Abraham Lincoln to School Commissioner, 22 August 18361
New Salem, Aug. 22. 1836Dear SirSomething more than a year ago, at the request of the trustees, I surveyed Sec.[Section] 16 Town[Township] 19. Range 8, being in your county.2 As yet, I have been paid nothing for it. Will you be so good as to get my claim
allowed at the September term of the County Commissioner's Court?
RespectfullyA. LincolnSchool commissioner| August 1835. | The school fund for Township 19 North of Range 8 West | |
| To A. Lincoln | Dr | |
| To surveying Section 163 | $12.50 |
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Free. A. Lincoln P M[Postmaster]4
New Salem Ills
School Commissioner for Morgan countyJacksonville IllsNew Salem Ills
[ docketing
]
A Lincoln
a/c[account] for surveying 16th Sec in Town[Township] 19. R[Range] 8
$12.50
a/c[account] for surveying 16th Sec in Town[Township] 19. R[Range] 8
$12.50
1Abraham Lincoln wrote all the text on page one, as well as the “Free” frank and the
address on the back page.
2The land described here lies in the northeast corner of present-day Cass County. The trustees were Benjamin Sutton, James Hickey, and William Morgan.
3The Land Ordinance of 1785 reserved the sixteenth section of each full thirty-six-section township to support
public schools within the township. In 1818, when Congress passed the act enabling the Illinois Territory to become a state, it granted to every township in the state the proceeds of the
sale of land in each township’s Section 16. This money became known as the common
school fund.
“An Act to Enable the People of the Illinois Territory to Form a Constitution and
State Government, and for the Admission of Such State into the Union on an Equal Footing
with the Original States,” 18 April 1818, Statutes at Large of the United States 3 (1846):428-31; W. L. Pillsbury, “Early Education in Illinois,” Sixteenth Biennial Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction of the State
of Illinois (Springfield, IL: H. W. Rokker, 1886), 106-7.
Autograph Letter Signed, 2 page(s), Private Collection (Unknown).