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Abraham Lincoln

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Boyhood Stories (2)

Excerpts from newspapers and other sources

From the files of the

Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection Abraham Lincoln's Boyhood i_- IT-'- I "b teacher, and that was himself. When the rest of the Abraham Lincoln passed his boyhooain three places Creek family had gone to bed he would sit up and write and and in three states, lie was born at Nolan's m cypher by the light of the great blazing logs heaped Kentucky, and lived there till he was eight years old. Gentry- up on the open fireplace. So poor were this pioneer Then his father removed to Pidgeon Creek, near Lincoln family that they had no means of procuring paper or in Southwestern Indiana. Here young ville, used to take when the family pencil for the struggling student. Abe lived till he was twenty, a man grown, the back of the broad wooden fire shovel to write on, moved once more to Sangamon Creek, in Illinois. All for pencil. When he had all intents and and a piece of charcoal a his homes were log cabins, and he was to covered the shovel with words or with sums in arith- purposes a pioneer boy. . metic, he would shave it off clean and begin over again. ever began life under less promising auspices No boy If his father complained that the shovel was getting Abraham Lincoln. The family was very than young thin, the boy would go out into the woods and make a father was a shiftless man, who never suc- poor! his new one. As long as the woods lasted, fire shovels and getting ahead in life. Their home was a mere ceeded in furniture were cheap. cabin of the roughest and poorest sort known to log There were few books to read in that frontier cabin. backwoods people. The rude chimney was built on the Poor Abe had not more than a dozen in all. These were was the hardened earth. It outside, and the only floor Pilgrim's Progress, Aesop's Fables, wig- Robinson Crusoe, was not so good and comfortable as some Indian the Bible, and a small history of the United States. The Of course, the food and clothes and beds of a wains. boy read these books over and over till he knew a great family living in this way were of the miserable kind. deal of them by heart, and could repeat whole pages pioneer families in the The family lived as did most from them. Their bread was made of corn backwoods of Indiana. One book that made a' great impression upon him of wild game meal. Their meat was chiefly the flesh was "Weems' Life of Washington." This book he bor- Pewter plates and wooden shot or trapped in the woods. rowed of a neighbor, who loaned it to him on the con- the table. The drinking cups trenchers were used on dition of his returning it in as good a condition as he was no stove, and all the cooking do. were of tin. There received it. And this the young student intended to Abe's bed was done over the fire of the big fireplace. But one night there was a great storm, and it rained of leaves freshly gathered every was simply a couch down in the cabin and seriously injured the precious two or three weeks. volume. Lincoln was very much troubled and informed At that time Indiana was still part of the wilder- the neighbor of what had happened. The surly old a state. ness. It had just been admitted to the Union as man told him that he must give him three days' work Primeval woods grew up close to the settlement at shucking corn, and that then he might keep the book Pidgeon Creek, and not far away were roving bands for his own. It was the first book that Lincoln ever of Indians, and also wild animals—bears, wildcats and owned. No one knows how many times he read it panthers. These animals the settlers hunted and made through. Washington was his ideal hero, the one great use of for food and clothing. Young Abe and his man whom he admired above all others. How little he brothers and sisters spent the larger part of their time could have dreamed that in the years to come his own out of doors. They hunted and fished and learned the name would be coupled with that of the Father of his habits of the wild creatures, and explored the far re- Country by admiring countrymen. forgot, cesses of the woods. The forest lore Abe neyer By the time the lad was seventeen, he could write a tough and the life and training made him vigorous and good hand, do hard examples in arithmetic, and spell trials and able to endure in after days the troubles and better than any one else in the country. Once in awhile man. that would have broken down many a weaker he would write a little piece of his own about something what Lincoln was fortunate in his mothers. His own which interested him. Some times he would read would clap mother died when he was eight years old, but she had he had written to the neighbors, when they world what Abe done her best to start her boy in the world. Once she their hands and exclaim: "It beats the to said to him: "Abe, learn all you can, and grow up writes!" something and be of some account. You've got just as good Virginian So Lincoln was all the time learning Perhaps the blood in you as George Washington had." Abe never trying to make use of what he did know. fact that in whatever forgot this. Years afterwards he said, "All that I am great success of his life lay in the did his best. The or ever hope to be, I owe to my blessed mother." His position he was placed he always small stepmother, Sarah Bush, was a kind-hearted, excellent time when the boy could no longer stay in the tried life on woman, and did all she could to make the poor, ragged surroundings of Pidgeon Creek came. He barefooted boy happy. She was always ready to listen one of the river steamboats, then he served as a clerk- he began at odd mo- when he read, to help him with his lessons, to encourage in a store at New Salem, where practicing him. After he had grown up and become famous, she ments to study law. In a short time he was were talking of said of him: "Abe never gave me a cross word or look, his profession, and people in the West what a future he and never refused to do anything I asked of him. Abe the tall, lank young lawyer and of was the best boy I ever knew." had before him. was the humble boyhood of Abraham Lincoln, There was a backwoods schoolhouse quite a distance Such simplicity and the hardships he endured away, which Abe attended for a short time. These log but its very overcame made him a strong man, a successful man. school houses in Lincoln's day had large fireplaces, m and when he came to be President and the leader of which there was a great blazing fire in the winter. The Later, Nation through a great civil war, we find that it was boys of the school had to chop and bring in the wood a of these same qualities of perseverance and courage and for the fire. The floor of such a schoolhouse was which enabled him to triumph over difficulties rough boards hewn out with axes. The schoolmasters fidelity the saviour of a Great Republic. His life were generally harsh, rough men, who did not know and become and an inspiration to all aspiring boys."— very much themselves. Abe soon learned to read and is a lesson Myron Colby, in United Presbyterian. write, however, and after awhile he found a new Frey ,

Boon, who came from Kentucky, settled two EARLY INFLUENCES ON LINCOLN. Ratliff miles from the town of Boon. He became a power in much has been said about Abraham Lincoln, in- i So politics, was elected to Congress eight different times boyhood life in Indiana, that it has seemed eluding his from the district in which the Lincolns resided, was more was to be learned, but Judge Roscoe that nothing elected Lieutenant Governor twice and filled out the the Circuit court of the Second Ju- Kiper, formerly of unexpired term of Governor. Daniel Grass, another in Indiana, comes, forward in a recent dicial district man of high political standing and a member of the Kiwanis magazine and presents the number of the constitutional convention held at Corydon in 1S16, was different light from that in which youth Lincoln in a frequently in Gentryville. Drill contests for the state biographers place him. most of his militia on muster days were held at Boonville and were ' biographers have dwelt upon his lack of Nearly all events of great importance. Ratliff Boon, Daniel Grass hunger for books, school education and his unsatisfied and William Prince were leading spirits in these con- conditions being ascribed to the primitive condi- these tests. Lincoln went to Boonville to see these drills and and to his father's poverty. The tions of the region another attraction there was John A. Breckenridge, who, conveyed that his reading was impression has been Judge Kiper believes, had more to do with attracting three books which he borrowed from confined to two or the attention of Lincoln to the study of law than any had practically no advan- the neighbors, and that he other man and probably influenced his life in that re- intellectual sort until alter he left Indiana. tages of an gard. It is well authenticated that he frequently visited on - protests against this belief Which, Judge Kiper the home of Breckenridge and borrowed law books which Lincoln was 7 years old the face of it, is improbable. he read and returned. Whether or not he was ever in parents and he lived when he came to Indiana with his personal communication with all these men, he was years—the really formative years in the state fourteen under their influence to some extent. He was un- that he could at once of life. It is entirely unlikely doubtedly influenced by the pioneer preachers and the qualities of mind that distinguished have developed the honest and honorable character of the majority of the neighbors in Illinois had he been the him among his settlers. with a wholly un- ordinary unlearned country boy Judge Kiper believes that the opportunities Lincoln undeveloped character. Judge Kiper, trained mind and had of coming in contact with and observing some of region and its history, pre- who is familiar with the the greatest and strongest minds of the state in his argument that while sents facts which support the youth developed certain qualities of mind and character little acquaintance with the world young Lincoln had in after life which bear strong similarity to the ideals journeyed to another state to seek his when, at 21, he of the community in which he lived, and that many of mental and moral equipment that fortune, he had a his outstanding characteristics, his open mind and free- for his later life. was a good foundation dom of thought, his tenderness of soul were laid deep the poverty which was his early It is asserted that In his nature during the nascent period of his life while not the poverty of the lazy and shift- environment was living in Indiana. It is a reasonable conclusion. That less, such as is found in crowded communities, but that concerning the greatest man of our time has of the pioneer in a new country who had much to con- this view presented before may be explained in part at tend with. Thomas Lincoln, it is shown, was neither not been the fact that outsiders who have written of lazy nor shiftless. He was a carpenter of unusual least by could not know of the character of the men men- ability and was employed by the trustees of the First him Kiper as undoubted influences as a Baptist Church at Troy, afterward Gentryville, to con- tioned by Judge knew the temper and spirit and struct the doors, window frames and pulpit. He be- writer could do who people of Lincoln's time and locality. came a member of that church by letter from his Ken- traditions of the this 111 " tucky church, was afterwards trustee and was fre- It is well to have these traditions, ^^S'jJ^ it too late. quently sent as a delegate to other church organiza- written history, saved before is ^.^ % - "2."] tions. New settlers kept coming in rapidly and by the time Abraham Lincoln was 16 schools were established in the locality. In one, three miles from the Lincoln home, the rudiments of English were taught. Another was built on the same section of land near the Lincoln home. Men by the name of Bryant, Crooks, Watson and Price were teachers in these schools and it is well authenticated that Lincoln attended them. There were men of unusual quality in the region along the Ohio beyond the town of Gentryville. There was Corydon, the capital, thirty-five miles from the Lin- coln home, and much talk about statehood, with the question of slavery agitated. The towns of Newburgh, Boonville and Evansville were beginning to flourish. The Lincoln home was on the main traveled highway. John Pitcher, one of the great lawyers of southern Indiana, lived at Rockport, the county seat of Spencer county. He had an unusual library and it is said that young Lincoln on his visits to the town, when he brought in farm products to the boat landing at Rockport to be shipped down the river, often called at Pitcher's office and that the lawyer had a great liking for the youth. In after years on a visit to the town Lincoln looked for the place where Pitcher had his office. —

