LINCOLN'S 
 BOYHOOD 
 
 Francis Marion Van Natter 
 
LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 A Chronicle of His Indiana Years 
 
 By Francis Marion Van Natter 
 
 "This is a book not only for Lincoln 
 enthusiasts, but for anyone who appre- 
 ciates a good story for its own sake. 
 
 "For this book Van Natter searched 
 diligently among small events and the 
 half -remembered characters Lincoln en- 
 countered in the raw, new land between 
 1816 and 1830. Carefully researched, 
 fully annotated, this colorful narrative 
 of a little known period of Lincoln's 
 life not only is a rousing story, full of 
 surprises for the average reader, but also 
 is a thoughtful evaluation of how his 
 hard boyhood helped build Lincoln, the 
 man, and assure his splendid place in 
 world history."— Karl Detzer, Roving 
 Editor, The Readers Digest 
 
 Contents: 1. Into the Big Timber. 
 2. The Dream. 3. Neighbors. 4. More 
 Neighbors. 5. Designs of Providence. 
 6. Perseverance. 7. Brush College Days. 
 8. Politicians. 9. All Things In Common. 
 10. Romance. 11. Slavery. 12. Parting 
 Day. 13. Lasting Impressions. 
 
 Public Affairs Press 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 $4.50 
 
LINCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 MEMORIAL 
 
 the Class of 1901 
 
 founded by 
 
 HARLAN HOYT HORNER 
 
 and 
 
 HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://archive.org/details/lincolnsboyhoodcOOvann 
 
LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 A Chronicle of His Indiana Years 
 By FRANCIS MARION VAN NATTER 
 
 Foreword by Karl Detzer 
 
 Public Affairs Press, Washington, D. C. 
 
Copyright, 1963, by Public Affairs Press 
 419 New Jersey Avenue, S.E., Washington 3, D. C. 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 63-10816 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 Francis M. Van Natter and I were sergeants together 
 nearly half a century ago at an arid Mexican Border camp 
 called Llano Grande. We shared puptent, mosquito net, 
 water bag, conversations and confidences those long nights 
 while coyotes yelped and the horses whinnied in a mesquite 
 corral just beyond the saddle tent. 
 
 Those nights under low desert stars Van Natter liked to 
 talk of pioneers in the American midlands, and to compare 
 our thirsty inconveniences with the hazards and occasional 
 agonies of tall Kentucky and Virginia men who grubbed 
 hungry farmsteads out of the Indiana wilderness. Particu- 
 larly he talked of how young Abe Lincoln's 'teen-age years 
 on the stern frontier had shaped both his fortitude and the 
 splendor of his character. 
 
 For this book Van Natter searched diligently among 
 small events and the half-remembered characters Lincoln 
 encountered in the raw, new land between 1816 and 1830. 
 Carefully researched, fully annotated, this colorful narra- 
 tive of a little known period of Lincoln's life not only is a 
 rousing story, full of surprises for the average reader, but 
 also is a thoughtful evaluation of how his hard boyhood 
 helped build Lincoln, the man, and assure his splendid 
 place in world history. 
 
 This is a book not only for Lincoln enthusiasts, but for 
 anyone who appreciates a good story for its own sake. 
 
 Karl Detzer 
 
 Roving Editor 
 The Reader's Digest 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The twofold purpose of this book is to present the story of Abraham 
 Lincoln's early everyday life and to trace the influence of that early 
 period upon his White House behavior. He was seven when he 
 entered Indiana in 1816 and twenty-one when he left there in 1830. 
 Those were his fourteen formative years. 
 
 Lincoln lived those impressionable years in the Indiana pocket 
 country, a triangular area between the Ohio and Wabash rivers, which 
 contains all of Pigeon Creek. In a letter to Secretary of War Stanton, 
 the President called the area "my old boyhood home." His secretaries, 
 John G. Nicolay and John Hay, wrote of the settlers there: "Among 
 these people, and in all essential respects one of them, Abraham 
 Lincoln passed his childhood and youth." There his mother and only 
 sister died and were buried. There he greeted his stepmother. There 
 he received his basic education, felt the pinch of hard times, took note 
 of political upheavals and attempted social reforms. There he saw 
 slavery; this region was border country, part slave and part free. 
 Before he was out of his teens the slavery issue threatened to dissolve 
 the Union and caused great concern among his Pigeon Creek neigh- 
 bors. Long afterward Lincoln returned and wrote a poem about the 
 place: 
 
 "Now twenty years have passed away 
 
 "Since here I bid farewell 
 
 "To woods and -fields and scenes of play 
 
 "And schoolmates loved so well" 
 
 Although considerable material relating to Lincoln's formative years 
 has been destroyed by fire and flood, what remains clearly indicates 
 that much of his greatness is tracable to his Indiana years. "You 
 all know how these early impressions last longer than any others," 
 he said. 
 
 In preparing this book the author was assisted by numerous individ- 
 uals and institutions. Several people who started with him fell along 
 the trail during the twenty-two years he spent accumulating data 
 pertaining to this little-known period of Lincoln's life. He is grateful 
 to everyone. 
 
 Foremost among the author's helpers was Eli L. Grigsby of Gentry - 
 ville, who furnished affidavits and spent long hours pointing out 
 places where Lincoln lived his Pigeon Creek years. Mrs. Mina G. 
 
 iv 
 
PREFACE v 
 
 Cook of Rockport, set before the author the rich collection of Lincoln 
 biographical notes which her father, Joseph D. Armstrong, began 
 gathering in Southern Indiana three years prior to the outbreak of 
 the Civil War. William Fortune of Indianapolis gave access to the 
 Lincoln material he collected following that war. 
 
 Other Indiana citizens who generously cooperated were John Gentry 
 of Gentryville, Dr. J. Edward Murr of Washington, Davis Enlow of 
 Lincoln City, Professor Andrew M. Sweeney of Indianapolis, Charles 
 T. Baker and Charles Todd Enghof of Grandview, William L. Barker 
 of Boonville, A. H. Bergenroth of Troy, Miss Anna C. O'Flynn, Judge 
 Curtis G. Shake and Lafayette Johnson of Vincennes, John W. McCoy 
 of Evansville, Mrs. Bess V. Ehrmann, Hilbert Bennett, Benjamin 
 Huffman and E. Grant Gentry of Rockport, Senator Jesse E. Wade 
 and Major George W. Kimball of Mount Vernon, Ora Brown and S. 
 Grant Johnson of Dale. 
 
 Outside the state liberal help came from George Burton Cunning- 
 ham of Chenault, Mrs. R. G. Higdon of Frankfort and William H. 
 Townsend of Lexington, Kentucky; Oliver R. Barrett and Eleanor 
 Gridley of Chicago and M. L. Houser of Peoria, Illinois; Captain John 
 T. Clemens, custodian of the Lincoln Museum, Ford Theater, and 
 Captain O. H. Oldroyd of Washington, D. C; Fletcher Chenault of 
 Cape Girardeau, Missouri. 
 
 Dr. Louis A. Warren allowed the author to browse for weeks in 
 the great Lincolniana collection of the Lincoln National Life Founda- 
 tion at Fort Wayne. Dr. Paul M. Angle, Secretary of the Illinois 
 State Historical Society, was equally cooperative. The Henry E. 
 Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, California, kindly 
 gave permission to quote from their valuable Herndon-Lamon Lincoln 
 Collection. The staffs of the Newberry Library of Chicago, the 
 Chicago Historical Society, the Louisiana State Museum, the Indiana 
 State Historical Library, the New Harmony Working Mens Institute, 
 and the librarians and county officials at Boonville, Cannelton, Evans- 
 ville, Mount Vernon, Rockport, Vincennes, Indiana and at Marion, 
 Arkansas, also lent willing hands. The directors of the Southwestern 
 Indiana Historical Society made it as easy as possible for the author 
 to examine the Society's files. 
 
 At the Library of Congress Dr. C. Percy Powell of the Manuscript 
 Division, Colonel Willard Webb, Chief, Stack and Reader Division, 
 and Frank Louraine, Senior Reference Assistant, always stood ready 
 to lighten the author's task of research. Dr. Anson Phelps Stokes, 
 Canon of Washington Cathedral, and Dr. J. C. Hindle, of Bodleian 
 
vi LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 Library, Oxford University, discovered that the "Lincoln Book of 
 Sermons" fragment was Dr. Matthew Hole's Practical Discourses. 
 Harold E. Christie assisted in organizing the material. 
 
 The one to whom the author owes his greatest debt of gratitude 
 is his wife. She copied voluminous notes, drove thousands of miles 
 to collect material, and time after time has spoken encouraging words 
 when the task of completing a life of Lincoln in Indiana looked hope- 
 less. 
 
 Francis Marion Van Natter 
 Vincennes, Indiana 
 

 CONTENTS 
 
 
 1: 
 
 Into the Big Timber 
 
 1 
 
 2: 
 
 The Dream 
 
 16 
 
 3: 
 
 Neighbors 
 
 19 
 
 k 
 
 More Neighbors 
 
 40 
 
 5: 
 
 Designs of Providence 
 
 64 
 
 6: 
 
 Perseverance 
 
 77 
 
 7: 
 
 Brush College Days 
 
 91 
 
 8: 
 
 Politicians 
 
 103 
 
 9: 
 
 All Things In Common 
 
 118 
 
 10: 
 
 Romance 
 
 125 
 
 11: 
 
 Slavery 
 
 131 
 
 12: 
 
 Parting Day 
 
 149 
 
 13: 
 
 Lasting Impressions 
 
 161 
 
 
 Notes 
 
 194 
 
 
 Sources 
 
 214 
 
 
 Index 
 
 220 
 
Chapter One 
 INTO THE BIG TIMBER 
 
 Abraham Lincoln was still losing his first set of teeth when his 
 parents began loading the wagon to move from Kentucky to Indiana. 
 He was puzzled as he looked at his father, Thomas, and at his Knob 
 Creek neighbors standing in a circle in front of the Lincoln log cabin 
 a few rods west of the Louisville-Nashville turnpike. Thomas Lincoln 
 was telling them that he was fixing to move over into the big timber, 
 where he aimed to clear the land and do all kinds of crop raising. 
 
 A gust of raw November wind whipped through the crowd. 
 Neighbors glanced uneasily at one another. When George Redmond 
 asked why Tom Lincoln didn't stay on the Knob Creek farm, Tom 
 answered that he wanted to get out of the slave country and that he 
 was sore tired of finding his land titles plumb worthless. 
 
 "You got friends here," remarked Redmond, who had resigned the 
 job of road surveyor so Tom could have it. 1 The point was a good one 
 but Tom had his heart set on going across the Ohio River. Over there 
 was plenty of free land and all he had to do was settle on it. "I'll 
 get along a heap better," he explained. 
 
 Doubt showed in the rugged faces of his neighbors. Abraham 
 looked at them and then at the broad turnpike. Down it was a 
 promise of adventure, of things new and exciting to a boy past seven. 
 Along that road he often had seen men on horseback swinging big ox- 
 whips, driving Negro slaves to Southern markets. He wondered what 
 it would be like in Indiana. From the circle of friendly faces, Abe 
 glanced to the southward at Muldraugh's Hill — a steep, craggy-sided 
 benchland rising four hundred feet into the air. On its top, in the 
 Redmond graveyard, his infant brother, Tom, was buried. Moving 
 to new country meant leaving all these ties behind. He listened to his 
 father talking about a cooper's job in the big timber, making brandy 
 casks for a man by the name of Reuben Grigsby. 
 
 "Thought you aimed to farm?" said Redmond. 
 
 Tom replied he would do that, too; Grigsby had leased him eight 
 acres of gladly land for three years and everybody knew such land was 
 far better than middling fair for crop raising. 2 Redmond shook his 
 head. "Sure hate to see you folks leave." 
 
2 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 It was morning in late November, 1816, and the Lincolns were 
 ready to start when Abraham with his mother and his nine year old 
 sister, Sarah, climbed Muldraugh's Hill and stood at the head of 
 Baby Tom's grave, where lay a flat piece of limestone with the initials 
 T. L. chiseled into it. 3 Abraham watched his mother kneel and pat the 
 little mound. When she arose he saw tears in her tired, gray eyes; 
 as she slowly led him away he felt her cold fingers around his hand. 
 They followed a narrow path down the steep, rocky hillside, crossed 
 the turnpike and went to the loaded wagon in front of their cabin. 
 
 While Mrs. Lincoln and Sarah climbed to the seat, Abraham walked 
 to the hogpen. When Tom finished laying down the rail fence, Abe and 
 his big dog chased the hogs out of the pen and onto the road ahead 
 of the wagon. His father waved an arm. "Start on," he said. 
 
 Nancy Hanks Lincoln brushed her brown hair from her high, 
 slanting forehead and slapped the reins together. "Get up," she 
 clucked to the team. As the horses leaned against their collars the 
 heavy wagon groaned and the tar-bucket swung back and forth from 
 the tailgate, like a black pendulum. Traveling northward along 
 Rolling Fork of Knob Creek the movers soon were out of sight of the 
 cabin and Muldraugh's dreary hilltop. The farther they went the 
 more each hour appeared like the preceding one to Abe as he helped 
 his father drive the hogs. 
 
 It seems incredible that any man would take hogs into a strange 
 country reported to be full of wild ones, but it must be remembered 
 that Tom Lincoln was a self-reliant man. Since wild hogs were the run- 
 down offspring of others turned loose by earlier settlers, Tom was 
 taking no chances; he was taking along his own winter supply of 
 hogmeat.* 
 
 Early in December Abraham entered an entirely new world. Before 
 him now lay the Ohio River, half a mile wide and slow moving. On 
 its muddy surface he saw steamboats funnelling up smoke from their 
 twin smokestacks. Whistles blew and steam hissed. Flatboats loaded 
 with cattle, barrels and hay drifted by and on down river. 
 
 Where the road ended at the river's bank the Lincolns drove onto 
 Ephriam Thompson's ferry. As Thompson poled off from the Ken- 
 tucky mudbank Abe watched richly dressed men and women step 
 into skiffs, sit down and direct their Negro slaves to oar them 
 across to the other shore. 
 
 "Well, she's in," said Thompson. "And she come in free." 
 
 "I heard she did," said Tom Lincoln. 
 
 "Who come in free?" asked Abe. Thompson, working the wide-bladed 
 
INTO THE BIG TIMBER 3 
 
 steering oar, answered, "Indiana." Back in April, he explained, Presi- 
 dent Madison had approved the enabling act to admit the state into 
 the Union. In June delegates had met at Corydon and framed a 
 constitution. The Ordinance of 1787 forbade slavery in the North- 
 west Territory; that same prohibition was written into the state's new 
 constitution. Free education, open to all, also was written in. A 
 regular state-wide election had been held in August; a governor, a 
 lieutenant-governor and county sheriffs were chosen by free men. 
 The first General Assembly had convened at Corydon in November 
 and voted for James Monroe for President of the United States. The 
 Assembly was still in session. 
 
 The crossing completed, Thompson snubbed his ferry into the 
 Indiana mudbank at Bates Landing near the mouth of Anderson 
 River. 5 Up the Ohio a little way Abraham could see slaves helping 
 their masters and mistresses out of the skiffs at the town of Troy. 
 
 When his family drove off the boat and onto the land Abe noticed his 
 father's swarthy face glow with happiness. Abe shoved his hands into 
 the pockets of his buckskin pants and stared into the dark forest. 
 He wondered why his father was so cheerful when in those woods 
 just ahead lurked bears, wildcats, panthers, wolves, and maybe In- 
 dians. "Pap, what's free over here?" he asked. "Everything!" replied 
 Tom Lincoln. "Men free. Land free for the homesteading. Every- 
 thing's free." 
 
 Abe turned to his mother and saw that her angular face wore an 
 unusual look of melancholy. 6 He could not understand why she 
 should be sad today. Maybe it was because this was the Lincolns' 
 fourth move: Elizabethtown, Hodgensville, Knob Creek, and now 
 Indiana. Maybe, too, she was thinking of Baby Tom on Muldraugh's 
 hilltop. He sidled up to her: "Pap says everything's free over here." 
 His mother smiled. Sarah's childish face brightened. His father's 
 one good eye sparkled with joy. "Everything!" Tom Lincoln repeat- 
 ed gaily, raised an arm and sang out, "Start on!" 
 
 With the help of the dog Abe put the hogs in line. 
 
 The home-seekers moved northward into the wilderness, leaving 
 behind them the broad Ohio — that river which separated slave from 
 free soil, mint julep from applejack. They struck the Troy-Vincennes 
 trail and angled northwestward, heading for their pole-house and 
 gladly land in the Pigeon Creek country sixteen miles away. Shortly, 
 fallen trees and dense thickets of briars and underbrush choked the 
 narrow bumpy trail. Whiteoaks, hickory, red gum, sassafras darkened 
 every foot of the way. Yellow clay hills now rolling, now steep, made 
 
4 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 it hard for the horses to pull the heavy wagon. 
 
 The farther the movers penetrated the big timber the faster their 
 troubles increased. They had all they could do to keep their drove 
 of hogs together, for panthers were stalking them. Above the con- 
 fusion Abraham heard his father say it was somewhere along here 
 that he met Reuben Grigsby last summer. 7 As night approached 
 great flocks of passenger-pigeons settled down to roost, their weight 
 breaking off the treetops. Disturbed by snapping limbs the pigeons 
 flapped about, creating booming noises. When the frosty night closed 
 in and blacked out everything but the green eyes of wild animals, 
 the Lincolns made camp on the trail, threw up a hogpen of brush and 
 stretched out for a night's rest. 
 
 But there was no rest, no peace. Panthers screamed. Late-hiber- 
 nating bears grunted. Wolves howled. The hogs squealed and ran 
 back and forth. In spite of all Tom, Abe and the dog could do the 
 hogs finally broke out of the pen and disappeared. Resigned to his fate, 
 yet holding to the faith of Job, Thomas Lincoln reverently bowed his 
 head and lamented, " 'Tis the heavy hand of Providence laid upon me. 
 Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth." 8 
 
 Next day the movers made better time. Their wagon jolted along 
 the blazed trail so rapidly that toward nightfall they reached the 
 Pigeon Creek country and entered a cleared area right east of the forks 
 of Buck Horn Creek. They pulled up to the pole-house, half-faced 
 camp or hunter's camp as it was variously called. With tinder, 
 flint-and-steel, Tom Lincoln fired the big logheap in front of the new 
 home. Almost at once roaring flames lighted the place and drove 
 chill from the night air. 
 
 Standing on the southeast side of a gentle slope in the small clearing 
 the pole-house, which the Grigsbys had helped Tom build, was nothing 
 more than a three-sided shed of whiteoak and black cherry logs. 
 Twenty feet long and sixteen feet wide, the house set at a slight 
 angle. Its southeast open side faced the blazing logheap. A stick- 
 and-mud chimney occupied most of the rear or northwest side. 9 
 
 Tom took a pair of heavy andirons out of the wagon and arranged 
 them on the tamped-clay hearth. With logs burning in the fireplace 
 and in the heap out front, the pole-house quickly heated. 
 
 Nancy brought in iron kettles and other utensils and cooked supper 
 over the open fire. 
 
 Before the family began to eat their cornbread and slim ration of 
 smoked hogmeat, Tom returned thanks, a ceremony he kept up most 
 
INTO THE BIG TIMBER 5 
 
 [ 
 of his life: "Fit and prepare us for humble service, we beg for Christ's 
 
 sake. Amen." 10 
 
 After supper Abe helped his father carry in dry twigs and pile them 
 on the clay floor. Nancy and Sarah spread bear and deer skins over 
 the brush. "Beds are ready," announced Nancy. 
 
 A stinging cold December wind cut through the clearing. But 
 the wall of fire out front heated the wind and puffed warmth into the 
 pole-house. Tired and sleepy from the day's long, rough journey 
 Abraham rubbed his gray eyes with his fists, trying hard to keep 
 awake. By the dancing firelight he saw his mother look at him, his 
 father and Sarah. He saw her bow her head. "Remember our God is 
 a prayer-hearing God," he heard her say. u 
 
 "Amen," said Tom and led the family in kneeling on the earthen 
 floor beside the beds. 
 
 Next morning the Lincolns had a good look at their new home. 
 Except for the small clearing about the pole-house, all they saw was 
 virgin timber and unbroken wilderness. 12 Frost-bitten sawbriars and 
 wild grapevines entangled the underbrush. Acorns littered the ground. 
 
 Mrs. Lincoln picked up a wooden bucket: "Where's that spring?" 
 
 Tom motioned to the left. Indian-file Nancy Hanks Lincoln, Sarah 
 and Abe followed Tom southward along a trail through the silent 
 woods until they came to a ridge of hills forming a shallow natural 
 bowl. They noticed that the hillsides had been cleared and set out in 
 apple and peach trees. Tom waved an arm: "It's all Grigsby's." 
 
 The trail made a quick descent to a pool of clear, bubbling water. 
 Overflow water angled westward in a shallow stream and ran under a 
 hewn-log structure daubed with clay and roofed with clapboards. 
 When Abe wanted to know who lived there Tom explained it was the 
 Grigsby still-house in which whiskey mash had to be kept warm or it 
 wouldn't work properly. Grigsby's whiskey had the reputation of 
 being so dry it would burn like a candle. It sold for $1.25 a gallon 
 when the market price in Vincennes, Indiana, was only seventy-five 
 cents. 
 
 Tom pushed open the thick, heavy still-house door and went inside, 
 Abe at his heels. Warm fumes — moist and rancid — clawed their 
 throats. The room was a compact structure, twelve feet square and 
 ten feet to the eaves. Along one of its plastered walls was the still: 
 an iron vat with a copper coil leading into an iron pipe. The pipe, at 
 the bottom of a wooden trough, extended nearly a foot outside the 
 house. As fresh air chilled the tube, clouds of steam arose and raw 
 
6 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 liquor dripped into an iron kettle embedded in the stream of cold water 
 flowing from the bubbling pool. 
 
 Abe and his father stepped out into the wintry air. A few yards 
 away Abe saw two circular stones. One, resting flat on the ground, 
 was perhaps eight feet in diameter and had running around its per- 
 imeter a trough about eighteen inches wide and three inches deep. 
 The other one, thirty inches high, stood upright in the trough. "What 
 are they for?" asked Abe. Carefully Tom explained that the contrap- 
 tion was a stone mill; to work it Reuben Grigsby hitched a horse to 
 the beam and rolled the smaller stone around inside the trough of the 
 other. Apples tossed into the trough were crushed to a pulp. This 
 was Grigsby 's first step in the art of making applejack. 13 
 
 Impressed by the Grigsby liquor-producing plant, Abe slowly looked 
 in all directions. Through an opening in the orchard, on a knoll a 
 hundred and fifty yards to the southward, he saw an enormous two- 
 story hewn-log house with a spacious lean-to. He turned inquiringly 
 to his father. "Grigsby's place," said Tom. "They got seven boys." 
 
 Nancy Hanks Lincoln and Sarah, using gourds, had dipped water 
 from the pool and filled the big bucket. "We're ready to go," said 
 Nancy. Tom took the pail. "I'll tote it," he added and led the return 
 to the pole-house. 
 
 While Nancy and Sarah went about making the half-faced camp 
 liveable, Thomas and Abraham set to work pushing the wilderness 
 back from their leased eight-acre tract of land. Tom cut down 
 the small trees and trimmed off the limbs. And as Abe piled the brush 
 over the stumps and fired the heaps the ringing of Tom's axe filled the 
 clearing. 
 
 It was in the dark of the moon which, according to Tom Lincoln's 
 superstitious belief, was the right time to deaden trees by girdling them. 
 Tom chopped a deep notch around each trunk, through bark and 
 sapwood. After a while he handed the axe to Abe, "I got to get to work 
 on the casks." They were needed for the Grigsby apple brandy run on 
 Christmas Eve; 14 Tom walked away, leaving to Abe the job of clearing 
 the land. 
 
 Although the sharp cold wind nipped Abraham's face and the 
 hickory axe handle stung his palms, he worked as faithfully as if his 
 father were watching him. At noon he returned to the pole-house 
 and ate cornbread and hogmeat. By supper-time he was, as pioneers 
 said, "dog-tired and hog-hungry." That night he slept soundly on his 
 bed of bearskins and dry brush. 
 
 Day after day Abe worked in the clearing. Stumps which he had 
 
INTO THE BIG TIMBER 7 
 
 set on fire with brush piled around them burned day and night until 
 a heavy rain seemed to have put out the fire. To his surprise three 
 or four days later the stumps burst into flame as if lighted by spirits. 
 
 The Lincolns had been in Indiana only a few weeks before Abe saw 
 Reuben Grigsby, Sr. Before sunup one morning a middle-aged man, 
 wearing a chicken feather in his hat, limped along through the woods. 
 He moved silently. Abe watched him climb onto the top rail of a 
 fence and face eastward. Just as the sun rose over the horizon the 
 man flapped his arms and crowed like a rooster. Reuben Grigsby, Sr. 
 was going through religious rites learned while a captive boy among 
 Indians. When Abraham mentioned it to his father, Thomas repeated 
 what he had heard others say, "Reuben Grigsby, he's just like an 
 Indian." M 
 
 Each Sabbath Day all work stopped in the Lincoln household; the 
 Lincolns were devout Primitive Baptists. Mrs. Lincoln took down her 
 Bible with its chapter footnotes by the Reverend Frederick Ostervald w 
 and read to Abe and Sarah. To own a farm was the highest aim of 
 many pioneers, but Nancy put ability to read the Bible above land 
 ownership: "I would rather Abe would be able to read the Bible than 
 to own a farm if he can't have but one." 17 If her son could read the 
 Bible, she added, he also would be able to read other books. 
 
 On Monday mornings Mrs. Lincoln and Sarah, carrying the family's 
 soiled clothing, soap and a tightly covered iron kettle filled with 
 glowing coals, trudged to the wash-place below the Grigsby spring. 
 There they started a fire. One morning they found a fourteen year old 
 boy waiting for them: "I'm Aaron Grigsby." "Proud to meet you," 
 said Mrs. Lincoln. "Proud to meet you," echoed Sarah. M "I'll help 
 you," said Aaron as he at once set about dipping wash water. 
 
 As Christmas neared Thomas Lincoln worked very hard at cask 
 making. Astride his shaving-horse, grasping his drawing-knife with 
 both hands, he carefully tapered flawless, seasoned whiteoak staves 
 and matched their ends precisely. At regular intervals the tattoo of 
 his cooper's hammer broke the forest stillness. By Christmas Eve 
 he had finished the casks for the apple-brandy run. 
 
 Christmas Day, 1816, in Indiana was a hopeful one for the Lincolns. 
 While the flaming log-heap puffed warmth into the pole-house, Mrs. 
 Lincoln sang her favorite hymn: 
 
 "Come thou fount of every blessing 
 "Tune my heart to sing Thy praise." 
 
 Though not a slave in Kentucky was more humbly sheltered than 
 
8 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 they, unlike the slave, the Lincolns were free. Here on Pigeon Creek 
 the backwoodsman's idea of freedom was: "A man has the right to 
 do anything but injure his neighbor." 19 In the Lincoln three-sided 
 shed that day, hatred of human slavery burned as brightly as did the 
 logs in the great roaring fire out front, for Thomas and Nancy were 
 conscious of the wrongs of slavery and the rights of man as expounded 
 by Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. 20 The Lincolns believed 
 in the Declaration of Independence dictum that all men are created 
 equal and the teachings in Genesis that God created man in His own 
 image. 
 
 By early February the family had moved out of their temporary 
 shelter and into a one-room log cabin about half a mile to the north- 
 ward. This house, facing south, had a stick-and-mud chimney in the 
 west end and a log cut out in the southeast corner for a window. It 
 had two doors. 21 
 
 A day or so before his eighth birthday Abraham saw a flock of wild 
 turkeys slowly approaching the new cabin. He poked his father's rifle- 
 gun in a crack between the wall logs, aimed at the big leader of the 
 flock, fired, then said: "I killed one." ffl Wild turkey for supper 
 that evening was a welcome change from the usual wild hog meat. 
 Carpenter and cooper by winter, Thomas Lincoln was a busy farmer 
 in the summer. Wild hogs had been bothering him so much lately that 
 he decided to fence the leased eight acres before planting time. Taking 
 Abe with him, Tom went into the woods and selected a stand of 
 straight whiteoak timber. He chopped down a tree, trimmed it and 
 cut it into fence-rail lengths. Abe watched his father make a cleft 
 with the axe and drive in a forged iron wedge. 23 Then, rhythmically 
 swinging a maul, Tom Lincoln drove a dogwood glut deep into the 
 widened cleft, moving wedge and glut methodically along. At last 
 the log popped open from end to end, glistening in the sunlight. Tom 
 split the halves into quarters and the quarters into eighths. He leaned 
 on the maul handle and rested for a while; picked up the axe and 
 passed it over to Abe: "Here, try your hand." 
 
 Abe tackled an oak log. His muscles already hardened and his 
 palms calloused by work in the clearing he, too, swung axe and maul 
 smoothly, rhythmically. With each stroke the maul gradually grew 
 heavier. Soon Abe was grunting and sweating. "The quarters won't 
 be nigh so hard," Tom commented with a grin. Another swing with 
 the maul and the log popped open. Abe split the two halves into 
 eight fence rails. Although hardly more than a child, he now was 
 
INTO THE BIG TIMBER 9 
 
 doing a man's work. Together, he and his father fenced in the 
 clearing. 24 
 
 An increase of sun spots alarmed the Lincolns and their fellow 
 Pigeon Creekers. They feared total darkness and prolonged frost. Only 
 last summer green corn had frozen in the fields and ice had damaged 
 fruit and vegetables. Already 1816 was being called Eighteen Hun- 
 dred and Froze to Death. Would the coming summer be worse? 
 
 But spring came and blotted out the sun spots. While creamy 
 dogwood blossoms lighted the somber Indiana woodlands, redbuds 
 dotted the yellow hillsides. 25 Encouraged by these favorable signs, 
 Tom Lincoln hitched a yoke of oxen to a wooden moldboard plow and 
 with Abe driving, broke the land. When he believed the chill had 
 left the ground he and Abe planted the field in corn and flax. 26 
 
 Instead of another freezing summer the 1817 season was a growing 
 one, warm and normal. The corn crop was good and the flax yield 
 big. Now the Lincolns were taking food and clothing from the rich 
 topsoil. With cash money received for making the Grigsby casks 
 and abundant crops harvested, the Lincolns were far from being hard 
 up. 
 
 And then Mrs. Lincoln's kinfolk, Uncle Tom and Aunt Betsy 
 Sparrow, with their eighteen year old foster son, Dennis F. Hanks, 
 moved in from Kentucky. Tom Lincoln quartered them in the old 
 pole-house. The Sparrows were almost the only parents Nancy 
 Hanks Lincoln had ever known. They had reared her to womanhood. 
 Dennis Hanks, whom Abe called Denny, was a genial youth, full of 
 songs and stories. He faced life as he found it: "I came into the world 
 through nature's back-door." w Abe liked Denny's homely philosophy. 
 
 Feeling a new security, the Lincolns decided to take up some of the 
 free land. Tom, Abe and Denny went a mile north of the Grigsby 
 still-house where, pioneer fashion, they read the record in the bark 
 by piling brush heaps on four corners of a patchwork quarter section 
 of land. Locally it was described as rolling upland middling fair, sad, 
 brushy and sorry. A swamp bordered it on the north; black-slashes 
 and salt or deer licks nearly closed it in on its northeast corner. 
 
 Early in October, 1817, Thomas Lincoln told his family goodbye 
 and set out for the U.S. Land Office at Vincennes, sixty miles north- 
 westward on the Wabash River. While Thomas was away Nancy en- 
 livened the cabin by telling Abe, Sarah and Denny legends and Bible 
 stories. She went over Dilworth's Speller as she had done in Ken- 
 tucky. Some words she seemed to underscore: "The heart of the pru- 
 
10 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 dent seeketh knowledge ... we must do to all men as we like to be 
 done to." 
 
 When Thomas Lincoln returned from Vincennes he happily showed 
 the family Receipt No. 8499, dated October 15, 1817, given to him by 
 Receiver Nathaniel Ewing. It read: "To Thomas Linkern of Perry 
 County, Indiana." It acknowledged his payment of $16 as "a deposit 
 on account of Land for which he intends to apply." The receipt offi- 
 cially described the land as "the S.W. qu. Section No 32 in Township 
 No 4 S of Range No 5 W containing 160 acres at two Dollars and — 
 cents per acre." " Assured of owning a farm, the Lincolns began 
 building a hewn-log house on a windy knoll about a half mile north 
 of their second house. Below it fifty yards westward was a spring of 
 cold, pure water. 
 
 Swinging a foot adz in helping to build his third Indiana home, 
 Abraham learned that the mud-sill was a very important log for it 
 was placed at the bottom of every well-built cabin. After a few years, 
 he was told, the mud-sill became a fixed part of both cabin and 
 earth. About eighteen by twenty feet, this new home had a split-board 
 roof, its first layer pegged down and the rest weighted with poles 
 thrown across it. 29 Cracks between wall logs were chinked with clay. 
 Directly opposite one another, in the north and south walls, were doors 
 of split shakes fastened with wooden hasps. Whang leather latch- 
 strings hospitably invited all passers-by. Two windows in the south 
 wall let in some daylight. Pieces of sandstone carefully fitted together 
 formed a hearth in the east end. Wooden pegs above the fireplace 
 crotched Tom Lincoln's gun. Another set of pegs formed a ladder to 
 the dark loft. 30 
 
 The family moved in and settled down for the winter. Tom cut 
 a big log from a tree trunk, hitched a horse to it and dragged it into the 
 house. After he and the boys had rolled it into the cavernous fireplace 
 for a backlog, they led the horse across the puncheon floor and out at 
 the opposite door. His family comfortably lodged in the new house, 
 Thomas Lincoln again set out for the Federal land office at Vincennes. 
 
 During the day Abraham worked in the clearing, but in the evening 
 he took out his Aesop s Fables,* 1 an old edition full of rough wood-cut 
 illustrations, and, sitting on a three-legged stool in front of the blazing 
 logs in the fireplace, tried to read the book. His mother helped him 
 over the hard places and explained to him the tacked-on morals. 
 Aesop, a spindle-shanked slave, quickened young Abe's imagination. 
 Using his mother's comments and earthy philosophy, he constructed 
 fables of his own. 
 
INTO THE BIG TIMBER 11 
 
 Other evenings Abe watched his mother sit down to her little spin- 
 ning wheel in front of the fireplace and carefully load the dogwood 
 distaff with flax grown on the leased eight acres. She fastened the 
 distaff into the arm of the wheel and worked the treadle with one foot. 
 A gentle whirr filled the cabin as she drew out the thread and he 
 watched her expertly size it. Abe knew she was proud of her spinning 
 ability; as a girl she had won many prizes at spinning parties because 
 her thread was the longest and finest. 32 "All the women that were 
 wise hearted did spin with their hands," she often quoted from Exodus 
 XXXV. 
 
 For an hour or more Abe sat near his mother. Then she took her 
 foot off the treadle and the music of her spinning faded, giving way to 
 the moan of the night wind across the top of the stick-and-mud 
 chimney. Abe climbed the peg ladder to the loft and lay down on 
 his sack of corn shucks. 83 Another winter day had ended. 
 
 During the holidays Thomas Lincoln returned from Vincennes and 
 handed Nancy a second receipt given him by the Land Office Receiver, 
 dated December 26, 1817. Again made out to "Thomas Linkern," it 
 read: "The sum of sixty four dollars which with the sum of Sixteen 
 Dollars heretofore paid by him, per receipt No. 8499 dated the 15th 
 of October 1817 is in full the first installment of the purchase of the 
 S.W. qt. Section No. 32 in township No. 4 S of Range 5 w." M 
 
 Nancy's face lit up. That piece of paper meant that she and Tom 
 had paid for one-fourth of a 160 acre farm. Their title would be 
 good. They wouldn't have to move any more. 
 
 The spring of 1818 was pleasant but the summer set in oppressively 
 hot and sticky. While vegetation steamed in the bottom lands along 
 Buck Horn and Pigeon Creeks, frog ponds gave off heavy, pungent 
 fumes. Slimy water filled sloughs and black slashes. Men grubbing 
 in the nearby fields were almost suffocated. Lassitude, drowsiness 
 and general weakness slowed the people. Many did not feel well. 
 Dull pains shot up and down their legs. Pulses slowed. Vomiting 
 followed loss of appetite. A dark brown film coated their tongues. 
 Violent trembling seized their bodies. The loathsome disease called 
 "milksick" by Lincoln's neighbors had come upon them. 
 
 With lancet in hand "yarb doctors" bled the stricken settlers. 
 Mistaking the disease for what was locally called "buck ager," those 
 doctors prescribed tea made of corn husks and boiled roots. But 
 neither the bleeding nor the tea did any good. Shortly, to the dismal 
 croak of bullfrogs and the drone of clouds of mosquitoes, death cut 
 
12 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 down scores of victims. "It's the trembles!" moaned Lincoln's neigh- 
 bors. 85 
 
 A little white flower called snake-root was accused of spreading the 
 plague. The plant which was the cause of the sickness, was the 
 poisonous espatorium urticae jolyum. 36 Some folk claimed they had 
 seen snakes nibbling at it or curled around it. Cows eating it soon 
 reeled, staggered, fell to the ground exhausted and paralyzed, but not 
 before their owners had drunk the infected milk. 
 
 Up to this time Nancy Hanks Lincoln had been regarded by her 
 neighbors as unsociable, more interested in spinning or reading than in 
 returning calls and exchanging gossip. All that was now forgotten, for 
 she was going from cabin to cabin nursing the sick and comforting the 
 sorrowing. By early September deep lines furrowed her sharp, angular 
 face. Her shoulders drooped. She was very, very tired. She, too, was 
 infected with the noxious milksick; but even though she may have 
 known she was infected, her pitying nature drove her on her mercy 
 errands. 87 
 
 For support and comfort Nancy had the doctrine of fatalism as 
 expressed in the creed of her Primitive Baptist Church and restated 
 over and over in her Ostervald Bible. In footnotes to the first chapter 
 of I Kings, Ostervald warned, "Nothing can hinder the execution of 
 the designs of Providence, that whatever men do to prevent them, 
 only serves to hasten them." From Dilworth's Speller she often 
 had read to Abraham "Divine Providence disposes of all things most 
 wisely." Her Primitive Baptist creed put it simply: "What is to be 
 will be and we can do nothing about it." w 
 
 Mrs. Lincoln's uncle, Thomas Sparrow, apparently aware of his 
 infected condition prepared his last will and testament. On Septem- 
 ber 21, 1818, he signed it by making his mark, an X. Nancy Hanks 
 Lincoln, a witness to the will, also signed by mark. 39 From the 
 Sparrow will it is quite evident that Mrs. Lincoln could not write even 
 her name; yet she was not illiterate. It was not uncommon during 
 pioneer days in Indiana to find people who could easily read the print- 
 ed page but could barely make out a word of script. Many could 
 print letters but could not write them. The fact that Mrs. Lincoln 
 read the Bible and other books to her children shows she was not en- 
 tirely unlettered. 
 
 Thomas Sparrow bequeathed by will all his goods and chattels to his 
 wife "Elizabeth Sparrow so She can do as She pleases with it until 
 her death." After that the "whole property is to fall to Dennis Hanks 
 when he comes of age." 
 
INTO THE BIG TIMBER 13 
 
 Scarcely had the ink dried on his mark before Thomas Sparrow 
 was dead. Along a dark, rough trail his body was hauled to a hilltop 
 a quarter of a mile south of the Lincoln cabin. There was no funeral 
 service; only a few words were said over his open grave. Then clods 
 of yellow clay were shoveled over his coffin. "A time will come when 
 all men must be put in the dust," Abe's Speller foretold. 
 
 Soon after the last shovelful of clay fell on Uncle Tom's grave, 
 Aunt Betsy died. 40 The shock of these two deaths cut into Nancy's 
 fast ebbing strength. She struggled on; she was only thirty-five. One 
 could not hinder the designs of Providence. 
 
 While Nancy continued her mercy errands, Thomas Lincoln, cooper 
 and cabinet maker, worked day and night at making coffins, refusing 
 to accept payment for his services. Abe helped by whittling out neat 
 wooden pegs with which Tom pinned together the coffin boards. 
 
