LINCOLN IS ADMITTED TO THE BAR.

As soon as the election was over Lincoln occupied himself in settling another matter, of much greater moment, in his own judgment.  He went to Springfield to seek admission to the bar.  The “roll of attorneys and counsellors at law,” on file in the office of the clerk of the Supreme Court at Springfield, Illinois, shows that his license was dated September 9, 1836, and that the date of the enrollment of his name upon the official list was March 1, 1837.  The first case in which he was concerned, as far as we know, was that of Hawthorn against Woolridge.  He made his first appearance in court in October, 1836.

Although he had given much time during this year to politics and the law, he had by no means abandoned surveying.  Indeed he never had more calls.  Surveying was particularly brisk at the moment, and he frequently was obliged to be away for three and four weeks at a time, laying out towns or locating roads.  “When he got a job,” says the Hon. J.M.  Ruggles, a friend and political supporter of Mr. Lincoln, “there was a picnic and jolly time in the neighborhood.  Men and boys would gather around, ready to carry chain, drive stakes, and blaze trees, but mainly to hear Lincoln’s odd stories and jokes.  The fun was interspersed with foot races and wrestling matches.  To this day the old settlers around Bath repeat the incidents of Lincoln’s sojourns in their neighborhood while surveying that town.”

[Illustration:  Ninian W. Edwards., Job Fletcher, Sr., William F. Elkins., Robert L. Wilson., John Dawson.

Members of the Sangamon county delegation in the tenth Illinois assembly—­the delegation known as the “Long nine.”

Ninian W. Edwards was born in Kentucky in 1809, a son of Ninian Edwards, who in the same year was appointed Governor of the new Territory of Illinois.  Mr. Edwards was appointed Attorney-General of Illinois in 1834; in 1836 was elected to the legislature; was reelected in 1838; served in the State Senate from 1844 to 1848, and again in the House from 1848 to 1852.  He was a member of the constitutional convention of 1847.  He died at Springfield, September 2, 1889.

Job Fletcher, Sr., was born in Virginia in 1793; removed to Sangamon County, Illinois, in 1819.  In 1826 he was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives, and in 1834 to the State Senate, where he served six years.  He died in Sangamon County in 1872.

William F. Elkins was born in Kentucky in 1792.  He went to Sangamon County, Illinois, in 1825.  In 1828, 1836, and 1838 he was elected to the legislature.  In 1831 he raised a company for the Black Hawk War, and was its captain.  In 1861 President Lincoln appointed him Register of the United States Land Office at Springfield, an office which he held until 1872, when he resigned.  He died at Decatur, Illinois, 1880.