The Evangel ic al -Me s sanger

February 11, 1928.

i "Where did you get the new book, Abraham?" we Visiting Lincoln, the Boy j i] ask. He tells us he borrowed the book in a neighboring j

Groff Deihl, in !: town, and that one stormy night the rain had beat be- By Edna Exchange ;

j! tween the logs of the cabin and flooded the volume, and Most great things have had small beginnings. We he had sadly carried it back to its owner and worked seldom see the giant oak, without recalling the tiny acorn. three days at twenty-five cents a day to make the ruined So Abraham Lincoln, the wonderful man, the friend book his own. of the oppressed and the great President, started his life "It's a wonderful book," says Abe, his eyes shining in a small way in the little old log cabin in Kentucky. into ours. "It's wonderful to be a man like that! I've Let us go back to the year 1816 and visit a similar other books, too," he adds proudly. "I have 'Aesop's cabin in Indiana. The cabin has neither doors nor win- Fables,' ' Robinson Crusoe' and 'Pilgrim's Progress,' and dow glass. There is no furniture but a few stools, a rude I know now that there's a great, wide, wonderful world table made of logs; and a bed made of dried leaves, on waiting for me. The other day," he continues, "I was a dirt floor. Sitting with his pale-faced mother, and his makin' some noise, and an old colored woman says to sister Sarah and good-hearted, though rather do-little me, 'Now, Abe, what on earth d'ye suppose will ever father, is an awkward boy of eight, whose name we learn become of ye?' I answers, 'Well, I reckon I'm goin' from the neighbors is Abraham, or as he is called, Abe ! to be the President of the United States some day ' En Lincoln. ! I reckon I am " he adds with a steady, twinkling eye. "How did you come to live in this out-of-the-way Time passes and once more we visit Abraham. We Indiana home ? " we ask the boy, who seems to be rather ' find that he is " living out ' —hoeing, planting and chop- embarrassed at our presence, but whose bright face lights ping wood for the farmers around his home; tending up as he tells us of wearily cutting a way through thick babies, telling stories, reciting poems for the farmers' woods from a similar cabin in Kentucky. We next ask wives; wrestling and jumping with the farmers' children him where he goes to school and what books he studies. —yet all the while studying the few books he has to which At this question his face clouds, as he tells us of a vague he gradually keeps adding such as "Plutarch's Lives" ambition to attend a school some miles away, if only for and the "Life of Benjamin Franklin." He studies the a few months. He shows us his one book—the Bible people with whom he comes in contact and thus learns which his good mother had used for reader and instruc- to know the different types of the human family. But tion guide of every kind. We marvel as he tells us many although he lives among these people he never joins in things and quotes beautiful truths, which even we twen- their wild debaucheries or drinks their poisoning liquors.

' tieth-century folk, with our Sabbath schools and libra- Our visits are over; the curtain drops. Abraham's

ries, do not know the great Book contains. boyhood is a thing of the past. He is eighteen years j Several years have passed. Again we visit the same old and his real career as a storekeeper, lawyer and cabin, but it is greatly changed. In place of the pale- speech-maker has commenced. The war with Black faced mother, is another woman, an energetic soul, who Hawk, the chief of the Sacs, breaks out, and young | three ! mothers Abraham joyfully and well, in spite of the Abraham becomes a volunteer. On and up he climbs other children she has brought with her. The pale-faced until he stands at the head of our nation—the great one has gone to brighter realms. The new mother brought liberator, the kind pardoner, the beloved emancipator with her unheard-of elegance to the boy—tables, bed- of the negro race. is home- ding, a chair and even a bureau ! There a more In all our admiration for the great man, we never like air about the rude cabin, and Abraham is poring over lose sight of the boy who was a real boy, who struggled T a new book, "The Life of W ashington, " with eager as one of the least of us, and became one of the greatest. eyes bulging, and heart beating underneath a worn jacket, as he reads of the achievements of a wonderful 1931 The Journal -Gazette , February 12,

0 — Indiana that Abe began to eloquent Whig It was in 1830 that Henry Clay, the and poetry, the first young Abe away Lincoln in Indiana write compositions orator, began to vamp author of the letter experiments of the from the politics of his fathers. greatest prophet could not have Gettysburg Address Gentry- The to Mrs. Bixby, the William Jones, storekeeper at foretold when Abraham Lincoln arrived Inaugural. took the Louis- and the Second ville, was a Whig and in Indiana late in 1816 that he was des- speakers he heard were the much space The first ville Journal, which, devoted tined to he the most distinguished hu- preachers. His step* Lincoln read early Indiana to the speeches of Clay. man being who ever lived on Hoosier declared that at the ago of an ardent mother later this newspaper which was home from internal im- soil. 15 Abraham could come supporter of Clay, and the Lincoln word for word- brilliant j Two horses carried Thomas church and repeat almost provemeat plans of the most household equipment j had beard. western country and his family and the eermons that be political leader of the to make their new year be also as they left Kentucky Abput bis fifteenth fired Lincoln with enthusiasm. Spencer climbing on a Lincoln home among the forests of started the practice of Just a fortnight before the enter* this state. Little Abe, who was field and talking so to make its home in county, stump in the family left Indiana j

rode behind his workers would in the Louis- I in hie eighth year, tainingly that bis fellow Illinois, Abraham had read and sister were and listen. His reply of Daniel father. His mother quit their toil to come ville Journal of the great horse. Cooper union of South mounted on the other first preparation for the Webster to Robert Y. Hayne, The first Lincoln home in Indiana was speech. Carolina. some source, Grim- 'Onion— new a three-sided shelter which was utterly He obtained from The idea of a strong a United States. It It was devoid $1 comfort and convenience. The shaw's History of the nationalism—was in the air. stimulating history pub- was refreshing forests around were full of wild animals. waa the most rather a big idea. It The first chapter young man. The swamps were full of mosquitoes and lished at that time. and a tonic. It appealed to a which had been frogs. Death l*irked in the stagnant explained the advances [Lincoln embraced It. and navi- arrived ' geography he pools. made in astronomy, In February, 1830, the year taking up the discovery vears, Illinois received The Lincoln family spent 14 years in gation, before at the age of 21 and its subsequent develop- son the native Kentuck- Indiana and a crude frontier though it of America as her adopted to ster- ment. Indiana had done to much seems to us, it was anything but a ian, whom of the 1 secured a copy keen, active mind The boy also prepare for his destiny. ile environment to the j