 Almost a mile southeast of the Lincoln cabin Mrs. Peter Brooner 
 lay ill with milksickness. Mrs. Lincoln visited her and tried to ease 
 her suffering. "I believe I will have to die," moaned Mrs. Brooner. 
 "Don't talk that way," admonished Mrs. Lincoln. "You may outlive 
 me yet." During the night of September 28th Mrs. Brooner died; 
 Thomas Lincoln whipsawed another coffin. Neighbors buried her on 
 the hilltop close to the graves of Uncle Tom and Aunt Betsy Sparrow. 41 
 
 Heedless of her ebbing strength, Nancy visited more stricken neigh- 
 bors. Then pangs of milksickness seized her. She went bravely to 
 bed on her cornshuck tick in a corner of the cabin. Her dark skin 
 turned sallow and her gray eyes sank deep into their sockets. Now 
 neighbor women came to nurse her. William Wood came also. "I 
 sat up with her all one night," he recalled. 42 
 
 As vomiting set in, Nancy obviously realized her last hour was near. 
 She beckoned to Abraham: "I am going away from you and I shall 
 not return." The words came slowly. Abe wiped his eyes with a 
 fist and his chin trembled. He heard her voice, now very low and 
 labored: "I know you will be a good boy. Be kind to Sarah and to 
 your father. I want you to live as I have taught you and to love your 
 heavenly Father." He tried to answer her but sobs broke his words. 
 "Remember our God is a prayer-hearing God," he heard her whisper. 48 
 He saw cold sweat break out on her high, slanting forehead. Gradu- 
 ally her tired body relaxed. And so on Monday, October 5, 1818, 
 Abraham Lincoln saw his mother die. 
 
 While compassionate neighbor women washed and laid out Nancy 
 Hanks Lincoln, Abe sat in the cabin doorway weeping. He was 
 
14 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 whittling out more wooden pegs, the last thing he could do for his 
 mother. 
 
 Nearby, Thomas Lincoln worked on Nancy's coffin. With his whip- 
 saw he ripped boards out of a black cherry log taken from the pole- 
 house. 44 He smoothed the surfaces with his jack-plane. Carefully 
 he felt the wood with his sensitive fingers; blind in one eye, Tom was 
 this day having difficulty seeing through a mist clouding the other. 
 
 Neighbors placed Nancy Hanks in the coffin and Thomas pegged 
 down the lid. Reuben Grigsby brought up his ox-drawn mudsled and 
 gentle hands put the long box upon it. The oxen pulled out onto 
 the wilderness trail which Mrs. Lincoln recently had walked to tend 
 sick neighbors. Slowly the procession moved southward that October 
 day. Behind the sled walked Abraham, his sister, father and Dennis 
 Hanks. They followed it over clay ridges and across weedy draws. 
 Unmindful of the golden leaves of the hickory and maple, the dull red 
 sweet gum and scarlet sumac, Abe Lincoln saw only the jolting mud- 
 sled and heard only the earth grating under its wooden runners. 
 
 When they reached the mound-wrinkled hilltop, the sled halted 
 at an open grave alongside Mrs. Brooner's resting place. There stood 
 Peter Brooner and his two motherless sons, Henry and Allen. There 
 also was William Roberts, a neighbor who had helped dig Mrs. 
 Lincoln's grave. Over by a big whiteoak tree stood Joseph Gentry 
 and Nathaniel Grigsby, Abe's friends. 45 
 
 Abraham, with Sarah, Thomas and Dennis, watched the black 
 cherry coffin eased down into the narrow pit and heard clods thud on 
 the lid. The grave filled and the thudding died away. 
 
 Peter Brooner reached across the new mound and clasped Thomas 
 Lincoln's hand. "We are brothers now," he said sadly. 46 Thomas 
 Lincoln nodded. 
 
 With slow, dragging feet the Lincolns and Dennis Hanks walked 
 back down the trail, leaving the lonely mound on the hilltop for the 
 lonely cabin on the knoll. Gazing southward, Abe watched the hill- 
 top grow purple in the twilight. Crowding through his mind were 
 the words from his mother's favorite hymn: 
 
 "P\raise the mount — 0, fix me on it! 
 "Mount of God's unchanging love." 
 
 Inside the cabin Abe felt a heavy stillness. The old cornshuck 
 tick was empty; the spinning wheel was silent. Only across the stick- 
 and-mud chimney faintly moaned the rising night wind. 
 
Conestoga wagon equipment. (Indiana Historical Bureau). 
 
 15 
 
Chapter Two 
 THE DREAM 
 
 As eleven year old Sarah (everyone called her Sally) went about 
 learning her duties of housekeeper for her father, brother and Dennis 
 Hanks, winter came on and nipped the white snake root, halting the 
 milksick terror. But that terror had deepened a belief in the super- 
 natural among Lincoln's neighbors. Some were sure a ghost was 
 riding every gust of wind. Others were just as sure Old Splithoof 
 had been unchained and would take up lodging in wild hogs. Word 
 reached the community that a regular old haunt had appeared 
 down along Honey Creek a little way to the southward. A pot of gold 
 was said to have been buried there by a river pirate. Maybe 
 the haunt guarding it was the ghost of one of Mike Fink's victims. 
 No one cared to pry into the matter. 
 
 Not only did ghosts occupy a high place in the supernatural world 
 of Lincoln's fellow Pigeon Creekers, but all the well known signs were 
 carefully observed. Abe heard his neighbors say that if a male pig were 
 neutered in the Zodiac sign of the heart the pig would surely die . . . 
 Never lay a fence-worm in the dark of the moon else the rails would 
 sink into the ground . . . Never lay clapboard shingles in the light of 
 the moon or they would curl up ... If a hoe or other sharp tool were 
 carried through a house an early death in the family living there 
 could be expected . . . Only a silver bullet would injure a witch whose 
 image had been drawn on a clapboard ... A hen owl hooting in the 
 north meant the coming of bad weather . . . Watch out for a bird 
 flying in through a window: it foretokened sorrow . . . Dreams, the 
 people believed, foretold events. 
 
 One morning Tom Lincoln said to Abe, Dennis and Sally, "I had a 
 wonderful dream last night. I dreamed I rode through a path to a 
 strange house. A woman was sitting at the fireside. I distinctly 
 saw her features." He paused. "She was peeling an apple," he 
 solemnly added. 1 He gazed into the fireplace, then looked up at Sally. 
 
 More than a year had passed since the death of Nancy Hanks 
 Lincoln. And during that time little Sally had tried hard to brighten 
 the cabin and make it homelike. But the girl's efforts had not been 
 too successful. In spite of the fact that the Lincoln farm now was 
 
 16 
 
THE DREAM 17 
 
 abundantly stocked with hogs, cattle and horses, that fine crops of 
 wheat and corn had been gathered, the wilderness still squeezed in 
 and beat a dreary tattoo on the cabin. 2 Even the antics of Abe's pet 
 cat did not dispel the gloom. What the place needed was a woman. 
 
 That dream of a woman paring an apple so fired Tom Lincoln's 
 imagination that he got out his best clothes, told Abe, Sally and 
 Dennis he wouldn't be gone long, and set out late in November, 1819, 
 for Elizabethtown, Kentucky. There, in 1797, he had helped Samuel 
 Haycraft build a mill on Severns Valley Creek. There he had worked 
 as a cabinet maker. There on June 12, 1806, he had married Nancy 
 Hanks. And there, Sarah had been born. 3 It was toward Elizabeth- 
 town, then, that Tom turned when his dream bade him look for a 
 new woman to care for the Lincoln household. 
 
 While Sally went on running the house she, Abe and Denny specu- 
 lated on what might be happening over in Kentucky. Then one 
 December day they saw a four-horse wagon drive up and Thomas 
 Lincoln help down a woman who was about five feet, eleven inches 
 tall. "I got you a new mother," he said. They saw that her dark hair 
 was neatly curled and that her gray eyes looked at them in a friendly 
 way. She was about thirty-one years old. Abe and Sally went up to 
 her: "Proud to meet you." 
 
 The new mother was Sarah Bush Johnston, widow of the Eliza- 
 bethtown jailer, Daniel Johnston. She and Thomas Lincoln had been 
 married by the Reverend George L. Rogers, a Methodist minister, 
 December 2, 1819, at ten o' clock in the morning at Benjamin Chap- 
 eze's big log house in Elizabethtown. 4 
 
 On the day before their marriage, Tom Lincoln paid off the widow's 
 debts, amounting to about twelve dollars. For that sum Tom got 
 not only a wife for himself and a stepmother for Abe and Sally, 
 but also a bed and bedding, a forty-dollar bureau, a set of knives and 
 forks, a table, a clothes-closet, and three stepchildren — Elizabeth, 
 aged twelve; Matilda, eight; and John D. Johnston, three. Moreover, 
 his new brother-in-law, Ralph Crumes (or Croome) provided the 
 four horses and wagon. 5 
 
 Straightway the children made friends. "My earliest recollections 
 of Abe," said Matilda Johnston, "is playing — carrying water about one 
 mile — had a pet cat that would follow him to the spring." e 
 
 With eight people and a cat crowded into an eighteen by twenty 
 foot log cabin it was clear the place would have to be run systematic- 
 ally or a lot of feelings were going to be hurt. The second Mrs. Lincoln 
 bent to her task of making the place more comfortable. She persuaded 
 
18 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 Tom to replace the rickety doors of split-shakes with battened ones. 
 She carpeted the puncheon floor with freshly tanned deer skins. 7 And 
 she gave Abe and Sarah a mother's care. 
 
 Sarah Bush Lincoln had neither the brilliant mind nor the sensitive 
 nature of Nancy Hanks Lincoln. But she was thoughtful, methodical, 
 even tempered. Nancy Hanks had been a dreamer; Sarah Bush was a 
 practical woman. Nancy Hanks had been inclined to coldness; Sarah 
 Bush was very sociable. But, like Nancy Hanks, Sarah Bush was 
 industrious and essentially religious. Her quiet ways soon won her 
 stepchildren's affection. Abe liked her: "She proved to be a good 
 and kind mother." 8 
 
 While Sarah Bush went about mothering Abe and Sally, the Pigeon 
 Creek-Buck Horn Valley busybodies ranted, " Ton my word, Tom 
 Lincoln's woman's body ain't cold yet and here he's up and married 
 again!" 9 It was hinted that Tom Lincoln had first proposed to Sarah 
 Bush, had been turned down and then married Nancy Hanks. Paying 
 no attention to the gossip, Mrs. Lincoln went on with her home- 
 making chores. 
 
 All the family had gone to bed one night except Abe, who wanted to 
 read by the firelight. When Tom growled about this Mrs. Lincoln 
 spoke up plainly: "You leave Abe be. Let him read there if he wants 
 to." Tom protested, "He's keeping us awake." Mrs. Lincoln was 
 firm: "The boy is trying to study things out." Tom said no more. 
 
 Abe grinned at his stepmother. After throwing hickory bark and 
 dry sassafras twigs onto the fire, he stretched out full length on the 
 sandstone hearth, on his back, his head toward the blaze. He raised 
 his book above his breast and went on with his reading. 
 
 Thomas Lincoln, Mrs. Lincoln recalled, "could read a little and could 
 scarcely write his name: hence he wanted Abraham to learn and he 
 encouraged him to do it in all ways he could." But Tom didn't like 
 to see Abe read all night. Abe, according to his stepmother, "would 
 not quit reading till his father made him climb the ladder and go to 
 bed." If, however, Abe had waited for her "to tell him to go to bed he 
 would (have waited) till doomsday," she declared. 10 
 
Chapter Three 
 NEIGHBORS 
 
 Abe's neighbors fell into one of the three classes of immigrants who 
 preceded the Lincolns into Indiana: hunters, squatters and old-timers. 
 As soon as game grew a bit scarce the hunters moved on. Squatters, 
 who usually had been in trouble back home, did not want neighbors 
 and when new-comers increased the squatters abandoned their small 
 gardens and got out. Old-timers moved in and stayed. To them 
 the frontier code of freedom was more binding than any statute. 1 
 
 Like many old-timers, Thomas Lincoln came ahead of his family 
 and spied out land. About three miles southwest of the site Lincoln 
 selected for his pole-house, lived a family of squatters, all brothers. 
 Before the Lincolns moved in the brothers had cleared an acre of 
 ground and built a log cabin on it. Because of their strange goings- 
 on the neighbors called their cabin The Mysterious House. 
 
 The moment the Lincolns moved into the Pigeon Creek-Buck Horn 
 Valley country the gamblers moved out. 2 Did they know Tom Lin- 
 coln? Over in Kentucky they had been gamblers. And according to 
 the records of Cumberland County, Burksville, Kentucky, Thomas 
 Lincoln had been constable, 1802-1804. 8 Did these men fear ex-Con- 
 stable Lincoln? Their sudden abandonment of the place left an un- 
 solved mystery in Buck Horn Valley and Tom Lincoln said nothing to 
 help solve it. 
 
 A mile or so east of the gamblers' cabin Reuben Grigsby had built 
 his great two-story hewn-log house, and was already well settled when, 
 in the frosty summer of 1816, he met Thomas Lincoln on the bleak 
 Indiana wilderness trail. 
 
 Lincoln said, "My name's Tom Lincoln. I'm looking for a location." 
 Grigsby eyed him shrewdly: "I'm Reuben Grigsby." 
 
 "I'm a carpenter by trade," Lincoln added. Grigsby studied Tom's 
 swarthy face then replied, "That suits me. I'm looking for a cooper." 
 That's how Tom Lincoln got the job of making casks for the Grigsby 
 still-house.* 
 
 During that first winter in Indiana when Abe saw Reuben Grigsby 
 he asked his father why Grigsby limped. "Indians," said Tom. 
 
 Abraham knew by heart his father's experience with Indians; and 
 
 19 
 
20 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 Reuben Grigsby 's childhood experience matched Tom Lincoln's. Abe 
 could vividly retell how in May, 1786, his grandfather Abraham, for 
 whom he had been named, had been tomahawked to death by Wabash 
 Indians at Long Run near Hughes Station, Kentucky. And how an 
 Indian grabbed up seven year, old Thomas, carrying him under one 
 arm down the lane. "Don't kill me," Thomas had cried. The Indian 
 stopped and looked back at the cabin. A half-moon trinket glittered 
 on his breast. Tom's brother, Mordecai, in the cabin, fired and 
 killed the Indian. Little Tom fled back home. 5 
 
 When Reuben was four years old a band of sun-worshipping Indians 
 entered his home near Bardstown, Kentucky. His father was away. 
 Reuben scampered up the stick-and-mud chimney and tried to hide. 
 But an Indian yanked him down and made him watch while other 
 Indians killed his three older brothers and a sister. Then the Indians 
 started north, carrying Reuben and driving his mother as she carried 
 her baby. 
 
 When Mrs. Grigsby tired so she could not walk fast enough to 
 please her captors, they killed her. The baby cried. They held it by 
 the heels and dashed its head against a tree. And when the Indians 
 grew weary of carrying Reuben they threw him into a river. An old 
 squaw swam out and rescued him. Again they threw him in. And 
 again the squaw rescued him. The tribe let her keep Reuben. Soon 
 afterward he developed what was called white swelling. With herb 
 poltices the old squaw doctored and saved his leg. But that leg 
 never grew as much as the other, making him always limp when he 
 walked. 
 
 For seven years Reuben Grigsby lived with the Indians. During 
 those years, from four to eleven, he acquired many of their customs. 
 He talked very little and was overly cautious. He went through 
 their religious rites. "He's just like an Indian," said his neighbors. 6 
 
 Common childhood suffering appeared to draw Thomas Lincoln 
 and Reuben Grigsby together. The Ten O'clock Line — that imaginary 
 zigzaging line drawn across Indiana in 1809 — only a few miles north 
 of Pigeon Creek — to separate roaming Indians from white land-seekers, 
 held a deeper significance for Grigsby and Lincoln than it did for the 
 average settler. 
 
 In the Grigsby household were seven sons: Aaron, Ruben, Jr., 
 Charles, Redmond, William, Nathaniel and James. Quickly Nathaniel, 
 known as Nattie, and Abe became close friends. Meanwhile, Aaron 
 and Abe's sister, Sally, met regularly at the spring on washdays. 
 
 By early 1818, movers from Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, 
 
NEIGHBORS 21 
 
 Kentucky and some eastern states, were coming into the Pigeon 
 Creek community. Like Thomas Lincoln they sought free homestead 
 land, commonly called Congress land. Among them was James Gentry, 
 a wealthy slave-holder from near Maceo, Kentucky, just across the 
 Ohio River from Hanging Rock (Rockport) , Indiana. Gentry sold his 
 slaves, and with his wife and ten children, moved in and took up a 
 thousand acres of land adjoining the Lincoln farm. 7 
 
 Abraham and Nathaniel Grigsby made friends with one of the sons, 
 twelve year old Joseph, forming a three-way boyhood companionship 
 which, for frank exchange of ideas, can hardly be matched in youth 
 history. According to Pigeon Creek standards the Grigsby and Gentrys 
 were very wealthy and the Lincolns were decently poor. The Grigsbys 
 and Lincolns were anti-slavery; the Gentrys were pro-slavery. The 
 Grigsbys and Gentrys were close-fisted thrifty; the Lincolns often did 
 favors for people without pay. Usually the Lincolns gave the other 
 fellow just a little bit the best of the bargain. These things the three 
 boys observed, discussed among themselves and reached conclusions 
 satisfactory to their youthful viewpoints. 
 
 Joe and Nattie also discussed Abe. Lincoln "was truthful and 
 industrious, always working with his own hands when he was not at 
 school or studying at home," said Nattie. 8 
 
 Into the community moved another wealthy man, seventy year 
 old Thomas Turnham, a Revolutionary War soldier opposed to 
 slavery. Turnham entered Congress land across Pigeon Creek bottoms 
 and the deer licks, right north of Thomas Lincoln's farm. It wasn't 
 long until his son, David, and Abe were friends. 
 
 In spite of pestilence and other hardships, travelers, movers and 
 traders, in increasing numbers, made their way through the Indiana 
 wilderness. They followed the road — scarcely more than a trail — 
 which passed the Lincoln home. Some told tales about yellow fever; 
 some boasted of fights with bears and panthers; some described Har- 
 monie on the Wabash River where the Angel Gabriel conversed with 
 Father George Rapp. Rapp preached the doctrine of the dual sexual 
 nature of Adam and then demanded strict celibacy of all Rappites. 
 
 Many incidents in the early life of Abraham Lincoln were intimately 
 tied to the passing of these travelers. One day Abe's father, anxious 
 to share the hospitality of the Lincoln cabin, hailed a weary horse- 
 man. "Light, stranger, and rest your saddle," Tom invited. The 
 stranger sat his horse and asked, "How is the road ahead?" Tom 
 walked to the rail-fence to answer the man's question. Out ran Abe 
 and hooked a skinny leg over the top rail. "Stranger, what's the news?" 
 
22 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 he called anxiously. "Hush up," said Tom and went on telling about 
 the condition of the road. 
 
 Only for a moment did Abe hush up. "Stranger, what is the news 
 where you come from?" he cried. Tom Lincoln straightened out an 
 arm and brushed Abe off the fence. Humiliated but not conquered, 
 Abe Lincoln and Dennis Hanks, with whom he had been playing, 
 crawled alongside the fence worm to a spot beyond the reach of 
 Tom's powerful arm. There Abe waited and thought over what next to 
 do. When he saw the man rein his horse to leave, Abe pleaded: "Say, 
 stranger, what is the news?" 9 After the stranger had told him and 
 ridden away, Abe said to Dennis, "Pap don't think it's polite to ask 
 folks questions. But Denny, I reckon I wasn't born polite. There are 
 so many things I want to know and how else am I a-going to get to 
 know them?" 10 
 
 One place Abe could get to know things was at Noah Gordon's 
 horse-mill; men and boys from miles around congregated there, told 
 jokes and swapped stories. On a late afternoon Abe Lincoln and 
 David Turnham rode to the mill a mile and a quarter south of the 
 Lincoln cabin. Finding a line-up they waited, as was customary, 
 to take their turn. 
 
 Abe pulled his sack of shelled corn off his old gray mare's back 
 and watched the mill, which seemed to him to be grinding unneces- 
 sarily slowly. "My hound pup can eat all the meal that thing'll grind 
 in a day and then howl for his supper," he commented to Turnham. 
 About sundown Abe's turn came. After hitching his mare to the 
 long driving sweep he crawled onto the end seat. "Get!" he ordered. 
 Around and around walked the horse, the wooden cog-wheels revolv- 
 ing and growling as they turned the shafts which drove the millstones. 
 
 Miller Gordon stood on the grinding floor methodically dipping 
 his toll box into the hopper, taking out the mill's pay. 
 
 "Get up!" Abe shouted as he urged his old nag to step faster, but 
 she acted as if she didn't like the idea at all. Louder roared the 
 grinding stones and the song of the mill filled the brushy hollow 
 while fragrance of broken corn grains floated out onto the evening air. 
 Still faster Abe wanted the horse to step. He hit her a whale of a 
 whack with his gad and yelled, "Get up!" That instant the old mare 
 let drive a shoeless hoof squarely onto Abe Lincoln's forehead. He 
 fell back, limp and senseless. Noah Gordon stopped the mill, jumped 
 from the floor and examined Abe. The boy was bleeding, possibly to 
 death. 
 
 David Turham ran for Tom Lincoln who arrived with a wagon and 
 
NEIGHBORS 23 
 
 i 
 hauled Abe home. 11 Neighbors flocked in and helped to lay out 
 Abe's body. All night they kept the wake. The next morning 
 a mourner exclaimed, "Look! He's coming back to life!" Another 
 cried, "He's coming straight back from the dead!" Abe jerked all over. 
 Slowly he rolled his tongue, then blurted his unfinished indictment 
 of the horse: "You old hussy!" w 
 
 The experience of being unconscious for several hours and then 
 completing a sentence caused Lincoln to speculate a great deal on the 
 workings of the mind. Finally he explained the phenomenon to his 
 satisfaction: "Just before I struck the old mare my will through the 
 mind had set the muscles of my tongue to utter the expression, and 
 when her heels came in contact with my head the whole thing stopped 
 half-cocked, as it were, and was only fired off when mental energy or 
 force returned." 18 Being "apparently killed for a time," as he put it, 
 may have influenced Lincoln to compose some verse about time as 
 an "empty vapor." 14 
 
 During the forenoon of November 28, 1820, while looking out of his 
 cabin door, Abe saw Mrs. Margaret McFarland, widow of the local 
 shoemaker, walking up the trail. She had her four children with her. 
 Her husband and two other children had died of milksickness and were 
 buried near Nancy Hanks Lincoln. Abe knew that times were very 
 hard for the widow — so hard that Dr. Stephen P. Cissna, the local 
 physician, was sending her baskets of food. Back in Kentucky the 
 Lincolns and McFarlands had been friends. 
 
 "Pap, what you reckon is the matter now?" Abe asked. "She'll tell 
 us," said Tom. Mrs. McFarland came to the door: "Folks, would 
 you mind keeping my children until tomorrow?" Mrs. McFarland 
 blushed. "I'm going down to Rockport," she murmured. 
 
 Abe heard a horse's hoofbeats. He turned and saw Dr. Cissna. Mrs. 
 McFarland added: "Dr. Cissna and I are going down there to be 
 married." She climbed up on the horse behind the doctor. As they 
 rode away Abe heard the doctor sing out, "I've told the boys to have 
 the preacher on hand." The next morning they returned on the same 
 horse. Tom Lincoln called to them, "Light, folks and rest your saddle." 
 They got down and came into the cabin. When they reached Rock- 
 port, they explained there was no preacher on hand and the boys had to 
 go to the country and bring in the Reverend James L. Thompson, a 
 Methodist minister. The wedding feast got underway at two o'clock 
 in the morning in the Brown Tavern and lasted until sunup. 
 
 Mrs. Cissna looked at her four children and said to Mrs. Lincoln, 
 "I want to pay you for their trouble." 
 
24 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 "We don't want any pay," replied Mrs. Lincoln. "They ain't been 
 a bit of trouble," Tom assured her. "We're proud to help you." Abe, 
 feeling differently about it, asked, "Pap, why don't you ask her for 
 her shoemaker's tools and call it even?" 
 
 Mrs. Cissna smiled. Her social position had just risen from shoe- 
 maker's widow to doctor's wife. "Of course, Abe, you can have those 
 tools. I won't need them any longer," she said. 15 
 
 When not reading by the fireplace Abe Lincoln tried his hand at the 
 cobbler's art. He also found time to go hunting in order to supply 
 the family table with fresh meat. One cold afternoon he and Joe 
 Gentry went deep into the forest to hunt wild turkeys. Night shut 
 down so dark the boys could not see a turkey roosting on a limb 
 shoulder high. They tossed a blanket and some skins on the ground, 
 rolled up in them and dropped off to sleep. Snow fell and covered 
 them completely. Just before morning a herd of wild hogs came 
 along looking for a warm place. Lincoln nudged Gentry,"Wake up, 
 Joe. We're going to have company." The hogs rooted through the 
 snow and crawled in bed with the hunters. 19 
 
 Feeding on pecans, acorns, pig-nuts, beechnuts — all called mast by 
 backwoodsmen — wild hogs put on meat which, though not of the firm 
 quality of corn-fed hogs, was much relished by Lincoln's root-grubbing, 
 hungry neighbors. 
 
 As winter grew colder Lincoln and his friend, John Tuley, who lived 
 about two miles to the southwest, decided to trap game with a pen 
 of poles. They built one eight feet square, notching its corners as if 
 they were building a hewn-log house. They covered it with slabs 
 except at the exact center which they left open to let in daylight. 
 From the center to outside they dug a channel, deep and rather narrow. 
 To bait the trap they dropped shelled corn into the channel. Quails, 
 turkeys, wild hogs followed the corn trail to the center of the pen. 
 Unable to figure a way out the victims became panicked, kept looking 
 up at the center opening and stayed there until Abe and John removed 
 them. 17 
 
 To add venison to the family diet and buckskin to the family ward- 
 robe, Abe would take his father's rifle gun and walk northeastward a 
 short way to the deer licks along Prairie Fork of Pigeon Creek. There 
 David Turnham, living north of the licks, joined him. During the night 
 deer came to lick the gray, saline earth as buffalo had done for cen- 
 turies. Such crusty areas being without vegetation made it easy for 
 hunters to get in good shots. "Abe was not so fond of a gun as I was," 
 Turnham recalled. 18 
 
NEIGHBORS 25 
 
 [ 
 Throughout the growing season Abe helped his father with the 
 
 farm work. Eventually bears got into Tom Lincoln's cornfield and 
 
 damaged the greening ears. More bears broke into the pens and killed 
 
 his fattening hogs. " 'Tis the heavy hand of Providence laid upon me. 
 
 Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth," Abraham heard his father 
 
 again lament. 19 
 
 Abe described the troublesome situation in verse: 
 
 "When first my father settled here, 
 "'Twos the frontier line; 
 "The panther s scream filled night with fear, 
 "And bears preyed on the swine. 
 
 Since Lincoln's neighbors also were having bear trouble a bear 
 hunt was organized. With a pack of dogs, men and boys set out to 
 destroy the marauders. Abe described the onset of the hunt: 
 
 "Now to elude the eager pack 
 "Bear shuns the open ground 
 "Through vines, he shapes his track, 
 "And runs it round and round. 
 "Across the glade he sweeps for flight 
 "And fully is in view 
 "The dogs, now fired by the sight, 
 "Their cry and speed renew." " 
 
 The hunters chased the bears to Cow Pond. There Matthew 
 Rogers cornered one but had run out of ammunition. Grabbing Mason 
 J. Howell's butcherknife, Rogers waded in and fought the bear face to 
 face. At the second or third blow the knife blade broke off in the 
 bear's jaw. Maddened by pain the bear mauled and bit Rogers 
 fiercely. Howell went to Rogers' rescue. Swinging a heavy club, he 
 struck the bear hard between the eyes. Nine bears were killed in that 
 hunt. 21 
 
 On the edge of Pigeon Bottoms, northwest of the Lincoln cabin, was 
 a stand of firewood timber. With his keenly sharpened axe over his 
 shoulder, a book in one pocket and a hunk of cornbread in another, 
 Abe Lincoln went whistling along the deer path to his day's work. 
 His stepsister, Matilda Johnston, followed, moving over the dead 
 leaves as softly as his pet cat. Because there was danger in crashing 
 trees and glancing axe, Matilda's mother had forbidden her to go with 
 him into the woods. When close enough the girl sprang onto Abe's 
 
26 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 back, throwing him off balance. In the fall she cut her foot on the axe 
 blade. 
 
 Blood spurted. Matilda screamed. Abe got up, took out his hand- 
 kerchief and bound the wound. "What will we tell mother as to how 
 this happened?" he asked. "I'll tell her," said Matilda, "I cut my 
 foot on the axe. That will be no lie." Lincoln shook his head: "That 
 won't be all the truth, the whole truth. Tildy, you tell the whole truth 
 and trust your mother." 22 
 
 As if in celebration of Abraham Lincoln's thirteenth birthday, a big 
 road was laid out between Evansville, forty miles to the southwest on 
 the Ohio, and Corydon, the Indiana State capital, sixty miles to the 
 east. This new road following the old blazed trail, passed alongside 
 the Lincoln cabin. A little way to the eastward it crossed the three 
 hundred mile long Louisville- Vincennes-St. Louis highway over which 
 stage coaches lumbered, carrying passengers and mail. Soon home- 
 seekers, missionaries, fur-traders, cut-throats, runaway slaves, politi- 
 cians, slave-hunters, New Harmony communists, soldiers patrolling 
 for "bad" Indians, were passing Abe Lincoln's door. It was the full 
 pageant of the roaring Hoosier frontier. And at every opportunity 
 young Abe ran to the fence, swung a leg over the top rail and called 
 out: "Stranger! What's the news where you come from?" 
 
 From travelers Abe learned that aging American men wanted gin- 
 seng. In China ginseng was selling for its weight in silver. The demand 
 was much greater than the supply. "Chew a root of ginseng," wrote an 
 elderly man in the Vincennes Western Sun. "It gives an uncommon 
 warmth and vigor to the blood and frisks the spirits beyond any 
 cordial. It will even make old age amicable by rendering it lively." s 
 
 Abe knew there was a rich patch of the valuable root just below the 
 place where Matilda had cut her ankle on his axe; he and Joe Gentry 
 sharpened their grubbing hoes and went to work. They dug ginseng in 
 the spring rains; they dug it in the summer heat. Some days they 
 made as much as seventy cents. They were happy that digging up 
 the fountain of youth for romantically inclined old men was such a 
 rewarding activity. 
 
 Early one morning, instead of going to the ginseng patch, Abe Lin- 
 coln streaked it four miles over the hilly Troy- Vincennes trail to the 
 home of Shadrach Hall, the tanner. Wesley Hall, about Abe's age, 
 opened the cabin door. Abe went in and sat down. "How are all the 
 folks?" Mrs. Hall asked. "Oh, they're all well," said Abe. After a 
 pause he added: "Mother sent me here to borrow your fine-toothed 
 comb." Mrs. Hall eyed him apprehensively "What's the matter?" 
 
NEIGHBORS 27 
 
 Abe studied the puncheon floor: "Mother thinks we got creepers." 
 
 Mrs. Hall threw up her hands: "You reckon it's a fact?" Abe 
 reckoned it was: "We don't have any comb with teeth fine enough 
 to catch them. Mother thought you might let us borrow yours." 
 
 Mrs. Hall pointed to a newspaper on the floor and ordered Wesley, 
 "Put your head over that!" She bent down and combed his hair. 
 Frightened lice rattled onto the paper. She groaned "Why, Wesley 
 Hall! Your head is just alive with creepers!" She examined her 
 other son Squire. "All you young-uns got creepers!" she cried. "Abe, 
 put your head down there!" Again she combed. Abe's head was 
 alive with the things, too. "You all were playing together last week!" 
 she stormed. Where did Abe get them? He couldn't explain; maybe 
 travelers brought them along with the news. 25 
 
 One traveler by the name of William Jones brought a general store 
 and meat market, in 1823, and opened where the Boonville-Corydon 
 road crossed the Rockport-Bloomington highway, two miles south- 
 west of the Lincoln cabin. That was the beginning of a town. Abe 
 asked Jones for the jobs of cutting pork and rendering lard and got 
 both. 26 The pay was not much but the jobs gave Lincoln an oppor- 
 tunity to talk with people who traded at the store. Also here he began 
 reading Jones' copy of the Vincennes Western Sun & General Adver- 
 tizer, a weekly newspaper which came to the store. It was the first 
 newspaper Lincoln ever read regularly. 27 
 
 From the outset William Jones' background interested Abraham 
 Lincoln. Born in Vincennes on January 5, 1800, William was three 
 years old when his father, Peter Jones, was appointed Esquire Justice 
 of General Quarter Sessions of the Peace for Indiana Territory at 
 the capital, Vincennes. He was seven when his father was elected to 
 the Board of Trustees of Vincennes University. Its president was 
 William Henry Harrison, Territorial Governor. At ten, William saw 
 his father organize the Light Horse Company to defend the old city 
 against Tecumseh, the powerful Indian chief. Tecumseh and his three 
 hundred warriors had come bent on breaking the Ten O'Clock Line 
 Treaty and eventually driving white settlers from the whole western 
 country. It was this Ten O'Clock Treaty line which Lincoln and his 
 fellow Hoosiers called "the frontier line." 
 
 After Indiana entered the Union, Captain Peter Jones, in violation 
 of the State Constitution and the Ordinance of 1787, openly sold Negro 
 slaves at the door of his tavern. 28 In an inventory of his estate dated 
 September 1, 1819, listed between a meat axe and a keg of brandy, 
 were the names of seven Negro slaves ranging in value from $25 for 
 
28 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 Phillip to $400 for Jonathan. 29 That same year widow Sarah Jones, 
 serving as administratrix for the captain's estate, paid $40 to Vincen- 
 nes University for a year's tuition for her son, William, to study Latin, 
 Greek, English Grammar, Mathematics and Geography. Thus the 
 appraised value of the slave, Jonathan, equalled the cost of ten years 
 of university training for his young master, who was now Abe Lincoln's 
 employer. 80 
 
 The estate settled, William Jones, in company with Gideon Romine, 
 left Vincennes and came to Pigeon Creek community. Since 1815, 
 Gideon Romine, son of the nearby prosperous Lincoln neighbor, Chris- 
 topher Romine, had been tending bar in the Jones tavern at Vincennes. 
 Bartender Romine's services were estimated to be worth $200 a year. 31 
 At the crossroads, in upper Spencer county, Jones established his 
 general store and hired Abe Lincoln. The store became the shopping 
 place for political fixers, slave-hunters (called "nigger-ketchers" and 
 "patter-rollers") , story tellers, drunks, horse buyers, gamblers, social 
 reformers. Lincoln met them all, and took advantage of the oppor- 
 tunity to ask the news. 
 
 Even when Lincoln was not working, William Jones encouraged him 
 to hang around the place. It was good business for Jones; Abe told 
 jokes, made up parodies, recounted news he had just read in the Vin- 
 cennes Sun. Sometimes Abe put on the dog by carrying a cane. "It was 
 a freak of mine," he said. "My favorite one was a knotted beech stick. 
 I carved the head myself." 32 He began work on another cane but 
 left it unfinished. Jones laid it away. "Abe was warmly attached 
 to Bill Jones," Dennis Hanks recalled. 33 
 
 William Jones' success with the general store caught the sharp 
 business eye of Lincoln's wealthiest neighbor, James Gentry. Gentry 
 opened a store in competition, about one hundred yards to the west- 
 ward and across the Corydon road from the enormous Gentry two- 
 story hewn-log house. When his store was going well, James Gentry 
 laid out a town and persuaded people to buy his lots and build on 
 them. The new town grew rapidly. Because of increasing traffic over 
 the New Harmony-Boonville-Corydon road, the United States Govern- 
 ment established a post office there and named it Gentry's Store. 
 
 Meanwhile Lincoln worked irregularly for Jones. Sometimes he 
 would take a smoothly shaved clapboard over to an old stump near 
 the Gentry establishment, sit down and figure on it. Once John W. 
 Lamar and his father came by. When Mr. Lamar pointed to him and 
 said "Abe, you'll amount to somebody someday," Abe paid no appa- 
 rent attention. Several times after that John and his father went by 
 
NEIGHBORS 29 
 
 the stump. And Abe Lincoln was always there either writing on 
 the clapboard or reading a book or newspaper, while other men and 
 boys were loafing. 34 
 
 Ambitious to control the whole town, James Gentry bought Jones' 
 store and renamed the area about it Gentryville. Jones moved perhaps 
 half a mile west of Gentryville, on the New Harmony-Boonville road, 
 and set up a new store. He took Abe Lincoln along with him. Custo- 
 mers followed. 35 At the new store Abe increased his free entertain- 
 ment by telling bigger tales and more news from the Vincennes Sun. 
 Also, he began taking a great interest in local, state and national 
 politics. "Abe is a well-posted politician," Jones said proudly. 36 
 
 The growing success of Jones' new establishment cut into the profit 
 of Gentry's store and even hurt the sale of town lots. So Gentry 
 persuaded Jones to move back to Gentryville. This time Jones opened 
 up at the southwest corner of the crossroads. Again Abe Lincoln and 
 his stories moved with him and again the town started booming 
 along with Jones' business. 
 
 With hope of offsetting Jones' competition, James Gentry built still 
 another store — across from Jones on the southeast corner of the cross- 
 roads. He took Benjamin and Gideon Romine into partnership with 
 him and called the firm the Gentry-Romine Store. 37 Though as shrewd 
 in his dealings as Gideon Romine, James Gentry was not as proficient 
 in business arithmetic. Someone asked him what per cent he was 
 making on the sale of goods. "God bless your soul, I don't know 
 anything about your per cent. But I know when I buy an article in 
 Louisville for a dollar and sell it here in Gentryville for two dollars I 
 double my money every time," replied Gentry. 38 
 
 To Abraham Lincoln's delight John Baldwin opened a blacksmith 
 shop in the northwest angle of the crossroads, about a hundred feet 
 north of Jones' store. Here Abe watched Baldwin, grimy and soot- 
 covered, rest his great muscular arms on the long bellows shaft and 
 pump it up and down. When a horseshoe in the roaring forge glowed 
 to a white heat, Baldwin seized it with tongs and pounded out a 
 melody on the anvil. And while Baldwin pounded, Abe listened to 
 stories the blacksmith told, some decently funny, some off color, but all 
 with nubs as sharp as plow points. "John Baldwin is Abe's particular 
 friend," said Dennis Hanks. 39 
 
 About the time Baldwin was starting the blacksmith shop, Peter B. 
 Whittinghill was putting up a corn-cracker down the road west of 
 Gentryville. Now Abraham Lincoln had his first glimpse of industry 
 and the employment of factory labor. That glimpse was enlarged 
 
30 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 when the Gentry family began operating a cotton gin a short way 
 southeast of the old Gentry store. In a little while cotton chopping 
 was as familiar to Lincoln as corn hoeing. 
 
 The growing community soon attracted two slick-tongued high- 
 hatted Kentucky horse-buyers who rode into town. Seeing them enter 
 Gentry's store, Abe moseyed over and listened to their big talk. 
 "We're going up north of Elizabeth to buy horses," he heard them 
 say. That gave Abe an idea for a bit of fun. Visiting Gentryville 
 housewives, he explained his scheme and borrowed tin pans and brass 
 kettles. He hurried north on the Rockport-Bloomington road, over 
 the bridge beyond Saltzman's Spring, the neighborhood fist-fighting 
 ground, and hid. While he waited he tied the kettles and pans to his 
 clothing. About sundown he saw the horse-buyers riding up Saltz- 
 man's Hill. Abe let them get within a stone's throw before he staggered 
 out, rattling his kitchenware armor, yelling and waving his arms. The 
 frightened horses reared and refused to go any farther. The men 
 spurred them. Abe fell down, pretended to be trying to get up, yelled 
 and fell back again. The horses bucked and snorted. Abe staggered 
 to his feet and headed for the buyers, still yelling and pounding his 
 pans and kettles. 
 
