New Salem

[RJNorton]

Assuming this story is true de Fleurville never actually lived in New Salem. He spent just one night there cutting hair.

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FLORVILLE, WILLIAM, was born about 1806, at Cape Haytien (Haiti, West Indies). When the revolution commenced, in 1821 and 22, his god-mother took him to Baltimore, Md., and kept him in St. Mary's Convent until her death, when he was bound by the orphan's court to learn the trade of a barber. He then went to New Orleans, thence to St. Louis, and with others from St. Louis, on a hunting excursion, up the Mississippi, Illinois and Sangamon rivers, to New Salem, then in Sangamon county, arriving in the fall of 1831. It was late in the evening, and as he approached the village he fell in with a tall man, wearing a red flannel shirt and carrying an axe on his shoulder, just returning from his day's labor in the woods. They fell into an easy conversation and walked to a little grocery store together. The tall man was Abraham Lincoln, who soon learned that the stranger was a barber, nearly out of money and aiming to reach Springfield. That was enough to enlist the good will of Mr. Lincoln, who took him to his boarding house, told the people his business and situation. That opened the way for an evening's work among the boarders, and the next morning he started on his way rejoicing, and reached Springfield the second day."

https://archive.org/details/historyofearlyse00powe