them i Revised Laws of Indiana and read of Abraham Lincoln. also i as his first etudy of the law. He It was in this state that he made Boonville, a distance of about and received walked to many of the contacts prosecuting 14 miles, to hear a brilliant many of the impressions which deter- attorney named John A. Brackenridge mined his course in later years. In fact speak before the juries of Warrick his stay in Indiana seems definitely to county. have fixed hie destiny, He used to hear Ratliff Boone make Hanks Lincoln, his mother, Nancy speeches as a candidate for congress died in 1818 of a mysterious disease from the Lincoln district. which the settlers called "milk sick- Indiana He was still a resident of told what a ness." No ona need be first trip to New Or- 1 when be took his deep impression that tragic event made was leans on a flat boat. New Orleans upon the mind of a sensitive child. it the largest oity he had ever seen and Thomas world In 1819, near' Christmas time, was so far away from home. The with Lincoln returned from Kentucky must be a whopper. That trip on the was Sarah Bush imagination and a new wife. Her name flat boat stirred bis Johnston. She immediately set to work made him long to be a part of the great and to improve the cabin home, to wash world of affairs. comb and dress the children, and to Another change of great importance the entire place in In- make life more pleasant for in the Lincoln career took family. If there was ever a woman who diana. The Lincolns were all Andy brought glory to the name of "step- Jackson Democrats, and right proud of mother" it was Sarah Lincoln. their politics. between 1S28- But we had almost forgotten to tell It was during the years what this woman, who could not read, brought with her. She brought Robin- son Crusoe, Pilgrim's Progress, Sinbad the Sailor, Aesop's Fables, and probably a profit a, Bible. What a pleasure and these books proved to be for young A^be! Nights of Reading on Gentryville Farm Made Lincoln Mental Giant

(In a recent article in The Star Andrew M. Sweeney, 312 East Thirteenth street, former president of the State Life Insurance Company, told of hearing from a boyhood companion of Abraham Lincoln recollections of Lincoln's efforts to educate himself. In the following Mr. Sweeney presents further Lincoln observations.) / j' -j—L

I hope I do not tire your good readers with my Lincolniana, but I would like our school children to get a glimpse 4f tae school desk that Abe Lincoln, our greatest American, had to use. It was circular in form and had neither legs, lid, seat, inkwell, nor hinges; it never saw paint nor varnish, and had only one opening at one end. In other words, it was a six-foot hollow log, about three feet in diameter, in which Lincoln had to store his books, almanacs and papers to save them from rain or rodents.

When it rained hard in hot weather backwoodsman in middle life eclips- he and his pal Jimmy would divest, ing all the literary giants of the Eng- lish tongue by the unmistakable evi- push their scant duds into the dry dences he displayed of having ex- school desk and take a shower bath traordinary mental powers. from the clouds which was distilled in gentle rain. They sat on top of Placed in False Light. the desk while studying. Compare it This inconsistency is the result of with your beautiful desks, fash- the false light in which his father ioned so as to prevent curvature of the spine. had placed him in youth, and which the world accepted as true. I now Career Challenging. am vain enough to think that Uncle When Abe came to that part of In- Jimmy and my modest self have diana 117 years ago it was then very helped shed a truer light upon the close to being "nowhere," but by al- most superhuman efforts we see him real Abe. jump from there to the White House Uncle Jimmy insisted that Abe himself of real —to ''everywhere," we might say. tried hard to make worth. I insist that those fourteen We must admit it was a marvelous Gentryville, to feat. From "nowhere" to almost years at from 7 21, ''everywhere," from poverty, igno- were the crucial, formative years of life, every life. rance and obscurity, from a flatboat his and are of boy's expe- man to be President and direct the I remember them in my own rience, too. destiny of the greatest nation in the also, is great world, his career seems to challenge The mental tissue, a I thought that a veracity and trench upon the miracu- factor and always tiber the convolu- lous. gold permeated tions of Abe's cranial nerve centers, Uncle Jimmy Grigsby said it was so that they easily took on polish. no use to go to the Lincoln cabin to It is said that the rougher the brain visit in the evening, as he tried it suriace the stronger the mind, several times. "The parents went to bed early and when they were asleep Kule Works. Abe would pull a bundle of old quilts Well, if Abe's cranial interior were or a big sack of dry leaves or straw | of angular exteri- and spread it on the clay floor in a counterpart his front I of the bright fireplace and open or, then the rule works, and no won- the borrowed Bible and then it was der he was an apt student, even in 'goodnight' for me. was then I He the forest college near Gentryville. lost to the world. I have reserved for the last of this "I could not see how his head article what I think was the crown- didn't get melted or scorched," said ing glory of Abe's career and what Uncle Jimmy. He would lie there afforded him the power of garment-