 Clutching their high hats, the men wheeled their horses and fled 
 back toward Gentryville. Abe rattled into town and was greeted with 
 loud whoops. "Where are the buyers?" he asked. 40 "Look!" said a 
 loafer, pointing eastward. All Lincoln saw was a cloud of dust settling 
 down in the twilight. 
 
 Once again it was spring and Tom had set Abe to plowing for corn. 
 With John D. Johnston, still a mere child, holding the plow handles, 
 Abe drove the horse straight across the field, plowing a shallow furrow. 
 "Get up!" Abe shouted, but the old horse continued to saunter along. 
 Suddenly, however, it threw up its head and almost trotted across 
 the field. At the end of the furrow Abe examined the horse's head. 
 "Why, it's a big chin fly," he said and knocked the fly off. "But, Abe," 
 lamented John, "that's all that made him go!" 41 
 
 The corn was about ready to be laid by and Tom wanted the field 
 finished; so he put bells on the yoke of oxen Abe was working. As 
 long as Tom could hear the bells he felt sure Abe was busy. But one 
 drowsy summer day — good corn-growing weather — the bells tinkled 
 merrily on while Abraham Lincoln slept under a walnut tree, holding 
 a book in his hand. His oxen, feeding on the corn, kept the bells going. 
 
 Joe Gentry, crossing the field, went over to Lincoln and shook him: 
 "Wake up, Abe! Wake up! Your oxen are eating the tops off your 
 
NEIGHBORS 31 
 
 corn." Lincoln rubbed his eyes and drowsily answered, "Oh, that's 
 all right, Joe. It'll grow out again."* 2 
 
 When the corn grew too high to plow Abe cut the weeds with the hoe 
 and hilled each stalk at its roots. It tasseled and went into ears. 
 Following a rain, the sun burst out steaming hot, forcing the ears to 
 grow so rapidly Abe was sure he could hear them crackling: "The rain 
 makes the corn laugh." *" 
 
 Needing another ox, Tom Lincoln went up to the home of William 
 Wood, an enterprising farmer who lived midway between Gentry- 
 ville and Elizabeth, about a mile and a half north of the Lincoln farm. 
 A night or two later the ox, named Buck, bought by Tom, broke 
 out and wandered off home and Tom sent Abe to bring the 
 animal back. Abe found Buck contentedly grazing in a field. After 
 helping to drive the ox into a barnlot, Mr. Wood offered a rope: "You 
 can lead Buck with this." "No," said Abe, "I won't lead him. I'll 
 ride that ox home and make him pay for his smartness." 
 
 While Abe cut a gad, the entire Wood family came out to see the 
 show. He leaped onto the ox's back and waved at Wood's attractive 
 daughter, Elizabeth. Buck stood immovable. "Get out of here!" 
 yelled Abe. Buck didn't move. Abe jammed his heels hard into 
 Buck's flanks. Resenting that, Buck jumped high into the air and 
 came down with a jolt on all fours. Around and around the barnlot 
 the ox leaped and bawled, swayed, kicked, bucked, did everything an 
 ox could do to throw off a rider. But Abe Lincoln stuck on tighter 
 than a hungry tick, for Elizabeth Wood was watching him. Her 
 father shouted, "Better get off and lead him! He'll break your neck 
 against that fence!" 
 
 On and on went the struggle between Abe Lincoln and Buck. "Have 
 the bars down 'gin we get around again!" finally yelled Abe. 
 
 Wood ran to the bars, but before he could lay them down Buck 
 made another circuit and headed straight for him. Frantically, Wood 
 jumped aside. The ox leaped the bars and headed down the road, 
 Lincoln sticking on. They covered the first mile in no time. Buck 
 slowed to a walk. Then Abe laid it on heavy with the gad. Panting, 
 his tail drooping, the ox went into a jog trot. As they entered the 
 Lincoln barnyard, Abe grinned at Tom and patted Buck: "I gentled 
 him, Pap." " 
 
 Fall and winter passed and on the stormy night of May 8, 1825, Abe 
 Lincoln went to sleep in his cabin loft unaware that the Marquis de 
 Lafayette of France, aboard the steamboat Mechanic, was passing 
 an Ohio River point only sixteen miles away. Since August 16, 1824, 
 
32 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 the day Lafayette landed at Castle Garden, New York, the whole 
 United States had been sizzling with patriotic fervor. 45 Lincoln had 
 read in the Vincennes Western Sun and heard travelers, pausing in 
 Gentryville, tell of the amazing receptions being given to the American 
 Revolutionary War General, who was now the nation's guest. Bands 
 played "See the Conquering Hero Comes." Cannon boomed salutes. 
 People sang the "Marseillaise." Transparencies, showing Lafayette in 
 heroic pose, illuminated coffeehouses and roadside taverns. Beneath 
 arches of fire and flowers banners read: 
 
 "Lafayette, Friend of Liberty 
 "Welcome to the Land of Liberty" 
 
 Lafayette was scheduled to come up the Ohio River. But when? 
 None of Lincoln's neighbors was more interested in the General's visit 
 than was Thomas Turnham, who had served under Lafayette at 
 Brandywine and had been wounded and had fought at Yorktown when 
 Washington and Lafayette forced Cornwallis to surrender. 
 
 Through the winter of 1824-1825, when not working in the Jones 
 store, Abe cut cordwood for the Turnhams. Eagerly he listened to 
 the old Revolutionary War veteran describe battles for American in- 
 dependence, tell how Lafayette and Washington acted under gun- 
 fire. Already the sixty-eight year old Marquis de Lafayette had 
 travelled, by stage-coach and boat, more than four thousand miles in 
 America. From New York to New Orleans, to St. Louis, not a single 
 accident had marred his journey. But he had yet to sail up the Ohio 
 River along the Indiana shore. 
 
 Lincoln slept but, before daylight on May 9th, startling news jarred 
 him and his neighbors wide awake: "Lafayette's boat's been wrecked!" 
 Through pouring rain Hoosiers scurried over logs, down trails, across 
 black slashes to the overhanging rock southeast of Troy. Nearby 
 they saw the steamboat Mechanic impaled on snags which were 
 poking up through crevices of jagged flint. "Where's Lafayette?" 
 neighbors asked. Those who had come earlier pointed to a house 
 across the river. "He's been oared over there," they said. 46 
 
 Fragmentary accounts, picked up and pieced together showed that 
 the Mechanics paddlewheels had been turning very rapidly, a 
 dangerous thing in broad daylight and certainly hazardous at night. 
 Lafayette was asleep in the ladies' cabin when, about midnight, the 
 vessel hooked onto the flint rocks. The captain of the vessel had 
 shouted, "A snag!" General Lafayette jumped out of his berth; his 
 son, George Washington Lafayette, ran on deck. "Quick," ordered 
 
NEIGHBORS 33 
 
 the captain, "put Lafayette in the boat!" Water was pouring in the 
 Mechanic. She was settling fast, her boilers hissing. "They're going 
 to blow up!" someone cried. Lafayette boarded a small lifeboat, and 
 through the cold pelting rain the captain steered the small boat to the 
 Indiana bank and landed under the overhanging rock. Wet and shiver- 
 ing the great Frenchman clambered ashore and sat down on a water- 
 soaked mattress while an attendant, with a candle, built a fire near 
 a gurgling spring of cold water. As they had pulled away the Mechanic 
 went down, taking with her the General's hat, all his papers and his 
 carriage. 47 
 
 From midnight until nine o'clock Lafayette occupied the chilly edge 
 of the Indiana wilderness, only a few miles southeast of the spot where 
 the Lincolns had landed in December, 1816. It was such tales of the 
 famed Frenchman that helped Abe form an opinion of him. Similarly, 
 he formed opinions of Washington, of George Rogers Clark, of Thomas 
 Turnham, of other Revolutionary War soldiers. "Pillars of the Temple 
 of Liberty" he called them. 48 
 
 Excitement over Lafayette died down and Abe resumed work on the 
 Lincoln farm. He and Sally had hauled a load of manure out of the 
 pole barn and returned for more. But Abe had neglected to lay up 
 the bars when Sally first drove the wagon into the barnlot and their 
 spotted colt, tied to its mother, broke loose, ran through the fence 
 opening and right into the clothesline full of washing which Sally and 
 Mrs. Lincoln had put out that morning. It knocked down the props, got 
 tangled in the wet clothes and trampled them into the dirt. Mrs. 
 Lincoln and Sally helped Abe chase the colt, around trees and between 
 outhouses. Sally became so angry she panted, "You're a bulger!" 
 Later when a Kentucky horse-buyer named Glenn came by and offered 
 a good price for the colt, Abe urged, "Sell Bulger, Pap. With that 
 much money I reckon we could buy another forty acres." 49 Tom 
 Lincoln gave in and jokingly repeated his favorite tale about a horse 
 trader he had known in Kentucky who always required a guarantee 
 with each bill of sale: "I warrant him sound in skin and skeleton and 
 without faults or faculties." 50 
 
 By late spring of 1825, easy going, ever helpful Thomas Lincoln was 
 again in trouble. He had endorsed a neighbor's note which was com- 
 ing due and the ueighbor refused to meet it. Tom explained to Abe: 
 "I've got it to pay. And it's going to sweep away just about every- 
 thing we got — unless I can hire you out." 51 
 
 "All right, hire me out," agreed Abe. Regretfully, Tom added, 
 "Reckon I'll have to hire out Sally, too." 
 
34 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 Hoping to find employment, Abe walked to the Josiah Crawford 
 home, two miles south. There, the year before, he had daubed their 
 unbarked round-log cabin. Also he had borrowed their copy of David 
 Ramsay's Life of Washington, taken it home, allowed it to get wet 
 and topped corn to pay for the damage. 52 Moving in from Kentucky, 
 the Crawfords had shortly become outstanding citizens of Buck Horn 
 Valley. Their religious zeal appealed to their neighbors, they being so 
 devout they had named their children Abel, Samuel, Joseph, Ruth 
 and Mary. Josiah Crawford, generally called Cy, was known as a 
 yarb-and-root doctor and tooth puller. But his wife, Elizabeth, 
 was looked upon as a "real" doctor. She had several medical books in 
 her possession; had read them and tried diligently to practice what 
 they recommended. By profession she was both midwife and general 
 practitioner. With pill bags strapped to her saddle, Elizabeth Craw- 
 ford rode horseback in all kinds of weather; rode to all parts of the 
 wilderness for more than fifteen miles around. 63 Raising his coonskin 
 cap, Abe greeted the Crawfords: "I want a job of work to help Pap 
 out a little." They hired him at twenty-five cents a day and Cy 
 Crawford put him to work building a strong, cage-like hogpen. Wolves 
 and panthers had been getting into the ordinary pen and killing his 
 fattening hogs. After splitting heavy whiteoak rails Abe notched them 
 at the ends and fitted them together as securely as he would the timbers 
 of a hewn-log house. He notched more rails and covered the pen. 
 It was hard work. "My greatest pleasure when taking a rest after 
 splitting rails," he said, "was to play a solo on my Jews' harp." ** 
 He finished the pen; Crawford's hogs were not again molested by 
 prowling wolves and panthers. 
 
 Crawford pointed to a place just east of his house. "I need a 
 water well there," he told Abe. With pick and shovel Lincoln went 
 to digging. He got hungry and ate heavily. After a meal as he left 
 the table Cy would trip him. "There was a tight scuffle," wrote Mrs. 
 Crawford. Sometimes Abe threw Cy and sometimes Cy threw Abe. 
 "They was always playing pranks on each other." R 
 
 But work and pranks stopped on the Crawford farm June 23, 1825; 
 for that day Agnes Gentry was marrying Benjamin Romine. Wed- 
 dings always attracted Pigeon Creekers, although none before had at- 
 tracted such wide social interest. Agnes' father, James Gentry, was 
 "the rich man of a poor neighborhood," wrote Lincoln. 56 
 
 The Gentrys and Romines enjoyed a standard of living higher than 
 nearby settlers. While both families had carpets on their floors, the 
 Romines had the added luxury of glass pulls on their bureau drawers. 
 
Reproductions of this drawing were distributed throughout 
 Indiana during the 1860 Presidential campaign. 
 
 35 
 
36 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 Clothing for both families came either down the Ohio River from Cin- 
 cinnati or up the Mississippi from New Orleans. The Romines oper- 
 ated one of the biggest distilleries in the valley. The Gentry cotton 
 gin drew patronage from thirty miles around. Both families flatboated 
 their farm produce down river to cotton and sugar plantations. And 
 Lincoln worked for both families. "He was always reading and 
 thinking," declared John Romine. 57 
 
 After the Reverend Young Lamar had performed the wedding cere- 
 mony, Abe went back to the Crawford farm, picked up his tools and 
 resumed his job of well-digging. When the well was finished it was 
 deep, cylindrical and neatly walled with limestone. 
 
 Sarah, meanwhile, had showed up and the Crawfords had hired her, 
 also. Mrs. Crawford left Sally Lincoln to work in the house and went 
 with Abraham to the corn field to pull fodder off the stalks. Since 
 Abe was over six feet tall, Elizabeth Crawford said he could beat her in 
 reaching the higher blades. Day after day as they worked down the 
 corn rows they discussed the past, present, and future. One time Abe 
 confided he intended to be somebody someday: "Mrs. Crawford, I 
 don't always intend to delve, grub, shuck corn, split rails and the 
 like." M 
 
 Evenings in the Crawford home Lincoln kindled a fire, took a book 
 from the shelf and sat up late reading and ciphering by the blaze. 
 Unmindful of the Crawfords watching him, he worked sums on their 
 wooden shovel. Sometimes he wrote on planed boards. Using either 
 a charred stick or red keel which he had picked up from the creek 
 bed, he filled shovel and board with words and figures. He wiped 
 them off and put on more. Always he was up early in the morning for 
 the day's work. 68 "Abe worked hard and faithful," said Mrs. Crawford. 
 "When he missed time he would not charge for it." M 
 
 For nine years — ever since December, 1816, when they first met at 
 the wash place — Sarah Lincoln and Aaron Grigsby had been growing 
 fonder of one another. Now a rather shy, strong, healthy girl of 
 eighteen, Sally was not excitable. "She'll do to tie to," observed Mrs. 
 Crawford. 61 Once when Sarah and Aaron were enjoying an evening to- 
 gether, the Crawford's four year old son, Samuel, spied on them and 
 reported to his mother, "I saw Aaron sparking Sally. I saw him kiss 
 her". Mrs. Crawford scolded "Stop watching Sally and Aaron, or 
 you won't get to go to the wedding." 62 
 
 The Crawfords needed a larger house for their five growing children. 
 At the same time, Tom Lincoln desperately needed more money with 
 which to pay installments due on his wayward neighbor's note. So Tom 
 
NEIGHBORS 37 
 
 got the job of carpenter work. "You help Cy whipsaw the boards," he 
 said to Abe. 
 
 Still working for twenty-five cents a day, Abe's lot was to be under 
 sawyer in the pit. When he looked up he could see Crawford, as top 
 sawyer, standing on the scaffold, watching the gauge to get the right 
 thickness of the planks. But, down in the pit, when Abraham Lincoln 
 yanked at the end of the heavy saw, sawdust rained on him. He 
 shook his head to dislodge it from his eyes, ears and nose. Crawford 
 pulled up the saw; Abe looked up at Crawford's long nose, blue with its 
 network of veins. Blue-nose Crawford some people called him. Abe 
 pulled the saw down; and each down pull brought a new storm of saw- 
 dust. Being under sawyer in that pit probably was the hardest work 
 Abe Lincoln ever did. When each day ended he went to the Crawford 
 home tired out. But at sixteen Abe Lincoln was remarkably healthy. 
 After he had eaten supper he forgot his weariness. Then he teased his 
 sister and the Crawford girls, Ruth and Mary, pulled their hair and 
 played tricks on them until they ran squealing from the room. 
 
 One time Abe's tomfoolery annoyed Sally so much Mrs. Crawford 
 said, "Abe, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! What do you expect 
 will become of you?" Abe replied, "Be President of the United 
 States." 68 Mrs. Crawford scoffed: "You'd make a pretty President 
 with all your tricks, now wouldn't you?" Abe didn't mind such words; 
 he set forth his reasons for pushing aside everything else to read a 
 book or work a problem: "I'll study and get ready and some day my 
 chance will come". "From early youth," according to Ward Hill 
 Lamon, "he seemed conscious of a high mission ... a vision of grandeur 
 and of gloom." 6 * 
 
 Not long after his chat with Mrs. Crawford, Abe was astonished to 
 hear how constant, hard study could affect some ambitious youths. 
 One of his most brilliant schoolmates became very sick mentally. 
 "In my poetizing mood I could not forget the impression his case 
 made upon me," he wrote. Here are two stanzas of Lincoln's poem 
 about the boy: 
 
 "And when at length, tho drear and long, 
 
 "Time soothed your fiercer woes, 
 
 "How plaintively your mournful song 
 
 "Upon the still night rose! — 
 
 "To drink its strains Yve stole away, 
 
 "AU silently and still, 
 
 "Ere yet the rising god of day 
 
 "Had streaked the Eastern hill." M 
 
38 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 Indian Summer rolled around and Abe Lincoln found new interests. 
 About two miles southwest of his home and a little north, half way 
 between the swimming hole and the Grigsby still-house, was a 
 medium high plateau called Flat-top Hill. There camped a band of 
 sun-worshipping Indians. Coming from the northwest they had set 
 up their wigwams on their old camping grounds. Each fall they 
 came to hunt, fish and visit with their white friend, Reuben Grigsby, 
 Sr., the man who had been their captive for seven years, from four to 
 eleven years of age. With a feather in his hat, old Reuben limped 
 about the camp or sat smoking with the painted warriors. Abraham 
 Lincoln had only to walk to Flat-top Hill to see Grigsby go by with 
 the Indians to a clearing and face eastward. And as the sun rose over 
 the dark forest Lincoln saw the white man do in company with the 
 warriors, what so often he had seen him do alone: mount a log or a 
 stump and reverently flap his arms while he crowed like a rooster. 
 
 The fishing and hunting season ended, the Indians left for their 
 homes somewhere in the northwest, Reuben Grigsby going with them. 
 Sometimes he was gone for weeks; but he never told where he had been. 
 This mystery of his goings made his neighbors say, "Reuben, he's just 
 like an Indian." M 
 
 A friendly Kickapoo Indian, Johnny Kongapod, seems to have been 
 a very welcome visitor to Pigeon Creek and young Lincoln was quite 
 taken up with him. It was claimed Johnny could forecast weather, 
 especially thunder and lightning; and he often repeated Indian 
 camp-fire tales. Johnny's talents so fascinated Lincoln that he 
 wanted to do something for the Indian. Probably having heard 
 the nearby settlers, recently come from Scotland, quote the following 
 epitaph from a gravestone back in Edinburghshire: 
 
 "Here lie I, Martin Eldinbrode, 
 "Ha mercy on my soul, Lord Gode, 
 "As I would do were I Lord Gode, 
 "And thou wert Martin Eldinbrode/' 6T 
 
 Using that epitaph as a model, Abe wrote the following appeal for 
 presentation to the Great Spirit on behalf of the talented Kickapoo: 
 
 "Here lies poor Johnny Kongapod; 
 "Have mercy on him gracious God, 
 "As he would do if he was God, 
 "And you were Johnny Kongapod." 6S 
 
Pigeon Baptist Meetinghouse Thomas and Abraham Lincoln 
 helped build in 1820. (Sketch by John H. Rowbottom). 
 
 39 
 
Chapter Four 
 MORE NEIGHBORS 
 
 Indian summer faded into cold winter. One blustering night Abe, 
 nursing a sore toe, sat with the family in front of the fireplace. 
 Through the driving blizzard which lashed the cabin, drifting snow 
 high against its walls, they heard a faint "Hel-lo!" Tom Lincoln 
 opened the door and called, "Who's here?" "Me," answered a shaking 
 voice. "That you, Wesley?" Tom shouted. "Well, you get right 
 down out of that saddle and come on in here out of the weather." 
 He hurried to the big road, helped Wesley Hall slide a sack of corn- 
 meal off the horse. "Abe! Oh Abe!" Tom yelled. "Come on out here 
 and get Wesley's grist while I put up his horse! The boy's mighty nigh 
 froze, I reckon." 
 
 With one shoe on Abe Lincoln hobbled into the snow storm, limp- 
 ing on the ball of his bandaged foot. As light from the open door fell 
 on Abe, Wesley noticed Abe's condition. "Split my big toe open with 
 the axe in the clearing today," explained Abe. Wesley laughed: "I've 
 measured that toe many a time with shavings under your pap's work- 
 bench." 
 
 Abe picked up the sack of cornmeal with one hand and, tossing it 
 across his arm, headed toward the cabin with Wesley, leaving Tom 
 to put the horse in the pole stable. 
 
 Hall sat down in front of the fireplace and began to thaw out. In 
 came Tom Lincoln; slapping his hands together, he sat down and asked, 
 "You got mighty cold, I reckon?" Wesley nodded. Mrs. Lincoln: 
 "Bet you're mighty hungry, too." Wesley: "Mrs. Lincoln, I ain't had 
 nothing to eat 'cept parched corn since morning." Pointing to a big 
 bank of embers in one end of the fireplace, Mrs. Lincoln added: 
 "We ain't got any cornmeal to make bread with. We're just out. 
 But we got some potatoes in there a-baking and we'll give you a bite 
 to eat pretty soon." Wesley: "Just help yourself out of my meal 
 sack." 
 
 Sarah Bush Lincoln opened Wesley's bag and scooped up a measure 
 of meal. Then she hollowed out a turnip, filled it with lard, and lit one 
 end of a tow wick which she had dropped inside and pulled through 
 a notch cut in the turnip rim. She handed the grease lamp to Wesley 
 
 40 
 
MORE NEIGHBORS 41 
 
 and a butcher knife to Abe. "You boys go out and get me some 
 bacon," she said. 
 
 Abe led the way to the little pole smokehouse. While Wesley held 
 up the light, Abe found a side of bacon and cut a half -moon out of it. 
 After a hearty supper, Wesley relaxed in front of the fireplace. Tom 
 said, "Now, Abe, you get down your book and read to us." Abe 
 gathered an armload of dry sassafras brush from a corner of the cabin 
 and stirred up a big fire. When the flames were going evenly, he took 
 from the shelf where he kept his books Benjamin Franklin's autobi- 
 ography. 1 He read aloud until bedtime. 
 
 While Tom banked the fire, Abe and Wesley climbed the peg ladder 
 to the loft. An upright post held crossed bed rails, the ends of which 
 were fastened into holes bored into the west and north wall logs. 
 Planks lay across the rails with a sack of dry leaves on top. The boys 
 crawled into bed, covered themselves with bearskins, and drifted off to 
 sleep. 
 
 By the time Lincoln was seventeen, February 12, 1826, he had 
 reached his full height of six feet and four inches. His hands were 
 too big for his thin body and his legs too long for his buckskin pants. 
 Several inches of shinbone showed. His muscles were as hard as 
 dornicks. 2 Whenever he appeared at log rollings a joyous whoop went 
 up, for his great strength was an asset to any team. Ten to twenty 
 men gathered at a settler's cabin. With axes and handspikes they 
 went to the deadening ground or clearing. Organizing two teams, they 
 tried to defeat each other in piling the most logs into a mountainous 
 heap. And the team which enrolled Abe Lincoln usually defeated the 
 other. 8 
 
 One day, due to his height, Abe bumped his head against the top 
 of the Lincoln door frame and his stepmother said, "Abe, I don't care 
 so much about the mud you track in on my floor for I can scrub that 
 up; but you must be more careful about my whitewashed ceiling." 
 
 Patiently waiting until she was away from the cabin, Abe persuaded 
 neighborhood children to wade in a mud puddle. Afterward he led 
 them into the cabin and, one by one, he picked them up and marched 
 them upside down across the spotless whitewashed ceiling. Scarcely 
 had the children fled out of sight before Mrs. Lincoln returned. 
 Wondering what she would do, Abe watched her examine the muddy 
 footprints, drop into a split-bottomed chair and break into a hearty 
 laugh. He started for the door. 
 
 Mrs. Lincoln: "Where are you going?" "Wait and see." He went 
 
42 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 to the lime barrel, mixed a batdh of whitewash and re-whitewashed the 
 ceiling, beams and all.* 
 
 Appreciating his stepmother's kindness, Abe always seemed eager 
 to help her. He walked with her to the dozen or more deer licks a few 
 hundred yards northeast of the cabin. There he scooped up the crusty, 
 saline earth and mixed it with hickory ashes in a hopper. With Mrs. 
 Lincoln directing, he poured water over the mixture, and, as the 
 brackish water dripped from the hopper, caught it in kettles. Over a 
 slow fire they boiled the water until only salt remained. 
 
 In 1826 Abe left home and went down the Ohio five miles, to the 
 mouth of Anderson River, half a mile below Troy. There James 
 Taylor operated a ferry near the spot where the Lincolns had landed 
 in 1816. Abe asked Taylor for the job of ferryman and got it. From 
 the ferry's deck he could look across the half-mile wide Ohio River 
 and see low, flat plantations in Kentucky. On calm days he could 
 hear the mournful songs of Negro slaves as they chopped cotton or 
 stemmed tobacco. 
 
 Taylor's ferry, which James McDaniel, a native of Scotland, had 
 established, was a sort of flatboat built to carry only a wagon and 
 team, or some livestock. Aprons and railings held on the cargo. A 
 cable, running through pulleys at each end of the boat, was made fast 
 to trees on the banks of the Anderson River. By letting out one 
 line and hauling in on the other, Lincoln snubbed the boat upstream. 
 Sometimes he went to the stern and swung back and forth on a long 
 sweep, propelling the ferry across the narrow, deep river. Taylor paid 
 him six dollars a month for the job. 
 
 But for that six dollars Abe also worked as Taylor's hired hand. 
 He was up first in the morning, started a fire in the kitchen stove, took 
 care of Taylor's horses and kept an eye on the ferry as he plowed 
 Taylor's fields. In butchering time Taylor sub-hired him. Abe 
 hated that bloody job, considered rough but expert labor, for which 
 Taylor's neighbors paid Taylor thirty-one cents a day. But although 
 he was tired and depressed by the work, Abraham Lincoln continued 
 to study and get ready. He slept upstairs with Green B. Taylor, the 
 ferryman's seven year old son. "Abe usually read 'til near midnight," 
 according to Taylor. 5 
 
 From the ferry's deck, youthful Abe Lincoln also saw the commerce 
 of the great Mississippi valley passing; saw craft of all kinds go by 
 bound for Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, St. Louis and New Orleans. 
 Steamboats snorted up to the Indiana side of the Ohio. Negro 
 slaves coonjined firewood back to their vessels. Huge flatboats drifted 
 
MORE NEIGHBORS 43 
 
 lazily downstream while dancers on deck jigged to tunes scraped off by 
 heavy footed fiddlers. Keelboats crept up stream, their white crews 
 heaving at poles and ropes, pulling their lives out for a few dollars 
 and a skinful of whiskey. Broadhorns slid by, carrying hoop-poles 
 and pumpkins to Louisiana plantations and the Red River country. 
 
 Sometimes Abe sauntered up to Troy where the log-house lined 
 streets were crowded with boatmen, river pirates, Negro slaves, 
 prostitutes, gamblers, planters. Around Gamage Williams' tavern 
 swirled the town's life. Troy's most successful merchant was Reuben 
 Bates, who in 1812 established a store below town and now operated 
 one of the best boat landings along the Ohio. There Abe Lincoln 
 watched the Bates flatboats push off, loaded with pork, corn, hay, 
 beeswax; saw Bates keelboats tie up with merchandise poled all the 
 way from New Orleans, a thousand miles down river. 6 
 
 Negro clog dancers fascinated Abe. He had seen them oar their 
 masters across from Kentucky to trade in Troy. And while their 
 owners traded, he saw the slaves dance in the streets. He tried to do 
 some of the steps. That attracted passersby who laughed and waved 
 their whiskey bottles, urging Lincoln to go to it. Black slaves grinned 
 and hoed it down. Abe's long legs swung and missed the rhythm. But 
 he kept on trying. Taking a liking to him, the Negroes showed him 
 the steps in slow motion. While the crowd shouted and emptied 
 their bottles, Abe concentrated on clog dancing. He caught on. 
 According to Moss Emacoal, a neighbor of the Lincolns, "Abe got 
 to be one of the best clog dancers in Southern Indiana." 7 
 
 When the Trojans, as the young men of Troy were called, tired of 
 the town's uproar some one would suggest, "Let's go down to the 
 ferry and listen to Long Abe tell his stories." Aboard Taylor's ferry 
 Long Abe retold stories from Aesop's Fables and other books, some- 
 times embellishing them outlandishly. He mimicked well-known 
 political spell-binders and circuit riding preachers. Evoking laughter 
 came easy to him. Yet he found time to put out and tend a tobacco 
 patch, to play his Jew's harp, and to wander back into the hills. 
 
 About half a mile north of the ferry was — and still is — a high bluff 
 of shale. In prehistoric ages the Anderson River had been a large 
 stream, and had sculptured ornate pillars and balconies into its stony 
 banks. Crevices separate the balconies. Forty feet up one of these 
 crevices and eight feet below the floor of a balcony, now almost 
 erased by more than a century of frosts and rains, are initials chiseled 
 half a foot high in the stone: A L. 
 
 Lincoln left the Taylor ferry on time to arrive home by August 2, 
 
44 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 1826, for on that day his sister, Sarah, was marrying Aaron Grigsby. 
 The romance, begun at the Grigsby spring on washday nearly ten 
 years before, had grown with each passing year. 
 
 Adhering to the Pigeon Creek-Buck Horn Valley custom, the groom 
 with his attendants left his parents' two-story log-house in time to 
 reach his bride's one-room cabin precisely at noon. The Reverend 
 Charles Harper saw to it that all went according to custom. In his 
 marriage records he wrote: "I Married these on the Same within." 8 
 The ceremony over, the infare got underway. Contents of the Grigs- 
 by still-house were liberally offered, much honor being due Aaron as 
 the first born of Reuben's seven sons. 9 
 
 Abe furnished a part of the entertainment by writing a piece called 
 "Adam and Eve's Wedding Song." No one sang more gaily than Mrs. 
 Josiah Crawford in whose home Aaron had long courted Sally. 10 
 Where did Lincoln get the idea for his song? Less than thirty miles 
 west of the Lincoln cabin were thriving settlements of Scotch and 
 English immigrants. Several had come to Indiana early in 1817 and 
 by 1826 had built good homes and were well established citizens. They 
 brought with them songs of their native land. 11 Among those songs 
 must have been "When Adam Was First Created," a ballad very 
 popular with aged people then living back on the ancient Scottish- 
 English border. The ballad appeared about 1740 in The Ladies Eve- 
 ning Book of Pleasures and had five stanzas of eight lines each. 
 Lincoln's adaptation for Sally's wedding has eight stanzas of four 
 lines each. 
 
 "As Adam was resting in slumber 
 "He lost a short rib from his side. 
 "And when he awoke 'twas in wonder 
 "To see a most beautiful bride!' 
 
 Lincoln's version went like this: 
 
 "The Lord then was not willing 
 "The man should be alone 
 "But caused a sleep upon him 
 "And took from him a bone." 
 
 Neither the peasant balladist nor Geoffrey Chaucer in his Canter- 
 bury Tales, quoted directly from the Bible in describing the short- 
 rib operation. But Lincoln wrote into his song part of Genesis II, 18 
 and 21 : "It is not good that the man should be alone . . . and closed 
 up the flesh thereof." 
 
MORE NEIGHBORS 
 
 45 
 
 The old balladist said that woman "was not taken out of his head, 
 sir, to rule and to triumph in man." Lincoln made that line read: 
 "To show she must not rule him." 
 
 The balladist wrote: "Nor was she taken out of his foot, sir, By 
 him to be trampled upon." Abe's version: 
 
 "This woman was not taken 
 "From Adam's feet we see 
 "So he must not abuse hear 
 "The meaning seems to be!' 
 
 Lincoln and the balladist agreed that the short-rib operation took 
 place in a garden. Lincoln said it happened while Adam "dwelt in 
 Eden's shade"; the balladist placed things in a garden "planted by 
 nature." However, they disagreed over the reason woman was made 
 from the man's rib. The balladist contended "she was taken out of his 
 side, sir, His equal co-partner to be." Seventeen year old Abe Lincoln 
 held differently: 
 
 "This woman she was taken 
 "From under Adam's arm 
 "So she must be protected 
 "From injuries and harm." u 
 
 In the last two lines Abe gave Aaron Grigsby a broad hint to be 
 very considerate of Sarah. The Lincoln family led in singing Abe's 
 song, naturally using the early ballad air: 13 
 
 ±* 
 
 n%ininr rj %Jg iii 
 
 7Z*ZL 
 
 nmh^v^ 
 
 V VV Y VJZ 
 
 n[[[nrrJ'%ir7(i[ ^^ 
 
 Subsequently Aaron and Sarah set up housekeeping in a one-room 
 log house about three quarters of a mile northeast of Aaron's parents' 
 big home and not far from the abandoned Lincoln pole-house. 14 
 
 When in the fall Abe returned to his job on the ferry the slow- 
 
46 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 moving, muddy Ohio beckoned him to go with it down to the Missis- 
 sippi, down to the sea. Abe decided to go, but first he must convince his 
 father and stepmother the trip would be good for him. All summer 
 he had carefully hoed and wormed his tobacco patch at every moment 
 he could spare from the ferry. Now he cut, cured, and stemmed the 
 enormous leaves. He had two hogsheads of prime tobacco. His 
 father had a surplus of corn and potatoes. Farm products flatboated 
 down the Mississippi — below Natchez or Memphis — always sold, at 
 big profits, to slave-owners. 
 
 All Abe needed was a small one-man flatboat. He went home and 
 asked permission to build a boat and make the trip. Still hard up for 
 money, Tom Lincoln enthusiastically approved Abe's plan, but Sarah 
 Bush Lincoln said, "No, it's too venturesome." She warned of high- 
 waymen lurking in the canebrakes, of river pirates who slit their vic- 
 tims' throats and tossed their bodies into the river. Abe stood up and 
 almost cracked his head against the whitewashed ceiling: "Mother, 
 I can take care of myself." Mrs. Lincoln muttered to herself. And 
 when Abe urged "Pap needs the money," she snapped: "Not that 
 bad!" Abe hung around home several days, coaxing his stepmother 
 to let him go. She gave in very reluctantly. 
 
 Abe hurried back to the Taylor ferry and in his spare time built 
 a small flatboat. The job took a lot longer than he had expected and 
 once his cargo of tobacco, corn and potatoes was stacked on the 
 river bank it appeared too much for his small craft. Winter 
 was coming on and soon the Ohio River would be closed in with ice. 
 That worried him. Seeing his opportunity fading, Abe sat on Taylor's 
 ferry and disconsolately thought over his problem. He remembered 
 that Jefferson Ray was building a good sized boat up the Anderson 
 River. Maybe he could arrange to ship on with him. He hurried 
 to Ray. "Jeff, could you use an extra hand?" he asked. Jeff, a few 
 years older than Abe, answered, "I reckon I could." Abe added, "I 
 want to make a trade with you. I'll go along with you at the oar if 
 you will take my tobacco and other stuff and pay me the difference." 
 
 Ray agreed, 15 and the flatboat, made bottomside up, was rolled on 
 logs down to the river, turned over and launched. Lincoln helped stow 
 on board pork, corn, apples, and cabbage. Then he rolled on his two 
 hogsheads of tobacco and his father's corn and potatoes. The boys 
 loosened the check rope and shoved their flatboat away from shore. 
 With Jeff at the steering oar and Abe at the bow oar, the voyage 
 down river was underway. At seventeen, Abe Lincoln was making his 
 first trip to Southern markets. 
 
MORE NEIGHBORS 47 
 
 Oars bending in the stubborn current, the two Hoosiers drove their 
 craft-with-a-house on it, as flatboats were called, into the Ohio River's 
 channel and swung down stream. Following old rivermen's tradition, 
 Abe joined Ray in an Indian war whoop and then they sang the 
 flatboatmen's chanty: 
 
 "Hard upon the beech oar! 
 "She moves too slow — 
 "All the way to Shawneetown, 
 "Long while ago!" le 
 
 Deftly bucking his bow oar, Abe kept the boat out of eddies, pro- 
 pelled it around snags, yanked it around sawyers, held it firmly in the 
 channel. If he lived to get back home he would be entitled to wear the 
 flatboatman's nickname: "Half -horse, Half -alligator." 
 
 Down past Rockport, past Evansville, past the broad mouth of the 
 Wabash River with its cypress swamps and crane towns, the boat 
 moved. When darkness shut in and woodcutters' fires lit up the banks, 
 Ray steered the boat to land. Abe hopped ashore and made check line 
 and breast line fast to trees to prevent the boat from moving on down 
 stream during the night. Early in the morning they were again on 
 their way. Seemingly endless yanking filled day after day. The 
 Hoosiers passed Shawneetown, flatboatmen's idea of paradise. They 
 drifted safely past Cave-in-the-Rock, hideout of the old river pirate, 
 Mike Fink, and still a brigands' nest although Mike was long dead. 
 Just one blast from bandit chieftain Sturdevant's horn could bring a 
 hundred cutthroats. 
 
 Abe and Jeff felt their flatboat heave under them as they sloshed 
 into the cross current pouring out from the Cumberland River. "Hold 
 her steady," Jeff cautioned. "Steady she is," said Abe. They held 
 the boat to its course. On and on they drifted. Now the Ohio was 
 widening and river craft increasing. The boys bore left. Before them 
 spread out a lake about a dozen miles across. They held to a steady 
 course. In a moment the current of the Ohio shoved them into the 
 broad Mississippi, tossing them around like twigs. Lincoln saw a 
 barrel of Ray's apples roll off the boat and into the river; as he watched 
 them float out of the barrel and bob away in all directions he also 
 saw that Ray was feeling the loss keenly. "Jeff," said Abe, "what is 
 lost is lost. Let's look to the future." Slowly Jeff nodded, but at the 
 same time he seemed to be counting his apples one by one as they 
 disappeared forever. 17 
 
 Soon the young flatboatmen entered the country where cotton was 
 
48 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 king. They crept along the Arkansas and Tennessee shores, peddling 
 Ray's cargo and Tom Lincoln's corn and potatoes to the planters. 
 
 Memphis hove in sight. Here, it is believed, Lincoln got rid of his 
 tobacco. Memphis was a roaring river town in 1826. In its infamous 
 Pinch-Gut district gamblers slashed one another with long knives; 
 flatboatmen bit off one another's noses or gouged out eyes for favors 
 from prostitutes. Outlaws sneaked in from the Natchez trace, spotted 
 homeward going boatmen and waylaid them. Abe settled with Ray, 
 crossed the river just above Memphis, entered Crittenden County, 
 Arkansas Territory, went to Sheriff William D. Ferguson and applied 
 for a job on his plantation. Because Ferguson's place bordered 
 Wappanocca Lake, the Sheriff was called "Wappanocca." He hired 
 Lincoln and put him to work chopping firewood for steamboats. 
 There he worked alongside Negro slaves, 18 cutting tupelo gum, which, 
 he soon found out, was a much harder job than chopping Indiana 
 whiteoak and hickory. 
 
