Sangamon

The Sangamon River winds through the prairies of central Illinois before joining the Illinois River. Its wooded banks and fertile valley became home to settlements as Americans moved into the region in the early nineteenth century. Among them was New Salem, a small village beside a milldam on the river. In 1831 the young Abraham Lincoln and two companions brought a flatboat down the Sangamon with goods bound for New Orleans. The boat caught on the dam at New Salem before they managed to free it and continue their journey.

The later city of Springfield lies here.