Lincoln Travels To The Capital
1834
Abraham Lincoln traveled past this spot while he served as a state representative in Vandalia. This location marks the route of a road that ran from Vandalia to Springfield, Illinois. Traces of the roadway are still visible today. The roadway ran to the northwest and to the southeast from this location. An obvious depression is visible where the road ran. The growth-pattern of trees on either side also reflects the edge of the original roadway. Traffic on this road was steady but slow. Cumbersome wagons, riders on horseback, and the occasional pedestrian were common sights. There was little or no maintenance of such early roadways. Signage was virtually non-existent, as were roadside amenities, including inns, hotels, or stables. The traveler in this period was truly self-dependent. Lincoln once joked that the reason he wanted to move the capital from Vandalia to Springfield was to avoid traveling on this wearisome road.
On November 28, 1834 at 6:00 A.M., freshman Legislator Abraham Lincoln and five other members of the General Assembly from Sangamon County boarded the stagecoach in Springfield. The seventy-five-mile trip would take them to Vandalia via Macoupin Point and Hillsboro. The stagecoach arrived in Vandalia at 4:00 pm the next day. Travel at this time of year was generally a cold, muddy affair.
Roadways of the early 1800's were very primitive indeed. Some followed old animal trails. Almost all were simply dirt trails from which trees had been removed or cut off. In many instances, tree stumps remained in the roadway. They were cut at a height to allow a wagon to pass over them.
Pictured above is a painting of the building that served as a stop on the overland stage. The building still exists today, and it is located approximately four miles east of the city of Vandalia. This stagecoach stop was situated on the Cumberland Road at the intersection of the Vincennes Trace. While this place would not have been a stop for Abraham Lincoln, inns such as this one would have been located at intervals along the route that he traveled from Springfield to Vandalia.
Courtesy hmdb.org