 Abe was back home in time for his eighteenth birthday. He cele- 
 brated it by grasping the extreme end of an axe handle and holding 
 the axe at arm's length from his body. 19 Probably not another man in 
 Buck Horn Valley could do that. Abe's great strength amazed many. 
 William Wood declared, "Abe could sink an axe deeper in wood than 
 any man I ever saw." Standing six feet four inches tall, Abe towered 
 above all his Hoosier neighbors. His long shin bones usually showed 
 far below his buckskin pants, so men and boys called him Long Shanks. 
 Said Tom Lincoln: "Abe looks like he has been chopped out with 
 an axe and needs a jack plane to smooth him down." " 
 
 Although good natured and generous, Abe was disliked by some 
 Pigeon Creekers. Still, along with scores of his neighbors, he was invit- 
 ed to the dedication of Jesse Isaac's new puncheon floor, one of the first 
 dressed floors in Spencer County. Knowing the affair would be a 
 regular old hoe-down, Abe pulled on his coonskin cap and, swinging 
 his knotted beech cane, lit out early in the evening for the Isaac double 
 hewn-log house three miles north of Gentryville. As he stepped into 
 the long room with its whitewashed walls and ceiling dazzling in the 
 candle light, he saw that the floor already was cleared. While the 
 fiddlers tuned, people in little groups talked excitedly. When the 
 fiddlers started playing the caller clapped his hands and cried, "Swing 
 your partners!" Did Abe Lincoln swing a girl? "Gosh, no!" said 
 Moss Emacoal. "Abe got off in a corner and clog-danced better'n ary 
 nigger. He told his funny stories. Why that feller in no time was 
 surrounded by men and boys." a Lincoln's antics infuriated the women, 
 
MORE NEIGHBORS 49 
 
 for he was robbing them of partners. But he paid no attention to 
 their protests. He went right on dancing and telling outlandish tales 
 while the men laughed and asked for more. Jesse Isaac's wife thought 
 he almost ruined the floor-warming. 
 
 Although Abe could clog-dance, he could not sing very well. Ac- 
 cording to Dennis Hanks, "Abe sometimes attempted to sing but 
 always failed. Sometimes we spent a little time at grog in Gentry - 
 ville." On some of these occasions Denny raised his voice in Abe's 
 grocery-store favorite: 
 
 "The turbaned Turk that scorns the world, 
 "And struts about with his whiskers curled 
 "For no other man but himself to seel" 
 
 A few more drinks and, with Denny still leading, the Gentryville 
 boys pounded the table until the bottles jingled in tune to: 
 
 "Hail Columbia, happy land! 
 
 "If you aint drunk, then I'll be damned!" u 
 
 Late one freezing night Lincoln, David Turnham and some other 
 Pigeon Creekers were on their way home from Gentryville when they 
 saw a horse, saddled and bridled, standing in the road. Nearby they 
 found the neighborhood drunk stretched out on the ground, half 
 frozen. "Leave him lay," the boys said, "Come on." Lincoln dis- 
 agreed: "No s that's not right." He picked up the sot, slung him 
 over a shoulder and walked about eighty rods to Denny Hanks' 
 cabin. There Abe kindled a fire and sat up until daylight, rubbing 
 the man's numbed hands. "It was mighty clever in Abe to tote me to 
 a warm fire that cold night," the man told John Hanks, who had 
 moved from Kentucky in 1822. 28 
 
 David Turnham said almost everybody around Pigeon Creek drank 
 their dram, "preachers and Christians included." But some drank too 
 many drams and brought tragedy to their families. One such case 
 undoubtedly inspired Lincoln to write his John Andersons Lamenta- 
 tions: 
 
 "0 sinners! poor sinners take warning by me 
 "The fruits of transgression behold now and see 
 "Much intoxication my ruin has bin 
 "And my dear companion have barbarously slain 
 "In yonder cold graveyard her body doth lie 
 "Whilst I am condemned, and shortly must die" n 
 
50 
 
 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 Lincoln also tried his hand at writing an article on temperance. He 
 showed it to William Wood, who liked it so well he showed it to 
 the Reverend Aaron Farmer, a Baptist preacher who was quite 
 pleased with it and sent it to an Ohio newspaper. When it was 
 published Abe was overjoyed at seeing his words in print. His "piece 
 excelled for sound sense anything that my paper contained," Wood 
 boasted. 25 Whether writing, clog-dancing, fighting, rail-splitting, log- 
 rolling or book-learning, Lincoln surpassed other boys of the neighbor- 
 hood. 
 
 Being eighteen, Abe now was subject to militia duty. Under the 
 laws of Indiana he was required to furnish his own rifle, powderhorn 
 and ammunition, and to be at the drill field on regimental muster 
 day. From here on he must be ready at all times to march across 
 the Ten O'Clock Line and into upper Indiana to quell any Indian 
 uprisings. Abe had no gun, his father apparently having disposed of 
 their long rifle. Since he had little money with which to buy another, 
 he made a deal with his youthful neighbor, Henry Brooner, to buy a 
 gun in partnership with him. Leaving on foot for the sixty mile trip 
 to Vincennes, where they planned to purchase the gun, they hit an 
 ancient buffalo trace. Only recently the great herds had ended their 
 semi-annual trek along the high ridge to the salt licks. This trace, 
 between Louisville and Vincennes was clearly marked with holes the 
 bull buffaloes had made. 
 
 Century-old Vincennes was not unknown to Lincoln. He had heard 
 his father and William Jones describe the place. From reading the 
 Western Sun, he knew something about the town's commerce and 
 leading citizens. He was not surprised to see Negro slaves working 
 there in violation of the slavery prohibitions in the Indiana State 
 Constitution and the Ordinance of 1787 or to hear the townspeople 
 speaking French as they strolled up and down the cherry-tree lined 
 streets. 28 He saw the little French houses of poteaux en terre with 
 gardens in the back. At the foot of Market Street and a few rods down 
 the Wabash River, he saw marks of the buffalo crossing and nearby 
 the ruins of Fort Sackville which Colonel George Rogers Clark and 
 his "American Long Knives" had captured in February, 1779, taking 
 as prisoners General "Hair-Buyer" Hamilton and his British garrison. 
 On the site of Saint Xavier's log church, where Clark had forced 
 Hamilton to sign the articles of surrender, Father John L. Champomier 
 was building the Cathedral of Vincennes. After shopping around 
 town for a while, Lincoln and Brooner bought a rifle for fifteen dollars 
 and left for home. 27 
 
MORE NEIGHBORS 51 
 
 In May, 1827, Abraham Lincoln had his first military experience. 
 Muster grounds for Training Day were on the flat-topped section of 
 Blue Bill Harris' Hill about a mile southeast of the Lincoln home. 
 There "Lincoln and other young men of the neighborhood went to 
 drill up," said Nathaniel Grigsby. 28 Tall, gangling Abe was by no means 
 the most soldierly looking militiaman on that hill, but certainly 
 he was one of the most eager to learn. He took his training seriously. 
 After all, Indians had massacred his grandfather, the first Abraham 
 Lincoln, in the spring of 1786; and his widowed grandmother had 
 donated the family musket to General George Rogers Clark's Long 
 Knives to use against the marauders. Fear of an uprising kept Lin- 
 coln and his Pigeon Creek neighbors in a constant state of uneasiness. 29 
 
 A short while after Training Day, Buck Horn Valley was hit by a 
 furious storm which uprooted big trees, blew down hewn-log houses, 
 snatched up people and cut a wide swath through the forest. Abe 
 visited Sarah, who was expecting a child, to see how she fared. The 
 storm, worst in Spencer County history, had barely missed her tiny 
 cabin. 
 
 A woman living along Pigeon Creek, a mile southwest of the Lin- 
 coln cabin, had foretold the storm. Lincoln's neighbors neither feared 
 her as a witch nor consulted her as Saul had consulted the witch of En- 
 dor. They went to her in times of trouble; they listened to her fore- 
 tell happenings. To them she was what they called her: The Miracle 
 Woman. Early on the day of the storm some people were passing her 
 cabin when she hailed them. "We are going to have an awful hurri- 
 cane before nightfall," she warned. "How can you tell?" they asked. 
 "I see two small haystacks made of fog down there in the middle 
 of the meadow." Naturally, the passersby were a bit skeptical of her 
 prophecy, for the morning was bright and clear and they saw no fog 
 in the meadow. But the storm did strike. And in its wake was left 
 greater belief in the Miracle Woman. 30 
 
 With stories of miracle women, spirit-rappers, mad-stones, witches, 
 signs, omens, plus his father's belief in dreams, crowding his youthful 
 mind, Abe Lincoln could scarcely be criticized for being superstitious. 
 "I can't help being this way," he confessed. "My father was like this 
 before me." * 
 
 Nevertheless Abe was capable of wholesome skepticism — sometimes 
 about his neighbors. Again hard up, his father hired Abe out to cut corn 
 for Neighbor Carter at ten cents a day. Carter, a sharp bargainer, 
 offered to buy at a high price a few acres of Tom Lincoln's farm. Ever 
 trusting Tom, taken in by the glittering offer, allowed Carter to write 
 
52 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 the deed; but before he signed it, he handed it to Abe. "Read it 
 over," he said. 
 
 Carefully, Abe read the paper, his black eyebrows puckering, his big 
 mouth setting harder and harder; then he handed it back to his father. 
 "Better watch out, Pap," he cautioned. Carter protested. Tom's 
 good eye stared at Abe. "What's the matter?" Abe stared right 
 back: "If you sign that deed, Pap, you've sold our whole farm." 
 Whirling on Neighbor Carter, Tom Lincoln thundered, "Somebody's 
 lied and 'tain't Abe!" 32 
 
 About to become a mother, Sarah Lincoln Grigsby lay on her pole- 
 bed while a raw January wind drove snow and rain through the cracks 
 between the logs of the tiny cabin. Apparently neither a doctor nor 
 the experienced local midwife, Mrs. Josiah Crawford, was present. 
 Nature was just taking its course. 
 
 Worried that all was not going well with Sarah, Aaron ran for help 
 to his parents' home, three quarters of a mile south westward. There 
 he and his father, Reuben Grigsby, Sr., yoked a team of oxen to the 
 big sled and drove back to the cabin. With great tenderness they 
 lifted Sarah from her bed, wrapped her in bear and deer skins and laid 
 her on a pallet of straw in the bottom of the sledbox. Reuben cracked 
 his long ox gad and away the sled moved across fields and through 
 woods, snow and mud slithering under the runners. It wound down 
 hillsides and through valleys, jolting over snags and rough ground, 
 with every jolt sharpening Sarah's labor pains. When the sled stopped 
 in front of the two-storied Grigsby house, the men carried Sarah into a 
 big room where Aaron's mother tried to make her comfortable. 33 
 
 The Lincoln family physician, Dr. Edmund Moore, a native of Ire- 
 land, had recently moved from Rockport, Indiana, to Morgan County, 
 Illinois. 34 Of course, that was too far away to call him; as soon as it 
 became apparent that a doctor was needed quickly, another was called. 
 When he arrived, he was so drunk the Grigsbys had to put him to 
 bed even though Sarah's condition was becoming more alarming. 
 Then Mrs. Josiah Crawford turned up. But with all her midwifery 
 skill she could now do little for Sarah. William Barker, brother of 
 Mrs. Reuben Grigsby, Sr., came with his wife and little daughter, 
 Millie. Barker went to bed but was awakened about midnight by his 
 wife. "Sally's getting worse! Get Dr. Davis quick!" she exclaimed. 
 Dr. Davis lived to the westward in Warrick County. Although 
 Pigeon Creek, due to rain and melting snow, was out of its banks, 
 Barker made it to the Davis home, but flood waters forced him and 
 the doctor to take a circuitous route back to the Grigsbys, consuming 
 
MORE NEIGHBORS 53 
 
 valuable time. When Dr. Davis arrived he could do nothing for Sarah. 
 It was too late. Her child, a boy, was still-born. 35 On Sunday, Janu- 
 ary 20, 1828, just three weeks before she would have been twenty-one, 
 Sarah Lincoln Grigsby died. 
 
 Aaron and his ten year old brother Redmond ran all the way to the 
 Lincoln home where they found Abe standing in the smokehouse 
 doorway. Abe sensed something was wrong: "What's happened?" 
 Aaron looked at the ground and answered brokenly, "Sally just died." 
 
 A haze floated before Abe's eyes, blotting out the world about him. 
 Hiding his lean face in his big hands, he slowly sat down on the 
 doorsill and sobbed. Since their mother's death, he and Sarah had 
 been especially close. They had shared their hardships and their 
 secrets. Abe had told her his hopes and ambitions. When he cracked 
 jokes, no one laughed more heartily than Sally. Quiet, industrious, 
 deeply religious, unpretentious, Sally was much like their mother. 
 Now that she was gone, Abe felt alone. 
 
 Neighbors dug a grave about fifty feet east of the Pigeon Creek 
 Primitive Baptist meeting-house, and there the Grigsbys buried Sarah 
 and her baby boy in the same coffin. 36 
 
 Although Abe kept on good terms with Nattie and Jimmy, he nursed 
 a resentment toward the elder Grigsbys. He seemed to blame them for 
 Sarah's death. According to John W. Lamar, who talked to Lincoln, 
 "Abe thought Sally's death was due to neglect." The Barkers said 
 plainly, "They let her lay too long." 37 
 
 Abe continued to go about his work at Jones' store and around the 
 neighborhood. But, in addition to the occasional "fits of blues" 
 described by James Grigsby, a cloud of darkest melancholy settled 
 over Abe's usually sunny disposition. It was not lightened when, a 
 few days later, he read in the Vincennes Western Sun, "We can learn 
 nothing from the living which the dead don't teach. We must all come 
 to the mournful and silent grave." 
 
 In a few weeks Abe heard that the Richardson family, including a 
 son, Joe, and a daughter, Polly, had moved into the settlement. He 
 sauntered over to their hurriedly thrown-up brush lean-to, rested his 
 calloused hands on the muzzle of his long gun and said, "Ladies, I 
 just dropped in to offer my services." The startled Mrs. Richardson 
 and Polly apprehensively looked at the gun. A young giant with a 
 rifle could make trouble. "Our men-folks have gone down to the 
 river," said Mrs. Richardson, "to get another load off the boat. They'll 
 be back any time. We won't need you." 
 
 Lincoln wasn't impressed: "They can't get back tonight for it's been 
 
54 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 raining too hard. So I'll just stay here with you." He walked over to 
 a big tree, pulled the loose folds of his waumus about his lanky body 
 and sat down, placing the gun across his sharp knees Long-Knife 
 fashion. After listening for a while to the nervous chatter of the girl 
 and her mother, he got up, dragged a huge dry limb near the lean-to 
 and began building a brush heap. Excitedly, Mrs. Richardson asked, 
 "Now what you fixing to do?" "Build a big fire," Abe answered. 
 "These woods are plumb full of wolves. We got to have a big fire 
 or the varmints might give us a heap of trouble." Mrs. Richardson: 
 "I'm not afraid of wolves." Abe: "We'll see." After he had added 
 more brush he kicked the leaves back from the pile and fired it. 
 
 Night shut in, black and dreary. Down in the low places jack 
 o'lanterns bobbed along, rising and falling as if men were carrying 
 them. Their bluish shapes conjured up wonder in Abe's mind. Like 
 other people about him he did not understand the phenomenon and 
 feared to investigate it. 
 
 Suddenly from deep in the woods came the howl of wolves. The 
 women darted into the brush house. Timidly, Mrs. Richardson looked 
 out and invited Abe in. "Much obliged," said Abe. "I'm all right. 
 Just you step outside now and take a look at the green eyes." Polly 
 looked out: "Why there must be a thousand of them!" Abe: "Oh, no. 
 There're not more than a half-dozen of the varmints. And everyone of 
 them is a coward. Just you watch and see." He grabbed a firebrand, 
 ran toward the wolves waving it. Away they scampered. "See that? 
 Now you folks go to sleep. I'll keep the fire going." So Polly and 
 Mrs. Richardson slept in the lean-to and Abe Lincoln kept watch 
 throughout the night. "I'll have to go home," he called to them at 
 daybreak. 88 
 
 Later that year James Gentry, Sr., asked Lincoln to ship as bow hand 
 on a flatboat to New Orleans. "We need a big, stout feller to oar the 
 boat. We'll pay you eight dollars a month," explained Gentry. 
 Lincoln did not need to think it over. Here was a chance to get away 
 from Pigeon Creek for a few weeks. Besides, several years before, 
 while working for Isaac Bush, Tom Lincoln had flatboated to New 
 Orleans. Ever since then Abe had wanted to see that city. "I'll go," 
 he said. However, the trip had to be delayed; Allen, son of James 
 Gentry, Sr., was going as captain of the boat and he did not want to 
 leave until he knew whether he was father of a boy or a girl. Allen 
 had married Anna Caroline Robey on March 20, 1828; and Katy, as 
 she was known to everyone, figured the baby would arrive about 
 Christmas Day. 89 
 
MORE NEIGHBORS 55 
 
 While Katy waited Allen and Abe worked at building the two-man 
 flatboat on the south side of Spanker's Branch just below Rockport, 
 right at the flatboat-steamboat landing and woodyard. 40 Except for 
 danger of snowstorms and ice on the Ohio River, Abe's neighbors pre- 
 ferred to flatboat their farm produce south in late fall and early winter. 
 Since they had little or no storage space, it was necessary to get rid 
 of their surplus crops as quickly as possible after harvest. If they 
 waited until spring the market would be closed; the sugar planters 
 would again be raising food for their slaves, forage for their mules. 41 
 
 In order to be near his job, Abe Lincoln boarded with Judge Daniel 
 Grass, whose house overlooked the landing. On the first evening, 
 as he swung up the steep path to the house, Abe saw a big sheep eyeing 
 him. The instant Abe passed, the sheep charged. Abe turned and 
 halted. He knew the sheep could butt him off the path, probably into 
 the Ohio River. With his knees together, Abe stood waiting, hoping 
 the trick would work. On charged the sheep. Just as it reached him, 
 Lincoln whirled half way around and spread his knees apart, making 
 an arched opening. As the animal passed under him, Abe sat down on 
 its back and grabbed its horns. It bleated and tried to buck him off, 
 but Abe held on with one hand and with the other began to scratch 
 its neck and chin. That was too much for the sheep; it just gave up 
 the fight and followed him to the house. 
 
 Abe found Daniel Grass about as interesting as William Jones. 
 Grass had been Justice of the Peace, an Associate Judge of Warrick 
 County, a member of the Indiana Constitutional Convention, and 
 State Senator from Warrick, Spencer, and Posey counties in the first 
 Indiana legislature. He had been so severely wounded by Indians at 
 the Battle of Tippecanoe in upper Indiana, November 7, 1811, that 
 he still walked with crutches. 42 On the same day the judge was wound- 
 ed, his friend Captain Spier Spencer had been killed; it was Grass who 
 brought about naming the new county after Spencer. 
 
 In the Grass home Abe Lincoln had access to a small but well select- 
 ed library. Suppers over with, he took down a book and read until the 
 tallow-dipped candle burned out and the family had gone to bed. 
 Then he poked up the fire, stretched out on his back with his head 
 toward the flaming logs and read until midnight. Mrs. Grass said she 
 was afraid the boy would "bake the top of his head or wear himself out 
 for want of rest." * But no matter how late he read Abe Lincoln 
 worked as hard the next day as any man at building the Gentry flat- 
 boat. His great strength was always in demand when there was heavy 
 lifting to be done. Long straight poplar logs, swung between high 
 
56 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 logging ox-cart wheels, were dragged to the river bank where the boat 
 was being built bottom-side up. Abe framed the girders and gunwales, 
 pinned sleepers into the cross sills, helped caulk seams with hemp. 
 Launching day finally came. With one of the check lines made fast to 
 the boat and oxen hitched to the other, the boat was turned top-side 
 up and slid into the river. Built for crew and cargo, the boat was 
 ready for loading. 
 
 As the time for Katy's confinement neared, James Gentry, Sr., or- 
 dered loading to begin. Having been a slave owner, he knew what sugar 
 planters wanted most; so he ordered his hogs herded down from Gentry- 
 ville, letting them feed on mast as they grunted their way through the 
 woods. He stationed Abe Lincoln — recognized as an expert meat- 
 cutter — on the landing to slaughter the hogs, pack the meat, and stow 
 it aboard. Although Abe loathed that bloody job more than ever, he 
 kept at it. Gentry added potatoes, kraut, hay, and ear corn to the 
 cargo, but no hoop-poles or tobacco. 44 
 
 On Sunday, December 28, 1828, Allen and Katy Gentry became the 
 parents of a boy. They named the child James in honor of its sturdy 
 grandfather. And now that the trip could get underway, James Gen- 
 try, Sr., ordered final preparations for it. A blizzard threatened. Al- 
 ready a strong northwest gale had blown a passing flatboat onto the 
 Kentucky shore just opposite Rockport. Allen and Abe shook their 
 heads as they anxiously watched the unfortunate crew push the boat 
 off the bank, struggle back into the channel and go poling down the 
 Ohio. 
 
 One of the last things Lincoln stowed on board was his own hand- 
 made, hide-covered trunk with its bellows top and its side studded 
 with brass-headed pegs. In it were his few belongings. 45 "Reckon you 
 got your store clothes in there?" someone asked. "No," said Abe, 
 "I got on the only pair of breeches to my back. And you can see 
 they're buckskin." 
 
 Midway between Christmas Day and New Year the Gentry flat- 
 boat left Rockport landing, glided out onto the Ohio River and into a 
 stinging winter blast. 46 With Captain Allen Gentry at the stern, 
 handling the wide-bladed steering oar and Abe near the bow, working 
 the forward sweeps, the flatboat headed for the sugar coast and New 
 Orleans. Somewhere above Evansville, Lincoln and Gentry overtook 
 the flatboat which they had seen opposite Rockport, blown onto the 
 Kentucky shore. "Where you from?" Gentry hailed. "Concordia, 
 Kentucky," came the reply. 
 
 Following the custom of flatboatmen who were neighbors of not 
 
MORE NEIGHBORS 57 
 
 more than fifty miles apart, the crews lashed their flatboats together. 
 The Concordia boat, owned and commanded by Steve Birch, carried 
 a cargo of pork, oats, corn and tobacco bound for the New Orleans 
 market. Shipping as errand boy to Captain Birch was James H. 
 Cunningham of Stephensport, Kentucky. 47 After giving an Indian 
 war whoop, the two crews struck up the flatboatman's chanty: "Hard 
 upon the beech oar!" 
 
 Every hour the December wind grew colder and growled louder. The 
 near freezing river reached up and bit its icy dampness through the 
 heaviest clothing. Night came early. Woodchoppers' fires outlined the 
 banks. Here and there Abe saw a vessel wooding up. Not wanting 
 to risk being iced in, Birch and Gentry ordered their flatboats to keep 
 drifting. With bulls-eye lamps the crews picked out the channel and 
 hoped to miss dangerous snags. It was hazardous business, drifting 
 at night. In the small cabin on the Gentry boat Abe and Allen did 
 their cooking. In there, also, they took turns sleeping. To raise 
 the spirits of the Birch crew, Abe sometimes took out his Jews' harp — 
 or band, as he now called it — and went over to their cabin. He clog- 
 danced, and between performances he told the Concordians stories 
 from Aesop's Fables and Arabian Nights. His new audience laughed, 
 applauded, banged the table with anything at hand. 
 
 Around New Year's Day the two boats swung into the broad mouth 
 of the Ohio, bore to the southwestward and entered the Mississippi 
 River. They passed Reel Foot Lake and New Madrid. The cold 
 northern winds slackened. The boats drifted past "Wappanocca," 
 Ferguson's plantation on the Arkansas side. Memphis appeared on 
 the left. And when, a few miles onward, the great world of the Deep 
 South opened, Abraham Lincoln was as amazed as he had been in 1816 
 when he first saw the Ohio River. Mississippi River traffic churned in 
 and out of bayous and small tributaries. White-columned mansions 
 commanded busy plantations. Twisted liveoaks stood mute under 
 veils of Spanish moss. Icy winds gave way to the cheerful songs of 
 mocking birds. 
 
 At Vicksburg Captain Birch became so ill he was unable to continue 
 the voyage. There he sold his boat to Allen Gentry and paid off all 
 his crew except the youthful errand boy, whom he took back north 
 with him. Lincoln, deciding he had better send his trunk back too, 
 bundled his few things together and pointed to the empty trunk. 
 "Please, Jimmy, put that off at Rockport," he said to Cunningham.* 8 
 It is not known how soon or where Gentry disposed of the Birch crew 
 and flatboat, but it is known that Captain Gentry and Bowhand 
 
58 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 Lincoln continued their journey toward the sugar coast and New 
 Orleans, that Louisiana city which the Vincennes Western Sun, less 
 than two weeks before Christmas, had called "the wet grave where 
 the hopes of thousands are buried." 49 
 
 By mid-March, 1829, Abe Lincoln and Allen Gentry were back in 
 Rockport. 50 Gentry had only a few rods to go to reach home and see 
 his three months old son, James; but Lincoln had seventeen miles to 
 walk to reach his cabin on the knoll. Arriving home, Lincoln turned 
 his flatboat earnings over to his father; then, becoming restless, he 
 went up to William Wood's place and stood around. Wood: "Abe, 
 what's your case?" Lincoln: "Uncle, I want you to go to the river 
 and give me a recommendation to some boat. I want a start." Wood 
 shook his head: "Abe, your age is against you. You're not twenty- 
 one. I won't do it for your own good." B1 
 
 Three weeks later Tom Lincoln told Abe, "We been hearing from 
 John Hanks over in Illinois. 52 He says there's sod there that ain't never 
 had a plow point stuck in it. John says its the best land in the world 
 for all kinds of crop raising." Abe: "Reckon we might be pulling out 
 for it?" His father: "Well, it's mighty fine land over there." 
 
 Shortly, Abe learned that a big infare was planned to follow the an- 
 nounced Grigsby double-wedding. "All the neighbors except the 
 Lincoln family were invited," stated J. C. Richardson. "Abe un- 
 doubtedly felt miffed." " 
 
 Lincoln remembered helping his father do carpenter work on the 
 Grigsby house, such as making window shutters and the imposing 
 staircase. Up that stairway, Abe knew, the two brides would be led 
 by merrymakers and put to bed; that being what Pigeon Creek custom 
 dictated. He wondered what would happen if a mistake were made 
 and the bridegrooms went into the wrong rooms. The more he 
 thought about it the funnier it seemed; and, because of the fancied 
 slight, he decided to write a story about such a happening. To make 
 it appear more factual, he watched everything that took place at the 
 Grigsby home. 
 
 It was Good Friday, April 17, 1829, and Abraham Lincoln selected 
 a point in the woods from which he could watch the goings on. He 
 knew that yesterday Reuben, Jr., and Charles Grigsby, brothers of 
 Aaron, had married outsiders — that is, girls from other neighborhoods. 
 Reuben had married Elizabeth Ray whom Abe called Betsy. Miss 
 Ray lived on Crooked Hill, overlooking the Ohio River. Charles had 
 married Matilda Hawkins on Anderson River, near the Taylor ferry. 
 A little before noon Lincoln saw Reuben, Jr., and his bride, Betsy, 
 
MORE NEIGHBORS 59 
 
 with eight guests, all on horseback, enter the Grigsby lane. A mes- 
 senger on a white horse dashed past to greet them. The man was 
 blowing a long tin trumpet. Then Lincoln saw Charles and his bride 
 with twenty guests, also on horses, join Reuben's party. 
 
 "We formed a procession," Mrs. Reuben Grigsby, Jr., recalled later. 
 "My husband and me and Charles and his wife in front. The messen- 
 ger on the white horse led the way down the long lane, blowing all 
 the time on his tin horn." M Such medieval pomp in the Indiana 
 wilderness stirred Lincoln's imagination. He watched the gay proces- 
 sion move along under the arch of black walnuts and whiteoaks, over 
 a carpet of saw briars and wood violets. 
 
 As the procession reached the house, "Old Man Reuben and his wife 
 met and welcomed us," said Mrs. Reuben Grigsby, Jr. "Dinner was 
 ready and we were invited out to eat. There was a big crowd and 
 all the people did not finish eating until dark." w When the great feast 
 ended and the contents of the Grigsby still-house liberally passed 
 around, entertainment got underway. "We played all that evening 
 Old Sister Phoebe and other kissing games," declared Mrs. Reuben 
 Grigsby, Jr. "But there was no frolicing. Mrs. Grigsby (Mrs. Reuben, 
 Sr.) would have run away from her own home if she had heard a fiddle. 
 Good Baptist, you know." M 
 
 "After the infare was over," according to Joseph C. Richardson, "the 
 two women were put to bed. The candles were blown out upstairs. 
 The gentlemen — the two husbands — were invited and shown to bed." 
 Then "by accident as it were," said Richardson, unexpected events 
 happened. 57 
 
 Lincoln wrote a piece about that accident. Unlike the "Adam and 
 Eve's Wedding Song" he had composed for Sarah and Aaron, this piece 
 was a satire on the Grigsby infare. I Chronicles, chapter 5, verse 1 of 
 the Bible may have inspired him to do it in "scriptural style" as pio- 
 neers termed such writing. He made copies of his manuscript and 
 dropped them where neighbors could easily find them. Mrs. Josiah 
 Crawford called Abe's new work "First Chronicles of Reuben"; others 
 called it the "Book of Chronicles." Mrs. Reuben Grigsby, Jr., memor- 
 ized Abe's piece: 
 
 "Now there was a man whose name was Reuben, and the same was 
 very great in substance; in horses and cattle and swine, and a very 
 great household. It came to pass when the sons of Reuben grew up 
 that they were desirous of taking to themselves wives, and being too 
 well known as to honor in their own country they took a journey 
 into a far country and there procured for themselves wives. It came 
 
60 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 to pass also that when they were about to make the return home they 
 sent a messenger before them to bear the tidings to their parents. 
 These, inquiring of the messengers what time their sons would come, 
 made a great feast and called all their kinsmen and neighbors in and 
 made great preparations. When the time drew nigh they sent out two 
 men to meet the grooms and their brides with a trumpet to welcome 
 them and accompany them. When they came near unto the house of 
 Reuben, the father, the messenger came on before them and gave a 
 shout, and the whole multitude ran out with shouts of joy and music, 
 playing on all kinds of instruments. Some were playing on harps, some 
 on viols, and some blowing on ram's horns. Some were also casting 
 dust and ashes towards heaven, and chief among them was Josiah, 
 blowing his bugle and making sound so great the neighboring hills and 
 valleys echoed with the resounding acclamation. When they had 
 played and their harps had sounded till the grooms and brides ap- 
 proached the gates, Reuben, the father, met them and welcomed them 
 to his house. The wedding feast now being ready they were all invited 
 to sit down to eat, placing the bridegrooms and their wives at each 
 end of the table. Waiters were then appointed to serve and wait on 
 the guests. When all had eaten and were full and merry they all 
 went out again and played and sung till night, and when they had 
 made an end of feasting and rejoicing the multitude dispersed, each 
 going to his own home. The family then took seats with their waiters 
 to converse while preparations were being made in an upper chamber 
 for the brides and grooms to be conveyed to their beds. This being 
 done the waiters took the two brides up-stairs, placing one in a room 
 at the right hand of the stairs and the other on the left. The waiters 
 then came down and Nancy, the mother, then gave directions to the 
 waiters of the bridegrooms, and they took them up-stairs and placed 
 them in the wrong rooms. The waiters then all came down stairs. 
 But the mother, being fearful of a mistake, made enquiry of the 
 waiters and learning the true facts took the light and sprang up-stairs 
 It came to pass she ran to one of the rooms and exclaimed, '0 Lord, 
 Reuben, you are in bed with the wrong wife/ The young men, alarmed 
 at this, ran out with such violence against each other they came near 
 knocking each other down. The tumult gave evidence to those below 
 that the mistake was certain. At last they all came down and had a 
 long conversation about who made the mistake, but it could not be 
 decided. So endeth the chapter." 58 
 
 "The Chronicles kicked up a big hullabaloo," said James Gentry. 59 
 The outraged Grigsbys got hold of Lincoln's original manuscript and 
 
MORE NEIGHBORS 61 
 
 hid it. Meanwhile, children memorized the copies and mouthed 
 them up and down Buck Horn Valley, making women blush and men 
 wink with each recitation. "It wasn't so my man got into the wrong 
 room and Charles got into my room," insisted Mrs. Reuben Grigsby, 
 Jr., "Lincoln just wrote that for mischief." " Nattie Grigsby said: "It 
 hurt us." " 
 
 A terrific fist fight was expected; but Abe Lincoln did not appear 
 to be worried as he strolled about Gentryville. After several weeks 
 tempers cooled and the Grigsbys, seeing the funny side of Abe's 
 lampooning, began laughing it off. 
 
 But soon Lincoln was again in an argument with one of the Grigsby 
 boys. William, brother of Aaron, Nathaniel and Reuben, Jr., came to 
 the Lincoln home to claim a spotted pup. Grigsby claimed a neigh- 
 bor had given it to him. Abe claimed the same thing. Both boys 
 started walking and had gone about one hundred and fifty yards 
 west of the house, arguing all the time, when suddenly William shook 
 his fist in Lincoln's face. "Let's fight it out to see who owns the pup!" 
 Grigsby challenged. 
 
 "Bill," said Lincoln, "you know I can lick you, so what's the use of 
 making such a proposition?" Recognized as one of the best rough- 
 and-tumble fighters in Southern Indiana, Grigsby shot back: "Just 
 the same I'll fight you for that dog!" Tipped off earlier by word 
 flashed over the wilderness grapevine that a fist fight was brewing, 
 "strong men and bullies" had come from several miles away. They 
 followed along as the pup claimants edged toward Gentryville. Still 
 not wanting to fight the smaller youth, Lincoln declared, "Tell you 
 what I'll do, Bill. Although I know that pup belongs to me, and you 
 know it, too, I'm willing to put up John Johnston here to fight in 
 my place. He's more your size. And whoever whips gets the pup." 
 
 According to Nattie Grigsby, "Abe being larger and stronger than 
 my brother turned over his stepbrother to do the fighting." Im- 
 mediately spectators made a scuffle ground by kicking dry leaves into 
 a big circle. John D. Johnston and William Grigsby stepped inside the 
 ring, sized up the crowd and selected their seconds. Johnston chose 
 Aaron Standage and James Taylor; Grigsby selected William Whitten 
 and William Bolen. 62 The date of the fight was July 16, 1829. 63 
 
 Almost from the start James Gentry, Redmond Grigsby, Wesley 
 Hall, Joseph Gentry, Joseph Richardson and others, including Lincoln, 
 saw that Billy was too much for the youngster, Johnston. The longer 
 Lincoln watched the worse he felt. He saw Grigsby had Johnston 
 staggering, which meant Grigsby was winning the fight and the pup. 
 
62 
 
 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 A clout to the head sent John Johnston down with Grigsby on top of 
 him. Spectators yelled and pressed in closer. Then William Bolen 
 reached into the ring. 
 
 Yelling, "Bill Bolen shows foul play!" Abe Lincoln jumped inside 
 the circle of leaves, grabbed Billy Grigsby by the seat of the pants 
 and scruff of the neck and threw him into the air so hard Billy went 
 sailing out of the ring over the heads of the spectators. The fall nearly 
 killed Grigsby. Benjamin Hesson and some others picked him up 
 and carried him to the Gentry-Romine store. 
 
 Abe Lincoln stood inside the scuffle ring and dared all Gentryville 
 to step in and fight. 64 Not a person moved toward him. But a fight 
 did break out between Grigsby's seconds. Whitten struck Bolen so 
 hard he knocked Bolen's shoulder out of place. Still Lincoln stood in 
 the center of the ring daring one and all to cross the leaves. He 
 towered over that crowd as a giant whiteoak over a clump of scrub 
 brush. "I'm the big buck of this lick!" he shouted. No one tried to 
 prove he wasn't. 
 
 Convinced that neither the "strong men" nor the "bullies" present 
 wanted to fight him, Lincoln walked out of that leafy circle the un- 
 disputed owner of the spotted pup. 65 
 
 As soon as William Grigsby recuperated he challenged Abe to a 
 duel. Replied Abe: "I'm not going to fool my life away with one 
 shot." m However bad feelings between Abe and Billy did not last very 
 long. A few weeks later Abe acted as second for Billy in a fight 
 with Thomas Sumner. "We are going to fight to see who is the best 
 
 CUbt.i-oe. *^s*«- tv*k. 
 
 Interior of a log cabin. (Courtesy Indiana Historical Bureau). 
 
MORE NEIGHBORS 63 
 
 man," Grigsby explained simply. This fight took place on Blue Bill 
 Harris' hill, the drill-up grounds. For over three hours Grigsby and 
 Sumner fought with bare fists. Finally, Sumner conceded: "Billy, 
 I got enough.'' 67 
 
 Feeling somewhat remorseful about the mischief he had done in 
 writing the "Book of Chronicles," Lincoln tried to make amends by 
 turning the grindstone at the home of Reuben Grigsby, Jr. The 
 latter owned the only good grindstone in several miles around, and 
 people brought their axes, hoes, scythes and other tools to sharpen 
 them against the stone while Betsy, Reuben's bride, turned it. "Let 
 me turn for you, Betsy," Lincoln offered. Pleased to get away from 
 the drudgery, Betsy let Abe handle the job. Only when he sharpened 
 his own tools did Abe allow Betsy Grigsby to turn. "Betsy," he said 
 after he had ground one side of his axe, "I can turn this on the gee side 
 but I want to grind on the haw side. I think you'll have to turn a 
 little." 
 
 Betsy answered, "All right, Abe. I'll turn." 68 With such neighborly 
 cooperation hard feelings between the Grigsby family and Abe melted 
 away. "It's all over now," said Nattie Grigsby. 69 
 
Chapter Five 
 DESIGNS OF PROVIDENCE 
 
 At Pigeon Creek Abraham Lincoln grew up in an atmosphere of 
 religious fervor. Night after night in his own home he heard his 
 mother say, "Remember our God is a prayer-hearing God." He saw her 
 kneel and heard her pray for divine guidance. Before meals, he heard 
 his father intone, "Fit and prepare us for humble service, we beg 
 for Christ's sake. Amen." The creed of his parents and many of his 
 Hoosier neighbors was that of the Regular Primitive "feet washing" 
 Baptist Church: "The doctrine of election by grace and that the elect 
 were chosen in Christ Jesus before the world began." 1 
 
 There being at first no meetinghouse in the community, the settlers 
 worshipped in one another's homes, sometimes gathering in the Lin- 
 coln cabin. Sometimes when there were no services at all on the Sab- 
 bath, Abraham Lincoln said his mother spent "a portion of the day in 
 reading the Scriptures aloud to her family." a 
 
 Reverently, Nancy Hanks Lincoln said, "I would rather Abraham 
 would be able to read the Bible than to own a farm if he can't have 
 but one." s So, encouraged by their mother, Abraham and his sister 
 worked hard at learning to read. When they were able to stumble 
 along over the pages, Mrs. Lincoln let the children share the duty of 
 the Sunday reading. By the time he was nine years old, Abe Lincoln 
 was well acquainted with the family Bible. 
 
 The Lincoln Bible, known as an Ostervald Bible, was printed in 1799. 
 Bound in stiff board and calf-skin, part of its title page announces, 
 "Arguments prefixed to the different books and moral theological 
 Observations illustrating each chapter composed by the Reverend 
 Mr. Ostervald." Those observations — footnotes or reflections — were 
 in reality little sermons. Between the Old Testament and the New, 
 young Lincoln found the Apocrypha. 4 
 
 Some of the advice given by the Reverend Mr. Frederick Ostervald, 
 a Swiss divine who lived from 1663 to 1747, profoundly impressed 
 Abe. "It is a very great fault to neglect, as many do, the reading of 
 the prophesies," wrote Mr. Ostervald. "If Christians would but 
 read them they would find an astonishing light dart from them." 
 Searching for the light Abraham learned whole chapters of Isaiah. 
 
 64 
 
DESIGNS OF PROVIDENCE 65 
 
 Lincoln thumbed and meditated over pages of Isaiah XLV until 
 they became worn and stained. Ostervald declared, "This chapter 
 containes one of the most remarkable prophesies in the Old Testa- 
 ment." He said it was prophesied that God would go before a king 
 named Cyrus, who would grant the Jews leave to return to their 
 country and cause them to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple. "These 
 things," said Ostervald, "were foretold two hundred years before they 
 happened. These predictions which were so exactly fulfilled, invin- 
 cibly prove the divine origin of the Holy Scriptures. They prove, that 
 there is a God who knows things to come, and who presides over all 
 events and everything that happens in the world. They prove, in par- 
 ticular, that He disposes of things which depend upon the will of 
 man without depriving him of his liberty; so that men, without know- 
 ing it, bring about the designs of Providence." 
 
