his debts, for it was in the latter part of
that same year (1834) that Van Bergen caused his horse and surveying
instruments to be sold under the hammer, as already related. Meanwhile,
amid these fluctuations of good and bad luck, Lincoln maintained his
equanimity, his steady, persevering industry, and his hopeful ambition
and confidence in the future.
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