an I read for hours. He would some- > jng his naturally receptive mind with times drop the open book on his the supreme, sublime thoughts of the chest, to rest his arms, look up to- richest and rarest portions of the ward the clapboard roof and keep Bible. No man can do that earnestly mumbling something, till I got tired without being rewarded, for it is the and left without his seeing me go world's choicest literature, and with nor missing me. Next day he would this he impregnated and tinctured ask why I slipped away so suddenly. his intellect. I think he was lucky not to be bothered much with other "Loved That Bible." books. "He loved that Bible." It was the careering of his hungry intellect with and through the splen- This all goes to show his great will | dors of the proverbs of Solomon the power, his persistency, his determi- wisest; in humming the psalms of nation to wage a relentless warfare David the King; by conning the let- with the irony of a bitter fate, to ters and epistles of St. Paul, and conquer or die. weighing the wonderful wisdom of 1 have dwelt often during the past the parables of the Savior that dow- sixty-three years upon what Uncle ered his keen intellect with the vivid Jimmy told me so minutely regarding scintillations of genius, and peopled Abe. I have read a few of the hun- his imagination with highest Chris- dreds of books and thousands of es- tian principles and love for all suffer- says upon his life. As far as my ing human kind. humble analysis can sift them, Abe's It was there, at Gentryville, I biographers are always groping, as think, he caught the nascent mental it were, to find a base for consist- germs, of which the gleams from his ency or sweet reasonableness in the coruscation at Gettysburg were the paradox of a young, lazy, ignorant fruitings. BOYHOOD DAYS LINCOLN'S after also In bronze, as it once looked, the gooo people around Rockporl old creeds, and to write are lo And The whole " Interfered with, That they to know II had been overhauled- t°t °t burled I who learned platforms. ol St. Johns and Boonvllle, (By Rev. A. Dump, pastor himself, and iorth and improve ihelr condi- piece is said to be weighing 8 l< made by Thomaa Lincoln go him belter, were not alow In helping Lincoln Deeply Touched .Evangelical church al Gary, inn., trying to illus- at a cos on a nearby hill, her tion as 1 have beeu soon came and was cast in Munich Press Club In a grave dug him along. Bui the time that who attended the annual given lo It Is Impossible to conceive dead hones were laid to rest. During trate Is the inherent right youth, with a coon- $16,000. City last year and when the tall bony of the chief picnic al Lincoln no stone directly by the Maker. Does this spot, which is about a Lincoln, who became one picnic again the lifetime of her husband mankind skin cap on his head and clad lu who hopes to he al the In in this awakening, was not placed to mark this The homely wisdom expressed al- mile north of the Nancy Hanks gr actors subject o( this ar- or board was homemade trousers, which were this year. The learned by him, bo honored as a Lincoln deeply touched by life. Lincoln History spot. The gravestone which marks these sayings was deserve to be | ticle Is "A Study In for the of his closest battles — of today, bears this inscrlp- when he hiinselt. worked as a hired shrine? Was it holy ground After one His Birthday" and II Is sucli a this grave more In ihe Pigeon Creek settlement lor twelve dollars who slept there, and ilch he had not a few—he Is reported ihought il laborer, (or eight and year, boy who ate and Bplendld article lhat we In his seventeenth confession to one of Press Lincoln, month. married who always returned to this lowly have made this would be appropriate for this Nancy Hanks per Sarah, then aged cabin, as a homing pigeon? If this he b intimate friends. edition.—The Editor.) Mother of President Lincoln Learns to Argue Grigsby, son >t a farmer, and Club Aaron mostly lhat there is a God, and IS13—Aged 35 years setlle- so. the credit for It belongs "I know October 5, These sayings also show, that he one of the important nen in the slav- n, of which In later years he lhat He hates Injustice and Erected by a friend of her son lh> years lat ;r. Sarah Grlgsby learned how to argue with ment. Two coming and 1 think, that she had been bis best friend ery, I see the storm At that time, If we 3top and them to childbirth, Abraham. people, and how to swuy died Id Is in It. If He son had its world, and that no son could know lhat his hand when the mother left him. her Making contact grieving sorely, blamed Aaron Grigs way of thinking. has a place and an interest. See- his. no friends, who took different surroundings, he learned by, and the Grlgsby family, for time, when his own mother He -1 I ing that he had been born as a fine learned he thought was that like the people, and they sister's death, which but truth Is have been taken back stricken by thai fatal plague lhat thing, eHild, he should him, mostly because ol his v due to neglect. like the land of the everything. I know that I am to Kentucky to go to school. That the antagonism quickly look her from to entertain and lo inform them. Thus was Ignited that liberty married was In- living, there lived in Kentucky a young right because I know girl which he later store at Oenlryvllle, Abralham and the GrLgsby In the country between Christ teaches It, and of the dis- woman whose maiden name was Sarah Is right, tor Tbehind him also his law part- structed in all the wisdom hoys, which soon broke out In an open Bush. young husband had died, Christ Is God. I have told them destined to be- tinguished families of Kentucky. But with is usually Her ner, Herndon. who was le often gathered quarrel. Neighbors, a house divided against itself he later as a man. met for that a come his biographer. Lincoln, when hoys, who era vet" case, took sides In th i fight, and It agreed and Christ and reas- in debate, had to And after was cannot stand, Giant" i "Billy" the "Little he made many ft'Ii the lime being, even When Lincoln first met companionship to her outstanding s.ay the same, and they will find aamit:admit: "I have no fine education." threatened that he was pay on Herndon, he was a clerk in a store at; Here, because of his trustworthl 'Pigeon Creek church was whether debts, she entered a second marriage It so. Douglas don't care Thomas Lincoln, the father confidence of James it The Grigsbys keen but agreeable bey , to be disturbed by Kr,ringheld. a father. slaver Is voted up or voted down, the < with Lincoln's Having the aristocracy : back- everyone liked. were of but God carea and humanity cares, t i 1 Arrives grant privilege At a llio In a house of I Stepmother educaiiou, himself Cartel' township, and owned wood, and lived I college and I care, and with God's help, early age, he was farmed out when this n of hewed logs, and household goods were loaded on Induced to study law. And ; and acres of land. And stories, built Her see the bread shall not fall. I may not hired laborer, to earn his daily flatboat trip has always retained drawn by tour borses, and admllted to i , Lincoln hired him to make a Lincoln cabin a wagon shall had been farming, end. but It will come, and I he by the toil of his hands, in his son, Allen, he rude form. hauled to Pigeon creek. But when found in him that partnei Lhat New Orleans with original vindicated and theae men will grubbing and making fences. as poor more Into be all the rrlenda, that accepted the chance Lo get a glimpse Thomas Lincoln remained this was done, she brought needed. Of Hint find that they have not read their president, Good School For large, beyond Gentry as he had been In Ken- the Lincoln cabin than these things worked for him to become of the world at In Indiana Bibles aright." all, these years of hard la- loyal lo But after Hockport and Boonvllle. After his second marriage which made it look more decent, more uo one was more faithful and ville, beyond tucky. Friends, today we are not concerned bor were a good school for him. He small villages. In the family to be to live in; she brought Lincoln than "Billy" Herndon. And which were then only there were nine like a home acquitted himself, when objection in that his earnings the how Lincoln other, did not sever found no Grandvlew on the Ohio, h supplied with food. Thai took all with her that experience thai made parting from each exacted At this storm that he foresaw came. We should go to his father, who by 111 farm, which member ot the old Pi- the connections lhat existed between worked for a prosperous farmer earnings, and the 1 her an active of his years until the boy have searched the records as his legal right, dollars ; was built for more than twenty years. them name of David Turnharn, who as he bad bought for an geon Creek church, which the iwo j Here hla beginning was as tweniy-one years of age. But he to- In Indiana. After Lincoln's tragic death, shortly was Justice of the Peace, owned him. That in the year of her coming. And has a humble as that of Moses, who was Hern- also learned that every man the Stale of Indiana. to Increase the mutual gether with her, there also came a :j helped alter his second Inauguration, vised Laws of [alnly drawn out of the water. Here the who were right to enjoy, that which he volume, that wt - loaned that hod sprung up between Holy Blhle Into the Llncola cabin. don began to work for us, Through this dislike foundations for his future greatness t Ol 1 Bible have the generation to come. Lincoln to him, he gained a fair knowledge of And s What Influence did this then | he formed those prin right to make a slave of having Lincoln? was laid. Here did not only serve those who beard the elements of law and government. Thomas on the character of young whlcl " he ni ciples for which he stood and i a speech, that often resolved tc Scriptures as a his voice and grasped his hands, we At Rockporl, where Abraham heard good reports, Did he search the silently heard his he defended. Here he __ Kentuckians In later years, acquaintance of Illinois. revelation? Did they Inspire him as i made the for went, he 'Indiana the voice of the Unseen who spoke to guments on this point were these; 1-S30. when he I order first resident attor- irlng of John Bunyan, And John Pitcher, ihe they Inspired Is i Moses; '"I am that I am. That my 1 Herndon : hold prosecutor of Spencer drawn by two yoke of bla Pilgrims Progress? Was theae that this might be possible, ney and later clumsy wagon wrote forever, memorial to all be proved to be the : name and my we heard and know thing that can Pitcher had a good library moved out of the backwoods reading that he did profitable to m told us, what nature county. generation." wonderful will of God by the external Lincoln entered Gentryvllle, Indiana doctrine? Or did his reading l v about bis strength and his and through Its use, hamlet of lor ; Lincoln, reference to So then Its not Abraham around us without world hltn- womi r chll- lo Improve his lit- the material for I of books, a wagon three serve this purpose works. Gathering Into the world but its the hand ot the unseen God revelation. IL Is the proposition wrote, extended over a period closed to him, well nlgb uo- found room, ai erary style? After Moses had written what he I erto dren which he try lo see in his lite and in household effecis of famllles he said: of many years. I known, indeed. He * with bis hands and by the sweat of phase behind there were uvt doctrine shall Write Life i Lincoln Beading was the outstanding In front and "My doctrine—my spake unto in peace. In the hands of Him. who his brow, he shall enjoy as a horse and another rain, speech shall Herndon ecame somewhat life at this time. Much men one riding drop ae the my ' "When Almighty has of Lincoln's his people Israel by the voice ot Green- I say whereas God other youths, he gjant ot a man, 6 feel. 4 Inches as the dew, as the small rain advanced In years, man from he loved pranks with a young distil Moses, ''Fear not. stand still, and see given every man one mc and lose angular aud awkward as hi the tender plant, and as the ! Welk, caslk. Indiana, Jes w. would forego their Jollity in height, upon the salvation of the Lord." Passing fed, and one pair of hand 5 adapted goad, the of I on which drove With gentle upon the grass." to his assistance in the preparation himself In some new volume, was tall, showers through Indiana ou his way lo Wash- lo furnish food for thai mouth. If Idled oxen. A dog walked dispute as to the ex two volumes, which have so greatly 'he chanced. While other boys slow and sleepy "There Is sharp slopping at Indianapolis, anything can be proved lo be the ington and our common treasure Of facta their lime, says a companion, by his side."—T3everldge. tent ol his reading of the Bible"— enlarged by away he, himself, said these words; "I am will of Heaven, it Is proved .Harked his star began It and Information, A man from Green- Lincoln was studying his books. He Cabin Sile Beveridge. When instrument to serve is to be but an accidental chil- this fact that that mouth his books, followed the trail, which in Springfield, people only ftf.1l castle, Indiana. Not only those read and thoroughly reread Many have rise I appeal to you hands, without being ror a limited (time and In Illinois, but fed by those the Llncolns and the Hanks fam- that would some day be a very sue dren, that were born while we played, took he to constantly bear in mind lhat with Indiana have reason interfered by home exhausted, he farther away from ce3sfui lawyer, not more! After hli we. who live in I The books at ily you and not with politicians, not with for more. died, his wife b. to celebrate Lincoln's birthday. roamed the countryside son Edward Presidents, not with office seekers, cabin, ly^rrh I 14 formative years of his friend, William Jones, the of the orlglnul Lincoln member of the Presbyterian " During the Lincoln's " 1,111 w,tl you the ne °P le ls B

