"We finished making & launching the boat in about 4 weeks; we loaded the boat with barrell pork; corn & live hogs, and left Sangamon twn." Interview of John Hanks by William H. Herndon, 1865-66, in Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, eds., Herndon's Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998), 457.

Lincoln describes himself as "a strange[r], friendless, uneducated, penniless boy, working on a flat boat—at ten dollars per month."Abraham Lincoln to Martin S. Morris, 26 March 1843, CW, 1:319-21.

"We landed at the New Salem mill about the 19th April and got fast on Rutledges Mill dam." Interview of John Hanks by William H. Herndon, 1865-66, in Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, eds., Herndon's Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998), 457.

Lincoln gets his first view of New Salem. In his address March 9, 1832 he said: "The time at which we crossed the mill dam, being in the last days of April, the water was lower than it had been since the breaking of winter in February, or than it was for several weeks after." Communication to the People of Sangamo County, 9 March 1832, CW, 1:5-9.

Flatboat journey to New Orleans is reported to have taken a month. John Hanks left boat in St. Louis, but Offutt, Lincoln, and Johnston continue to New Orleans and appear to have stayed a month. Lincoln and Offutt may have returned together to Springfield, for license to retail merchandise in Sangamon County is granted Denton Offutt July 8, 1831. Five-dollar fee indicates stock in store was valued at $1,000.Autobiography Written for John L. Scripps, [c. June 1860], CW, 4:60-67; County Commissioners' Record C, 256.