Nelson, David P.

Flourished: 1832-1833 Sangamon County, Illinois

Nelson was a physician who lived near New Salem, Illinois. When he relocated to Texas, he hired Abraham Lincoln to raft his goods and family down the Sangamon River to Beardstown, Illinois.

James Short to William H. Herndon, 7 July 1865; John McNamar to William H. Herndon, 4 June 1866, Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, eds., Herndon's Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998), 73, 259.