During Abraham Lincoln's 1832 campaign for the Illinois legislature, he centered part of his platform on improving the Sangamon River, arguing that such work would be highly desirable and important to local people. When the steamboat Talisman came to demonstrate that the Sangamon could serve as a commercial river, Lincoln and friends from New Salem and Springfield hurried to Beardstown, where they used axes, corn knives, and hooks to clear ice, snags, and low-hanging branches from the river's mouth. They then boarded the Talisman for the trip to Portland Landing above Springfield, and on the return Lincoln served as assistant to pilot J. Rowan Herndon. Lincoln finished eighth among thirteen candidates and lost the election, depriving the Sangamon project of its strongest advocate. By the time he won election to the legislature in 1835, railroad interests had gained the advantage, and construction of the Northern Cross Railroad began in Meredosia in the spring of 1838. Although Lincoln could not make the Sangamon a navigable waterway, he continued to back water transportation projects, including the proposed Beardstown and Sangamon Canal, which would have run parallel to the river and helped make Beardstown a transportation hub by transferring cargo from river steamers to canal boats. Lincoln pressed for the canal through legislation for years, but despite the Illinois and Michigan Canal in northern Illinois, he and his allies failed to win state support, and private promoters never raised enough money to buy land and begin construction. Canal Street in Beardstown remains the only reminder of the Beardstown and Sangamon Canal.