Bulletin of the Lincoln National Life Foundation ------Dr. Louis A. Warren, Editor. Published each week by The Lincoln National Life Insurance Company, of Fort Wayne, Indiana.

No. 370 FORT WAYNE, INDIANA May 11, 1936

MY EARLY ADVENTURES IN ILLINOIS—A. LINCOLN

I was raised to farm work, which I continued until I David Rutledge, Michael Plaster, John Mounce, William was twenty-two. At twenty-one I came to Illinois, Macon Hohimer, Isaac Anderson, William Marshall, William County, where my father and family settled. Here we Cummins, John Jones, Travice Elmore, William Foster, built a log cabin into which we removed, and made suffi- Nathan Drake, Robert S. Plunkett, William T. Sprouce, cient of rails to fence 10 acres of ground. Fenced and broke William Clary, Jacob Heaverer, Isaac Guliher. the ground, and raised a crop of sown corn upon it the Samuel M. Thompson, 1st Lieut., resigned April same year. These are or are supposed to be, the rails 30; John Brannen, 2nd Lieut., absent on extra duty; George about which so much is being said just now, though these Foster, 3rd Sergt., transferred to a foot company, are far from being the first or only rails ever made by W. me. April 29th; Obadiah Morgan, 4th Sergt., absent on fur- lough; John Plaster, 2nd Corp., resigned May 20, and the celebrated deep snow in During the winter of very served as a private since; John Erwin, private, promoted Illinois, D. Johnston, John Hanks, and I hired our- John to 3rd Sergeant in room of G. W. Foster, April 29; Wil- Beards- selves to Denton Offutt to take a flatboat from liam Kirkpatrick, private, promoted from the ranks, April Illinois, to Orleans and for that purpose were town, New 30; Hugh Armstrong, private, promoted to 1st Lieuten- join Offutt Springfield, Illinois, so soon as the snow to at ant, April 30; David Rankin, private, transferred to a off. it did off the first of March, should go When go about foot company, May 19th; Richard Jones, private, pro- 1831, the country was so flooded as to make traveling by moted from the ranks, May 2; Michael Plaster, private, difficulty purchased land impractical; to obviate which we absent without leave; John Mounce, private, absent with- the River in it. a large canoe and came down Sangamon out leave; John Jones, private, absent without leave; first entrance into This is the time and manner of my William Foster, private, transferred to a foot company, Sangamon County. April 29; William T. Sprouce, private, from the ranks, We found Offutt at Springfield but learned from him May 2. that he had failed in getting a boat at Beardstown. This led to our hiring ourselves to him for twelve dollars per I went the campaign, served near three months, met month each and getting the timber out of the trees and the ordinary hardships of such an expedition, but was in building a boat at old Sangamon Town on the Sangamon no battle. I had a good many bloody struggles with the River seven miles northwest of Springfield. In company mosquitoes and although I never fainted from the loss of with others I commenced the building of a flatboat and blood, I can truly say I was often very hungry. I bent a finished and took her out in the course of the spring. musket pretty badly on one occasion—by accident. I did Since that time I have been concerned in the mill at New not break my sword for I had none to break. I was not at Salem. The time at which we crossed the mill-dam being Stillman's defeat but I saw the place very soon after- the last days of April, the water was lower than it had wards. I now own in Iowa land upon which my own war- been since the breaking of winter in February or than it rents for the service were located. was for several weeks after. The principal difficulties we Returning from the campaign and encouraged by my encountered in descending the river were from the drifted great popularity among my neighbors, the same year ran timber which obstructions all know are not difficult to be for the legislature and was beaten—my own precinct, removed. We took the boat to New Orleans, substantially however, casting its votes 277 for and 7 against me upon the old contract. Hanks had not gone to New Or- that too while I was an avowed Clay man and the pre- leans but having a family and being likely to be detained cinct the autumn afterward given a majority of 115 to from home longer than he first expected had turned back General Jackson over Mr. Clay. This was the only time I at St. Louis. was ever beaten by a direct vote of the people. In July, 1831, I stopped indefinitely for the first time, I was now without means and out of business, but was as it were by myself in New Salem. Here I rapidly made anxious to remain with my friends who had treated me acquaintances and friends. In less than a year Offutt's with so much generosity, especially as I had nothing business was failing—had almost failed—when the Black elsewhere to go to. I studied what I should do thought Hawk War of 1832 broke out. — of learning the blacksmith trade—thought of trying to surprise, I joined a volunteer company, and, to my own study law—rather thought I could not succeed at that was elected captain of it. I have not since had any success without a better education. in life which has given me so much satisfaction. Received Before long, strangely enough, a man offered to sell, April 28, 1832, for the use of the Sangamon County Com- and did sell, to me and another as poor as myself an old pany under my command, thirty muskets, bayonets, stock of goods, upon credit. We opened as merchants. Of screws and wipes. course we did nothing but get deeper and deeper in debt. Captain A. Lincoln's Company of Mounted Volunteers The store winked out. of Illinois Militia mustered out of service at the mouth of I was appointed post master at New Salem, the office Fox River, May 27, 1832: Abraham Lincoln, Capt.; Sam- being too insignificant to make politics uel M. Thompson, 1st Lieut.; John Brannen, 2nd Lieut.; my an objection. The surveyor of Sangamon offered John Armstrong, 1st Sergt.; Tavner B. Anderson, 2nd to deputize me that portion of his work which was in part Sergt.; George W. Foster, 3rd Sergt.; Obadiah Morgan, my of the county. I accepted, procured a compass chain, 4th Sergt.; Thomas Combs, 1st Corp.; John Plaster, 2nd and studied Flint Gibson a little, it. Corp.; William F. Berry, 3rd Corp.; Alexander Trent, 4th and and went at This procured bread kept soul and Corp.; Privates: John Erwin, John H. Houghton, Thomas and body together. Pierce, Samuel Tibbs, Henry Hadley, Samuel Dutton, Cal- The election of 1834 came, and I was then elected to vin Pierce, Joseph Tibbs, William Kirkpatrick, Cyrus El- the legislature by the highest vote cast for any candi- more, Elijah Pierce, Lewis W. Farmer, Bordry Matthews, date. Major John T. Stuart, then in full practice of the law, Ep. Sulivan, Valentine Crete, Charles Sulivan, James Sim- was also elected. During the canvass, in a private con- mons, Hugh Armstrong, Allen King, Joseph Dobson, David versation he encouraged me (to) study law. Rankin, Urbin Alexander, Henry Cox, Merrit M. Carman, After the election I borrowed books of Stuart, took them Royal Potter, David M. Pantier, Joseph Hohimer, George home with me, and went at it in good earnest. I studied Warburton, Evan T. Lamb, Clardey Barnette, John M. with nobody. I still mixed in the surveying to pay board Rutledge, William Cox, Usil Meeker, Richard Jones, and clothing bills. When the legislature met, the law- Charles Pierce, James Clemment, John Y. Lane, Richard books were dropped, but were taken up again at the end Lane, Royal Clary, Pleasant Armstrong, James Yardley, of the session. Lincoln'sEarly Poverty A Myth, Says Authority In Kiwanis Club Speech —4= Houser said the new slant research into the early Mr. Recent early background in Lincoln tends to on Lincoln's life of Abraham detracts from the fact the legend of no manner show that much of president was a Emancipator's extreme that the future the Great industrious lad who never and illiteracy in childhood bright poverty an opportunity to soak started at the time overlooked is a myth, placed at his president, up the knowledge Lincoln was running for Houser, authority on Lm- di M. L. of the early Indiana said today. Ky colniana, of the Lincoln family, Kiwanis club neighbors Speaking at the speaker said, were college Jefferson hotel, the from luncheon at the graduates who had migrated said it has been fairly addition to this Mr. Houser the east and in established now that Lin- institu- well there were several nearby father, Thomas Lincoln, in Louis- coln's tions of higher learning 500 acres of good Kentucky Ky. owned ville and Parkstown, before the family moved farm land Records Back Story to Illinois. been Mr. tax records have \9 a small boy in Indiana, ••Old lived Kentucky," he said, Houser said, Lincoln's family found in was community with "showing that Lincoln's father in a cultural taxpayer _on neighbors being col- sixteenth highest many of their the community graduates who gave their a list of 98 in his lege as an Illinois effort to the early edu- In his earlv days time and there is young Abraham. lawyer Mr. Houser said, cation of ever men- Educated no record of Lincoln Says He Was Well background. tioning his humble Lincoln came to Illinois made "When In 1854, he said, Lincoln 21," Mr. Houser said speech in as a youth of a presidential campaign that he had "it is virtually certain and the Chicago Journal, academic Chicago better than the average which was supporting him, ran an education." accompanying "background' story candi- playing up their favorite poverty date as product of abject who had educated himself by read- flickering ing heavy tomes by the light of log fire. Vote-Getting Story "The story apparently made a ready big hit with' the rough and pioneers of the middle west" said Mr Houser, "and as such it made thousands of votes for Mr. Lin- coln." From that point on, said Mr. Houser, Lincoln played heavily on disad- the point of his humble and vantageous childhood. Mr. With all his greatness. Houser said, Lincoln was a mas- fin- terlul politician who keot his gers on the public pulse at all times. Mr. Houser, holder of an hon- orary doctor's degree from a Ten- nessee college for his Lincoln re- search work, resides on the out- skirts of Peoria and has devoted most of the last 15 years to get- ting the true facts on the back- ground of the great Civil war president. Much of his knowledge came from his grandfather and father who were personal friends of Lin- coln when he lived in New Salem. . —

