In 1821 the place was chosen to be the county-seat of the newly created Sangamon county and was named Springfield.
Being now twenty-one years of age, Abraham hired himself to Denton Offutt, a migratory trader and storekeeper then of Sangamon county, and he helped Offutt to build a flatboat and float it down the Sangamon, Illinois and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans.
He became a candidate for the Illinois House of Representatives; and on the 9th of March 1832 issued an address "To the people of Sangamon county" which betokens talent and education far beyond mere ability to "read, write and cipher," though in its preparation he seems to have had the help of a friend.
Before the election the Black Hawk Indian War broke out; Lincoln volunteered in one of the Sangamon county companies on the 21st of April and was elected captain by the members of the company.
In May 1833, local friendship, disregarding politics, procured his appointment as postmaster of New Salem, but this paid him very little, and in the same year the county surveyor of Sangamon county opportunely offered to make him one of his deputies.