L~N COLN LORE Bulletin of the National Life Foundation • • • • • • • • • Dr. Louis A. Warren, Editor. Published each week by The Lincoln National Life Insurance Company, Fort Wayne, Indiana. Number 415 FORT WAYNE, INDIANA March 22, 1937

THE LINCOLNS-FRONTIERSMEN ALL The same year that the Mayflower land as one of ho.r colonies, Abraham Ohio River into the territory of In­ landed at Plymouth, a boy by the name Lincoln, grandfather of his famous diana, which had that very year, 1816, of Samuel Lincoln was born at old namesake, moved his family across become a new state in the Union. Hingham in . Seventeen years the Allegheny Ylountains into the dark Again the was living la«>r, on June 20, 1637, this boy Sam­ and bloody ground. Pushing on, to out on tbe very frontier of \VeRtern uel disembarked at Boston, not far within a few miles of where the Ohio civilization. , in later from Plymouth Rock. The spirit of River stopped further progress west· years described the country where his adventure which brought him to the ward, and on the very frontier of the Indiana home was located as "a wild new connt.ry may have found expreS· most westward boundary of the Old region with many bears and other sion in the experience of his offspring, Dominion, the pioneer Abraham Lin· wild animals still in the woods!' who soon began to ' con­ migrate to the fron· ~ tinued to be sensitive Uer communities of to the appeal of the America and establish frontier and in 1830, their homes on the Lincoln o o o Child of the Frontier moved on to Illinois very crest of Western and erected another civilization. c.·tbin on the very edge of the great Samuel Lincoln and praric. his wife had a family of eleven children, all Abraham Lincoln, born before Massa­ himself, was a child chusetts became a of the frontier. He Royal Colony. Two of was born in the state their grandchildren, fnrthercst west at the Mordecai and Abra­ time of his birth and ham Lincoln, had mi~ the second state to grated to New JerRey come into the Union within a doren years after the close of the of the time that terri. Revolutionary \V a r. tory was accepted as As a. boy of seven he a Royal Colony. reached the new state of Indiana and at William Penn, the twenty-one, his home founder of Pennsyl­ was located farther \'ania, had been dead west until he was but but twelve years when a short distance from the great Mississippi. moved !rom New Jer­ sey into the new col· Hi~ eyes were still ony named for Penn. on the frontier when The Lincolns set up he advised a young some of the first iron man seeking infor­ mation about a good forges in the state 11 and in the very com­ place to settle, 1 munity where Morde­ think I would go to cai Lincoln's old home Kansas-to Leaven· worth or Atchison." still $tands nre the C Lincoln Ndiond Ufc In•. Co. Map. stacks of a great His last words spoken modern steel plant. to a visitor at the THE EXTENT O F THE NATION AT HIS BIRT H White House just be· About the time Pat­ 1 rick Henry was pre- Fe bru•ry 12, 1809 fore leaving for Ford's senting his argument. Theatre on the fatal in the House of Bur- night of April 14, gess•s at Williams- 1865, referred to the burg, Virginia, against the unjust tax­ coin settled hi" family in Hughes Sta· opportunjties in the far west.. ation of the colonies by England, John tion, near Fort Ncl~on, now Louisville. Lincoln, great. grandfather of the Here in 1786, just ten ycarR after the The year 1937 marks the 300Lh an­ President, moved into the state of Vir­ signin~ of the Declaration of Inde· niversary of the arrival at Boston of ginia beyond the Blue Ridge Moun­ pendcncc, nnd but three years after Abraham Lincoln's first American an­ tains. llis own grandson. Thomas Lin­ the treaty of peace between Great cestor, Samuel Lincoln. Beginning coln, father of President Lincoln, wa,!; Britain and the , the June 20, a series of pageants com­ born in Virginia in 1776, not more grandfather of the President, although memorating this event will be con­ than twf'n•v-live milPs from the birth­ but forty~t\vo years of age, was mas­ ducted in the various plnces where place of Thomas Jefferson. sacred by the Indians. the subsequent generations of Lin­ Ten years before Kentucky was The samo rear that the War of 1812 coln built their homes. These pro­ made a state in the Union and while was concluded, 'fhomns l.incoln, father grams will emphasize the fact that Virginia was still looked upon by Eng· of the President, moved across the the Lincolns were "Frontiersmen All."