'HE little model farm that raised a By Mabel Ansley Murphy man." It was Mark Twain who so The Boy Lincoln 1 11 u a t i o n s b e r I S al g T named the birthplace of Abraham missionaries, Lincoln, when- he spent the firsl four years date agree with this finding. In this light it cattle and wagons, peddlers, local politicians, soldiers returning from the of his life. Behind him was a long line of is interesting to note the influences that were sturdy forebears. In the family since the about Abraham Lincoln on "the little model war of 1812. A welcome and a loved visitor latter part of the seventeenth century there farm that raised a man." was Christopher Columbus Graham, a sci- had always been an "Abraham," and his In the first place, his mother was a woman entist who made a study of Kentucky's flora sister Sarah, two years older, also bore a of charm—spirited, beautiful, a favorite wher- and fauna and strata. Perhaps it was from name honored in past generations. For, ever she went. From her children's earliest this man that the little boy learned to take natural after years of patient research, Miss Tarbell years she told them Bible stories, and when a keen interest in the wonders of the "If 'great man' like Dr has established that the first, of the Lincolns, they were older she helped them with their world about him. a things they must be Samuel, a boy of seventeen, came to America lessons. There was a Bible in that early Graham noticed such in 1637 and settled at Hingham, Massachu- home—and Bibles were hard to get in those worth while." strong influence on the setts. Through seven generations the lines days. They cost There was another have been traced—from Massachusetts to as much as a life of the little boy. Jesse Head, the man mother, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, through the Shen- spinning wheel, a who had married his father and was andoah Valley of Virginia to Kentucky, In- or a rifle. a close friend of the .»«- diana, Illinois. A line to be proud of for the Nancy and family and a member of \, \?-C.i* , Lincolns of every generation were men of courage, energy, and property in many eases holders of some office of trust. Abraham Lincoln, the grandfather of our martyred President, was captain of the Augusta County militia in the Shenandoah vallej In him, however, as in the blood of all the Lincolns, was the pioneering instinct. It took him to Kentucky while that State was

' yet the "dark and bloody gr< unid. ' And with At Knob Creek the Lincolns lived him went his young, well-born wife and their literallg in a "little house by the is said that he took tlii-ee little children. It side of the road" up over two thousand acres of land near the Green River. At that time the only safety the branch of the Methodist Church which, for families was in stockades, and it is prob- because of its opposition to slavery, had lived in one called able the Lincoln family regular church. Lincoln were members of the Baptist seceded from the Thomas Hughes Station, near a tract of four hundred Thomas was not Lincoln himself belonged to the branch of Lincoln had taken up Church, and in that day attendance acres which Abraham Church that was fighting slavery. a matter of choice. From necessity, services the Baptist near Louisville. nearby, was the center of a strong were irregular, but when they were held Shelbyville, One day while he and his three boys agents to be present. If anti-slavery group which sent out Josiah, twelve, and members were expected to Mordecai, fourteen; tracts over the whole they were absent they were "visited:" that talk and distribute Thomas, eight, were at work in this clearing, of Kentucky. Little doubt these agents fre- an Indian shot Abraham. The savage, carry- meant disciplined! quently stopped at this home whose host ing off little Thomas, was in turn shot down THE second place, Abraham Lincoln had was in sympathy with the sentiments they by Mordecai. Tradition says that the body IN a good father. Nothing is more certain than were spreading abroad. Subconsciously little of tins treacherously killed grandfather of the that Thomas Lincoln was far from being the Abraham must have absorbed many anti- of the United States lies sixteenth President their shiftless man he is so often represented as slavery arguments as the family and in the graveyard of Long Run Baptist Church, having been. Miss Tarbell tells us: "Thomas visitors gathered about the hearth in the in Jefferson County, Kentucky. Lincoln, orphaned, made himself a place in winter or sat on the front doorstep in the His widow, with her children, joined a a new country, acquired land, became a good cool of the evening in the summer. Indeed, group of friends and relatives near Spring- craftsman, held various local offices, was a we have his own word for it that often, even field, Washington County, and there Thomas trustee of his church, its moderator and its at this age, he puzzled over the, to him, dark Lincoln was brought up in company with the committeeman again and again—a trusted, sayings of his elders. cluldren of the best families of the neighbor- respected man. In the end he fell a victim Dr. Graham, not himself an anti-slavery hood. Schooling was hard to get in those to disease. Attacked at fifty, he never advocate, in his hundredth year wrote his days, but, as Miss Tarbell puts it, "People rallied." reminiscences of the Lincoln family. He of the training and antecedents of his mother Probably Abraham's father was a great says: "They were just steeped full of no- and of Hananiah Lincoln (a cousin), of the the story teller. Certainly he must have had a tions about the wrongs of slavery and Berrys and the Thompsons, always saw to fund of anecdotes to draw upon. His father's rights of man, as explained by Thomas it that after food and pro- cousin, Hananiah Lincoln, who befriended Jefferson and Thomas Paine." tection were granted to the young widow and her three little children, another influence in Abraham 's first had been a captain in the Revolutionary War. STILL years was tha t of h is first two teachers. IK' had fought both at Lexington and at seven Caleb Hazel, a man who owned a farm next Brandywine. It is safe to presume that he friend of the family, told the children to the Lincolns, was a a stories of those stir- man interested in developing the country. Zachariah Riney, a "gentleman," was a ring tii m e s . And Thomas Lincoln Catholic, one of many in that neighborhood, knew the Indians at many of them people of culture. Surely it that thus early in his life first hand. Had not meant something one tried to carry Abraham Lincoln came in contact with a are, are told, him off after killing man of manners, which we his father? He must minor morals. have been familiar Very early Abraham Lincoln came into also with wild animals close touch with the mysteries of birth and and their ways, for death. When he was six years old a little men lived very close brother was born. And what child ever for- his to nature in those gets his first sight of a new-born baby, days. Little Abraham first contact with the wonder of existence? must surely have Swiftly upon the heels of this first experience heard many a tale of the unknowable came a second—for the of Indians, of wild little baby did not live. In those early days harshness of that reality mimals, of pioneer daring. no softening of the possible. Little Abraham must have It is safe to conclude that one of the was :

