973.7L63 EEh8L cop. 2 Ehrmann, Bess V. The Lincoln Pioneer Village LINCOLN ROOM UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY presented by Harry E. and Marion P. Pratt Estate Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://archive.org/details/lineolnpioneerviOOehrm The Lincoln Pioneer The Lincoln Pioneer Village LINCOLN MEMORIAL Rockport, Indiana by BESS V. EHRMANN Democrat Publishing Company, 1949 Entrance to Lincoln Pioneer Village, Rockport, Indiana The world claims Abraham Lincoln's manhood, but to southern Indiana alone belongs his youth. His character was molded in her wilderness country, and his schooling (what little he had) was re- ceived in her great outdoors and log cabin school houses. Today Lincoln is called one of the five greatest men since the beginning of time, a man who rose above the handicaps of poverty, pioneer hardships, little education, and ungainly physique. There have been many memorials built to honor his memory, both in the cities of the United States of America and in many foreign countries. These beautiful shrines of marble and stone bespeak his greatness. There are statues of him, buildings, parks, cities, and streets that bear his name. Artists, sculptors, historians, and writers are constantly giving to the world their ideas of the man who proclaimed "Malice towards none, with charity for all". In the year 1935, in the quaint, old fashioned town of Rockport, Spencer County, Indiana, on the Ohio River, a most unusual memorial was erected to honor the boyhood of one who had lived the fourteen formative years of his youth from the age of seven to twenty-one in this county. What is more important in the de- velopment of any man than the years when character is molded and one learns the art of living? The boy Lincoln's home was a distance of seventeen miles from Rockport, the county seat, and here he frequently came with his father and became acquainted with the leading men of the village. He borrowed books in Rockport from its best known lawyer, John Pitcher. Then, in 1828, he left the old Ohio River boatlanding on his first flatboat trip to New Orleans with Allen Gentry. It was on this first trip to New Orleans that Lincoln first realized the evils of slavery, and many years later in a letter to his friend, Alexander H. Stephens, was this statement: "When a boy, I went to New Orleans on a flatboat, and there I saw slavery and slave markets as I had never seen them in Kentucky, and I heard worse of the Red River Plantations." This old boat landing is today a Lincoln shrine, and people come from far and near to stand at the water's edge on the beautiful Ohio and visualize the tall awkward boy who set out from this spot on his first great adventure into the big world. r ' J U ^ Replica of Old Pigeon Baptist Church in Lincoln Pioneer Village So it seems a fitting thing that a memorial to his boyhood should be built not far from this place, a memorial unlike any other ever built to honor him. It is a pioneer village of the type known by Lincoln when he lived in southern Indiana. It is called "The Lincoln Pioneer Village" and is surrounded by a log stockade. This memorial was designed by a Spencer County artist and sculptor, George Honig, who gave his time and effort to the building of it. The Rockport City Council and the Spencer County Historical Society are its sponsors. There are sixteen log cabins inside the enclosure, a number of them being replicas of the log houses associated with Lincoln's boyhood. Each building is furnished with the primitive, handmade furniture of that pioneer time. Thousands annually visit this unusual shrine and see the con- ditions which surrounded and helped develop our greatest American citizen. .-. v..-:. Scene in Lincoln Pioneer Village On moonlight nights when a full moon casts its soft rays over the log houses and the winding pathways in the village, one seems to see a tall, barefoot boy walking along the trail, and there is a feeling that his spirit lives here in the environment of his youth. Let us walk along the village trail with him. He stops now at the log cabin school house with its dirt floor, puncheon benches, the dunce stool in the corner, a huge fireplace and a large bundle of switches in the corner, because the master did not spare the rod in the teaching of his pupils in pioneer times. There are two small windows with their heavy wooden shutters, the hinges of which are wood and put together with wooden pegs, as are those of the door. Replica of last home of the Lincolns in Indiana In a schoolroom such as this Abraham Lincoln learned to read, write, and cipher. Here came the boys and girls, friends of his youth, and we feel that his spirit would pause at this place and that again he would sit on one of the old puncheon benches. Let us step over the worn door sill with him and think about those days in the life of this pioneer school boy of Indiana, and the lessons he learned long ago. Not far from the school house, in the village, is a replica of the Old Pigeon Baptist Church which he helped his father to build. In this old log cabin church are two huge fireplaces, one at each side of the large room where the puncheon seats and queer high pulpit give a glimpse into the religious life of southern Indiana in 1819. On entering the church, visitors feel in a religious mood after reading these words carved on a wooden plaque — "Enter Friend! This is your church. In its pioneer setting, this Old Pigeon Baptist Church invites you to recapture the glorious spirit of pioneer spirituality." Now the steps of the boy turn toward the replica of his home, so let us follow and see that log cabin which housed the Lincoln family. It represents the last Indiana cabin built by Thomas Lincoln. In it we see the bed built of boughs which is fastened to the wall, also the trundle bed beneath. There are the heavy pegs driven into the left wall which form a type of ladder to ascend to the loft There is a spinning wheel, a rude table made of boughs, quaint old handmade chairs, a