 Selecting verse 23 as the climax to Genesis XLIII, Ostervald wrote, 
 "What Joseph said to his brethren when they came again into Egypt 
 and his manner of treating them, shewed his extreme tenderness . . . 
 notwithstanding the injuries they had done him. This character of 
 kindness and meekness is the sure mark of good men." Those words 
 cut deeply into Lincoln's young mind. Joseph's interpretation of 
 Pharaoh's dreams, and what Ostervald had to say about Jacob's dream 
 as set forth in Genesis XXVIII, quickened Lincoln's interest in the 
 Bible. Ostervald wrote that the vision of the ladder reaching up 
 to heaven assured Jacob "that God would be with him wherever he 
 went." 
 
 Lincoln thought it strange there was so much in the Bible about 
 dreams. He said, "There are, I think, some sixteen chapters in the 
 Old and four or five in the New Testament in which dreams are men- 
 tioned. If we believe the Bible, we must accept the fact that in the 
 old days God and His angels came to men in their sleep and made 
 themselves known in dreams." 6 
 
 John XIII, describing the Lord's Supper, seemingly was read and re- 
 read by the Lincoln household. Time and again in Primitive 
 Baptist meetings, Abraham watched members of his family reverently 
 carry out this admonition of Jesus, "Ye also ought to wash one an- 
 other's feet." He saw them gird themselves with a towel, pick up a 
 bucket of water, cross the floor, kneel down and wash a neighbor's feet. 
 
 In spite of the religious fervor of the Pigeon Creek neighborhood and 
 the Lincoln household, when Nancy Hanks Lincoln died in October, 
 1818, there was neither funeral nor committal services. For one 
 thing, there was no preacher in the community. The principal reason, 
 
66 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 however, for no service undoubtedly was the Primitive Baptist custom 
 of setting aside the first Sunday in June for a mass funeral for all 
 persons who had died during the preceding twelve months. 6 So, at 
 Abraham's request the Reverend David Elkin, or Elkins, arrived from 
 Kentucky on the first Sunday in June, 1819, to preach funeral services 
 for Nancy Hanks Lincoln and all the other milksick victims. 7 
 
 Preacher Elkins entered the Pigeon Creek-Buck Horn Valley com- 
 munity riding a sorrel horse and smoking a pipe. He had ridden a 
 hundred miles across Kentucky's open country and through Indiana's 
 wilderness. Now past forty and weighing two hundred pounds, Dave 
 Elkins didn't pay much attention to the appearance of his long, red 
 hair and longer red whiskers. In his youth he was so wild he had been 
 nicknamed Devil Dave. He had been a rip-roaring fiddler and a 
 hearty whiskey drinker. People said he could lick his weight in wild- 
 cats and never bat an eye. He couldn't read, but recognized the 
 letter "O" because it was round. At twenty-two he "got religion." 
 Devil Dave took up preaching and you could hear him for a quarter 
 of a mile, according to Dennis Hanks. 8 
 
 In front of the Lincoln home that bright June day, two hundred 
 people stood in hushed silence. They had come from twenty miles 
 around to attend the mass funeral. Some had come in ox carts; some 
 had ridden, two or three, on a horse; others had walked, carrying their 
 shoes. Almost all of them knew David Elkins. To one and all it was 
 a solemn day. 9 
 
 As Preacher Elkins stepped out of the cabin door, followed by 
 Thomas Lincoln, Sarah and Abraham, and Dennis Hanks, the people 
 quietly opened up a lane before them. Slowly the minister and the Lin- 
 coln family started up the mudsled trail. A long and sorrowing proces- 
 sion followed them to the mound-dotted hilltop. Eyes grew moist 
 and chins trembled as the grieving families looked at graves sunken 
 by winter snows and spring rains. Reverend Elkins took his stand at 
 the foot of Mrs. Lincoln's grave. Thomas, Sarah, Abraham and Dennis 
 stood at the head. Peter Brooner, with his sons Allen and Henry, 
 waited at the nearby grave of Mrs. Brooner. The other mourners went 
 to the graves of their dead. There was a long silence. 
 
 Then Abe Lincoln heard the Reverend Mr. Elkins offer up a prayer 
 and sing a hymn. He heard him say he had come because Nancy's 
 little son, Abraham, had requested it. 10 And he heard him say: "Nancy 
 Hanks Lincoln was a precious Christian woman. She was an example 
 of true womanhood." David Elkins also eulogized Uncle Tom and 
 Aunt Betsy Sparrow and those others who had died during the milk- 
 
DESIGNS OF PROVIDENCE 67 
 
 sick terror. 11 When the mass funeral ended, the mourners quietly 
 shook hands all around. In silence all watched Devil Dave mount his 
 horse and ride away. 
 
 That fall of 1819 was the first anniversary of the milksick calamity. 
 With one accord the survivors said: "Let us build a house unto the 
 Lord. A meetinghouse will be an acceptable thanks offering for our 
 escape from death." 
 
 On June 8, 1816, states the deer-skin covered minute book, a con- 
 gregation had been organized in Lincoln's community under the title 
 of "The Baptist Church of Christ Jesus known by the name of Pigeon 
 Creek Warrick County Indeanne Territory." Since March 13, 1819, 
 members had been seeking a church site. Late in December they 
 selected a spot on a gently rolling knoll across a brushy hollow five 
 hundred yards north of Noah Gordon's mill and between the forks of 
 Buck Horn Creek. Nearby was a pool of living water, a good place for 
 baptizing. John Romine donated land for the graveyard or God's 
 Acre, as the members called it. 
 
 Amidst this planning, returning flatboatmen brought to the Lincolns 
 and their neighbors terrifying news: "Yellow fever is worse in New 
 Orleans and Natchez than it has been for many years. Crews of 
 several boats have nearly all perished." 13 To this news, Abraham's 
 neighbors nodded their heads and repeated, "What is going to happen 
 is going to happen and it was so decreed before you were born." 
 
 But if all things were decreed beforehand, then why have a meeting- 
 house? Why not let Providence run its course? Lincoln heard many 
 answers to such questions. A meetinghouse, said his neighbors, would 
 be a proper place for the Pigeon Creek community to congregate; it 
 would be a proper place in which to hear the Scriptures explained 
 and in which to wash feet; it would be a temple in the wilderness where 
 it would be easier to praise the Lord and fight the devil. Here, 
 even as the Psalmist, they could exalt "our God and worship at His 
 footstool." 
 
 So work on the meetinghouse began. Having completely recovered 
 from the horse-kick received at Noah Gordon's mill, Abraham Lin- 
 coln swung an axe alongside his grown-up neighbors. The job of boss 
 carpenter was assigned by the elders to Thomas Lincoln who fashioned 
 a two-brick mold, which was used by David Turnham in making 
 bricks for the chimney. John Romine, Weldon Barker and others 
 operated the kiln. Reuben Grigsby, Sr., James Gentry, John Kitchens, 
 Jacob Oskins, William Stark, Owen R. Griffith, Robert Oskins, and 
 probably the Reverend Young Lamar, also, took turns at cutting logs 
 
68 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 and riding the shaving-horse. Noah Gordon, considered an exception- 
 ally good hand with a foot-adz, was awarded the honor of hewing the 
 timbers. 13 With froe and maul still others split the clapboard shingles. 
 
 When completed, the meetinghouse was a one and a half story, 
 hewn-log building twenty -six feet wide and thirty feet long. The 
 long way set north and south. Outside brick chimneys hugged each 
 end. A planed battened church door faced the east. Two gaping 
 windows, twenty by thirty-six inches, let in daylight. Inside, the 
 meetinghouse appeared unusually roomy and cheery. 14 Heat from the 
 huge fireplaces warmed the worshippers as they faced the pulpit of 
 wild cherry which Thomas Lincoln had skillfully made. Fenced in, 
 it had a gate at one end. At its back a bench ran the full length and 
 could easily accommodate six preachers. 15 
 
 Preachers were paid in corn, smoked meat and whiskey. Some 
 called this giving to the Lord, but one preacher explained, "This giving 
 to the Lord — as if He needed anything — is outside the teachings of 
 the Lord. You are giving to me, a man who has a wife and children to 
 feed." 
 
 On entering the meetinghouse, the saints of the Lord — as the more 
 pious members styled themselves — separated. Men saints went to 
 the benches on the men's side and women saints to those on the 
 women's side. The center benches, known as the sinners' seats, 
 were reserved for nonmembers. That was where Abe Lincoln sat; 
 he was neither a member nor a saint. 
 
 In almost every sermon Lincoln listened to, the Primitive Baptist 
 doctrine of predestination was mentioned. "A time was appointed for 
 you to be born into the world," the preacher would declare. "If it 
 wasn't so how would God know about you? God sets the bounds of 
 every man. God knows where you are at. If He didn't set out 
 bounds, how would He know where you are at? God knew you would 
 be here before you came to church today. If not, then it is an experi- 
 ment with Him and this Scripture (pounding the Bible) is a farce!" 
 
 While Abe listened to the preachers, some of whom could hardly 
 read, he must have wondered if there were an all-knowing, Super- 
 natural Power hovering over the speaker and congregation. He was 
 growing up among these people — his people. Plain people. They 
 believed in the moving power of dreams and visions. Eventually, 
 he ascribed that power "to the Almighty Intelligence that governs 
 the universe." 16 
 
 As services drew to a close Abe heard the preacher ask, "Any in- 
 quiry after the peace and fellowship of the church?" If no one said 
 
DESIGNS OF PROVIDENCE 69 
 
 anything, the preacher next asked, "Nothing of that nature? How 
 beautiful it is to dwell in peace and harmony. Any inquiry as to the 
 sick and needy of the church?" 17 That answered, Thomas Lincoln 
 and his brother saints got up from their benches and slowly filed past 
 the pulpit, shaking hands with the minister. And as they walked they 
 sang, their voices stirred by religious zeal. They turned from the 
 pulpit to the women's side and shook hands with each sister. Then, as 
 the singing died away, they moved to the center benches, solemnly 
 clasped the hands of sinners, and returned to the men's side. Lining- 
 out the closing hymn, the preacher read aloud each line of the verses. 
 Finally the whole congregation, sinners included, joyously sang: 
 
 "There's room enough in paradise 
 "For a shout in glory." 
 
 Pronouncement of the benediction freed them for socializing and 
 visiting. 
 
 When his stepmother was unable to attend services in the meeting- 
 house Abraham went, listened closely, came home and repeated the 
 sermons almost word for word, even throwing in the preacher's ges- 
 tures. According to Mrs. Lincoln he had a remarkable memory: 
 "Abe could easily learn." He once astonished David Turnham and a 
 gang of boys by mounting a log and repeating Reverend Jeremiah 
 Cash's text and sermon. 18 
 
 On those Sundays when his stepmother and Thomas Lincoln had 
 gone to church, Matilda Johnston recalled, "Abe would take down the 
 Bible, read a verse, give out a hymn and we would sing. He would 
 preach and we would do the crying. Sometimes he would join in the 
 chorus of tears." They used Watts' Hymns. 19 
 
 A preacher came to the Lincoln cabin one day and got into an 
 argument with Abe over Jonah and the whale. For an hour they 
 argued. Suddenly Abe asked, "Who was the father of Zebedee's 
 children?" That unexpected change of subject so bewildered the 
 wrought-up preacher he could only answer, "I don't know." 20 
 
 Even though Thomas Lincoln had served the congregation as boss 
 carpenter in building the meetinghouse and Mrs. Lincoln had regularly 
 attended services there for more than two years, neither joined Pigeon 
 Creek Church until Saturday, June 7, 1823. That day, according to 
 the minute book: "Opened a dore for the Reception for members. 
 Received Brother Thomas Linkhon by letter. Received Brother John 
 ... by Relation and Sister Linkhon and Thomas Carter by Experi- 
 ence." 
 
70 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 Next day being the second Sunday in June and baptizing day, 
 Abraham stood on the cool, wooded banks of Buck Horn Creek — a 
 branch of Pigeon Creek — and heard the church members singing 
 hymns. He knew that Article 8 of their Articles of Faith declared: 
 "We believe that baptism and the Lord's supper are ordinances of 
 Jesus Christ and that true believers are the onely proper subjects and 
 the onely proper mode of baptism is immersion." Abraham watched 
 his stepmother calmly walk into the pool of living water and, as the 
 singing stopped, saw the preacher "bury her with Jesus in baptism;" 
 then saw her go "straightway out of the water" as the Saviour had 
 done from the river Jordan. 
 
 Back in Kentucky Thomas Lincoln had been a member of the Free- 
 will Baptists and had been baptized by the Reverend William Downs 
 in Knob Creek. 21 
 
 At sixteen, Abe Lincoln was given a job as sexton at the Pigeon 
 Creek meetinghouse and his friend Jimmy Grigsby went with him to 
 look it over. Observing that "this place needs cleaning up," Abe 
 made a broom of small hazel-brush limbs tied together with skin 
 stripped from the brush, and swept down cobwebs and cleared out cut- 
 tings left by squirrels. 22 And while he worked, little blue lizards 
 snapped their shining tails over the puncheon floor and ran up and 
 down the walls. Judging by a memorandum book notation, Abe prob- 
 ably brought some candles from home. 23 
 
 One Sunday morning Lincoln sat on a sinners' seat, listening to the 
 preacher — an old man, wearing a tow linen shirt held together by a 
 single button at the collar, and barn-door pantaloons, the kind with 
 the wide flap which lets down in front. Loudly the preacher an- 
 nounced his text: "I am the Christ whom I shall represent." Just 
 then Abe saw a lizard jump onto the old man's foot and run up his 
 leg underneath the pantaloons. Without pausing in his sermon, the 
 preacher slapped at the lizard. But the lizard kept on climbing. 
 Lincoln, watching the man slyly loosen the center button of his waist- 
 band, wondered what would happen. The pantaloons dropped and 
 the old man stepped aside, left in his long tow shirt which hung down 
 like a nightgown. 
 
 Abe squirmed on the bench and tried to figure out what the next 
 move would be. He noted that the congregation was more interested 
 in the lizard's progress than in the sermon. "Mr. Lizard passed the 
 equatorial line of the waistband, and was calmly exploring that part 
 of the preacher's anatomy which lay beneath the back of his shirt," 
 said Lincoln. 
 
DESIGNS OF PROVIDENCE 71 
 
 The old man kept right on preaching until he was unable to stand it 
 any longer. "With one sweep of his arm off came the tow linen shirt," 
 said Lincoln. Tho congregation sat dazed. Standing in the pulpit was 
 their pastor, naked as Adam on the day of his creation. Finally, in the 
 back of the church, an old lady stood up and looked sternly at the 
 preacher. "If you represent Christ then I am done with the Bible!" 
 she shouted. 24 
 
 When he was about eighteen Abe borrowed a most unusual book: 
 Volume IV, Part II of "Practical Discourses upon all the Collects, 
 Epistles and Gospels, to be us'd thro-out the year." It was written 
 by Matthew Hole, DD., Rector of Exeter College in Oxford. Its title 
 page states the book was printed in London in 1716 by "F.D. for T. 
 Varnum in Lombard Street, W. Taylor, H. Clements at the Half-Moon 
 in St. Paul's Church-yard and J. Bourne with-out Temple-bar." Abe 
 borrowed this Church of England book from the parents of Elizabeth 
 and John Tuley. He read it so carefully and made so much use of it 
 as he preached from stumps that the Tuley family started calling it 
 "Abe Lincolns book of sermons." * 
 
 Abe found that Dr. Hole was not always happy over world con- 
 ditions in 1716. "It is a vicious world we live in," wrote Dr. Hole. 
 "Always the more vice the more unbelief. Instead of building Men 
 up in their holy Faith, and carrying on the work and Business of 
 the Christian life, we are forced to combat the Atheists and the Deists 
 who are still pecking at the foundation." 
 
 Set forth in detail on page 312-318, Abe found arguments and con- 
 clusions bearing directly on the Saviour's two Great Commandments. 
 After repeating the parable of the Good Samaritan, Dr. Hole declares 
 that Christ was intimating "that every one that is in want and stands 
 in need of Relief, although he be as a Jew to a Samaritan, is yet to be 
 looked upon as a Neighbor, and to be the Object of our Mercy and 
 Pity." 
 
 Back on page 261, which shows considerable thumbing and treats 
 of the Gospel for the Tenth Sunday after Trinity based on St. Luke 
 XIX, 41-47, Lincoln learned from a few words much about the 
 character of Jesus: "From the Saviour's weeping over Jerusalem we 
 may observe his tender Sense and Concern for the Miseries and 
 Calamities of other Men; and that may teach us to shew Pity and 
 Compassion upon like occasions." Concern for the miseries of other 
 men — in fact for all living creatures — was beginning to be firmly 
 rooted in Abraham's own character. 
 
 If Lincoln had not before known why his parents and others knelt 
 
72 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 to pray, he would have learned from Dr. Hole's Practical Discourses 
 on the Epistles for the 16th Sunday after Trinity, Ephesians III, 13 
 to end. "The humble posture us'd by St. Paul was kneeling," says 
 Hole. "For this cause I bow my knees. St. Paul did not, as too many 
 in our days do, sit at his Prayers, or present his Maker with a rude 
 unmannerly Devotion. No, he shew'd more Reverence and bowed the 
 knees before him. Sitting is a Posture of Ease and Sloth, and betokens 
 that Freedom and Familiarity which may well enough pass among 
 Equals but is never used in Gesture of Reverence or Respect to 
 Superiors ." Dr. Hole pointed out that Daniel "kneeled upon his 
 knees three times a day." He described "our Blessed Saviour upon 
 his knees praying to his heavenly Father." 
 
 With Dr. Hole's Practical Discourses in mind, Lincoln mounted 
 stumps and competed with circuit-riding preachers who visited the 
 neighborhood. One of his victims was the Reverend Henry Hart, 
 pastor of both Pigeon Creek and of Little Zion over in Warrick County 
 where he lived. It was on a Sunday morning said the Reverend 
 Hart's daughter, Sarah Hart Gray, that "Abe Lincoln went down 
 below the church, got upon a stump and made a speech." Having 
 read widely and thoroughly, Abe's sermon contrasted sharply with 
 that being delivered in the meeting house. "It was not long before 
 he had as large a crowd as there was at the church," recalled Mrs. 
 Gray. 26 
 
 In Dr. Hole's book Lincoln found such subjects as: Death and 
 Damnation; Signs and Wonders; No Man Can Serve Two Masters; 
 God is Their Belly; One Baptism; The Good Samaritan; Jesus Casting 
 Out Devils; The Blessed Trinity; Works of the Flesh; Wisdom of the 
 Serpent and Harmlessness of the Dove; and a hundred other subjects. 
 Abe memorized whole sermons, delivering them verbatim. He spoke in 
 parables. He propounded doctrines his unlettered listeners had never 
 dreamed were in existence. 
 
 Lincoln also had access to another book filled with items of religious 
 nature: Lindley Murray's English Reader. In it he found "The 
 Apostle Paul's Noble Defense Before Festus to Agrippa;" Colton's 
 "Religion and Death;" Milton's "Discourse between Adam and Eve;" 
 Thompson's "A Man Perishing in the Snow;" Home's "On the Beau- 
 ties of the Psalms." Home said the Psalms were "Calculated alike to 
 profit and to please. They inform the understanding, elevate the 
 affections and entertain the imagination." In Abe's judgment, Mur- 
 ray's English Reader was "the best school book ever put in the hands 
 of an American youth." 5 " 
 
DESIGNS OF PROVIDENCE 73 
 
 Matilda Johnston, Lincoln's stepsister, said her brother, John D., 
 one day caught a land terrapin and took it to where Abe, atop a stump, 
 was preaching to several boys and girls, repeating the sermon which he 
 had heard the Sunday before. After the choir had sung, she recalled, 
 Abe's prayer had worked the children up to a high pitch of fervor. 
 At that moment John, coming near Abe, hurled the terrapin against a 
 tree so hard the reptile's shell was crushed. Lincoln looked down at 
 the helpless creature writhing in agony at his feet. He looked at John; 
 then at the Pigeon Creek youngsters. Obviously remembering Aesop's 
 fable about the boys and the frogs, Abraham Lincoln preached a 
 stinging sermon against cruelty to animals. He told those young 
 Pigeon Creekers that "An ant's life is just as sweet to it as ours to us;" 
 that "the little soul of that small terrapin is as great to it as the larger 
 life to man." x He went home and wrote a piece which he called 
 "Against Cruelty to Animals." His stepmother observed that Abe 
 "loved animals generally and treated them kindly." According to 
 Nathaniel Grigsby, Abe wrote "essays on being kind to animals and 
 crawling insects." " 
 
 On another Sunday morning Lincoln was down by the meetinghouse 
 sauntering around with some neighbor boys. A church member poked 
 his head through an open window and yelled, "Abe, the devil will get 
 you!" 30 Apparently Abe was considered to blame for the boys being 
 outside. 
 
 Wandering alone in the dark woods the adolescent Lincoln thought 
 over the simple faith of his people: God and the devil; heaven and 
 hellfire. But surely there were other elements which should be empha- 
 sized in their spiritual labors, such as charity; or, as Dr. Hole had 
 suggested in the Practical Discourses, pity and compassion. One day, 
 in the silent Indiana forest, Abe heard a voice. "I turned. I saw no 
 one. But the voice was there," he told Henry C. Whitney. 31 Over 
 those woodlands now brooded a new force which Lincoln could feel, 
 but could neither see nor explain. 
 
 In Indiana, also, Lincoln was introduced to religious form different 
 from any taught in church or by the books he read. In its same dark 
 forests Lincoln annually observed the Indian captors of Reuben Grigs- 
 by, Sr., perform their sun- worshipping rites. They flapped their arms 
 and crowed like roosters in salute to what Lincoln called "the rising 
 god of day." Some of Lincoln's neighbors — veterans of the Battle of 
 Tippecanoe — retold the story of Chief Tecumseh scorning Governor 
 William Henry Harrison's invitation to sit on the Governor's porch at 
 Vincennes. It was claimed Tecumseh haughtily replied, "The sun is 
 
74 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 my father and the earth is my mother. On her bosom I will recline." 8a 
 
 Even if these Indians did not worship in the manner of Lincoln's 
 parents, they did worship something supreme to themselves, which 
 was more than Robert Owen and his Utopian Socialists and Scottish 
 philanthropists were doing at the New Harmony communistic experi- 
 ment on the Wabash, forty miles to the westward. Abe was reading, 
 in the Vincennes Western Sun, Robert Owen's debate with the Rever- 
 end A. Campbell, what Owen termed The Four Grand Positions of 
 Religion. Held in Cincinnati and widely reported in newspapers 
 everywhere, that debate was proving to be the greatest religious debate 
 ever held in America. 83 The Western Sun carried Owen's argument 
 that all religions are: (a) founded on the ignorance of mankind; (b) 
 are the real sources of vice, disunion and misery; (c) are the only real 
 bar to the formation of a society of virtue, intelligence, sincerity, and 
 benevolence; (d) are maintained only through the ignorance of the 
 mass of the people and the tyranny of the few over the mass. 
 
 Prior to the debate the Vincennes Sun reported an interview which 
 the Reverend Ely of Philadelphia had with Robert Owen in New York 
 harbor. Lincoln read of Dr. Ely's shock on being told by Owen that 
 after death he might "become a cabbage head, a cucumber, or an ass; 
 that there is no other God but the universe; that the substance of 
 his own beard and remarkable nose is a part of the Supreme Being; 
 that all the evils which are supposed to result from those things which 
 are called vices, really result from the religion of men and the priest- 
 hood of such gentlemen" as himself. Owen further shocked Ely by 
 saying, "All our judgments and other mental actions are the result of 
 fate, and we are not free agents in anything." 
 
 But what was fate? Lincoln's family and his Primitive Baptist 
 neighbors came rather close to calling Owen's idea of fate, the designs 
 of Providence: What is going to happen is going to happen and you 
 cannot do anything about it. Hearing Baptist preachers at Pigeon 
 Creek Church deliver sermons on these designs and reading about 
 them in the Ostervald Bible, Abraham Lincoln early accepted the 
 doctrine of fatalism. "All my life I have been a fatalist," he told Isaac 
 Arnold. 84 
 
 The debate and Owen's further statements added to the raging 
 storm over the proof of a Deity — Theists claiming the eternal Being 
 was a knowing immaterial substance; Atheists claiming the eternal 
 Being was a senseless material substance. In the midst of it all, Lin- 
 coln's pious neighbors shook their heads and held fast to their belief 
 in the God of Moses and of Jesus as set down in the Bible. Their 
 
DESIGNS OF PROVIDENCE 75 
 
 meetinghouse at this time needed a new chimney. To build it, accord- 
 ing to the minute book, Thomas Lincoln and others signed up to 
 deliver at William Barker's place "good merchantile produce" — such 
 items as "Corn, wheat, whiskey, soft Linnen wool or any other article 
 to do the work with." The Lincolns donated "White Corn — manu- 
 factured pounds — 24." " 
 
 Once a year churches belonging to the Regular Primitive Baptists 
 held a great meeting of Corresponding Associations. Saints from Blue 
 River to Pigeon Creek to Little Zion attended the meeting held in a big 
 clearing. Men left their plows; women put away their spinning wheels. 
 If roads and trails were muddy, the women walked barefooted, carry- 
 ing their shoes and stockings. At the meetings Abe Lincoln heard 
 emancipation preachers exhort the people; saints testify; backsliders 
 renew their faith; and sinners beg for mercy. At one such meeting 
 Lincoln heard an old man named Glenn testify, "When I do good, I 
 feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad. And that's my religion." That 
 old man could have been Samuel Glenn who lived on the banks of 
 Blue River about ten miles northwest of the home of Abraham's uncle, 
 Josiah Lincoln. 38 
 
 In spite of saints and camp meetings, some of Lincoln's teenage 
 companions ripped out long oaths. Not using profanity himself, Lin- 
 coln admonished them, "Swear off your boyish ways and be more like 
 men." 87 
 
 September, 1829, was an harassing month for the bodies and souls 
 of Lincoln's more pious neighbors. Milksickness had showed up again. 
 Yellow fever was killing forty people a day down in New Orleans and 
 would likely be carried to Pigeon Creek by returning flatboatmen. 38 
 And, as if to further plague the people, a rebellious brother in the 
 church bluntly declared he "believed that the doctrine of predestina- 
 tion came from hell and would go there and all who preached it." That 
 declaration so angered the Salem Baptist Association that it sent a 
 sharp message to the Pigeon Creek Baptists: unless they "relieved 
 themselves of their disorder they would be dropped from the Union 
 Association." 39 
 
 A secret trial was held by the church. Not being a member, Abe 
 was barred; but he could and did ask questions of those who attended. 
 From their answers and reactions it was apparent to him that the 
 trial was more concerned with sex problems than with the rebel's 
 fight against the doctrine of predestination. Lincoln wrote a poem 
 about that church trial, calling it "The Neighborhood Broil." It kicked 
 
76 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 up an even greater hullabaloo in Buck Horn valley than had his 
 "Chronicles of Reuben." " 
 
 When Abe's family prepared to move from Indiana to Illinois, 
 Thomas and Sarah Bush Lincoln asked for their church letters and 
 were given them in November. Before they left, however, Sister 
 Grigsby declared she was not satisfied that the letters should have 
 been given to Sister Sarah and Brother Thomas. She demanded their 
 recall. Shortly, all parties met in Brother William Hoskins' cabin 
 and patched up their troubles. 41 At the time Abraham Lincoln reached 
 the legal age of twenty-one and was ready to move from Indiana, 
 he still had not joined any organized religious body. But his Indiana 
 surroundings had filled him with the belief that a Supreme Being truly 
 existed. "I know there is a God," he said. 43 
 
f 
 Chapter Six 
 
 PERSEVERANCE 
 
 While working as a hired hand for Josiah Crawford in 1825, Abe 
 resolved, "I will study and get ready and some day my chance will 
 come." 1 Seven years prior to that he had been a pupil in an Indiana 
 subscription school. "Abraham Lincoln and Sally (Abe's sister) and 
 myself all went to school together," recalled Nathaniel Grigsby. "We 
 went to Andy Crawford in the year 1818 in the winter, in the same 
 year Mrs. Lincoln died." a 
 
 A paper had been passed around in the neighborhood and patrons 
 "subscribed to get a school." Although money was very scarce with 
 him that dreary winter, somehow Thomas Lincoln managed to scrape 
 enough together to subscribe to Andrew Crawford's school. In that 
 way he gave Abe and Sarah a chance to escape each day from their 
 lonely, motherless cabin. 
 
 Before being hired to make up a subscription school in the Pigeon 
 Creek-Buck Horn Valley community, a teacher must prove to the 
 patrons that he could shape first class pens from a bundle of quills 
 handed to him; that he could read, write, and cipher to the Rule of 
 Three; that he could expertly handle a hickory limb on the backs of 
 deserving children. "If a straggler supposed to understand Latin 
 happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a 
 wizard," Abe reminisced. 8 
 
 The Crawford schoolhouse was almost a mile and a half south of the 
 Lincoln home. To reach it Abe and Sarah followed the trail around 
 their mother's hilltop grave, past their second cabin as well as the old 
 pole-house, cut across the leased eight acre tract of land and continued 
 two hundred yards farther southward. The schoolhouse stood on 
 Reuben Grigsby's land and overlooked the wilderness trail which 
 ran from the Pigeon Creek settlement to Grandview down on the Ohio 
 River. Built of hewn logs, it was just high enough for an ordinary man 
 to stand up in and was sixteen feet wide by twenty-five feet long. On 
 its southeast side was a door. Close by was a cistern. Sunlight shin- 
 ing through the greased-paper window fell on the puncheon floor and 
 split-log benches. A stick-and-mud chimney filled the north end. 4 
 Above the door and pegged to the wall was a very fine pair of 
 
 77 
 
78 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 buck antlers. Crotched over the teacher's chair was a long, slender 
 hickory limb. 
 
 To keep their hands warm on bitter cold days Sarah and Abe — as 
 well as the Grigsby, Gentry, Brooner, Oskins, Wood, Tuley, and Robey 
 children — carried hot, baked potatoes in their mittens. At noon 
 recess they ate the potatoes. 
 
 Since Andrew Crawford was both schoolmaster and Justice of the 
 Peace of Carter township, he generally was addressed as Squire 
 Crawford. The squire ran what was called a blab school: that is, all 
 pupils studied aloud. It was said the rumble of his school could be 
 heard away off in the wilderness. 
 
 Among the first things Crawford attempted to teach was good 
 manners. He told Abe and the other pupils to imagine the interior 
 of the schoolhouse to be the drawing-room of a grand lady of quality. 
 "You girls are young ladies and you boys are young gentlemen," he 
 said. He instructed Abe to leave the room and take a look at the paw- 
 paw brush, sweet briars, persimmon trees and wild grapevines sur- 
 rounding the schoolhouse. That dense thicket, Crawford insisted, 
 was a formal garden about a mansion set in an imaginary world. Abe 
 went out, looked, tried hard to see the mansion; then came back and 
 knocked at the door. 
 
 A young gentleman of quality opened the door and with imagined 
 dignity escorted Abe to the benches where sat Sally Lincoln, Elizabeth 
 Wood, Katy Robey, Hannah Gentry, Betsy Tuley and other girls of 
 the community. "Let me make you acquainted with Mr. Lincoln," 
 said the escort solemnly. 
 
 Abe bowed low, his long, pipe-stem legs bending backward, his big 
 ears flapping toward the very girls he had just been snowballing. Each 
 girl tried hard not to break into a spasm of giggles as she replied, "I 
 sure am proud to make your acquaintance, Mr. Lincoln." B 
 
 It was Friday afternoon and Squire Crawford had lined up a spelling 
 class along the wall. He gave out the word defied. Back of him was 
 Abe. Around the class went the word, each pupil spelling it with a 
 y instead of an i. That nettled Crawford so much he cast off his justice- 
 of-the-peace decorum. "I'll keep you here all night," he threatened, 
 "if you don't spell that word correctly!" 
 
 Lincoln knew that if the pupils were late leaving school they would 
 get whippings when they arrived home. Besides, panthers and bears 
 sometimes attacked schoolhouses in broad daylight. What would they 
 do to children on a trail at night? 
 
 Halfway around the spelling class defied had gone again when it 
 
PERSEVERANCE 79 
 
 reached Anna Caroline Robey, whom everyone called Katy. Abe 
 liked her and it hurt him to hear her stumbling "d-e-f-." He winked 
 and caught her attention; then he nodded and pointed at his eye. 
 Katy began again, "d-e-f-." She looked at Abe's pointing finger: 
 "i-e-d," she spurted. 6 The angry teacher was so relieved he dismissed 
 school immediately. Out flew the pupils, jubilant over being freed. 
 "We had spelling matches frequently," said Nathaniel Grigsby. "Abe 
 was always ahead of all the classes." 7 
 
 On another day a class was reading the Bible account of Nebuchad- 
 nezzar ordering the three Jews cast in the fiery furnace (Daniel III, 
 11-14) . One dull little fellow stumbled along until he came to the 
 three victims, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. "He couldn't do 
 anything with them. After the teacher slapped him, the boy tried 
 again. But he could not pronounce the names," Lincoln related. 
 "Skip them and go on," ordered the teacher. The boy sniffed and 
 read a bit farther. Suddenly he stopped, dropped the Bible and burst 
 out crying. "Now what's the matter?" shouted the teacher. The 
 boy wailed: "Here's them same damn three fellers again!" 8 
 
 Squire Crawford usually kept a very close eye on his pupils; but one 
 day he had to leave the room and Abe Lincoln got up, grasped the 
 buck antlers over the doorway and tried swinging on them. The pupils 
 applauded Abe's antics for all knew how very proud the Squire was of 
 those antlers and all secretly wanted to do what Abe was doing, but 
 none dared. Then to the consternation of all a horn broke off and 
 down Abe dropped. He went to his seat and began studying out loud. 
 
 In walked Crawford, saw the damaged antlers and demanded, "Who 
 broke that horn?" Not a blab-pupil answered. Crawford took down 
 the long hickory limb and looked around the room. Except for Abe's 
 studying aloud, the room was absolutely silent. Crawford's gaze 
 rested on Lincoln. Abe's big hands moved nervously in plain guilt. 
 Out of the corner of one eye he saw Crawford's stern face purpling 
 with rage. He heard Crawford thump the butt-end of the hickory 
 persuader on the desk. "Do you know who broke that horn?" stormed 
 the teacher. "Yes, sir," said Abe. "I did, sir, but I didn't mean to. 
 I just hung on it and it broke." Crawford roared, "What did you hang 
 on it for?" Meekly Abe replied, "I wouldn't have hung on it if I had 
 known it was going to break." 9 
 
 During the fall and winter of 1823, Lincoln attended Azel W. Dor- 
 sey's school. 10 Dorsey, a most versatile man, had served in the Third 
 Kentucky Regiment under General William Henry Harrison of Vin- 
 cennes, and had fought at Tippecanoe, November 7, 1811, when Har- 
 
80 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 rison's victory over Chief Tecumseh's brother, The Prophet, destroyed 
 Tecumseh's hopes for an Indian Confederacy. During the War of 1812 
 Dorsey served in Captain Benjamin Shaklett's mounted Kentucky 
 Volunteers. After the war he became Commissioner of Revenue Tax 
 for Kentucky. In 1816 he moved to Indiana and two years later was 
 Coroner for Spencer County. 11 He cried the sale of town lots in Rock- 
 port, 1818, while free whiskey was passed around to open the hearts 
 of the bidders. 
 
 Tales of Coroner Dorsey's learning spread from the Ohio River to 
 the Ten O'clock Line, from Blue River to the Wabash. He was referred 
 to as The Wizard at Figures. Here was Lincoln's opportunity to learn 
 mathematics. "We had an old dog-eared arithmetic in our house. 
 And father was determined that somehow I would cipher clear through 
 that book," said Lincoln. 13 
 
 According to Nathaniel Grigsby, Lincoln "used Pike's arithmetic." 
 This was Nicholas Pike's New and Complete System of Arithmetic. 
 While studying the book, Abe encountered simple addition, compound 
 subtraction, multiplication, division, vulgar fractions, coins, weights, 
 and measures. About one-fourth of the way through the volume he 
 ran into the "Single Rule of Three Direct." Although Pike included 
 chapters on geometry, trigonometry, algebra, and how to find the 
 "Proportion of Tonnage of Noah's Ark," parents of Abe's schoolmates 
 felt children were well educated when they could read, write and cipher 
 to the Rule of Three. Then they could correctly measure a field, a 
 haystack, a tree, or a crib of corn." 
 
 "The Rule of Three Direct," Pike informed his readers, "teacheth 
 by having three numbers given to find the fourth, that shall have the 
 same proportion to the third as the second hath to the first. The rule 
 on account of its great and extensive usefulness is sometimes called 
 the Golden Rule of Proportion." Pike set forth problems. In working 
 those in dry measure Lincoln had to contend not only with pints, 
 gallons, pecks and bushels but with hottles, strikes, cooms, quarters, 
 chaldron, weys and lasts. Aside from barley corns, he found nothing 
 unusual among the inches, feet, yards, poles and acres of land measure. 
 
 To be prepared for Coroner Dorsey's arithmetic class next day, Abe 
 worked late by light from the fireplace or from the sputtering flame of 
 burning tow in a lard-filled scooped-out turnip. Sitting cross-legged 
 on the sandstone hearth, he solved, or tried to solve, Pike's problems. 
 He worked them on puncheons, on clapboards he had rived out on his 
 father's shaving-horse, on the wooden fireshovel. He charred a stick 
 in the fire and used it for a pencil. He went to the creek bank and dug 
 
PERSEVERANCE 81 
 
 out a lump of red keel and used it for chalk. If he could find a piece 
 of paper he wrote on it with pens made of turkey quills, ink made from 
 blackberry briar roots. Anything he could lay his hands on that was 
 usable he used. 
 
 He took arithmetic seriously. On one page he set down, solved and 
 proved problems in compound subtraction. In the lower left corner of 
 the page he wrote: 
 
 "Abraham Lincoln 
 "his hand and pen 
 "he will be good but 
 "God knows When." u 
 
 No matter how busy he was with his studies and working for 
 neighbors, Abe found time to do some truck-patching for himself. 
 Judging by the way he handled watermelon thieves one night, truck- 
 patching helped keep mathematics on his mind. Quietly he investi- 
 gated and saw Joseph Kichardson and others eating melons. After 
 watching them for a while, Abe decided to make things miserable for 
 them. "Now I've got you!" he growled as he sprang into their midst. 
 The startled boys stopping eating. Not one dared to run while Abe 
 stood looking at them. "What are you going to do?" he demanded. 
 Nervously Joe spoke for the group: "Abe, we just don't know what 
 to do. We sure don't." Lincoln let them squirm a moment: "Well, I 
 do. I'll let everyone off that can repeat the multiplication table!" 
 That was a bitter dose for the boys. Lined up, eyes on Lincoln, hands 
 opening and closing in anxiety, the boys did the best they could with 
 the table. "That shows the beat of Abe's mind. Always toward 
 learning something," said Richardson. 16 
 
 In the fall of 1827 Abe began his last term of school with Dorsey 
 by tackling the "Directions for applying Superficies to Surveying" in 
 Pike's Arithmetic. There he discovered rules for measuring a tetrahe- 
 dron, an octahedron and "How to take the height of an Object stand- 
 ing on a hill which is inaccessible." On days he was not in school he 
 cut wood and split rails with a neighbor by the name of Simmons. Ac- 
 cording to the latter, "Abe Lincoln would work all day as hard as any 
 of us, and studied by firelight half the night. In this way he made 
 himself a thorough and practical surveyor." 19 
 
 Isaac Arnold said: "Like Washington, Lincoln became in early 
 life a good practical surveyor. I have in my library the identical book 
 from which, at eighteen years of age, he studied the art of surveying." 17 
 
 Lincoln's formal school training ended when Azel W. Dorsey moved 
 
82 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 from Indiana to a farm near Rushville, Illinois. There Dorsey began 
 telling people, "Abraham Lincoln is not only one of the noblest boys I 
 have ever known but he is certain to become noted if he lives." Soon, 
 too, William Jones at Gentryville told friends that Lincoln "will 
 make a great man one of these days." 18 
 
 Already dreaming of the time when he would fulfill the prophesies 
 of Dorsey and Jones, Abe wrote in Joe Richardson's copybook: 
 
 "Good boys who to their books apply 
 "Will make great men by and by." 19 
 
 With opportunity for classroom study over, Lincoln turned more 
 and more to books for self-education. "What I want to know is in 
 books," he told James Grigsby and others. William Jones gave him 
 a copy of a history of the United States, evidently a popular work 
 by William Grimshaw. "My best friends are those who give me 
 books," said Lincoln. 
 