this jaunt. Into the long, narrow boat went skins, ginseng roots, honey, beeswax, cloth T^HE other strong impression he retained of from Mrs. Lincoln's loom, and Thomas' own these first days in Indiana was the number tools, said to be "the best in Washington of wild animals that peopled the woods. If County." before it had been important not to let the And what a lesson fire in patience Abraham go out during cold weather, now it was and Sarah must have had as they waited with their mother for their father's return! Many an evening they must have sat on the door- step, looking down the road, their young eyes eagerly watching every distant dust cloud on the highway in the hope that it might dis- close their father. He came finally and .in exciting story he had to tell! Then came the excitement of good-bye visits to relatives, of the sale of such house- hold goods as they could not take with them, a sale with an accompaniment of a "big ' dinner, to which all the neighborhood came. In all this joyful hubbub there was an under- current regret. of Austin Gollaher I iad been as much a part of the little hoy's life as had his sister .Sarah. Austin, who lived just, over the bluff, had waded in the creek with the little Lincolns, had lain beside them on the bluff watching the angry water in the deep pool below when the creek was high with the spring floods. One day Abraham had fallen in. Austin, a few years older, saved his playmate's life. Now Abraham had to say Children were not idle in those good-bye to Austin. dags. Be sure Abraham did his share But the grief of parting could not sit heavily on the spirits of a seven-year-old boy doubly so. For the fire not only kept the making his first journey into the great world. family comfortable, but kept the wild an- For the first time in his life he saw a mighty imals from becoming too inquisitive. river. At the point where the Lincolns for this fireplace was built out of doors. crossed the Ohio it sweeps silently and It was a big, solid stone chimney on the smoothly in a great curve. And when the open side of the half-face camp in other side was reached which the there were sixteen Lincolns, as was the custom in those days, miles to travel through the autumn forest, spent their first winter. It was not Miss Tarbell says: "I think any one may so bad a shelter as city folk might think. Listen rightfully envy them that journey and wiil how it was hi 'ill if he has a drop of gypsy blood in his veins, "A site 01 a southern slope where for it was made through forest two a which in its straight trees stood about fourteen feet autumnal coloring was a .thing of rarest apart east and west was chosen. beauty." These trees were trimmed to serve As soon as the site of the new home was as corner posts for the open front of the structure. reached Abraham's first real work began." Logs were then cut fourteen Of course, up to this age he had not been feet in length sufficient for three sides. They were idle. Children were not in those days. The fastened with wooden pins that had been fireplace was the heart of the pioneer home, prepared and laid in log-cabin fashion and very early every child learned that no until the walls reached the proper height. task was of more importance than to keep A roof of small poles interwoven with branches the fire fed. For months before winter and thatched with brush and dry grass came, fuel of the right kind had to be gath- was built above these three sides. The openings ered. Even a little child could help. True, between the logs were then filled with he could not saw logs a half dozen different mud. The result was a warm, tight structure sizes, logs of hard wood and soft, of green open to the south." Here, wood and dry. But he could gather chips for sheltered from the cold, protected from a low fire and pile great heaps of the brush wild beasts, we must leave Abraham Lincoln. which was used to make a blaze. Be. sure No longer a little child, "a bit of Abraham did his share. plastic clay." The most formative years of Now he was to learn the next lesson—how his life are past. Before him stretches the future, to wield an ax. He himself has told us that unknown, as yet unlit by vision. But a future one of his strong impressions of the new sure to be largely shaped by the training Indiana home was of "this most useful in- and environment that have been his during his life strument," as he termed it. He was a big, on the Hodgenville farm and the home on strong boy, and he must have felt pride in Knob Creek. being allowed to work among men. Then, 6*j ctiC-v^yu*-*^ too, he was helping to build a home, and a . ^rx^ovv. fine sense of manhood and responsibility must have been behind every stroke of his he tie ax. strokes, in the right direction A few THE BOYHOOD OF days before he LINCOLN was eight years old he had his first and last hunting ex- AND ITS perience, for INSPIRING STORY he was nothing of a Ximrod. A flock of wild turkeys—the prospect of delicious eating—flew His Early Life is Characterized in a Single Line from to- ward the cabin while his father was away, and Gray's Elegy —"The Simple Annals of the Poor." the child from within the log cabin thrust a rifle oi necessity. 1 was raised to farm- through a Lincoln—as he proved in the so- crack, and, shutting his eyes, work, which I continued until I pulled I called was "twenty-line address" at Get- the trigger. What 22." -'My early life," he said on an- was his surprise t.-. tysburg—knew how to say a great other occasion, "is characterized in a find a luckless bird subsequently lying deal within the briefest compass, single of Gray's Elegy: 'The short and on the ground. whether he writing was or speaking. " simple annals of the poor.' Long afterward the grown man In a letter to his friend, the Hon. would often recall the incident, Jesse re- W. Fell, of Bloomington, 111., Wilds of Indiana. marking that he had never since that dated December 20, 1S59, he com- It is easy to for time pulled a trigger upon large make the mind's | game. pressed the entire story of his early eye a picture of that "family flight But he did try for smaller birds, for years into this little tabloid: "I was from home" to the wilds of Indiana Austin Gollaher, a schoolmate, j used born February 12, 1809, in Hardin in 1810. There was a great Cumber- proudly to narrate how they were once county, Ky. My parents were both land mountain wagon fairly sagging "trapesing" through the woods to- born in Virginia, of undistinguished with its load of household utensils, gether in search of partridge, when families, perhaps I should say. My drawn by a patient, plodding horse, they came to an unfordable stream. mother, who died in my tenth year, umbrella-ribbed and ignorant of the The future President essayed to was of a family of the name of Hanks, taste of oats, his harness compounded cross it on a fallen tree, but slipped some of whom now reside in Adams, of bits of ancient rope and fragments and tumbled in, heels over head. and others in Macon county, 111. My of rawhide. On the front seat sat the Whereupon Gollaher, his senior by parental grandfather, Abraham Lin- little Abe's mother, "Nancy Hanks some years, sprang to the rescue, and coln, emigrated from Rockingham that was," and his nine-year-old sis- thus indirectly preserved the Union county, Va., to Kentucky, about 1781 ter, jolted uncomfortably by the ruts and emancipated the black race. to 1782, where, a year or two later, he and quagmires of the wagon track. After the first winter the family oc- was killed by Indians, not in battle, Here and there trees had to be cut cupied a cabin with the luxury of a but by stealth, when he was laboring down to permit of the passage of the loft, where Abe slept upon a pallet to open a farm in the forest. His an- caravan. Thomas Lincoln and the made of leaves. The staple diet was cestors, who were Quakers, went to seven-year-old boy walked behind, potatoes or Indian corn, for wild Virginia from Berks county, Pa. An shepherding the cow that was the turkeys were shy and occasional, and effort to identify them with the New family's chief reliance, bear and venison could not and a big dog I always be England family of the same name ranged the woods or trotted soberly relied upon. The mother was most ended in nothing more than a similar- j along beneath the wagon. anxious that her son should have book ity of Christian names in both fam- j they to learning, but the father, ' When came the "Beautiful worn with ilies, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, river," the Ohio, at one of the sparsely unremitting toil, could not spare the Solomon, Abraham, and the like. boy's scattered landings, the little cavalcade hoe from the clearing, his axe from Had Little Schooling. was ferried across the torrent on a the primeval forest. Finally the flatboat, malarial fever almost mercifully the water running high from j came My father, at the death of his to Nancy the autumnal rains. Near the present ] Lincoln, and her tired eye- father, was but six years of age, and lids closed town of Gentryville the journey upon the unequal struggle he grew up literally without education. to live, in (which, could they have gone as the ISIS, when her little girl He removed from Kentucky to what is was 12 and crow flies, would have been a hundred Abe was nine. now Spencer county, Ind., in my miles The mother's parting words eighth year. reached or so), ended in the heart of to her We our new family the ancient -wood;" they were that they should worship home about the time the State built their came God and love camp fire beside a spring, and slept one another. into the Union (1816.) It was a wild in the emigrant wagon till the father region, with many bears and other A Melancholy Youth. and the little boy had wild animals still in the woods. There built a log A neighbor with some rude skill cabin and cleared a space for the in I grew up. There were some schools, carpentry made a rough-hewn coffin so-called, but no planting of grain. It was too much qualification was from the forest trees. There for one man with only the help was no ever required of a teacher of so minister beyond to conduct funeral services; small a child, to build a house with 'readin,' 'writin' and cipherin' to the it was not till months afterwards that proper doors and windows, so the Rule of Three. If a straggler, sup- Thomas Lincoln found a "sky pilot" cabin was constructed solidly of logs posed to understand Latin, happened to say a few words above the lonely to sojourn in the neighborhood, on three sides, leaving the fourth side he was forest grave. The dwellers open or round looked upon as a wizard. There covered with a curtain of was about had remarked of Abe that skins, to serve for he absolutely nothing to excite door and windows, ambition seemed "considerin' and old-like." The for education. all in one. low, swampy land along Little Pigeon "Of course, when I came of age, I Learned to Plow. Creek put in his veins the same smoul- did not know much. Still, somehow, dering malarial fever Those who had two rooms to live in, that had taken I could read, write and cipher to the his mother from him, in those days, were looked up to as and he was often Rule of Three, but that was all. I obsessed by the today we revere the multi-million- melancholy that was have not been to school since. The quite as characteristic aires. The first thing for the little of the grown little advance I now have upon this man as was the Abe to learn to do was to guide the inextinguishable store of education I have picked up sense of humor. plow straight, despite its plunging, be- from time to time under the pressure He was no milksop or hind the one faithful horse, and to mollycoddle, even though he didn't learn how to fell a tree, with few care much about hunting wild animals. During the 1

