Front:
REPLICA
of first
RUTLEDGE & CAMERON
MILL-1829
New Salem, Sangamon County,
Illinois
ERECTED BY
ROBERT CLARY BUCKLEY
4A-H1114
Back:
H. N. SHONKWILER, EXCLUSIVE DISTRIBUTOR, SPRINGFIELD, ILL.
As early as 1828, we are told, two men, John
Cameron and his uncle, James Rutledge, pushing
forward to what was nearly the northermost limit
of civilization, established a mill that was both a
grist and a saw mill upon the Sangamon at this
point. As frequently happened, the mill served as a
nucleus round which a town should be established
and three years later there was added to the cabins
of the two millers a blacksmith shop, two stores, and
several log dwellings. A church which served as a
school house also stood on an adjoining hill.
The site of New Salem, laid out in 1828, is now
a desert. In 1836, it is said to have had twenty
houses and one hundred inhabitants. "How it van-
ished, one writer observes, "like a mist in the
morning to what distant place its inhabitants dis-
persed, and what became of the abodes they left
behind, shall be questions for the local historian."
One of these inhabitants, only twenty-eight years
afterward, became an honored occupant of the
White House.
"C. T. ART-COLORTONE,
MADE ONLY BY CURT TEICH & CO., INC., CHICAGO, U.S.A.
HERE
