Reviews and Notes 471

lished in Evansville, now in the Library of Congress, among the descendants of the settlers and in the official records pre- served at the county seats and state capital. While the volume is small it is a considerable and reliable addition to our state history. The judge is as relentless in the pursuit of truth in writing history as formerly in the practice of law.

In the Footsteps of the Lincolns, By IDAM. TARBELL. Harper and Bros., 1924, p. 418. The story opens with the settlement in Hingham, Mass., in 1637, of Samuel Lincoln, the great-great-great-great grand- father of Abraham Lincoln. He was a weaver by trade, although in these early times it was necessary for men to know a little of all trades in order to cope with the dangers and hardships that were present in the infant colony. Mor- decai Lincoln, the son of Samuel, chose as his trade black- smithing and moved across the bay to Hull and later to Cohas- set an outgrowth of Hingham. From Massachusetts the story takes us into New Jersey where Mordecai I1 with his brother Abraham settled in Monmouth county. They soon began to acquire property both in Monmouth and Middlesex counties. In 1730 Mordecai I1 bought some 300 acres of land in Berks county, Pennsylvania, on which he built a home and pros- pered, being one of the most prominent men there. John, the son of Mordecai 11, not content to remain on the land in New Jersey, left him in his father’s will bought land in Berks county. In 1768 he bought 600 acres of land in Augusta county, Virginia, and went there to live. From Virginia we follow the family into Kentucky where Abraham Lincoln, the son of John, came to live in 1782 with his wife, Bathsheba, and four children-Mordecai, Josiah, Mary, and Thomas. The exact boundaries of Abraham’s land is not known, although it is known that he owned much land along Green river. While clearing his land one day he was shot by an Indian. In 1793 Bathsheba died and Thomas Lincoln, about whom we are most interested, then spent most of his time with his brother Mor- decai who was living in Washington county. He soon bought some land about 12 miles from Elizabethtown. In 1806 he 472 Indiana Magazine of History

was married to Nancy Hanks and went to live at Elizabeth- town. However, Abraham Lincoln was born on a farm near Hodgenville, where the family had gone to live. Another move took them into Knob Creek valley and some few years later to the free soil of southern Indiana near Rockport. It was here that the mother of Abraham Lincoln died. Eleven years later we find the family in Macon county, Illinois, where Abra- ham started out for himself. The rest of the book is filled with the long, hard struggle through which Abraham Lincoln passed before his final success, a plain, honest, hard working man meeting and solving the battles of life with unflinching courage. We know him as a boatman, a store-keeper, a stu- dent of law, an orator, a member of the legislature, a debator. Everywhere he made friends and kept them. His life of course was not without romance. One of the greatest tragedies of his life was the death of his sweetheart, Ann Rutledge. He was married to Mary Todd in 1842 and settled down in Spring- field. From then on his life was that of a politician. His staunch stand against slavery, his public speeches, his suc- cessful debates against Douglas brought him to the front and made him one of the most prominent men in Illinois. His fame soon spread until Abraham Lincoln was known over the whole country. In 1847 he began his first term in con- gress, after which in 1849 he went back to his law practice. The next ten years of his life were given to successful public work, to the work of “educating Illinois” to the existing con- ditions of the times. In 1860 he was the successful candidate for the Presidency. Here the book leaves him. Ida M. Tarbell is one of the well known Lincoln writers. Some of her other books on this subject are “He Knew Lin- coln,” “Life of Abraham Lincoln,” “In Lincoln’s Chair.” Her material is selected first hand, having made a “pilgrimage” in 1922 for the purpose of collecting material for her work and for correction of former material. More than one former tradition is broken down. She succeeds in clearing up many vague and wrong impressions of the Lincolns. In no in- stance does she make a correction which is not backed by suf- ficient evidence. Her book is written in a clear, readable style. CLYDE JACOBS