Lincoln writes and signs petition to county commissioners' court asking for increased allowance for support of Benjamin Elmore, "an absolute mad man."Petition to County Commissioners Concerning Benjamin Elmore, 3 February 1836, CW, 1:47.

Lincoln addresses large crowd promoting Beardstown and Sangamon Canal. Company charter is read and plea for subscriptions delivered.Sangamo Journal, 20 February 1836.

"I hereby certify that the town of Petersburgh has been surveyed according to law, and that this is a correct plat of the same. A. Lincoln." Sangamon County Deed Record, Book I, 293.

[John Bennett, Petersburg hotel keeper in 1836, recalled in 1882 that Lincoln "spent most of the month of March in Petersburg, finishing up the survey and planning the town he had commenced the year before." Osborn A. Oldroyd, ed., The Lincoln Memorial: Album Immortelles (Springfield, IL: Lincoln Publishing, 1890), 558.]

Lincoln buys share of stock in Beardstown and Sangamon Canal, paying $1 down and owing $4. Seventy-eight shares are bought by 65 others, mostly New Salem and Petersburg residents.Photocopy.