Jack-of-AII-Trades. A laden wagon 1 brief and occasional episodes of de- had negotiated with dif- There was no one whose services Acuity. sultory schooling, which he said after- Lincoln, taking pity on the 1 all howling wards amounted to about one year in were in greater demand among plight of the animal, waded sorts and conditions of men. He was back lor it, all, ho wrote his English compositions waist and shoulder deep carpenter, a farm laborer, in the on such subjects as cruelty to ani- by turns a freezing water and said long hired messenger, and his specialty afterward: mals, the evils of intemperance, the a "His frantic leaps of joy jobbery of a Jack-of-all- and blessings of universal peace. He stood was the odd other evidences of a dog's grati- splitting tude , fencerails, out sturdily for the value of the life trades, such as amply repaid me tor all the ex- posure of an ant and its right to live. He chopping firewood, plowing and killing I had undergone." fought other boys, who, with a refine- hogs. At 18 years of age he stood six After the hard winter of 1830-31— ment ot cruelty, put live coals on a feet four in his moccasins. He was "the winter of the deep snow," when a lamp-post. "His the mud turtle to make it thrust forth its as ungainly as big, starving settlers of (he Sangamon standing out river head; and his pre-eminence with his protruding ears, from his district killed and ate the dark-brown abounding fists was such that the other boys had head; his mop of stiff wolves — Lincoln went it had on to respect him when he haled the vill- hair, which looked as though a second fiatboat journey, his gray eyes, and age drunkard from the freezing ditch never known a brush; as the first expedition had nose and given beside the roadway when others would his large, uncompromising him a ci ear realization hanging have jeered or passed by on the other big mouth, with humorous of the essential unity of our country stalky, big-boned side. underlip, crowned a despite the "magnificent distances," figure, roughly clad in deerhide coat so this second journey Bright in Studies. burned in upon continued and breeches, which he his soul and the unspeakable horrors Lincoln His friend Gollaher says of till at last of slavery. more and more to outgrow, Herndon describes how for in that brief experience of school that shins was ex- the a gap of bare, bluish first time "he saw negroes in he "was an unusually bright boy . . . posed above the moccasins or his chains— whipped and scourged." his and made splendid progress in the uncouth apparition feet." This was Hatred for Slavery. Indeed he learned faster than studies. ihat came to the village store to hear Against this of his schoolmates. Though inhumanity his sense any one the newspaper read aloud and take of right and justice so young, he studied very hard. He rebelled, and his part in the discussion of its contents. mind and conscience would get spicewood bushes, tack were awakened Earning First Dollar.. to a realization them up on a log and burn them, two of what he had often heard and read. or three together, for the purpose of His first dollar of hard money Abe No doubt, as one of his companions has giving light by which he might pur- had earned in 1826, when he ferried said, "Slavery ran the iron into him sue his studies." two passengers from the shore at the then and there." One morning The household group had now in- mouth of Anderson Creek to their in their rambles over the city they passed a creased to nine persons, of four differ- steamer out in the Ohio. At the age slave auction. A vigorous and comely ent families. Thomas Lincoln and the of 19, eager "for to admire and for to mulatto girl was being sold. two older cousins, Dennis and John see" the world so full of a number of She underwent a thor- ough examination at Hanks, would sit up till all hours things, he hired out to Mr. Gentry of the hands of the bidders; they settling the manifest destinies of na- Centryville, for the fiathoat trip with pinched her flesh and made her trot tions and individuals by the blazing produce to New Orleans. It was agreed up and down the room "bow hand" he should receive logs—firewood was about the only that as as like a horse to snow sne moved, property that was abundant in those $8 a month and his return passage by the auctioneer said, that "bidders days—and after they had gone to bed, steamer. That thousand-mile journey might satisfy themselves" whether the Lincoln (like the child Mozart copying down the Father of Waters not mere- article they were offering to buy was music by moonlight) would get to ly gave him his first experience of sound or not. work, feeding the dying embers with towered cities ami the busy hum of The whole thing was so revolting the spicewood bushes and working out men, but left upon Lincoln's mind the that Lincoln moved away from the his examples in addition and subtrac- indelible impression that the vast ex- scene with a deep feeling of "uncon- with a charred stick on the back panse watered by the Mississippi and tion Bidding his compan- country querable hate." of a wooden shovel. From time to its tributaries constituted a ions follow him, he said: "Boys, let's time a book would come his way. He that was rightly one and indivisible. this. If ever I get a lay get away from had been steeped in Biblical lore and At Baton Rouge, while the boat chance to hit that thing (meaning language by his mother, and he would tied to the bank—"the coast," as it slavery) I'll hit it hard." take a homemade candle up into the was called—of the mighty river, seven Lincoln kept his promise made at- How loft with him to read about Washing- negroes bent on robbery or murder that day to himself and his compan- being appropri- tacked it and were with difficulty ton (lofty sentiments of ions is writ large in the history ate to the place), and Henry Clay, beaten off, not before several of the civilization. Bunyan's pilgrim and Defoe's hero, or crew had been wounded. perusing perhaps the history of his Moved to Illinois. country, or the dictionary until the In March, 1830, the Lincoln family light of morning streamed through the moved to the promised land of Illinois cracks or the last candle guttered into —13 of them in a single wagon, behind darkness. two yoke of oxen, with Abraham to guide the animals with his gad-whip and his coaxing patience. The jour- ney of 200 miles required a fortnight, and on the way the enterprising ox driver made money by peddling "small wares and notions" from the cart. A dog—inevitable companion of such a migration—had been left behind, by accident, on the further bank of an CONGER ice-covered stream which the heavily