 About 1823 Nancy Hanks Hall with her husband, Levi Hall, moved 
 from Kentucky to Indiana and brought along Bailey's Etymological 
 Dictionary. Abe's uncle, Mordecai Lincoln, had bought it in 1793. 
 By studying it Abe built up a good vocabulary. Not only did he 
 stretch out on the sandstone hearth, his head toward a blazing fire of 
 sassafras or hickory bark, but sometimes he assumed other postures 
 while trying to find out what was in books. His mother's relative, 
 John Hanks, who had lived in or near the Lincoln Pigeon Creek home 
 four years, wrote: "When Abe and I returned to the house from work 
 he would go to the cupboard, snatch a piece of cornbread, take down a 
 book, sit in a chair, cock his legs up as high as his head, and read." 
 According to Matilda Johnston, Robinson Grusoe was one of the books 
 he read. 21 
 
 During the winter of 1824-1825, when not reading at home, hanging 
 around Jones' store, or doing odd jobs for Josiah Crawford, Abe cut 
 cordwood for David Turnham. At the latter's home he found a new 
 source of books. A single room eighteen by twenty feet, Turnham's 
 house had a stone fireplace occupying almost one whole side. The 
 ceiling was so low that when Abe stood up he bumped his head against 
 it. One of the books he borrowed was Sinbad the Sailor. "Abe would 
 lay on the floor with a chair under his head and laugh over them 
 stories by the hour. I told him they was likely lies from end to end," 
 said Dennis Hanks. 22 
 
 Another Turnham book which appealed to Abe was William Scott's 
 Lessons in Elocution or a Selection of Pieces in Prose and Verse. 28 
 
PERSEVERANCE 83 
 
 Abe's interest in this book probably had been whetted previously 
 by his stepmother; her brother Isaac Bush had bought a copy of it in 
 1806 at the Bleakley and Montgomery Store in Elizabethtown, Ken- 
 tucky. 
 
 In Scott's Lessons Lincoln read memorable passages from Shake- 
 speare, for example the great soliloquy of King Claudius from Hamlet: 
 
 "Oh! my offense is rank, it smells from heaven; 
 "It hath the primal eldest curse upont, 
 "A brother's murder." 
 
 On the next page was Hamlet's soliloquy on death: "To be — or not 
 to be." Commented Abe: "I think the soliloquy in Hamlet com- 
 mencing 'Oh, my offense is rank' surpasses that commencing 'To be 
 or not to be.' " u There was, too the soliloquy of Richard HI begin- 
 ning with: 
 
 " 'Tis now the dead of night, and half the world 
 "Is with lonely solemn darkness hung" 
 
 In the same book Lincoln probably met for the first time Shake- 
 speare's charming liar — fat old Sir John Falstaff. Abe liked Sir John: 
 "It is old Jack Falstaff who talks about villainy though of course 
 Shakespeare is responsible." * Somewhere he found excerpts from 
 Othello, As You Like it, The Tempest, Henry V, Henry VIII, Romeo 
 and Juliet. 
 
 Scott quoted Socrates: "We should eat and drink in order to live 
 instead of living, as many do, in order to eat and drink." Abe heeded 
 that. Sarah Bush Lincoln tells us that "Abe was a moderate eater. 
 He sat down and ate what was set before him, making no complaint." "* 
 
 The lowly social position of Caius Marius, a Roman soldier who 
 wanted to be a general, touched Abe. "I have since my youth been 
 familiar with toils and dangers," Marius is quoted as saying in Scott's 
 Lessons. "Want of birth and fortune is the objection against me. 
 What if I can show no statues of my family? I can show the stand- 
 ards, the armour, which I have myself taken from the vanquished. I 
 can show the scars of those wounds which I have received facing 
 enemies of my country. Those are my statues." 
 
 In Scott's Lessons, too, was Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country 
 Churchyard." Commented Abe: "My early history is perfectly 
 characterized by a single line of Gray's Elegy: 'The short and simple 
 annals of the poor.' " 
 
 Scott quoted Homer's "Parting of Hector and Andromache," Mil- 
 
84 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 ton's "Lamentations for Loss of His Spirit," Dryden's "Alexander's 
 Feast or the Power of Music." There were quotations from Hume's 
 "Advantages of History," Atterbury's "On Doing as We Would Be 
 Done By," Virgil's "Aneas and Queen Dido" giving an "Account of the 
 Sack of Troy," Mark Anthony's funeral oration in Julius Caesar, 
 and Cicero's oratory dealing with torture by red hot plates and the 
 cross. 
 
 Scott explained how to express grief, penitence, fear, aversion, joy, 
 and melancholy by posture; line-drawings provided illustrations. 
 Lincoln tried out this newly acquired knowledge. He declaimed from 
 stumptops and found he could easily move his fellow backwoodsmen. 
 "Whatsoever you pursue be emulous to excell," counselled Scott. Lin- 
 coln wanted to excel in the pursuit of knowledge. His stepmother said 
 that when there was no paper Abe "would jot things down in his 
 mind, transferring them at times to boards, walls, anywhere he could 
 stick them till he did get paper. Then he would look at it, think 
 about it, repeat it to himself," at last saying, "Mother, I'll tell you what 
 it means." He would then explain it "in simple words." " 
 
 As Lincoln's hunger for books mounted it was accompanied by 
 increasing interest in Robert Burns' poems. Abe thought highly of 
 the Scottish plowman's homey philosophy. Observed Isaac Arnold: 
 "Burns he could quote from end to end." ffl 
 
 Word reached Lincoln that William B. Johnson, over on Blue Creek 
 about fifty miles to the northeast, had a copy of John Bunyan's 
 Pilgrim's Progress. Happily for Abe, Tom Lincoln needed another ox 
 and Tom's brother, Josiah, near neighbor to Johnson, had one to 
 spare. 29 Hours before daybreak Abe set out to get both ox and book. 
 He swung into the peculiar gait some pioneers used when they had 
 far distances to go, taking long strides, lifting his feet squarely from 
 the ground and squarely setting them down hardly bending his toes 
 and throwing little of the weight of his body on his heels. Being 
 slightly pigeon-toed he stepped along as stealthily as an Indian and 
 covered ground rapidly. He followed the Boon ville-Cory don road — 
 not much more than a trail through the unbroken Indiana forest — for 
 about thirty miles, then veered northward and headed for the Blue 
 Creek Primitive Baptist settlement. Soon he encountered big mud- 
 holes that had been pawed out by bull buffaloes. Should he fall into 
 one of them he would be in as bad a fix as Bunyan's Christian had been 
 in the Slough of Despond. Wolves, panthers, bears, wildcats 
 roaming the deep woods did not worry him, but denizens of 
 
PERSEVERANCE 85 
 
 the supernatural world did. "I can't help being this way," he said 
 frankly. 30 
 
 Every stream he crossed, every step taken brought the sixteen year 
 old Lincoln closer to Indiana's cave stone country and the stamping 
 ground of its legendary Headless Hermit, of Locust Hill. A magic 
 word was needed to get by this eccentric monster who carried his head 
 under an arm while blood dripped on his white shirt and breeches. 
 Woodchoppers swore that the head nodded and in guttural tones 
 muttered: "Beneath that tree gold is buried in great piles." After 
 that it gave the pass- word: "If you ever reveal this secret, death will 
 wither the word on your lips!" 
 
 When Abe reached the cave stone country he saw funnel-shaped 
 sink holes everywhere. He knew if he stepped into one of them he 
 might fall into a cave where his Uncle Josiah's neighbors boiled bat 
 guano in kettles and lixiviating troughs to get saltpeter for the manu- 
 facture of gunpowder. 31 
 
 Rapidly Abe passed the village of Bib Spring (Marengo, Indiana) , 
 crossed Whiskey Run, Brandywine, and Cedar Fork. Safely beyond 
 reach of the Headless Hermit, he was now in shouting distance of the 
 homes of his Uncle Josiah and William B. Johnson. First he went to 
 his uncle, got the ox Tom Lincoln wanted and rode it up the big road 
 to the Johnson cabin. Through the darkness he yelled, "Hel-lo! 
 Ihel-lo!" The cabin door opened and a man's voice asked, "Who's 
 here?" Response: "Tom Lincoln's Abe." Question: "What's want- 
 ing?" Response: "Want to borrow your Pilgrims Progress, Mr. 
 Johnson." Response: "Light and come in." 
 
 A local school teacher, William B. Johnson had moved from Ken- 
 tucky to the Blue Creek neighborhood in 1821 and had married Miss 
 Charlotte H. Pankey. Abe stayed all night with the Johnsons. Up 
 early next morning, he went to the barnlot to get the ox. In spite 
 of the horse-high, pig-tight, bull-strong rail fence around the barn, the 
 ox had escaped; when it was finally found, Abe mounted and away 
 the ox galloped. "Here we go!" shouted Abe, clutching Pilgrims 
 Progress." 
 
 Even though he already had read Parson M. L. Weems' Life of 
 Washington, when he heard Josiah Crawford had a copy of David 
 Ramsay's book with the same title, Abe borrowed it. He credited 
 Ramsay's book with providing a fuller and better account of Washing- 
 ton and the Revolution. 33 "Washington is the mightiest name on 
 earth," declared Lincoln. "To add brightness to the sun or glory to 
 the name of Washington is alike impossible." Ramsay's book helped 
 
86 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 Abe learn much about Washington's standards. Patterning his own 
 after Washington's ideals he said, "I am nothing but truth is every- 
 thing." * 
 
 Ramsay dramatically described battles. He quoted Washington's 
 address to the American Revolutionists as the British Army lay at 
 Staten Island: "The time is near at hand which must probably deter- 
 mine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves." In April, 1793, 
 ten years after the war ended, M. Genet, the French minister to the 
 United States, began fitting out privateers to prey on British shipping. 
 War with France seemed imminent. In this connection Ramsay quot- 
 ed President Washington: "There is but one straight course, and that 
 is to seek the truth, and preserve it steadily." Ramsey included 
 Washington's Farewell Address and told of his refusal of a third term 
 as President. Vividly Ramsay described Washington's death: after 
 getting wet in a December rain, the general was "seized with inflamma- 
 tory affection of the windpipe. He was bled in the night." Unable 
 to swallow "he undressed himself and went to bed to die." To Dr. 
 Craik he said, "I am dying, and have been dying for a long time. But 
 I am not afraid to die." 
 
 Late one evening Lincoln put Ramsay's book between the logs of the 
 cabin wall and went off to sleep in the loft. A rain storm hit and badly 
 damaged the book. He had no money to pay for it. Moreover, there 
 was not another copy in the region at that time. Very much depressed 
 ihe returned the book to Mr. Crawford. "I want to pay you for it," 
 he offered earnestly. Crawford examined the book. Knowing Lin- 
 coln had no money, he replied, "If you think you ought to pay me for 
 it, and you choose to do so, you can top my field of corn." Lincoln 
 worked hard topping that six-acre field of corn. At the end of 
 three days Josiah Crawford dropped by. "Abe, that squares the 
 account with you," he said. 35 
 
 Still another biography of an American Revolutionary War hero 
 fell into Lincoln's hands: Parson Weem's Life of Francis Marion. 
 Few books the adolescent Lincoln read contained more common sense, 
 fiery patriotism and practical religion; and few did more to shape 
 Lincoln's thinking. Known during the Revolution as South Carolina's 
 Swamp Fox, General Marion led a band of ragged, desperate men 
 armed with axes, clubs, guns, and swords made from handsaws. Marion 
 and his men dashed in and hacked to pieces both the king's soldiers and 
 those Americans who Weems considered "disaffected to the cause of 
 liberty and ready to join the British against their own countrymen." 
 As Marion lay dying, someone asked him what was the best religion. 
 
PERSEVERANCE 87 
 
 Weems quoted the general: "I know of but one religion. And that 
 is the hearty love of God and man. That is the only true religion." 
 To his wife weeping at his bedside, Marion said, "I am not afraid to 
 die; for, thank God, I can lay my hand on my heart and say that 
 since I came to man's estate, I have never intentionally done harm 
 to any man." 
 
 Lincoln found still another book in Josiah Crawford's home which 
 commanded his attention — Kentucky Preceptor, published by Mc- 
 Coun, Tilford & Company at Lexington, Kentucky, in 1812. On its in- 
 side cover is written: "Josiah Crawford reading Book, 1819." From 
 it, according to Mrs. Crawford, "Abe learned his school orations, 
 speeches, and pieces to write." M The preface by the book's compiler 
 states: "Tales of love, or romantic fiction, or anything which might 
 tend to instill false notions into minds of children have not gained 
 admission." Among the pieces admitted Lincoln found the quarrel 
 between Cassius and Brutus, Act IV, Scene 3, in Shakespeare's Julius 
 Caesar; Goldsmith's "Deserted Village;" essays on the Scriptures and 
 the discovery of America; the play "Eton Montem"; and "Selected 
 Sentences." The last included items like these: 
 
 "Let not the sun go down on your wrath." 
 
 "A liar begins by making falsehood appear like truth, and ends by 
 making truth appear like falsehood." 
 
 "From the creatures of God, let man learn wisdom; and let him 
 apply himself to the lessons which they give." 
 
 "Harbour not revenge in thy heart; it will torment thy heart and 
 prevent the best thoughts." 
 
 Having heard his father, mother and stepmother praise Thomas 
 Jefferson as the mighty preacher of human liberty, Abe Lincoln now 
 eagerly read Jefferson's First Inaugural Address: "What I deem the 
 essential principles of our government are equal and exact justice to 
 all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, 
 commerce, and honest friendship with all nations — entangling alliances 
 with none; the support of the state governments in all their rights; the 
 preservation of the general government in its whole constitutional 
 vigor, as the sheet-anchor of our peace at home and abroad. These 
 principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and 
 guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The 
 wisdom of our sages and the blood of our heroes have been devoted 
 to their attainment. Should we wander from them in moments of error 
 or alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road 
 which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety." 
 
88 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 It is believed Lincoln read the Columbian Class Book while board- 
 ing in the home of Judge Daniel Grass at Rockport. At the time he 
 was helping to build the Gentry flatboat. A copy of the third edition 
 of the book, compiled by A. T. Lowe, and printed in 1827, has on its 
 left front inside cover the notation "Abe Lincoln 1828," in Lincoln's 
 handwriting. Below it is an amateurish drawing of an Indian labeled 
 Cornplant. Both autograph and drawing look as if they had been done 
 with a soft quill pen. 37 
 
 Lowe's book opens with Kingston's "Biographical Sketch of Wash- 
 ington." This is followed by Chief Cornplant's speech to Washington; 
 Kingston's biographical sketches of Franklin, Hannibal, Isaac Newton 
 and Dr. Johnson; Chief Logan's famous speech to Lord Dunsmore; 
 Milton's "Lycidas"; Lord Byron's "The Corsair"; Josephus' "Destruc- 
 tion of Jerusalem"; Brewster's "Ancient Pompeii"; Goldsmith's essays 
 on Egypt, Holland, the ocean, and the universe; anecdotes of Alex- 
 ander the Great; Pope's "Temple of Fame"; a detailed account of life 
 in Russia; Hill's "Sketch of the American Revolution," and other 
 items. 
 
 Lowe's story of Demosthenes stirred Lincoln. Demosthenes, Lowe 
 pointed out, "became a pupil of Isaeus and Plato, and applied himself 
 to the study of orations of Socrates" and overcame stammering by 
 speaking with pebbles in his mouth. By the time he was seventeen 
 he was a forceful orator. When the Macedonians demanded the sur- 
 render of the Athenians, Demosthenes reminded his countrymen of the 
 fable of sheep which delivered up their dogs to the wolves. Having 
 already met that fable in Aesop, Abe went on reading more books in 
 the Grass home by the light of flaming logs until midnight, reading 
 until Mrs. Grass expressed fear that Abe was not only going to 
 wear himself out from want of rest but was going to "bake the top of 
 his head." M 
 
 When Abe said, "My best friends are those who give me books," he 
 also intended to include newspapers and periodicals. Early in 1823, in 
 William Jones' store, he began to read the Vincennes Western Sun 
 and General Advertiser, sl weekly newspaper. Three years later he was 
 borrowing and reading The Telescope, a weekly periodical. 
 
 William Wood, who lived on a ridge north of Lincoln's home, sub- 
 scribed to The Telescope from about 1825 to 1830; Abe frequently 
 borrowed copies from Wood. 39 Edited by W. Beach in New York, The 
 Telescope carried at its masthead the words of Isaiah LVII, 14: "Cast 
 ye up, cast ye up; prepare the way, take up the stumbling block out 
 of the way of my people." An independent thinker, a liberal, and an 
 
PERSEVERANCE 
 
 89 
 
 Abraham Lincoln lived in this hewn-log house 1818 to 1830, 
 
 age 9 to 21. His mother died in it in 1818. The foundation of 
 
 the house is now outlined by bronze logs. Lincoln City, Indiana. 
 
 (Sketch by John H. Rowbottom). 
 
 anti-slavery advocate, Beach devoted his life to taking up stumbling 
 blocks. Abe Lincoln became one of his disciples. 
 
 In the June 3, 1826, number of The Telescope Beach noted that 
 opposition to his paper was rising among "Bigots, Sectarians, the 
 Scribes and Pharisees." The July 15th issue told of the deaths of 
 John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Both had died on July 4, 1826, 
 exactly fifty years from the day they signed the Declaration of In- 
 dependence. Lincoln read, "The late President Adams departed this 
 life, age 92, on the evening of the 4th inst. as the bells were ringing for 
 the conclusion of the celebration. The venerable patriot rose on the 
 morning, in his usual good spirits, rejoicing that he had been spared 
 to witness the jubilee of his country's freedom. He became ill about 
 noon, grew gradually worse, and at six he fell asleep." When guns 
 firing a salute awoke him, he said, "It is a great and glorious day." 
 He never spoke again. 
 
 "Thomas Jefferson," wrote Editor Beach, "expired at Monticello at 
 ten minutes before one oclock on the Fourth of July within the same 
 hour at which the Declaration of Independence was promulgated in 
 the Hall of Congress fifty years ago. During his illness he constantly 
 expressed a wish to live to see another 4th of July . . . He was per- 
 
90 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 fectly resigned to the will of Providence and declared he wished to 
 die in peace with all the world." 
 
 The Vincennes Western Sun for July 29 announced the deaths with 
 wide black mourning rules. Editor Elihu Stout called these events a 
 "Singular but felicitous coincidence." Like Beach, Stout, and others, 
 Abe Lincoln was profoundly moved by the concurrent deaths. "The 
 two men," said Lincoln, "most distinguished in the framing and 
 support of the Declaration were Thomas Jefferson and John Adams — 
 the one having penned it, and the other sustained it most forcibly in 
 debate — the only two of the fifty-five who signed it that were selected 
 President of the United States. Precisely fifty years after they put 
 their hands to the paper, it pleased Almighty God to take both from 
 this stage of action." 40 
 
 Obviously mindful of the damage done to the book he had borrowed 
 from Crawford, Abe decided to make a bookcase to protect books, 
 papers, and periodicals. Since early youth he had been learning the use 
 of drawing-knife, jack-plane, brace-and-bit. At his father's workbench 
 he had helped make corner cupboards, desks, and coffins. Down at 
 river banks he had helped Tom Lincoln build overshot mill wheels. 
 He knew much about the art of wood working. Selecting well sea- 
 soned walnut and poplar clapboards, Abe smoothed them down, cut 
 them to desired lengths and pegged them together with wooden 
 pegs. When finished, his bookcase stood thirty inches high and eight- 
 een inches wide. It had six drawers. Below these he put a shelf on 
 which to store papers and periodicals. The broad walnut top he used 
 for a study table. Somehow he managed to get candles now and 
 then. By candle light he often read until a puddle of sputtering tallow 
 burned holes in the table top. 41 
 
 Lack of ambition, in anyone, to learn something new each day 
 seemed to annoy Lincoln. Once while passing the Lamar place he saw 
 young John W. Lamar and a group of boys watching John's father at 
 work riding a shaving-horse. "Well, boys, what have you learned 
 today?" Abe asked. When no one answered, he said emphatically, 
 "I wouldn't give a cent for a boy who doesn't know more today than he 
 knew yesterday." 42 
 
Chapter Seven 
 BRUSH COLLEGE DAYS 
 
 Denied the opportunity to attend an institution of learning higher 
 than a subscription school, Abe Lincoln opened in the summer of 1827 
 what he called "Forest College." Soon his Pigeon Creek neighbors 
 renamed it "Abe's Brush College." 
 
 In the course of frequent visits to his mother's grave during the 
 previous nine years, Abe had worn a well defined path through the 
 underbrush and sawbriars from his cabin to the lonely hilltop. Now 
 he continued this path from the grave down a slope for about a quarter 
 of a mile to the southwest, ending at a particularly big tree. He had 
 taken James Grigsby with him. "Jimmy, we'll call this our Forest 
 College. But I wish I could go to a real college for a year," he said. 1 
 
 James, the thirteen year old son of Reuben Grigsby, Sr., was Abe's 
 only fellow student. Small and frail, he had a defect in his speech; 
 boys around Gentry ville sometimes laughed at him. "Abe took me in 
 charge," Jimmy recalled. "He showed them how wrong it was. Most 
 of them quit. Abe would throw his long arm over my narrow shoulders 
 and walk and talk with me. Why, Abe would even take me part of 
 the way home." Jimmy's older brother noticed these things; Abe "was 
 kind and clever to all. Indeed he appeared to cultivate it as a prin- 
 ciple" wrote Nattie. 2 
 
 Once Abe called Jimmy's attention to an uprooted, hollow sycamore 
 a few rods from the big tree: "Jim, we need that to store our books 
 in." With axes the boys chopped off roots and limbs and cut out a log 
 about eight feet long. After rolling it under the tree they plugged the 
 ends of the log with flat stones to keep out squirrels, raccoons, pole- 
 cats and other forest animals. They put their almanacs and books in 
 it. "Almanacs were not books", explained James Grigsby. "Real 
 books had hard covers. Abe would go a long ways off to get real 
 books." 
 
 The hollow log, the big tree and a nearby stump completed Abe's 
 college equipment. His campus was an entanglement of blackberry 
 vines, paw-paw, sumac, elbow-brush, wahoo, wild rose, honeysuckle 
 and poison ivy. Overhead, mockingbirds sang Brush College songs. 
 
 Mounting a stump, Abe looked northeastward at the hilltop where 
 
 91 
 
92 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 his mother was buried. Solemnly he opened each day's session with 
 "Knowledge is power." After that he paraphrased a quotation: 
 "There is no darkness but ignorance and, Jimmy, there is darkness in 
 my soul." Remembering what he had read in Dr. Mathew Hole's 
 Practical Discourses, he added: "Ignorance is to the mind what 
 Blindness is to the Eye." Next he substituted Jimmy for Brutus and 
 quoted from Act I, Scene 1 of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: 
 
 "The fault, dear Jimmy, is not m our stars, 
 "But in ourselves that we are underlings." 
 
 Quotations out of the way, Lincoln followed the advice in his Dil- 
 worth Speller: "The heart of the prudent seeketh knowledge." He 
 handed a book to Grigsby and pointed to a paragraph, maybe to a 
 whole page. "Jimmy, see if I can repeat that," he said. 
 
 As Lincoln started talking, Jim, watching the page, walked slowly 
 backward. Gradually Abe raised his voice. When no longer able 
 to understand what Abe was saying, Jim called out, "Abe, I can't 
 hear you!" Abe stopped his speech and shouted, "Come a little 
 forward, Jimmy." Abe was learning voice control; he learned it so well 
 his voice carried to people at great distances. But James Grigsby 
 felt there was more to Lincoln's stump speaking than learning to 
 speak clearly at long distances: "Abe seemed to think he had to learn 
 by heart what smart men said to get smart himself. I held the 
 Bible and Abe would tell what Solomon said. And tell what Christ 
 said too. Sometimes Abe would get the blues. He wouldn't study for 
 two or three days at a time." 
 
 When an attack of melancholy vanished, Abe usually returned to 
 the Farmer s Almanac. Maybe the almanacs were not real books, 
 not having hard covers; but they were good for Lincoln. According to 
 James Grigsby: "There were lots of jokes in the almanacs. Some 
 days Abe would go over them and twist and turn them into new 
 ones till I would fall off a log and roll on the ground, laughing." 8 
 
 If the Farmers Almanac explanation of moon phases interested Abe, 
 the signs of the Zodiac enchanted him. At night he would lie on his 
 back and study the planets and constellations through treetops. 
 
 One night Jim told Abe he couldn't understand how there could be 
 any signs of fish (Pisces) in the sky. Abe: "Don't rain come from the 
 sky?" Jim: "Sure." Abe: "Dont rain make water for the fish to 
 swim in?" Again Jimmy agreed. "Well," concluded Abe, "there's 
 water in the sky for the fish up there." Jim: "I understand that now. 
 But what about the feller a-shooting that arrow? And what about the 
 
BRUSH COLLEGE DAYS 93 
 
 billy goat up there, too?" With great firmness Abe answered, "Jimmy, 
 heap smarter fellers than me link things together in the sky." 4 
 
 In the face of taunts and jeers from his neighbors, it took a lot of 
 courage for young Lincoln to continue with his "college" work. But 
 standing on the stump under the big tree, in the shadow of his mother's 
 hilltop grave, he showed the same courage he had shown on 
 the scuffle-ground when he challenged all-comers. "The fault is in 
 ourselves that we are underlings", he repeated to Jim Grigsby. He, Abe 
 Lincoln, intended to be no underling, physically or mentally. 
 
 "Most men are cowards," Abe read in the June 23, 1827, Telescope's 
 report of Dr. Lindsley's address to the graduating class of Cumberland 
 College, Tennessee. "They are afraid to speak and to act when duty 
 calls and as duty requires. Dare to do to others as you would have 
 them do to you," Lindsley advised. "If you have learned how to study 
 and have acquired a thirst for knowledge, you will continue to study 
 and to learn while you live to be honest, just, magnanimous, true to 
 your God, your country, to yourselves, and to the world." 
 
 Lincoln may already have felt as Dr. Lindsley did, that "most men 
 are cowards." He examined himself in an effort to answer the question 
 "What really lies behind man's actions and attitudes?" He sensed 
 that man has values and strives in a worthwhile direction, that not 
 always can one's aspirations be judged by one's outward appearance. 
 Talking to Henry Brooner and others, Abe one time looked down at 
 his own shabby breeches and remarked, "Boys, mind makes the man." 5 
 Later Jim Grigsby added: "Abe was just awful hungry to be some- 
 body." When he stopped plowing to rest his old gray horse, "Abe had 
 his pen and ink in the field," according to John W. Lamar; Abe 
 "always put in the time to good advantage." 6 
 
 Abe's Brush College was quite mobile. To conduct classes in its 
 law and public speaking departments, Abe attended court in Boon- 
 ville, county seat of Warrick County, and elsewhere. He heard many 
 lawyers plead cases. But he never heard one with as great a reputa- 
 tion as had John A. Breckenridge. On both sides of the Ohio River, 
 Breckenridge was renowned for his eloquent pleading. Admitted to 
 practice law ex gratia in the Third Circuit Court at Indianapolis, this 
 aristocratic Kentuckian had formed a partnership with C. Fletcher 7 and 
 advertised: "C. Fletcher & J. A. Breckenridge as attorneys and coun- 
 cellors at Law will perform any business in that profession, even that 
 which comes under the denomination of pettifogging if they are 
 roundly paid for it." 8 
 
 And now Breckenridge had been hired to defend Abe's neighbor, a 
 
94 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 Mr. S., accused of murdering Mr. H., another Lincoln neighbor. 
 Determined to learn how this forceful orator would plead a murder 
 trial, Abe left long before daylight for Boonville, sixteen miles west- 
 ward. Lately, every time Mr. H had called his hogs for a feed of corn, 
 he had missed a few. After inquiring around, it was alleged, he 
 had accused S of stealing them. 6 Since many of Abe's neighbors con- 
 sidered hogs running wild in the woods as belonging in the same class 
 with wild turkeys and deer, the charge of larceny was not considered 
 serious. But early one morning Mr. H was called to his door. There 
 was a shot. Mr. H fell dead. The murder inflamed the neighborhood. 
 
 At the post mortem a small piece of bullet patching (a bit of calico) 
 was found in Mr. H's wound. That patching, some alleged, matched 
 the pattern of Mrs. S's new calico dress. Friends of Mr. H angrily 
 shouted, "S — killed him!" In the excitement some woman grabbed 
 the patching and swallowed it. That eliminated the evidence pointing 
 to Mr. S. 
 
 A change of venue was taken from Spencer County to Warrick 
 County; so Abe Lincoln, coonskin cap pulled down tight against the 
 cold, walked to Boonville and edged his way into the little courthouse. 
 There women were smoking clay pipes; men, wearing deerskin suits, 
 dangled side-knives at their belts. Abe found a place where he could 
 hear every word Breckenridge spoke. He followed the famous lawyer's 
 reasoning. He admired the man's gestures, oratory, and ability to 
 think on his feet. He was impressed by the way Breckenridge threw 
 back his shoulders and shook out his shirtfront ruffles. And as he 
 listened to Breckenridge's final plea to the jury, Abe said to himself: 
 "If I could make as good a speech as that my soul would be satisfied." 10 
 
 The jury acquitted Mr. S. As friends crowded up to congratulate 
 his attorney on his victory, Abe, unknown to the great lawyer, offered 
 his big, calloused hand. John A. Breckenridge looked him up and 
 down. Ill at ease, bare shins showing, Abe stood first on one foot, then 
 the other. Haughtily, Beckenridge turned and walked away. Dazed, 
 humiliated, shame-faced, Abe stumbled from that Boonville court- 
 room. He went back to Gentryville and sought out James Grigsby. 
 "Jimmy, I went to hear that feller speak and he wouldn't even shake 
 hands with me," said Abe bitterly . u 
 
 During the early fall of 1826, Abe Lincoln, operating the Taylor 
 ferry across the mouth of Anderson River, stood looking at his own 
 recently built flatboat. He was wondering how he could make it a 
 little stronger when two men drove up in carriages. They got out and 
 examined Abe's boat. One man asked, "Who owns that?" Lincoln 
 
BRUSH COLLEGE DAYS 95 
 
 replied: "I do" The man looked at the steamboat hove-to midstream 
 in the Ohio River, and asked, "Will you take our trunks out to that 
 steamer?" Assuming he would probably get a couple of bits for the 
 job, Abe answered: "Sure, be glad to." 
 
 Abe loaded the trunks on his flatboat, and with the men sitting on 
 them, he sculled out to the vessel, let the men jump on board and put 
 their trunks on after them. As the engineer was turning on steam 
 to start the paddlewheels churning, Abe yelled to the men, "You 
 forgot to pay me!" The men leaned over the side and each tossed 
 a silver half-dollar into Abe's boat. Abe couldn't believe his eyes; he 
 had earned a dollar in less than a day. He pocketed the money, 
 sculled back to the Indiana shore and tied up. He took out his two 
 half-dollars, gazed at them, fingered them. He could do a lot with that 
 dollar. Then one of the halves slipped out of his fingers and rolled in 
 to the Ohio River. He sadly watched it go quivering into the current 
 and out of sight forever. 12 
 
 On the Kentucky side, opposite the Anderson River and the town 
 of Troy lived the Dill brothers, John T. and Lin. Lincoln knew they 
 were farmers and licensed ferrymen. Also he knew the Dills had ar- 
 ranged a bell, on each side of the Ohio River, to be rung by travelers 
 wanting ferry service. 
 
 One day, the ferry bell on the Kentucky side rang and the Dills 
 did not answer it. Maybe they were too busy with their farm 
 work. The longer Abe listened to the bell the harder it was for him 
 to keep from answering it. Here was a chance to add a little some- 
 thing to his lone fifty-cent piece. Finally unable longer to resist the 
 jangling bell, Lincoln rowed across the Ohio. Just as he snubbed his 
 boat into the mud bank, the Dill brothers leaped from a thicket, 
 grabbed him and tried to duck him into the river. Lincoln smashed 
 hard fists in their faces. John T. shouted: "You've violated the law 
 of Kentucky." Abe: "How?" John T.: "By operating a ferry with- 
 out a license. It's against the law. I'm the only person who has a 
 license to operate a ferry back and forth across the river at this 
 point." 
 
 Abe, then only seventeen years of age, looked across the river. It 
 seemed a long, long way over to Indiana, longer than he had ever 
 dreamed it could look. "Come on!" the brothers ordered. "You're 
 going up before the Justice of the Peace, Squire Pate." 
 
 Between his accusers, Abe trudged through cornfields, tobacco 
 patches, and an apple orchard; on past Squire Samuel Pate's slave 
 quarters and up a little hill to the Pate plantation mansion. The Dills 
 
96 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 told their story to Mrs. Pate. While they guarded Abe on the veranda, 
 Mrs. Pate sent a Negro servant to call his master in from the fields. 
 
 When the Justice of the Peace, still in his early thirties, arrived, he 
 led the Dills and Lincoln into a low-ceilinged room in the east end of 
 the house. Mrs. Pate's sixteen year old niece, Ann Meeker, along with 
 some white neighbors, found seats in the rear of the room. 13 John 
 T. Dill swore out a warrant against Abe, charging him with illegally 
 operating a ferry across the Ohio River. Squire Pate rapped for order, 
 opened magistrate's court, and the trial of the Commonwealth of 
 Kentucky vs. Abraham Lincoln was underway. 
 
 Abe watched John T. Dill take the witness stand. Ferryman Dill 
 swore he had seen the defendant pick up passengers on the Indiana 
 side and carry them to steamers out in midstream. Dill swore his 
 license gave him the exclusive right to set passengers across the Ohio 
 River and that Lincoln was injuring the Dill ferry business. Lincoln 
 could clearly see Dill's testimony was interesting Squire Pate. After 
 all, the Dill brothers operated their ferry out from Pate's land. They 
 paid the Squire rent for use of the landing. Suddenly, Abe realized he 
 was in a pretty tight spot. 
 
 When Lin Dill took the witness stand he corroborated his brother's 
 testimony. More neighbors entered the courtroom as Squire Pate asked 
 "Any witnesses for the defense?" There were none. Abe Lincoln 
 stood up: "Your Honor, I would like to say something." Squire Pate 
 nodded. Abe admitted he had carried travelers to steamers hove-to 
 off the Indiana shore. "But, Your Honor, I did not know that was 
 against the law. I don't understand how it could be." Explained 
 Squire Pate: "Mr. Lincoln, the northern boundary of Kentucky 
 extends to the low-water mark on the Indiana side." 
 
 The Squire took down Volume I of Littell's Statute Law of Ken- 
 tucky, turned to section 8 on page 363 and read aloud, "If any person 
 whatsoever shall, for reward, set any person over any river or creek, 
 whereupon public ferries are appointed, he or she so offending shall 
 forfeit and pay five pounds current money for every such offense." 
 According to Pike's Arithmetic Abe knew five pounds, based on the 
 North Carolina table of exchange, amounted to $12.50. If he had 
 to pay that much for each time he had violated the Kentucky law 
 pertaining to the Indiana side of the river, it would come to more 
 money than he could possibly raise. He would have to lay out his fine 
 in jail. In that quiet courtroom he could already hear Kentucky 
 prison doors clanging shut after him. He felt every one was watching 
 him, including Ann Meeker. He wet his lips. 
 
BRUSH COLLEGE DAYS 97 
 
 "Your Honor," Abe said earnestly, "I never meant to violate any 
 law. And I never set any person over the Ohio River." The court- 
 room was so quiet he heard only the shuffle of a foot here and there. 
 "Sir, all I have ever done is to set passengers halfway across the river." 
 He heard Squire Pate call for Dill's ferry license. And as he watched 
 him read it, and heard him re-examine the Dill brothers' testimony, 
 Abe wished he had learned something about law, especially the law 
 which gave to Kentucky jurisdiction over the Ohio River along the 
 Indiana shore. 
 
 Aloud Squire Pate reread Section 8. Noting that the law establish- 
 ing ferries said nothing about carrying passengers for hire to the 
 middle of any stream, he pointed out that the evidence presented by 
 the plaintiff had failed to show that the defendant had at any time 
 transported a passenger over a river or creek belonging to Kentucky. 
 Therefore the case must be dismissed. 
 
 The Squire's words stunned Lincoln. He was free again. Although 
 he could barely speak, he managed to thank the Squire and started to 
 follow the Dill brothers from the room. But Squire Pate stopped Abe 
 and invited him to sit for a while on the veranda overlooking the 
 plantation and the Ohio River. As he sat there he heard Pate's slaves 
 singing at their work in the tobacco barns and fields near the river. 
 
 Carefully Pate explained to Abe the pitfalls that lay in the path 
 of anyone ignorant of the law. And while the Squire talked, his black 
 servant, Harrison, hovered in the background. The Squire told Abe 
 that the world would be a better place if all men had a general know- 
 ledge of the law, that certainly all ferrymen should know the law per- 
 taining to their ferry business. Abe listened so eagerly that Pate in- 
 vited him to return and attend magistrate's court as a spectator. 
 
 Between his flatboat trip with Jefferson Ray to Arkansas, odd 
 jobs around Jones' store and work on the Ohio, Abe somehow managed 
 to find time to make a few visits to the court. Slave-holder Samuel 
 Pate had aroused in him considerable interest in the law. Besides 
 that, the Squire's attractive niece, Ann Meeker, had also aroused Abe's 
 interest. 14 
 
 When Abe's friend and neighbor, David Turnham, offered him the 
 appointment of deputy constable, he promptly accepted, for here was 
 an opportunity to see law in action. He was cutting cordwood and 
 splitting rails for Turnham that fall of 1827, when David was sworn 
 in as constable. To acquaint himself and Abe with the legal aspects 
 of their offices, Turnham obtained a copy of The Revised Laws of 
 Indiana Adopted and Enacted by the General Assembly, printed by 
 
98 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 Carpenter and Douglas at Corydon, the state capital at that time. 
 Turnham said, "When Abe and I were associated he would come to 
 my house and sit and read it. He fairly devoured the book." 
 
 Although Abe had heard law quoted at Boonville and in Squire 
 Pate's court, the Statutes of Indiana was the first law book he ever 
 read. 16 The Turnham copy has 438 pages and a complete index. 
 In addition to the laws and State Constitution it contains the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, the Ordinance of 1787, and the Constitution of 
 the United States. 
 
 The Indiana Constitution revealed to Lincoln the many general and 
 special laws necessary to set up and govern a state. "The printing 
 press," he read, "shall be free to every person who undertakes to 
 examine the proceedings of the legislature or any branch of govern- 
 ment. The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the 
 inviolable rights of man." Branding slavery a tyranny, the state 
 constitution forbade the "holding of any part of the human creation in 
 slavery." But the constitution approved the system whereby any 
 boy or girl under eighteen could be "bound by indenture of his or her 
 free will and accord, or with the consent of his or her father." If sudh 
 children, known as "bound out," ran away and were caught they 
 were to be thrown into jail by order of the Justice of the Peace and 
 returned to their masters or mistresses just as if they were Negro 
 slaves! Abe Lincoln and his sister Sally were fortunate that when 
 hiring them out to the Crawfords, their father did not bind them out. 
 
 The definition of a legal fence interested Abe. It had to be at 
 least five feet, six inches high, and comprise "what is commonly called 
 a stakeing and ridering fence." However, any fence was considered 
 legal by Lincoln's neighbors when it was horse-high, pig-tight, and 
 bull-strong. 
 
 Together, Lincoln and Turnham studied the laws governing the 
 office of constable: "It shall be the duty of every constable to appre- 
 hend and bring to justice all felons, and disturbers of the peace, to 
 suppress all riots and unlawful assemblies, and in other respects to 
 keep the peace. To serve and execute all warrants, writs, precepts, and 
 other processes to him directed." 
 
