Whereas we the undersigned, Samuel Wycoff, and Dennis Forest, the former being owner of the North West quarter of Section Eight, and the latter being owner of the South West quarter of Section Five, both tracts of Township Fourteen North of Range Six West, in Sangamon county, have a dispute concerning a small strip of land, each claiming it, as being part of his tract aforesaid; therefore we submit said dispute to the arbitrament of Abraham Lincoln, who is to hear the evidence adduced by both parties, and thereupon, decide which is the owner of the disputed land, and what line is hereafter to be the dividing line between us, and we hereby mutually bind ourselves in the penal sum of five hundred dollars, as liquidated damages, to abide by the decision he shall make, and each to give and allow the other peacable possession and enjoyment of his own side of the line so to be designated.
Witness our hands and seals this 19th. day of June A.D. 1843.
SAMUEL WYCKOFF
DENNIS FORREST
In pursuance of the above agreement, having fully heard the evidence, I decide that the land in dispute between said Wycoff and Forrest, belongs to said Wycoff, and that the old United States Surveyor's line, beginning at the West end thereof, and running thence Easterly as marked through the timber by said U.S. Surveyor, so