The historic New Salem was a short-lived settlement. It was platted in 1829 and was abandoned barely twelve years later. The settlement of New Salem became an abandoned town and then an archaeological site, to all intents and purposes.
New Salem’s claim to fame is that a young Abraham Lincoln lived here between 1831-1837. While living in New Salem 23-year-old Lincoln ran for the Illinois General Assembly in 1832. He won the New Salem precinct but lost the countywide district election. He ran again in 1834 and this time he won. Politics was not the mainstay of Lincoln’s life in New Salem. It is known that he was a shopkeeper, general store owner, postmaster, land surveyor, boatman, and rail splitter. In addition, he went off for three months to serve in the Black Hawk War.
In 1837, Lincoln, along with the rest of the population, left the settlement. Lincoln went to Springfield. Many others went to Petersburg.
In the 1930s and 1940s (during the Great Depression) the Civilian Conservation Corps undertook to recreate the village.
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Critics describe Lincoln’s New Salem as an imaginative or inauthentic exercise. Nevertheless, it is a State Historic Site with a good interpretative center.