 Because in that rather rough-and-tumble Pigeon Creek-Buck Horn 
 Valley community it was not easy to apprehend and bring to justice 
 all felons, Constable Turnham needed the help of big fists; hence his 
 appointment of Lincoln as his deputy. Since Thomas Lincoln had been 
 constable in Cumberland County, Kentucky, 1802-1804, Abe already 
 had heard something of the duties of the office. 16 
 
BRUSH COLLEGE DAYS 99 
 
 On his trips with David Turnham, Deputy Constable Lincoln saw- 
 how criminals, locally classed as bad medicine, acted when apprehend- 
 ed. At that time "There was more drunkenness and stealing on a 
 small scale, more immorality, less religion, less well-placed con- 
 fidence" in the community than could be found a few years later, wrote 
 Turnham. 17 When one law violater objected to being arrested and 
 drew back to strike Lincoln, Abe doubled his fists, eyed the man and 
 warned, "Before you strike me you better stick your head in the fire." w 
 The man went meekly with Officers Turnham and Lincoln. 
 
 Experiences with Turnham, in Squire Pate's court, and in the Boon- 
 ville courthouse sharpened Abe's interest in the law so much that 
 John Pitcher, Sheriff of Spencer County, stated: "Abe wanted to 
 read law with me but his father was too poor to spare him from the 
 farm and the mill. Tom Lincoln [had] built a horse mill for grinding 
 corn," and "Abe used to bring me my meal regularly." 19 Sheriff 
 Pitcher, influential politician, postmaster at Rockport, successful 
 lawyer, was thirty-three years old, an alumnus of Yale and proud of 
 his Connecticut ancestry. "His powers of sarcasm and ridicule were 
 perhaps unequaled by any man in this section," one of his neighbors 
 recalled. While Pitcher's little son, Thomas G., toddled about the 
 place the sheriff tried to talk Lincoln out of thinking of a legal career: 
 "Better give up the idea." Abe: "Can't do it." Pitcher did not reply 
 but, as he later admitted, "I didn't think he had it in him." * 
 
 Prevented from reading law in Pitcher's office, Abe asked to borrow 
 some law books to take home. Unable to dissuade him, John Pitcher 
 handed him Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries of the Laws of 
 England, Volume I of the fourteenth edition, edited by Edmund Chris- 
 tian and printed in London, 1803, by A. Strahan, Law-printer to his 
 King's Most Excellent Majesty. Pitcher had bought the book in 
 1823. 21 
 
 Lincoln tucked the volume under an arm and left for Pigeon Creek. 
 Interested at finding the book dated Lincoln's Inn, London, May 1, 
 1803, he thoughtfully read editor Christian's statement that "The 
 Commentaries form an essential part of every gentleman's library; 
 the purity of the language, the classic elegance of the quotations and 
 allusions, the clean and intelligable explanations of every subject, must 
 always yield the reader as much pleasure as improvement." That 
 statement led Abe to read late by the light of blazing sassafras brush 
 in the fireplace. 
 
 Abe discovered Volume I of Blackstone's Commentaries was not 
 only a 'gentleman's library' but almost a law school in itself. Its five 
 
100 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 hundred pages covered such topics as: The Nature of Laws in General, 
 The Laws of England, The Rights of Persons, The Absolute Rights of 
 Individuals, Parliament, The King and His Title, Subordinate Magis- 
 trates, The People Whether Alien Denizens or Natives, Master and 
 Servant, Husband and Wife, Parent and Child, Guardian and Ward. 
 Here also Abe had a fair view of the background of English statutory 
 law, common law, and Roman law. Having read the Holy Bible, parts 
 of Shakespeare's dramas, and now a volume of Blackstone's Commen- 
 taries, he had acquired the beginnings of a good literary education. 
 
 It was a warm summer day and Abe Lincoln was returning Black- 
 stone's Commentaries to Sheriff Pitcher. He came to a shallow stream 
 which had been sent to overflowing by a sudden heavy rain. Seeing 
 that the footlog was out, he tossed two fence rails across the creek and 
 walked onto them. Halfway across, one rail broke, tumbling Abe and 
 Blackstone into the muddy, rushing water. Somehow he held onto 
 the book, waded out and went on to John Pitcher's country home to 
 face the Sheriff's powers of sarcasm. There he told Pitcher what had 
 happened. "I have no money," he added, "but I will do anything to 
 pay for the damage I have done to your book." 
 
 Sheriff Pitcher turned the soggy book over and examined it. Any- 
 one could see it was almost ruined. As he looked out across his farm 
 he told Abe: "I have a cornfield down there that has burrs and weeds 
 in it. You can go down there and pull them." Abe went to work, 
 pulling every cockleburr and weed he saw. He worked day after day, 
 hard and long. Then one day John Pitcher came to the field. Abe 
 waved a hand and kept right on pulling weeds. "Abe," said Pitcher, 
 "you have pulled enough." Straightening up, Abe answered, "Sheriff, 
 if I paid you for the good I got out of that book I would be here all 
 summer." M 
 
 With an idea of the dignity of the law, Abe dipped his quill pen 
 into his homemade ink and wrote: "The American Government is 
 the best form of government in the world for an intelligent people. 
 It ought to be kept sound, and preserved forever; that general educa- 
 tion should be fostered and carried all over the country; that the Con- 
 stitution should be sacred, the Union perpetuated, and the laws re- 
 vered, respected and enforced." Not a word about slavery. Why? 
 Was it because slavery was considered legalized by the Constitution? 
 Or was it because slavery was such a controversial subject among his 
 borderland acquaintances he wanted to avoid taking a definite stand 
 on it at this time? Regardless of his reasons he turned the piece over 
 to William Wood. The latter passed it on to Sheriff John Pitcher, 
 
BRUSH COLLEGE DAYS 1G1 
 
 who read it, exclaimed "The world can't beat it!" and sent it off to 
 a paper that published it. 23 
 
 Lincoln had his first opportunity to try out his legal knowledge 
 when one of his neighbors missed a gray goose, visited a suspected 
 neighbor. Pointing to a goose, he claimed that it was his. "No," in- 
 sisted the neighbor, "That's my goose." They argued heatedly, almost 
 taking clubs to each other. Subsequently, they hired lawyers and the 
 Justice of the Peace set a day for the trial to be held in the log school- 
 house a mile west of Lincoln's home. Both men had such loyal friends 
 that their strife rocked the neighborhood. These settlers regarded 
 stealing as about the most serious offense anyone could commit; it 
 violated the frontier code: "A man has the right to do anything 
 but injure his neighbor." A man who would steal a goose might easily 
 slip into stealing horses or other possessions which Lincoln's neighbors 
 highly prized and needed for survival. 
 
 On the day of the trial Abe Lincoln and Joseph Gentry walked 
 through the woods to the schoolhouse. On opposite sides of the room 
 they found the litigants surrounded by friends and relatives. Abe 
 looked over the crowd and was pleased to find no lawyers had come yet. 
 This was just the opportunity he wanted. When he stepped out in 
 front of that angry, sullen crowd, all eyes turned on him. "Friends, 
 what means this great gathering of old neighbors?" he asked solemnly. 
 He waited for an answer but none came. He felt a silence as deep as 
 that of the surrounding forest. A grin began playing about the corners 
 of his wide mouth. His black eyebrows lifted. Again he asked, "What 
 brings us together?" But this time he did not wait for an answer. 
 "I'll tell you. Why — an — old — gray — goose!" he drawled. 
 
 Abe pointed to the claimant and said, "Mr. A has lost a goose. He 
 asserts that his neighbor, Mr. B here, has it." Lincoln pointed to the 
 defendant. "Mr. B disclaims having in his possession any goose not his 
 own. Not able or disposed to settle the difference between themselves 
 they have decided to go to law. And that is why we are all here." 
 Allowing the crowd only a moment to think that over, Lincoln went 
 on: "Mr. A, you say you have lost a gray goose and that you know 
 Mr. B has it. Rather than lose it you resolved to bring the matter into 
 court. Now you, Mr. A, and you, Mr. B," turning quickly from one 
 to the other, "after you have had your trial today — no matter which 
 way it goes — what has either of you gained?" He paused. "Well, if 
 you win, Mr. A, you'll get back your old gray goose worth about two 
 bits. And you, Mr. B, if you win today, you'll get to keep your old 
 gray goose — worth about two bits." 
 
102 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 Laughter rippled through the crowd. "But I'll tell both of you," 
 Lincoln added, "whichever one wins is going to lose! Lose what, you 
 say. You have been neighbors. You will lose your friendship for 
 one another. And it won't stop there." Waving his long arms at the 
 crowd, he cried, "What means this array of witnesses?" His voice 
 dropped: "It means your wives and families and friends will be at 
 outs. You have set up a commotion in this entire neighborhood. And 
 about what?" He paused and grinned. "Why all on account of an 
 old gray goose." Even the litigants began to see the amusing side of 
 the quarrel. "If I were in your place, I would stop all this hair 
 pulling and wool gathering," said Lincoln. "I'd get together here 
 and now and settle this thing. I'd make up and be friends." Grinning 
 sheepishly, the two quarreling neighbors walked to the center of the 
 room and shook hands. As the crowd applauded, two lawyers and the 
 Justice of the Peace entered the room. It was too late; the gray goose 
 case had just been settled. 24 
 
 Young Lincoln, according to his stepmother's statement, "visited 
 law trials and heard them with admiration." 25 Already there glowed 
 in his adolescent mind the desire to be a lawyer. His long trips 
 to the courthouse at Boonville and down to John Pitcher's law office at 
 Rockport, his reading of the Revised Laws of Indiana and Blackstone's 
 Corrvmentaries, even his successes in Squire Pate's magistrate court 
 and the handling of the gray goose case — all proved to be worthwhile 
 experiences. All gave him a glimpse into the legal profession. 
 
 Abe's struggle for an education went on. When he became one of 
 the best penmen in the Pigeon Creek community he wrote letters for 
 his neighbors. According to his stepmother, he had "a copy book, a 
 kind of scrap book in which he put down all things and thus preserved 
 them. He ciphered on boards when he had no paper or no slate. And 
 when the board would get black he would shave it off with a drawing 
 knife and go on again." " By thinking over and repeating to himself 
 the things he had heard, read or written down, Abe Lincoln, founder of 
 Brush College, was steadily clearing away what he termed darkness in 
 his soul. "There is no darkness but ignorance," he often told Jim 
 Grigsby. 
 
Chapter Eight 
 POLITICIANS 
 
 On January 10, 1818, when Abraham Lincoln was not quite nine, 
 the Indiana legislature moved his father's whole farm over into a newly 
 formed county merely by moving the boundary line of Warrick and 
 Perry counties eastward from Pigeon Creek to Anderson River. In a 
 twinkling the new county, named Spencer, was roaring with political 
 skullduggery. That was the beginning of a training school in politics 
 for Lincoln, who proved to be a close observer and apt pupil. 
 
 Alert and curious, the boy Lincoln found himself at once in the 
 midst of ruthless politicians and scheming speculators who dickered for 
 power and quick money. Since Thomas Lincoln had been a success- 
 ful politician back in Cumberland County, Kentucky, and knew 
 short cuts to the political pie-counter, the Lincoln home soon became 
 a popular meeting place for office-seekers and political-fixers. 1 
 
 "In Indiana," Abraham Lincoln related, "all the local politicians 
 used to come to our cabin to discuss politics with my father. I used 
 to sit by and listen to them, but father would not let me ask many 
 questions. And there were a great many things I did not understand." 
 After the men had left, Abe would climb to his place in the loft. "I'd 
 sit down," he said, "or pace back and forth till I made out just what 
 they meant. And then I'd lay awake for hours just a-putting their 
 ideas into words that the boys around our way could understand." a 
 
 It may never be known how much of the dickering and scheming 
 to create Spencer County took place in the Lincoln cabin, but certainly 
 Abe heard enough to bewilder him. The big battle was between two 
 able leaders: Rat cliff Boon and Daniel Grass. Grass wanted the 
 county set up; Boon opposed it. Boon, Warrick County's first treas- 
 urer, had become so powerful politically in the county and beyond 
 its borders as to be nicknamed King of Warrick. He objected to the 
 formation of Spencer County on the grounds it would chip away 
 Warrick. His townsite then would no longer be centrally located in 
 his backwoods dominions. Somehow Boon had to be "sweetened." 
 And the one to do the job was Joseph Lane, a young man living a few 
 miles west of the Lincoln cabin. Lane, a North Carolinian, was a 
 political mentor and an employee in the clerk's office at Darlington, 
 
 103 
 
104 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 county seat of Warrick. Also he cut and rafted saw logs for the 
 famous ornithologist, John James Audubon, who lived a little farther 
 down the Ohio River. Politically, Boon feared him. Whether Tom 
 Lincoln suggested to Grass and other leaders that Lane should handle 
 Boon is not known; but it is virtually quite certain that Tom Lincoln, 
 as well as many of his neighbors, knew Lane had the King of Warrick 
 so worried that the King planned to have the strip of land on which 
 Lane lived transferred to Vandenburg County in order to move Joe 
 politically out of Warrick. Boon did it, too. 8 
 
 The scheme to handle Boon surely was talked over in the Lincoln 
 cabin. The idea was for Joe Lane to persuade Boon to allow the new 
 county to be set up in exchange for favors, such as Boon locating and 
 naming the new county seat of Warrick. Lane talked to Boon about 
 it, adding, "By doing so you will make many friends." More friends 
 meant more votes to Boon who, already a member of the State Legisla- 
 ture, wanted to be State Senator. Boon agreed and Spencer County 
 was created. 4 Warrick's county seat was moved from Darlington to a 
 place near the site of Chief Set-te-down's old Shawnee village just 
 east of Boon's big tract of land and was named Boonville. That year 
 Boon was elected State Senator. No wonder Abraham Lincoln said, 
 "There were a great many things I did not understand." 
 
 Reportedly a cousin of the wilderness trail blazer, Daniel Boone, 
 Ratcliff Boon had dropped the "e" from the family name. Lincoln had 
 probably heard the story that when Dennis Hanks had asked Nancy 
 Hanks Lincoln what she was going to name her new baby, she replied, 
 "Abraham, after his grandfather that come to Kaintucky with Dan'l 
 Boone." 5 
 
 Among Lincoln's Indiana neighbors Ratcliff Boon was as popular 
 an Indian fighter as had been old Dan'l over in Kentucky. Right after 
 Chief Set-te-down and his warriors killed the Meeks family on Pigeon 
 Creek, "Boon figured conspicuously" in meting out justice to those 
 Indian raiders. 6 
 
 Soon the first great financial and industrial depression hit the coun- 
 try. But Abe Lincoln was too young to understand that the trouble 
 was due to the backwash of the War of 1812 and the Napoleonic Wars 
 in Europe. Prices soared. People less fortunate than the Lincolns 
 clamored for food. Under the law, overseers of the poor grabbed up 
 paupers and sold them at auction. Since the county had to pay the 
 buyer for taking care of these unfortunates they were sold not to 
 the highest but to the lowest bidders. Paupers not sold were thrown 
 
POLITICIANS 105 
 
 into debtors prisons like the ones at Vincennes and other county seats. 7 
 The state bank at Vincennes failed and pulled down its branch banks. 
 Being the depository for United States land sale funds it took along in 
 its crash the eighty dollars which Tom Lincoln had paid into it. 
 
 Desolation spread to every corner of the Union. There was no gold, 
 no paper money; no market for the farmer's produce; no hire for the 
 laborer's hands. In the Indiana wilderness Abe Lincoln could not 
 hear people beating on the doors of State Legislatures, crying, "Relief! 
 Relief! Give us relief!" But he could hear silver dollars being made 
 into halves and quarters. Except for some bits — twelve-and-a-half 
 cent pieces — the only hard money in circulation was Mexican silver 
 dollars. To get a half-dollar or a quarter cut from one of these, Abe 
 went with his father to the blacksmith shop. There he watched the 
 blacksmith lay the dollar on an anvil and, using chisel and hammer, 
 cut the coin into pieces called cut money. To combat speculators who 
 connived with smiths to cut dollars into five pieces and pass them off as 
 quarters, county commissioners made up diagrams of true cut-quarters. 
 When Tom Lincoln paid his taxes amounting to seventy-five cents, he 
 merely laid his Mexican dollar on the official diagram and a true 
 quarter was cut out, leaving the rest for taxes. 
 
 Was there any hope for better times? "People must buy less than 
 they sell," advised the Western Sun editor, adding, "They have 
 tried too many experiments." 8 
 
 Meanwhile the sweetening effect wore off Lincoln's fiery neighbor, 
 State Senator Ratcliff Boon, who announced for Lieutenant Governor 
 of Indiana. In the Vincennes Sun Boon set forth a homely creed 
 designed to catch votes: "In presenting myself to you I have nothing 
 to claim through my ancestors, nor former services; but alone depend 
 on what may be thought I justly merit." 9 Not tall but standing very 
 straight, forty-one year old Boon was credited by Lincoln and others 
 with carrying a lot of knowledge under his receding forehead. He 
 was a gunsmith by trade. He advocated a reasonably strong pro- 
 tective tariff. But it was his uncompromising opposition to slavery 
 which automatically put him in the political camp of Governor 
 Jonathan Jennings, candidate for reelection. 
 
 Jennings was popular in the Lincoln household. Ever since the 
 Log Convention and his election as Indiana's Delegate to the Eleventh 
 United States Congress, Jonathan Jennings had been running and 
 being elected on the platform: "No slavery in Indiana." He had 
 succeeded in labeling his pro-slavery opponents — Harrison-Randolph- 
 Taylor forces — The Virginia Aristocrats. He modestly called his 
 
106 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 followers The People. At log cabin raisings he carried up a corner 
 and thereby proved to all comers that he was not above doing manual 
 labor. That of course increased his popularity in Lincoln's neighbor- 
 hood. There also voters never tired of retelling about the toast 
 drunk by General William Henry Harrison and others: "To Jona- 
 than Jennings — the semblance of a Delegate — three groans." 10 That 
 toast got a vote-getting laugh for Jennings. 
 
 The Jennings-Boon fight against chattel slavery enraged anew the 
 Pocket Country pro-slavery people. Wealthy, prominent citizens from 
 Pigeon Creek to Vincennes held Negroes in slavery by declaring it was 
 indenture for only ninety-nine years' service. To aid the pro-slavery 
 people, the Vincennes Sun editor quoted President Monroe's maxim 
 "Principles not men" and scoffed, "Let the people of Indiana adopt 
 this maxim. And what becomes of Jonathan Jennings and his hireling 
 sycophants? Why they wither and fade like leaves of autumn." 
 
 On election day in August, 1819, Thomas Lincoln, Schoolmaster 
 Andrew Crawford, and other local citizens went to the Carter town- 
 ship polling place in Jonathan Greathouse's home and voted. 11 Instead 
 of fading away, Jennings and Boon were elected, giving Abraham 
 Lincoln a Lieutenant Governor for a neighbor. That election some- 
 what muted the cry for legalized slavery in Indiana. 
 
 Three years later, at the height of a "shaking ager" epidemic, 
 Governor Jennings resigned to accept a seat in Congress (September 
 12, 1822) . And Ratcliff Boon became Governor. From that hour 
 onward, until long after William Hendricks had taken over the Gover- 
 nor's chair, everything the King of Warrick said or did greatly inter- 
 ested Lincoln and his fellow Pigeon Creekers. To get back and forth to 
 the State capital at Corydon, Governor Boon traveled the Boonville- 
 Corydon road right past Abe Lincoln's door. Whether it was the 
 sight of the Governor of Indiana and his retinue of political henchmen 
 riding by or just a chance to show off, Lincoln never did say, but 
 it was about that time Abe began carrying a knotted beech cane. 13 
 Hooking a long leg over the top rail of a fence, he waved his cane and 
 shouted, "What's the news, Governor?" 
 
 Also riding by the Lincoln cabin was the political-fixer, Joseph 
 Lane, recently elected to the Indiana Legislature from Vandenburg 
 and Warrick counties. 13 He was a pro-slavery man. Although Ratcliff 
 Boon had succeeded in moving Lane and the Lane farm into Vanden- 
 burg County, the King had not been able to check young Joe's popu- 
 larity with Warrick voters. 
 
 A little more than a year later, near the end of 1823, Abraham 
 
POLITICIANS 107 
 
 Lincoln began reading the Vincennes Western Sun regularly each 
 week in the William Jones' store. 14 In it, soon afterward, he read 
 President Monroe's world startling message to Congress proclaiming 
 the doctrine of the Americas for Americans. The Monroe Doctrine 
 appears on page one of the Western Sun for January 3, 1824. Refer- 
 ring to the proposed invasion by the Holy Alliance to help the Spanish 
 king put down the revolt of Spanish American colonies, President 
 Monroe proclaimed, "The political systems of the Allied Powers is 
 essentially different from that of America. We owe it to candor and 
 to amicable relations existing between the U. States and these powers, 
 to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to ex- 
 tend their systems to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to 
 our peace and safety." 
 
 In a few weeks the wild, free-for-all Presidential campaign opened. 
 According to William Jones, "When the campaign of 1824 came on 
 Abe [although only 15 years old] was prepared to watch the political 
 movements intelligently." 15 
 
 The Federalist Party had died. President Monroe's Era of Good 
 Feelings had ended. The Whig Party had hardly been conceived. Thus 
 the Jeffersonian Republican-Democratic Party held the field and 
 about everybody belonged to it, including the Lincolns. Consequently, 
 the campaign was not of parties but of men — four men: Andrew 
 Jackson, Senator from Tennessee and known as Old Hickory, the Hero 
 of New Orleans; Henry Clay, Speaker of the United States House of 
 Representatives, affectionately called by frontiersmen The Mill Boy of 
 the Slashes or Harry of the West; John Quincy Adams, Secretary of 
 State from Massachusetts and suspected by Western backwoodsmen 
 of being a pampered aristocrat; William H. Crawford, Secretary of 
 the Treasury from Georgia, about whose head fluttered rumors of 
 crooked doings in the Treasury Department. There being no political 
 parties, followers of a candidate took the name of their favorite. 
 They called themselves Jackson men, Clay men, Adams men, Crawford 
 men. Lincoln was for Clay. William Jones said, "Anything about 
 Henry Clay was eagerly read and digested by Abe." ia At night in his 
 loft Abe lay awake longer than ever, putting what he had read into 
 words which the boys around his neighborhood could understand. 
 
 It was now that Abe Lincoln, Nattie Grigsby, and Joe Gentry car- 
 ried their three-way friendship into the political field. Lincoln and 
 the Grigsbys were solidly Clay men. The Gentrys were just as solidly 
 Jackson men. The three boys met in one another's homes, listened to 
 the political talk and studied the ways and methods of hopeful 
 
108 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 politicians. They argued over the merits of their favorite candi- 
 dates. They hung around Gentryville or went to cross-road stores 
 and listened to travelers and stump speakers. "We talked everything 
 over and over. In fact wore it out. We learned much in this way," 
 stated Nathaniel Grigsby. 17 
 
 The Western Sun editor bolstered Lincoln's sympathies for Clay by 
 publishing "Twelve Good and substantial reasons why Clay ought not 
 to be elected President." First, explained Editor Stout, because Clay 
 "is a plain old fashioned Republican and should he be made President 
 will furnish his house with articles purely American, and, not like his 
 illustrious predecessor, send to Europe for chairs, carpets, cut glass 
 &." The editor said Clay's dress and ease of manners "would ill accord 
 with the courtly apparel and lordly strut which many of our Senators 
 and Representatives have so happily acquired from their intercourse 
 with foreign ministers and noblemen. It serves to distinguish them 
 from the common people." Besides, went on Editor Stout, Henry 
 Clay "had the unparalelled impudence, in March, 1818, to introduce 
 into Congress a resolution for acknowledgement of the Independence 
 of the South American provinces then engaged in a most unholy war 
 against their parent country, Spain." 18 
 
 But no matter how much about Henry Clay that Abe read and 
 digested, and tried out on Joe Gentry, he could not shake Joe from 
 Jackson. Even gentle-hearted Nattie Grigsby could not sway Joe. 
 The Gentrys were Jackson men and that was all there was to it. 
 
 By midsummer the four-cornered campaign reached extreme bitter- 
 ness. Henry Clay's northern enemies accused him of being pro- 
 slavery because he came from the slave state of Kentucky. They said 
 slave state atmosphere disqualified a man for the Presidency. In 
 the July 19, 1824, Western Sun Lincoln read a reply to that charge: 
 "Washington, the illustrious Founder of our liberties, and the en- 
 lightened and patriotic Jefferson, were born and educated in a slave- 
 holding state; and it may be seriously doubted whether the uncon- 
 taminated air of the North will soon give birth to men more worthy 
 of the love and admiration of the American people. Henry Clay, 
 a young man just commencing his professional and political career, 
 unaided by wealth, an orphan boy, fought advocates of slavery 
 with all the power of his elocution talent and all the strength of his 
 reason. He joined a corps of gradual abolitionists in Lexington and 
 declaimed in favor of gradual emancipation." As a lawyer, said the 
 reply, Clay "has never been prevailed upon to appear against a slave 
 suing for his freedom. On the contrary Mr. Clay has without fee or 
 
POLITICIANS 109 
 
 reward acted as counsel for a great number of slaves when suing for 
 their freedom. " 
 
 With mounting interest Lincoln read in the Western Sun, "Where 
 are the proofs that Mr. Adams has changed his political principles? 
 Has he ever avowed himself a democratic republican? No! In his 
 'Publicola' written in express opposition to Paine's 'Rights of Man' 
 he contends for the same legitimate doctrine now held by the holy 
 Allies that no people have a right to overthrow one constitution and 
 establish another without the consent of the Government." 19 Lincoln 
 knew a lot about Tom Paine's "Rights of Man" for he had heard 
 his father, mother, and stepmother talk that for years. If Adams 
 expressly opposed Paine's "Rights of Man" as charged, then he, 
 Abe Lincoln, had no use for Adams. As a matter of fact John Quincy 
 Adams had few, if any, friends in Lincoln's community. Almost every- 
 one was either a Jackson man or a Clay man. Crawford was not even 
 noticed. 
 
 A friend of Jackson broke into the columns of the Vincennes Western 
 Sun, August 7, and gave Joe Gentry a big argument in favor of Old 
 Hickory being President. Abe Lincoln and Nat Grigsby were stumped 
 for an answer to what the friend wrote: "Look to the city of Wash- 
 ington and let the virtuous patriots of the country weep at the 
 spectacle. There corruption is springing into existence, and fast 
 flourishing. With the exception of this great man, the hero of Orleans, 
 Andrew Jackson, all have toiled through the winter at Washington 
 seeking every species of art & finesse to further their own views and 
 press themselves into favor. Why is not Jackson there too? Because 
 he has a soul that towers above intrigue." 
 
 By late September it had become clear to some Pigeon Creekers even 
 if not to Abe, Nat and Joe, that not one of the Presidential candi- 
 dates would receive a majority. In that event the election would be 
 decided by the House of Representatives. Ratcliff Boon who had 
 been reelected Lieutenant Governor of Indiana and had resigned from 
 that office in January, 1824, and announced for Congress, now saw the 
 political value of the snarled national situation to his own campaign. 
 In the Western Sun, September 25, he promised, "Should I be elected 
 and the choice of a President devolved upon Congress, I pledge 
 myself to support for that station, the person who shall receive the 
 majority of the votes of the state." Boon was running as a Jacksonian 
 Democrat. 
 
 While Boon's campaign interested Lincoln, the plots against Clay 
 worried him. A friend of Clay accused the Adams men, in the Vin- 
 
110 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 cennes Western Sun, of trying "to detach our support from this true 
 champion of our interests by asking us to support General Jack- 
 son." Lincoln talked to William Jones about it. "I don't see how the 
 people can elect Jackson. But the majority must rule, and, I reckon 
 it is right," said Abe. 20 
 
 Growing fearful that Clay would be elected, Indiana friends of both 
 Adams and Jackson decided to yoke Crawford to Clay. Stump 
 speakers resurrected the A.B.C. Plot which "charged illegalities and 
 misconduct on the part of the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. William 
 H. Crawford." As soon as the Jackson strategists felt the yoke scheme 
 to be effective, they ran this story in the Indiana Gazette and had it 
 reprinted in the October 30th Western Sun: "The circumstances of so 
 many friends of Clay turning over to Jackson in this state may be 
 accounted for by the reason which we have heard some give, viz.: That 
 the electoral ticket got up for Clay is only a Crawford ticket in dis- 
 guise. The people would rather vote for Adams or Jackson. They 
 do not want to elevate Crawford over the shoulders of Clay." 
 
 The Jackson high command followed that blast with a break with 
 the Adams men. Lincoln read about this in the next week's Sun: 
 "The friends of Mr. Adams are proposing to abandon the ticket here- 
 tofore formed for him, and act in concert with the friends of Mr. Clay. 
 The object of this combination is to prevent the Jackson ticket from 
 succeeding in this state. But they will fail in their puny efforts. In 
 Indiana the Hero of Two wars is invincible." To the joy of Joe Gentry 
 and to the chagrin of Abe Lincoln and Nattie Grigsby, the Jackson 
 warriors concentrated their election eve fire on Henry Clay. They ac- 
 cused Clay of supporting the United States Bank, contending he was 
 under its influence. "Our Hero of Orleans is under no such influence," 
 they asserted in the Western Sun. "He has nothing to do with banks. 
 He detests them all and he cannot be placed under their influence." 
 
 The election was held. Indiana's five electoral votes went to An- 
 drew Jackson for President. The state supported John C. Calhoun of 
 South Carolina for Vice President. In the national totals Jackson 
 received 99 electoral votes; Adams 84; Crawford 41; Clay 37. No 
 candidate had received the majority necessary to be elected; therefore, 
 the election was thrown into the House of Representatives. 21 Since 
 only the three highest candidates were considered, Clay was eliminat- 
 ed. Lincoln and his friends could see that with a little judicious bar- 
 gaining, Clay's 37 votes could elect either Adams or Jackson. Im- 
 mediately supporters of the three top candidates began writing flat- 
 tering, affectionate letters to Clay, addressing him as "Dear Harry of 
 
POLITICIANS 111 
 
 the West." Seeing through their hypocrisy, Clay wrote a friend, "I 
 am enjoying, whilst alive, the posthumous honors which are usually 
 awarded to the illustrious dead." a 
 
 For weeks Clay's refusal to make public comment on the three 
 candidates kept Lincoln, Grigsby, and Gentry in a turmoil of expect- 
 ancy. Then, without fanfare, January 8, 1825, Clay advised his 
 friends in the House to vote for John Quincy Adams. Why? Because 
 Adams favored Clay's policies: internal improvements, a reasonable 
 protective tariff, closer association with Central and South America. 
 The House of Representatives met. Four states voted for Crawford; 
 seven (including Indiana) for Jackson; thirteen for Adams. That 
 elected Adams by a majority of two. 
 
 On March 4, 1825, Lincoln's sturdy neighbor, Ratcliff Boon, was 
 sworn in as a member of the Nineteenth Congress. That same day 
 John Quincy Adams took the oath of President and John C. Calhoun 
 the oath of Vice President, of the United States. President Adams 
 promptly appointed Henry Clay Secretary of State. "It's a corrupt 
 bargain!" friends of Jackson charged. Lincoln read in the Vincennes 
 Western Sun Clay's reply to the charge: "I interrogated my conscience 
 as to what I ought to do. And that faithful guide told me to vote for 
 Mr. Adams. What is a public man worth if he will not expose him- 
 self on fit occasions, for the good of his country?" * 
 
 Having learned a great deal about the art of President making, six- 
 teen year old Abe soon added more to his political knowledge when 
 his own Congressman, Ratcliff Boon, began slugging voters. News of 
 Boon's fight set more fists to flying up and down Buck Horn valley. 
 The Congressman was indicted and tried in the Common Pleas Court 
 at Boonville, September 7, 1825, charged with "rude insolence and with 
 force and arms did unlawfully beat and wound Edward Beems." The 
 jury, which included Lincoln's former school teacher, Andrew J. Craw- 
 ford, returned the verdict: "Guilty and assess his fine to five dollars." * 
 From Boon's act Abe learned that a politician sometimes indiscreetly 
 uses his fists as well as his tongue. 
 
 It was not long thereafter that Lincoln read in the Western Sun that 
 politicians also fight with pistols. His political idol, Secretary of State 
 Henry Clay, had challenged Senator John Randolph of Virginia 
 to a duel. Randolph had called the Adams-Clay affair "A coalition of 
 Bilfil and Black George, a combination unheard of until now, of Puri- 
 tan and blackleg." * 
 
 According to the Western Sun, Clay and Randolph had hardly met 
 on the duelling ground before Randolph's pistol went off. Clay let it 
 
112 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 pass as an accident. Then Randolph's second supplied him with a 
 hair-trigger pistol. At a given signal the men fired at one another. 
 Each missed his target. Up rode Senator Benton of Missouri and 
 shouted, "Gentlemen! Stop!" Clay ignored Benton and fired again. 
 That time he shot Mr. Randolph in the coattail. Mr. Randolph point- 
 ed his pistol skyward and exclaimed, "Mr. Clay, I do not fire at you!" 
 He fired into the air. Clay and Randolph eyed each other for a 
 moment, walked to the center and shook hands. Senator Benton 
 called the duel "among the highest toned I ever witnessed." ' 
 
 Hardly was the duel over with when Abe Lincoln's interest was 
 focused on the 1826 campaign. His Congressman, running for re- 
 election as a Jacksonian Democrat, was having more trouble with the 
 voters. On election day Ratcliff Boon polled 5202 votes to Thomas H. 
 Blake's 5203. Beaten by just one vote! K Blake had run as an Adams 
 Republican. 
 
 By the spring of 1827 Lincoln was reading in the Western Sun that 
 it was believed General Jackson would carry Pennsylvania, Virginia, 
 North and South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi and Missouri in the 
 1828 Presidential race. Jackson might even carry New York, Mary- 
 land, Kentucky, and again Indiana. Ohio and New Jersey were doubt- 
 ful. Editor Stout of the Sun was sure President Adams could not be 
 reelected unless he won New York's support. 28 That touched off hot 
 debates between Adams and Jackson men in Jones' store, to the 
 delight of Abraham Lincoln who enjoyed listening to political argu- 
 ments. By fall the Jacksonian cry of "Clay and corruption" was ring- 
 ing loudly in the ears of Lincoln and his fellow Hoosiers. To find 
 out how effective it was, straw votes were taken at Indiana regi- 
 mental musters as a sort of public opinion poll. The Vincennes Sun 
 published the results. At New Albany there were 49 for Adams and 
 169 for Jackson; at Bedford 54 for Adams and 742 for Jackson. "These 
 signs of the times must be very encouraging to the friends of Mr. 
 Adams," the editor commented. 29 With a politician on every stump 
 the 1828 Presidential campaign opened in Indiana. Lincoln heard 
 Jackson men accuse President Adams and "King Caucus" of ruling 
 democratic America through the succession of Cabinet members and 
 manipulators in Congress.. Speakers declared General Jackson would 
 slay that ornery king. 
 
 Adams men fearing Jackson might do exactly that called attention 
 to the case of The Six Militia Men. They accused Jackson of slaying 
 those Tennessee militiamen during the War of 1812. An Adams man 
 wrote in the March 8 Sun: "Those poor men were condemned by an 
 
POLITICIANS 113 
 
 illegal courtmartial, instituted by General Jackson, for no other offense 
 than claiming and exercising the right to go home after their legal term 
 of service had expired. The act was illegal, cruel and tyrannical. 
 How can any humane man honestly support General Jackson?" 
 
 Under the headline "Hear the Witness" the Western Sun quoted 
 Colonel G. C. Russell, U.S. Army, who "superintended the execution 
 of the six militia men." Colonel Russell said the ringleader of the 
 alleged deserters "was a sort of a preacher of that denomination called 
 the Baptists. He was in profession a saint and in reality a mischievous 
 man among people more ignorant than himself." Some of Lincoln's 
 neighbors felt that the mention of Baptists was an intentional slur at 
 their church. So while Abe did odd jobs at Jones' store he read aloud 
 to customers and loafers the Adams-Jackson battle as it waxed hotter. 
 Adams men called the execution outright murder. Jackson men 
 replied, "No! Not murder but justice!" Lincoln had never had much 
 use for John Quincy Adams; and his faith in Andrew Jackson was now 
 shaken. Still he held to Henry Clay in spite of all the corrupt bargain- 
 ing charges. 
 
 In the midst of the rising fury of the campaign Congress passed the 
 Tariff Act of 1828. Southern planters called it a discrimination against 
 unpaid labor — Negro slave labor — and a blow directed at planters. 
 John C. Calhoun said the new tariff was an unconstitutional usurpation 
 of powers by the Federal Government which violated the essential 
 principles of states' rights. South Carolina held tariff meetings and 
 threatened to secede from the Union unless that law were repealed. 80 
 Obviously impressed by the threats of South Carolina, Editor Stout, 
 in the Western Sun, pointed out — to Lincoln's delight — that this was 
 "the first tariff that ever promised any advantage to the West. This act 
 has been passed by the present Jackson majority in Congress. Who 
 are the real friends of the Manufacturer and the Farmer?" 81 
 
 Protective tariff for manufacturers and farmers was part of Clay's 
 American System. And since the Jackson majority in Congress was 
 now for Clay's system, Abe Lincoln and Nat Grigsby joined with Joe 
 Gentry in whooping it up for Jackson. Adams men made desperate 
 efforts to hold onto the Clay men, telling them of their love for Harry 
 of the West. Amused by the antics of the Adams people, Lincoln 
 borrowed the first two lines from Robert Burns' Auld Lang Syne and 
 wrote the following piece which Nattie, Joe and others around Gentry - 
 ville lustily sang: 
 
114 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 "Let auld acquaintance be forgot 
 "And never brought to mind, 
 "And Jackson be our President 
 "And Adams left behind." " 
 
 The Presidential campaign was claiming the attention of everyone 
 in the Indiana Pocket Country. Everywhere politicians were heaping 
 abuse or praise on Adams and Jackson. To get the most of the big 
 political show, Abe Lincoln and other Hoosiers laid aside their work, 
 met, formed processions and, led by an officer of the War of 1812, 
 marched behind squealing fifes and thumping drums. Being Jackson 
 men they set up stout hickory poles, dancing and whooping about 
 them. A few hundred yards away Adams men likewise set up poles — 
 maple poles — and tried to out-yell Old Hickory's followers. Mean- 
 while barbecued steers and sheep were passed out to all comers. Men 
 and boys hunting trouble armed themselves with hickory and maple 
 clubs and milled back and forth across the neutral ground between the 
 poles. Every time a stump speaker called Adams a traitor or Jackson 
 a murderer, clubs started swinging. 
 
 The women folk stayed at home. But whether in tiny one-room 
 log cabins or in big two-story, double, hewnlog houses with airy dog- 
 trots, family hearthstones flamed into political forums. At firesides 
 mothers carefully explained to their children why the men were away 
 to the political hustings. Quite likely it was at this time the legend 
 sprouted: In Indiana children discuss politics by signs until they are 
 old enough to talk. 83 
 
 Probably during his youth, Abraham Lincoln never read a political 
 article of greater value to him than "United States Political History 
 Reviewed 1789-1828," which was published in the September 20th 
 Western Sun. In it were described the administrations of Presidents 
 Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and John 
 Quincy Adams. The writer said that in Jefferson's administration 
 "Benefits as well as monetary embarrassments & depressions were 
 equally felt by the north, south, east and west. Yet not a whisper was 
 heard about disunion from the great majority of the people. Not 
 until the latter part of Mr. Monroe's administration, that seed of dis- 
 cord began to grow, and to acquire strength." But now, in 1828, the 
 writer lamented, "Morality must have succumbed to an inordinate 
 appetite for wealth and power." 
 
 As election day drew nearer the campaign grew hotter. Down on 
 the Ohio River two men whom Lincoln must have met while attending 
 
POLITICIANS 115 
 
 ferry got into an argument in a skiff off shore. One hit the other over 
 the head with an iron sheep's-foot and killed him. 
 