wooden churn, old iron cooking utensils and a quaint cupboard with some interesting old dishes and wooden sugar bucket. We seem to see the boy Lincoln stretched out in front of the fireplace, reading some book which he had borrowed, while other members of this happy family are seated around the fireplace with its blazing log fire. Sarah Bush Lincoln, the stepmother, sits to the right of the fire and is knitting a heavy woolen sock of mammoth size which the boy Abe will soon be wearing. Sarah, his sister, is seated back in the corner talking to Aaron Grigsby whom she is soon to wed. Eliza- beth and Matilda, the stepsisters of Lincoln, are cracking nuts with a hammer as the nuts are placed on a heavy rock held between Elizabeth's knees. They giggle and cast knowing eyes at Sarah and her beau. Tom Lincoln is asleep in a chair tipped back against the left of the fireplace. Just now Dennis Hanks, Abe's cousin, and his stepbrother, John Johnson, enter, each with arms full of wood for the fire. It is a cold night out, but warm and bright here in the Lincoln home. Next we visit the James Gentry home which stood near the Lincoln home. It was called a mansion in its day. It was Gentry who employed Lincoln on his farm and who hired him to go with his son, Allen, on the Gentry flatboat to New Orleans. The furnish- ings in this Gentry mansion are a little finer than many other cabins in the village and on the whitewashed walls hang pictures of James Gentry and ones of Stephen A. Douglas and Andrew Jack- son which belonged to the Gentry family. The old bed, chairs, Seth Thomas clock, and other relics also belonged in the Gentry family. There is one very priceless exhibit in this room, a rail from a fence which Lincoln had built and for which he split all the rails when employed by Gentry. The trail from the Gentry home leads to the Josiah Crawford home. It was Josiah Crawford who employed both Lincoln and his sister, Sarah, and who lent to Lincoln the book "Life of Washing- ton", which book was damaged in a storm and for which Lincoln paid Crawford in work. In this home is an old loom, quaint old bed and trundle bed, chairs, wooden cradle, and other furniture known to the boy Lincoln. In front of the home is an old stone well with its huge wooden sweep where one may draw a cool drink and use a gourd dipper to drink from, as did the boy Lincoln. Lincoln's only sister, Sarah, married Aaron Grigsby, and now the trail leads to their tiny cabin home. It possesses a rail fence in front of the house and a flag stone walk. In front and to the right of the doorway is a magnificent beech tree which looks to have stood on this spot since the time of Columbus. The cabin has only a few pieces of rude furniture and some cooking utensils in front of the stone fireplace. To the left of the house outside hangs a great iron kettle and near it is an old ash hopper where the wood ashes were saved to make the soap used in pioneer times and which was made in the huge kettle. Lincoln must have loved the little cabin home where his sister, Sarah, lived for so short a time. In 1828 she died and was buried in the Old Pigeon Creek burying ground not far from the grave of Nancy Hanks Lincoln, the mother, who had died in 1818. In Indiana soil rest both mother and daughter. John Pitcher's Law Office in Lincoln Pioneer Village We see the boy Lincoln stop at the Jones store in the village. He must want to visit again the store where he once clerked. Look- ing through the door we see the articles sold in stores of that day, the dishes, brooms, whiskey, gun powder, coffee, salt, sugar, calico, and such. It seems we see the boy Lincoln sitting by the fireplace reading a newspaper which the storekeeper, William Jones, allowed him to read. Here while a clerk he gained much knowledge of the affairs of the day. We visit several other homes of Lincoln's neighbors in the village and then suddenly realize that we have lost the tall figure we were following. We look about us and finally see at the far end of the village the shadowy form of the boy. He stands in front of a tiny cabin which sits apart from the other cabins, and he seems to contemplate it with rather a surprised look on his face. We move up near enough to read the placard placed by the side of the door, "Aunt Lepha Mackey Cabin". Who was she and why a cabin in this village? We read more, and the words tell us that following the freeing of slaves by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 that Lepha Mackey, who owned this ground and lived on it, had taken into her home the negro children in Rockport and taught them to read and write. There were no schools for the negro children then, and these home taught classes became the first negro school in southern Indiana. Her life and works are thus honored in this Lincoln shrine which is built to honor the memory of the Emancipator's boyhood in Indiana. Our last stop is at the log cabin law office of John Pitcher. Here are the old leather bound law books of over a hundred years ago — also an old desk where we see John Pitcher writing with a quill pen. In just such a place the boy Lincoln came to talk to the great lawyer and to borrow his books. Here his ambitions to be a lawyer had its beginning. With reverent fingers we touch the old books and desk as we realize that just such objects as these meant much to that boy whose mind was reaching out for knowledge of that great world of which he knew so little. Here in the shade of these great century old trees people may sit and meditate on the life of one, who as a boy, wandered over the hills and valleys of southern Indiana. He was a student of the great outdoors and the forest primeval, so this village is a shrine to his memory. When one enters it through the gate of the old log stockade, he steps into another world, a world where peace and quiet and God seem to be shut in and where a world of strife is shut out. UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 973.7L63EEH8L C002 THE LINCOLN PIONEER VILLAGE ROCKPORT 3 0112 031811299