 Adams men pressed harder upon the story of Jackson shooting 
 six militiamen. Nevertheless, Lincoln clung to Jackson. Undoubtedly 
 a story offered in the Western Sun, October 18, 1828, to counter- 
 balance the militia shooting, impressed Lincoln with Adams' unfitness 
 for the Presidency: An eighty-two year old Revolutionary War 
 veteran named Richard Nagle left his home in Cambria county, 
 Pennsylvania, and went to Washington to see the President about 
 getting a pension. In his affidavit, sworn to July 1, 1828, Nagle said 
 a yellow man met him at the White House door and asked him 
 what he wanted. Nagle showed the man three depositions sworn to by 
 veterans who had served with him in the Revolutionary War. The 
 affidavit further stated, according to the Western Sun, that President 
 Adams ordered Nagle "to be gone for an imposter and a Dirty old 
 Rascal or he, President Adams, would have him horsewhipped." 
 
 Naturally that alleged "base conduct of John Quincy Adams" to- 
 ward war veterans intensified local hatred of Adams, for among 
 Lincoln's neighbors were Revolutionary War veterans esteemed by 
 everyone. Apparently expecting quick retaliation from Adams men, 
 Editor Stout in the Sun warned friends of Old Hickory: "It is under- 
 stood about the time of the election, or so near that the report cannot 
 be contradicted, one simultaneous movement will be made throughout 
 the United States. It will be that general jackson is dead. Such 
 rumors would promote John Quincy Adams to the presidential chair. 
 We caution all our readers against this hellish project." ** 
 
 With murder in the air and rumors of Old Hickory being dead, elec- 
 tion day passed and Lincoln was happy to hear that the voters had 
 "Let Jackson be our President and Adams left behind." Indiana had 
 once more gone for Old Hickory. Jackson received a total of 178 elec- 
 toral votes to Adams' 83. John Calhoun was re-elected Vice President 
 by almost two to one over the combined votes of his two opponents. 86 
 In the race for Congress from Lincoln's district, Ratcliff Boon, still a 
 Jacksonian Democrat, defeated the incumbent, Thomas H. Blake. 
 "We were all Jackson boys and men at that time in Indiana," stated 
 Nattie Grigsby in summing up the campaign. 36 
 
 Right after the election, Editor Stout, in the Western Sun, showed 
 Abe Lincoln that a victorious political strategist could have a con- 
 science. Stout re-told the Nagle case and publicly apologized for the 
 political trick by publishing the following affidavit: 
 
 "Now the said Richard Nagle, being duly sworn according to the law 
 
116 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 doth say the above is an entire fabrication — that he never saw the 
 President of the United States to his knowledge, and consequently had 
 no conversation with him. That at the time his deposition was taken 
 before Squire Mageehan, said Mageehan omitted reading to him that 
 part referred to; and that he was not aware of its being in the deposi- 
 tion." w 
 
 From that 1828 Presidential campaign Abraham Lincoln had seen 
 how well-timed schemes, rumors and statements by stump speakers 
 and the press could influence voters. By April, 1829, he also saw how 
 opposition could quickly be built up against men recently elected to 
 office. A widely distributed anti-Jackson circular showed a hickory 
 broom captioned "Sweep, Ho! Sweep!" Below that ran: 
 
 "Turn out! turn out! 
 "They are rogues no doubt; 
 "And honest men and true are come 
 "To put them all to trout!" S8 
 
 By listening to crossroads forums and reading newspapers Lincoln 
 formed a picture of office-seekers scurrying to Washington and office- 
 holders there, trembling at every swing of the hickory broom. Presi- 
 dent Jackson swept out a socially prominent postmaster and swept in 
 a shoemaker. When a howl of protest went up, the Western Sun re- 
 torted: "It is monstrous to the ruffled shirt men that a mechanic 
 should be appointed to office." 89 
 
 By July 19, however, Editor Stout clearly was losing some of his 
 pro-Jackson enthusiasm, for in that issue of the Sun he quoted 
 Lincoln's favorite statesman, Henry Clay, as saying: "Now persons 
 are dismissed not only without trial of any sort, but without charge, 
 as if the intention were to defy opinion and give to the acts a higher 
 degree of enormity." The following week Editor Stout even quoted 
 the Fourth of July orator at Vincennes, E. H. Hannegan, who had 
 declared that the triumphant party had adopted a "system of pro- 
 scription" which "in our land had gone so far as to produce in some 
 quarters the cry of disunion!" 
 
 In August Abe Lincoln attended a township election about four 
 miles to the southeastward on the Troy- Vincennes trail. He climbed 
 onto a rail fence alongside a slimy pond and listened to Hickory -broom 
 Sweepers defend President Jackson by blaming King Caucus for the 
 abuse of patronage. Soon a bully called Samson, from that area, 
 swaggered up to the rail fence and stared at Lincoln. Abe ignored 
 him and went on listening to the Sweepers argue. Samson, talking 
 
POLITICIANS 117 
 
 loudly about his horse, shouted, "I run him four miles this morning 
 and he never fetched a long breath." Annoyed because he wanted to 
 follow the political arguments, Abe said, "I presume he fetched a 
 good many short ones." Arguments stopped. Everyone laughed. 
 Red-faced and angry, Samson shook his fist at Lincoln and called 
 him a name. "Hush up" said Abe calmly. 
 
 Mistaking the reply for a sign of weakness, Samson's abuse con- 
 tinued. Lincoln's hands gripped the top rail so hard his fingernails 
 cut into the dry oak; he had reached the end of his patience. He 
 pointed to the slimy pond: "Mr. Samson, if you don't shut up I'll 
 take you by the neck and throw you into that water." Someone from 
 Gentry ville boomed, "Abe'll do it, too, and don't think he won't!" 
 
 The crowd moved in for a fight. Samson glanced around at them, 
 then at Abe and at the pond. He muttered something to himself and 
 sneaked off, leaving the disappointed voters with nothing to do but 
 resume their arguments for and against President Jackson. 40 
 
 "Abe went to all political gatherings and listened attentively to both 
 sides of the question," according to his stepmother. "After hearing 
 them through he could and did speak with more than substantial 
 accuracy what both sides said. He was appealed to [to] know what 
 was said." 41 
 
 Across his years in Indiana, from the sweetening of Ratcliff Boon to 
 the sweepings of the Hickory Broomers, Abe Lincoln picked up 
 answers to some of the questions which his father would not allow 
 him to ask of local politicians scheming in the Lincoln cabin. He 
 had seen, heard and learned much about the art of politics. He 
 wanted to be a politician. 
 
Chapter Nine 
 ALL THINGS IN COMMON 
 
 Lincoln encountered a new sort of politics when his neighbors 
 reported strange goings-on at Father George Rapp's Religio-Com- 
 munistic society at Harmonie, a village fifty miles to the west on the 
 Wabash River. These neighbors had taken their corn to Harmonie 
 to be ground, ana returned with fantastic tales of vineyards, orchards, 
 a distillery, a labyrinth, huge community buildings where men and 
 women lived separately, of an enormous church with a clock in its 
 steeple. They described a limestone slab with the outline of a big foot 
 in it, and they said the Rappites told them it was the Archangel 
 Gabriel's footprint. 
 
 In the spring of 1815 George Rapp, leader of Pietism from Wurtem- 
 berg, Germany, stood on the bank of the Wabash, his seven hundred 
 devoted followers, Wurtemberg peasants, kneeling all about him, and 
 proclaimed the founding of Harmonie. Rapp ruled his flock by virtue 
 of an allegedly divine call. He stretched forth his arm and said, "This 
 is the arm of God." * Rapp preached and practiced both economy and 
 industry. Basing his doctrine of the dual nature of Adam on Genesis 
 I, 26-27, he declared Adam held within his body both sexual elements; 
 therefore, celibacy was necessary for one's salvation. 
 
 In his oil mill, silk factory, brickyard, and gristmill, Father Rapp 
 ordered vases of flowers to be put on or near each workbench and 
 machine. To band music, Lincoln's neighbors reported, Rapp marched 
 his people out of the village to till the rich Wabash land. Although 
 envy plagued the hearts of many Pigeon Creekers as they listened to 
 the wonders of Harmonie, not one was willing to exchange his individ- 
 ual freedom for Rappite serfdom. 
 
 When Abe Lincoln was sixteen word reached Gentryville that 
 George Rapp had sold Harmonie and its surrounding farm of 30,000 
 acres for $150,000 to Robert Owen, Utopian Socialist, of New Lenark, 
 Scotland. Also Rapp had sold his prosperous stores at Shawneetown 
 and Vincennes. One Rappite, Brother Scheel, wrote in chalk under 
 the stairway of No. 2 Community Building: "The twenty-fourth of 
 May, 1824 we departed. Lord, with thy great help and goodness in 
 
 118 
 
ALL THINGS IN COMMON 119 
 
 body and soul protect us." Thus ended on the Wabash the State 
 Sans Wedlock, as the poet Byron had called it. 
 
 Seldom was any frontier more excited over socialism than was Abe 
 Lincoln's community. Robert Owen convinced many backwoodsmen 
 that the Garden of Eden was at hand, a new day dawning for man- 
 kind right there in Indiana. "I reckon folks thought it was a new Jeru- 
 salem and nobody'd have to work," commented Dennis Hanks, who 
 lived in the Lincoln home. 2 
 
 Owen changed the name Harmonie to New Harmony. "Here, he 
 announced, "is a village already built in a country where thought is 
 free." Before he started his socialist experiment he went to Washing- 
 ton, where on February 25, 1825, he spoke in the United States House 
 of Representatives before President Monroe, President-elect John 
 Quincy Adams, President Monroe's Cabinet, and members of Congress. 
 His subject, "On a New System of Society" aroused the entire nation. 
 
 Following President Adams' inauguration, Owen delivered a second 
 address on the new day. This time, March 7, he had in his audience 
 President Adams, ex-President Monroe, Adams' Cabinet and the new 
 Congress. Said Dennis Hanks: "When this furrin feller spoke in Con- 
 gress about the Garden of Eden he was going to fence in on the Wa- 
 bash we soon heard about it. Boats brung news every week. There was 
 scarcely anything else talked about for a spell." 3 
 
 Owen astonished his distinguished listeners in Washington by telling 
 them his new system of "Common property and co-operation will, from 
 the soil, support in high comfort, double numbers, at the least, and 
 hence its commercial superiority over the individual arrangement of 
 society." Basing his doctrine on Acts II, 44-45, "And all that believed 
 were together and had all things in common; and sold their possessions 
 and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need," 4 
 Robert Owen declared that changes "are at hand greater than all the 
 changes which have hitherto occurred in the affairs of mankind." In 
 consequences "the degrading practice in which we are trained of buy- 
 ing cheap and selling dear will be rendered wholly unnecessary. The 
 whole trading system is one of deception." He maintained that "the 
 government and Congress of this new empire have only to will this 
 change, and it will be at once effected. By such an act they give and 
 secure liberty, affluence, and happiness to America and to the world." B 
 
 Lincoln saw the first public printing of Robert Owen's New Har- 
 mony Constitution in the May 28, 1825, Vincennes Western Sun: 
 "The Society is instituted generally to promote the happiness of the 
 world." It would prepare people "to become associates in independent 
 
120 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 communities, having common property. The members are all of the 
 same rank, no artificial irregularity being acknowledged." Owen's 
 plan was directed toward the permanent relief of the working classes 
 and the blotting out of the profit motive. "I am come to this country 
 to introduce an entire new state of society," Owen proclaimed, "to 
 change it from the ignorant, selfish system, to the enlightened social 
 system, which shall gradually unite all interests into one, and remove 
 from all cause for contest between individuals." e 
 
 Lincoln and his neighbors were dumbfounded by Owen's plan to 
 house those who accepted his doctrine of holding all things in common, 
 in a building a thousand feet square. In it thousands of persons 
 could live and have every domestic convenience. When completed, 
 Owen's Community of Equality headquarters on the Wabash would 
 resemble an ancient walled city. Each of its four corners would be 
 bastioned with a tower. Sharp roofs would resemble battlements. 
 Inside the great hollow square, buildings would serve as keeps and 
 lookouts. A walled city to be built so close to his Indiana home 
 greatly excited the adolescent Lincoln. But the promise of a free 
 education to all those who held things in common excited him a great 
 deal more, for Owen said he intended to establish "a complete school, 
 academy, and university in which a superior education will be given 
 from infancy to maturity." 7 
 
 Lincoln's interest, as well as that of scores of his neighbors, was 
 sharply increased when in January, 1826, news reached Gentry ville 
 that Owen's keelboat, The Philanthropist, had docked at New Har- 
 mony. It had passed down the Ohio and up the Wabash. Boarding it 
 at Pittsburgh were artists, scientists, and teachers, who had come from 
 Europe, assembled at Philadelphia under the leadership of the great 
 American geologist, William McClure. In addition to McClure, that 
 boat brought to New Harmony the greatest naturalist of the time, 
 Thomas Say; Madam Marie D. Fretagoet, musician, kindergarten 
 teacher and advocate of the Pestalozzian system in education; Dr. 
 Gerard Troost, mineralogist; Samuel Chase, chemist; Phiquepal d' 
 Arusmont, teacher of mathematics and music; Peter L. Duclos, scenic 
 artist; Cornelius Tiebout, engraver and painter; Robert Dale Owen, 
 age twenty-four, who, like his father, was an experimenter in Utopian 
 Socialism and follower of Fanny Wright's radical ideas concerning 
 Negro slave emancipation. Several students, and some capitalists, 
 also, had come along to get a close up view of Robert Owen's New 
 Jerusalem in Indiana. 
 
 Because The Philanthropist had carried so many people of learning, 
 
ALL THINGS IN COMMON 121 
 
 Indiana backwoodsmen promptly nicknamed it The Boatload of 
 Knowledge. About April, Lincoln and Jones' store loafers were given 
 a new shock when word reached them that the Duke of Saxe- Weimar 
 also had arrived at New Harmony. 
 
 On opening his schools, Robert Owen said, "If we cannot reconcile 
 all opinions, let us endeavour to unite all hearts." 8 When the schools 
 were underway, Albert Gallatin pronounced them the best in the 
 world. Abe Lincoln told Dennis Hanks: "Denny, there's a school 
 and thousands of books there, and fellers that know everything in 
 creation." 9 
 
 Whether Abraham Lincoln persuaded his father to try farming 
 near Owen's New Social Order or whether he whetted Tom's appetite 
 for land speculation may never be known; but the records of the 
 General Land Office, Washington, D.C., do show that Thomas Lincoln 
 bought eighty acres of land in Posey County, Indiana, just ten miles 
 due east of New Harmony. 10 Back in December, 1818, Charles Whit- 
 ing had entered that same tract of land. Soon the Whitings became 
 prominent in close-by Cynthiana where they sold high grade whiskey 
 and regularly attended the Baptist church." By September, 1821, the 
 Whiting farm was in the hands of the Memorial Forest heirs. A year 
 later Forest's widow, Matilda, married James McCrary, the Reverend 
 James Martin, a Baptist minister, solemnizing their wedding. 12 The 
 next year the Posey county Probate Court, sitting at Mount Vernon, 
 Indiana, "ordered that James McCrery [McCrary] be appointed 
 guardian of Levicy Forest & Thomas Forest (and Sally Forest) minor 
 heirs of Memorial Forest, deceased." Four years later the same court 
 directed Guardian McCrary "to sell for the Best price he can get 
 either at public or private sale" the west half of the 160.34 acres 
 belonging to the minor heirs. 18 
 
 On April 5, 1827, Thomas Lincoln appeared at Mount Vernon, 
 Indiana. That day Guardian McCrary, for a valuable consideration 
 assigned all rights and titles of the "heirs of Memorial Forest deceased 
 to the W y 2 NW % 3.T5 S.R. 12W unto Thomas Lincoln, or Linkern 
 and his heirs and assigns forever." u Thomas Lincoln now held rights 
 to a land patent in Posey County and it probably had not cost him 
 more than one hundred dollars. 16 
 
 This new Lincoln farm lay mainly on an east and west ridge. Its 
 northern boundary was a base line which ran straight west ten miles 
 and just missed being New Harmony's main street, called Church 
 Street. Its yellow clay soil was so fertile it sometimes yielded forty 
 bushels of wheat to the acre. Parts of the farm were wooded with oak, 
 
122 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 gum, walnut, poplar (tulip-tree) and sugar maple. Numerous springs 
 furnished abundant cold, pure water. Big Spring branch flows north- 
 ward along the western edge of the farm and empties into Caney Creek 
 which flows southeastward. Caney Creek empties into Big Creek, 
 which flows south westward. The three streams almost enclose the 
 Lincoln farm, making it into a triangular island. 16 
 
 From the one-room, round-log cabin on the Posey County farm it 
 would have been a ten mile walk for Abe along the ridge to New 
 Harmony. In April, 1827, when he undoubtedly strolled its broad, 
 shady streets, the town was buzzing with applications for membership 
 in the Community of Equality. At that moment the New Harmony 
 Gazette was hailing 1827 as the "Fifty-first year of Political Indepen- 
 dence" and the "First year of Mental Independence." Already, ac- 
 cording to the paper, "several new cottages have been erected by 
 Communities No. 3 and 4." " 
 
 New Harmony contrasted sharply with what Lincoln was used to 
 back in Gentry ville. Here he saw a town exactly one-half mile square. 
 Here stood on that flat bottom-land a brick and stone granary, five 
 stories high with a tile roof; a red brick tavern with a wing front; the 
 three-story dormer windowed Community House No. 2, used for a 
 school; the enormous Rappite church with its roof supported by 
 twenty-eight pillars of walnut and cherry. The cottages were set in 
 botanical gardens. Here was the Rappite labyrinth with its thorn 
 and flowering shrubbery lined paths symbolizing man's varied journey 
 through life. 
 
 Here all members of the experiment were expected to dress alike, 
 eat similar foods, live in similar houses. No one was to be held in 
 higher or lower esteem because of his occupation. 15 The community 
 disclaimed "all restraints of religion, marriage, or any other tie, but 
 what is purely voluntary." Moreover, "Children are taught in com- 
 munity, and like the Spartan children are not under the weak and 
 partial control of their parents. The Pestalozzi mode of instruction 
 is adopted. Instead of theories and doctrines they are taught facts." 19 
 
 Children belonged to the community from their second year. Their 
 school life differed strongly from Abe Lincoln's blab-school training. 
 New Harmony children attended classes at four o'clock in the morning 
 in schoolrooms bristling with arithmometers and human skeletons. 30 
 Joseph Neef, disciple of Pestalozzi; Constantine Rafinesque, the 
 pioneer ichthyologist; Robert Dale Owen and others taught the chil- 
 dren. There, too, since early 1826, the first infant school, or kinder- 
 garten, in America had been functioning. William McClure attempted 
 
ALL THINGS IN COMMON 123 
 
 to have the New Harmony Educational Society incorporated, but 
 the Indiana State Senate rejected the bill on account of the popular 
 belief that atheism flourished in the New Order's schools. 21 Possibly 
 the Senators were remembering the Owen-Campbell debate and 
 Owen's remark to the Reverend Mr. Ely that "there is no other God 
 but the universe" and that "after death he himself may become a 
 cucumber or an ass." 
 
 For a while Thomas Lincoln owned the fertile, rolling Posey County 
 farm. Then there appeared in the Vincennes Sun this notice: "Impor- 
 tant to U.S. Land debtors." Lands which had been forfeited since 
 July, 1820, but not sold could be redeemed: "Payments for the land 
 may be completed any time before the fourth of July by relinquishing 
 any legal subdivision or by cash, allowing a reduction of 37% per cent 
 — or by both." 
 
 Again Thomas Lincoln went to the Vincennes District Land Office. 
 And there, April 30, 1827, he relinquished both his eighty acre Posey 
 County farm and eighty acres — the east half — of his Spencer County 
 farm to the United States Government. 22 By relinquishing those two 
 tracts he got enough money, or credit, to be entitled to a patent to 
 the remaining eighty acres of his Pigeon Creek land, described as W 1 /^ 
 SW % 32. T4 SR5W. On June 6, 1827, President John Quincy 
 Adams issued to "Thomas Linkern alias Lincoln" a land patent "as 
 it appears full payment has been made." " In this way Tom Lincoln 
 had adroitly traded himself out of debt and into full ownership of a 
 Spencer County farm, and his son Abraham had lost forever the oppor- 
 tunity to attend the New Harmony schools. 
 
 While old Tom may have felt a little sadness at young Abe's pathetic 
 efforts to obtain a higher education by setting up Brush College, the 
 chances are the father was not displeased at his son's losing out on 
 New Harmony. Wise old Tom probably already had detected weeds 
 of disharmony sprouting in Robert Owen's Garden of Eden on the Wa- 
 bash. Surely, he was not surprised when the news leaked out that the 
 more industrious, progressive Owenites were growing tired of sharing 
 the fruits of their labors equally with fellow members who were 
 little more than panhandlers, sharpers, or lazy theorists. One Owenite, 
 William Creese Pelham, thoroughly disillusioned, wrote, "We go on 
 changing everything sometimes before we have an opportunity to find 
 out its benefits." He added: "The women sometimes cannot agree 
 among themselves who is the cook." 24 
 
 Thomas Lincoln was undoubtedly much less surprised than the less 
 experienced Abraham when, late in 1829, the Vincennes Western Sun 
 
124 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 reported that Robert Owen, arriving in Liverpool, England, had 
 publicly stated, "The Americans are not capable of governing them- 
 selves; consequently, I abandon all idea of reforming them." 
 
 That gloomy pronouncement ended the social architect's experi- 
 ments at New Harmony and blasted forever the bright hopes of Lin- 
 coln's neighbors for a New Jerusalem where, as Dennis Hanks said, 
 "nobody'd have to work." 
 
f 
 Chapter Ten 
 
 ROMANCE 
 
 Abraham Lincoln's interest in love began when the wagon of a 
 family of movers broke down near his Pigeon Creek home. "I took 
 a great fancy to one of the girls," he said. He was eight years old at 
 the time. 
 
 While the mother and her two daughters cooked in Nancy Hanks 
 Lincoln's pole kitchen and Tom Lincoln repaired the wagon, Abe stood 
 around and watched the girl. After the movers left he thought so 
 much about her that he wrote an imaginative story: "I thought I 
 took my father's horse and followed the wagon. Finally I found it. 
 They were surprised to see me. I talked with the girl and persuaded 
 her to elope with me." When night came on, the story relates, Abe 
 put the girl on his horse and they rode away. Several hours 
 later they came to a camp only to find it was the same one they had 
 left. The next night they tried it again. But the same thing hap- 
 pened: right back to the same place. "We concluded we ought not to 
 elope. I stayed until I persuaded her father to give her to me. I think 
 that was the beginning of love with me," Abe confessed. 1 
 
 That mild beginning was quickened when Anna Carolina Robey was 
 stumped during a quiz in Squire Crawford's blab-school spelling 
 class in the winter of 1818-1819. Abe demonstrated his affection for 
 Katy by helping her to spell "defied." He pointed to his eye and 
 winked at her. 2 
 
 Neither Katy nor any other girl interested Abe very much after that 
 until he was seventeen. Then, on a balmy spring day he rode up 
 to Benny Lamar's grist mill and found Betsy Ray there waiting her 
 turn. He jumped off his horse, threw his sack of shelled corn onto 
 the grinding floor near where Betsy sat curled up on her own sack 
 of corn. Betsy, pretty and bashful, was barefooted. Abe was not 
 barefooted but he did have a big hole in the knee of his pants and, as 
 usual, his long shin bone showed. He sat down on his sack of corn, 
 put a big hand over his knee, trying to cover the hole. Betsy drew 
 her bare feet under her dress and shyly glanced at Abe. Both were 
 embarrassed. They listened to the millstones whirr, grinding out meal 
 
 125 
 
126 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 for customers who had come earlier. After a while Betsy broke the 
 tension. "Abe, I'm powerful glad to see you," she murmured. 
 
 Parrot-like Abe replied, "Betsy, I'm powerful glad to see you." He 
 could not think of another word to say, so he listened some more to 
 the whirring stones and wondered why it was much easier to talk with 
 men and boys than with girls. He shuffled his big feet. "What you 
 folks been doing?" he blurted. Betsy: "Nothing but working." As 
 she twisted around a bit on her sack she added: "What you folks 
 been doing?" Abe coughed nervously and examined his calloused 
 hands: "Just like you folks. Just working." 
 
 After a pause Betsy continued: "Abe, we're having a pound party 
 to our house and we want you to bring a lot of young folks from down 
 your way, will you?" Abe: "If some other feller don't beat my time." 
 Betsy was reassuring: "They'll never do that." By now her bare feet 
 had crept out from under her dress and Abe had forgotten the hole in 
 his pants. Betsy: "Everybody has to bring a pound of something 
 to eat. You can bring molasses candy or a cake or just anything to 
 eat." Abe: "What will you do if I don't bring anything?" Betsy: 
 "Fine you two cents for every inch you are tall." She eyed him 
 speculatively as if figuring that his six feet four inches would net her 
 quite a bit. 
 
 Two weeks later when Lincoln and his Gentryville crowd entered the 
 Ray's big, double, hewn-log house on Crooked Hill overlooking the 
 Ohio River, they found the tables loaded with pounds of food brought 
 by early arriving guests. Already the fiddlers had started playing and 
 the caller was clapping his hands. Out on the puncheon floor couples, 
 old and young, were hoeing it down to the popular tune of "Leather 
 Breeches Full of Stitches." Abe flexed his knees to the rhythm of the 
 caller's chant: 
 
 "You go round and FU go through 
 "I love to dance and so do you. 
 "Home-made sugar on a 'puncheon floor 
 "FU dance this time and FU dance no morel" 
 
 Time came to unwrap the pound packages. Lincoln smiled at Betsy 
 and she smiled back at him. Nonchalantly he unwrapped his package 
 and revealed a pound of green persimmons. "Abe Lincoln!" scolded 
 Betsy, "I told you to bring something to eat!" 
 
 Abe nodded. "You sure did. But you didn't say anything about 
 whether it was to be cooked or ripe. Green persimmons're sure 
 something to eat." 
 
ROMANCE 127 
 
 Betsy laughed and pronounced sentence: "You'll have to pay a 
 fine." Lincoln flung his arms about her: "Sure. I'll pay it right 
 now." 3 
 
 Less than a month later barefooted Abe was driving an ox-cart 
 load of hoop-poles to the Ohio River. He had reached Crooked Hill 
 and, as he rode along he gaily played his Jews'-harp, serenading Betsy. 
 Just as he came in front of the Ray home a swarm of bees passed 
 overhead. The rising and falling drone of Abe's harp must have at- 
 tracted them for they wheeled and settled on him and his oxen. Away 
 loped the team, down the hillside, piling Abe and his cart into a 
 briar patch. Wildly he flailed his arms. The more he struck at 
 the bees and the more the oxen kicked at them, the more they stung 
 him and the oxen. He yelled for help. Betsy and her sister, Sally, 
 ran to him, Betsy carrying a hoe. Never before had Abe been so glad 
 to see that tool. With it he chopped his way out of the brambles and 
 threw dirt at the bees. As they retreated he drove his oxen back onto 
 the road and down to the river. He rode past the Ray home again 
 that evening and again he was playing his Jews'-harp. "Abe's all 
 right now for I hear his band," said Betsy to Sally. 4 
 
 Abe forgot all about Betsy the moment Ann Meeker took a rear 
 seat in the room of Squire Pate's Magistrate Court of Kentucky where 
 the Dill brothers had arraigned him for operating a ferry on the Ohio 
 River without a license. Ann was Squire Pate's sixteen year old 
 niece. Following the dismissal of his case, Abe had remained, at Pate's 
 invitation, to talk about law. Afterward he crossed the river several 
 times to attend the Squire's court, but he found that strolling with Ann 
 through the apple orchard was much more appealing than listening 
 to legal discussions. One tree was Ann's favorite. Prom it she plucked 
 a big, red apple and, Eve-like, gave it to Abe. When he bit into it and 
 looked at her he thought it was the sweetest apple he had ever tasted. 
 
 Unluckily for Abe Lincoln, Mrs. Pate was anxious for Ann to marry 
 William Thresher, a cousin. Quietly she began calling Ann's attention 
 to Abe's shabbiness and uncouth bearing. Ann's eyes were opened; 
 the orchard strolls ended. 6 
 
 Not long after this Lincoln discovered a very attractive girl in Buck 
 Horn Valley. However, before he could make any headway with her 
 Nathaniel Grigsby also discovered her. Nattie made headway fast. 
 One frosty night, hearing that Nattie was visiting the girl, Abe went 
 to her cabin home and looked in at the window. By the firelight he 
 could see Nattie's successes. Jealousy rose. Knowing the door had a 
 latch on the outside, Abe crept around and fastened it securely, then 
 
128 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 went over to a log, sat down and waited. About midnight he heard 
 Nattie try to open the door. Then he watched Nattie try to crawl 
 through the window; it was too small. "Try the chimney, Nattie," 
 Abe called roguishly. "The fire died down a long time ago." Nattie 
 yelled back: "Unfasten that door!" Abe: "Go on, Nattie, try the 
 chimney." With much grunting and clawing Grigsby climbed up 
 inside the hot stick-and-mud chimney and out onto the clapboard 
 roof. 
 
 Soot-covered, sweaty and very angry Nattie shook a fist at Abe: 
 "I got a notion to take a club to you!" Abe ignored the threat: "The 
 only chance you got now is to try to get even with me sometime." 
 Nattie Grigsby swung down off the roof and unfastened the latch. 
 The two boys walked home together. 6 
 
 That frosty night had long since melted into summer heat and on a 
 broiling August afternoon in 1827 Abe Lincoln, astride a gray mare, 
 a sack of wool tied on behind his saddle, rode into Princeton, Indiana, 
 never suspecting that any girls lurked in the hot shadows of the town. 
 He had ridden forty miles through the timber- wolf and panther infested 
 Buckskin Country and his mind had not been on girls. He was looking 
 for James Evans' carding machine to have some wool carded for his 
 stepmother's spinning wheel. He rode past a general merchandise 
 store, stared up at its big gilt sign, continued a block westward to 
 the machine where he met John M. Lockwood, the apprentice boy. 
 
 Abe pointed to his sack: "I want this wool carded." Two months 
 younger than Lincoln, Lockwood replied, "This is like going to mill. 
 People take turns. Where you from?" Abe: "Spencer County." 
 Lockwood: "Oh, you're from a considerable distance. I'll card it 
 directly. What's your name?" 
 
 "A. Lincoln." Carefully Abe spelled Lincoln. Lockwood: "How do 
 you want to pay — money or take toll out?" Abe replied "Take toll 
 out," and walked away, heading eastward down the middle of the 
 street. 
 
 Some distance beyond the carding machine Abe saw a young 
 woman, possibly seventeen years old, approaching. His wide mouth 
 flew open. Never before had he realized so much beauty existed in 
 the world. The girl seemed more of a vision than a reality. As 
 she passed him she said pleasantly, "Good evening," and walked right 
 on. Abe gazed after her . . . For two hours he walked aimlessly, 
 mooning over the vision. Above all else Abe wanted an introduction 
 to the girl, but he wondered what she would think of him. His suit 
 
ROMANCE 
 
 129 
 
 Pole-house or half-faced shelter built by Indiana settlers. 
 
 of jeans was worn threadbare; his shin bones showed blue and briar 
 scratched. 
 
 Upon returning to the carding machine he found that his wool was 
 ready, carded into rolls and pinned up with thorns. Lockwood: 
 "You had eighteen pounds of wool. I tolled it three pounds." Abe 
 wasn't interested. Slowly he picked up the bundle and tied it on be- 
 hind his saddle. "Good evening," he said dreamily and rode away on 
 his horse, unaware that the apprentice boy could have told him the 
 girl was Julia Evans, the carding machine owner's niece. 
 
 All the way home and for a long time afterward he thought of the 
 girl. "For two years scarcely a day passed that she was out of my 
 mind," he admitted to Dr. Lewis of Princeton. "She was the most 
 beautiful young lady I ever saw." He had determined to return to the 
 wool carding town and get an introduction to her but "Sad to relate, 
 some little bird six months after this whispered in my ear that she 
 was married to Silas Stephens and moved to Evansville," he said. 7 
 
 Gradually the vision of Julia dimmed in Lincoln's mind and his 
 thoughts turned to Elizabeth Tuley. Betsy, as he called her, was the 
 sister of John Tuley with whom he trapped wild turkeys. Upon 
 Abe's return from Arkansas three years before, Betsy had asked him 
 to her Valentine party. She lived in a rambling, hewn-log house a mile 
 north of Gentryville. Abe went to her party and danced two or three 
 sets with her. Even though men and boys considered him the best 
 clog-dancer there, Betsy expressed the opinion of the Pigeon Creek 
 girls: "Abe was big and awkward and couldn't dance much." How- 
 ever, he could read; he borrowed her father's copy of Dr. Hole's 
 Practical Discourses on the Gospels. 
 
130 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 "Abe didn't try to go with me until I was eighteen," Betsy recalled. 
 It happened right after church one Sunday morning. "Betsy, can I 
 see you home?" Abe asked. Betsy hesitated a moment: "If you 
 want to." She and Abe walked along a ridge through the woods to 
 her house. He stayed for dinner, sat around all afternoon and late 
 into the evening, talking and joking. "After that Abe came to see 
 me several times," said Betsy. 8 John Tuley remembered: "Abe used 
 to come to spark my sister. Sometimes his stepbrother, John 
 Johnston, came with him." 9 
 
 Betsy's family and even her neighbors started to tease her about 
 Lincoln. They laughed about his coatsleeves and pant-legs being too 
 short for him. Betsy didn't mind. She didn't mind anything until 
 nattily dressed Benjamin Hesson showed up. Benny had moved in 
 from Kentucky. The newcomer's interest in Betsy alarmed Abe. He 
 knew how to knock a bully cold but he didn't know how to halt 
 Benny's advances toward Betsy. Scared of losing her, Abe began 
 to hint strongly that he was very fond of her. "I could tell by his 
 chat that he wanted to marry me," said Betsy. Abe handled his chats 
 so skillfully that it looked as if he had slowed down Benny's progress 
 and might even halt it entirely. Jauntily, he went about the neighbor- 
 hood, sure of winning. Then hard luck struck. "Abe got too much 
 applejack," explained Betsy. "I never heard of him doing it again but 
 father was very strict about such things." 10 So Betsy and Benny 
 were married. And that ended Lincoln's interest in Indiana girls. 
 
Chapter Eleven 
 SLAVERY 
 
 At almost the very moment seven year old Abe Lincoln was seeing 
 his Indiana home on Pigeon Creek for the first time, either by coin- 
 cidence or by the designs of Providence, a Negro slave named Frisby 
 was escaping from an Ohio River boat at the mouth of that same 
 creek. Frisby was being taken to New Orleans by his owners, who 
 described him as "stout made, very large eyes, and a carpenter by 
 trade." 1 While Abe may have had no personal contact with this 
 runaway slave, the Negro's escape was the subject of discussions 
 on both sides of the Ohio. Tom Lincoln probably pointed out to 
 Abe that Frisby, in escaping into Indiana, had rightfully sought re- 
 fuge in a free state. Tom may have reminded Abe that the Lincolns 
 had left Kentucky partly to get away from slave soil. 
 
 In 1816 Indiana had entered the Union as a free state, but in 1817 
 it looked as if it would become the testing ground for strength 
 between the anti-slavery and pro-slavery forces. Like many 
 of their neighbors, the Lincolns had expected to find strict adherence 
 to the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and the State Constitution, both 
 of which forbade slavery in Indiana. But soon they were aware 
 that slave-holders on both sides of the Ohio River were conniving 
 for legalized slavery in the new state. They heard it argued that the 
 Northwest Ordinance was only an act of the old Congress, uncon- 
 stitutional because it deprived owners of their slave property when 
 those slaves were moved into the territory north of the Ohio; and 
 that the Act of 1807, passed in defiance of that Ordinance by the 
 Indiana Territorial Legislature, made it "lawful for any person the 
 owner or possessor of any negroes or mulattoes of and above the age of 
 fifteen years to bring said negroes or mulattoes into this territory."* 
 
 Born in an all-slavery atmosphere, Lincoln was growing up in a 
 border country torn apart by the issue of slavery. Here his neighbors 
 spied on one another to discover who was harboring fugitives. Pro- 
 slavery neighbors began catching runaway Negroes, holding them in 
 jails, chaining them in hogpens, advertising their capture. Those who 
 engaged in this cruel but lucrative business were locally called "nigger- 
 ketchers." 
 
 131 
 
132 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 The conflict between slavery and free soil touched close to the 
 Lincolns when the "nigger-ketchers" found Yellow Joel, a mulatto 
 who, like Frisby, had escaped from his owner and hidden in the 
 Pigeon Creek neighborhood. Since the Federal Fugitive Slave Law 
 made Yellow Joel the property of his Natchez, Mississippi, master, 
 local "ketchers" clapped him in the Perry County jail and held him 
 for a fat reward. 3 Next they got wind of a slave from Tennessee 
 hiding in an anti-slavery sympathizer's home near the jail. This 
 Negro had a gun and when the Sheriff of Perry County, assisted by 
 Joshua Wright, attempted to capture him, the Negro shot Wright in 
 the belly. 4 
 
 Slave-hunters coming into Lincoln's neighborhood looking for fugi- 
 tives were called "patter-rollers." These men scoured the Indiana 
 country-side trying to locate runaways. When they teamed up with 
 tricky "ketchers" it was well nigh impossible for any fugitive slave to 
 avoid being captured and returned to his owner. 
 
 One of Lincoln's close neighbors, James Cooper, paid taxes on 102 
 acres of land and "1 black," a legally recognized slave. 5 How did 
 Cooper and others like him, get around the state law? One common 
 method was to persuade or threaten Negro boys and girls of sixteen 
 to sign contracts in court to serve an employer and his assignees 
 for a term of ninety years. Negroes unable to write their names made 
 marks. If these boys or girls ran away and were caught they were 
 returned to their employers who were obliged to pay cash rewards to 
 the "ketchers." From Troy, Indiana, right through Lincoln's neigh- 
 borhood to Vincennes on the Wabash, there were in 1820 about 190 
 Negroes toiling in actual bondage. 6 Even Judge Henry Vanderburgh 
 of the Territorial Supreme Court held slaves. And when the Judge 
 died some time after Indiana had become a state, his Negro woman 
 and child were auctioned off to the highest bidder at Esquire Justice 
 Peter Jones' tavern door in Vincennes. 7 
 
 Like Vanderburgh, Judge Jones, father of Abraham Lincoln's friend 
 and benefactor, William Jones of Gentryville, owned slaves. In 
 1819, Jones' Negro Jonathan was appraised at $400, Jack at $300, 
 Lette at $300, Ebby at $250, Jesse at $100, Maria at $100 and Maria's 
 husband, Phillip, at $25 . 8 
 
 The Lincolns and others like them must have wondered how judges 
 could hold slaves on Indiana's free soil. Why didn't federal agents do 
 something to stop it? Some social reformers did try. But slave- 
 holders blocked their efforts by the farcial procedure called "setting 
 foot on slave soil." Hoosier slave-holders bull-tongued loads of Ken- 
 
SLAVERY 133 
 
 tucky red clay to their Indiana homes and dumped it into boxes ten 
 feet long, six feet wide and one foot high. When federal agents asked 
 questions concerning the presence of Negroes, the slave-owner merely 
 cracked his blacksnake whip and the Negroes scurried to the boxes. 
 As long as they stood on that "slave soil" no one dared to touch them. 
 So slavery continued. 
 
 Slave dealer W. Lagow of Vincennes advertised a Negro woman 
 and boy for sale or hire. Thomas E. DuBois placed on sale "a likely 
 Negro woman." 9 And all the time the story of the bitter quarrel 
 between Judge Vanderburgh and Judge Turner at Vincennes in 1794 
 was kept alive by the pro-slavery people. Two of Vanderburgh's 
 slaves, a Negro man and his wife, applied to Turner's court for eman- 
 cipation by a writ of habeas corpus. Before the case came to trial the 
 Negroes were kidnapped and carried away. Turner had the kidnap- 
 pers arrested. He declared that the slaves were "free by the Con- 
 stitution of the Territory," meaning the Ordinance of 1787. Com- 
 plaints were made at once to Governor St. Clair, who opposed Turner's 
 views. 10 St. Clair wrote Turner: "The declaration in our Constitution 
 that there shall be no slavery nor involuntary servitude in the [North- 
 west] Territory applies to those slaves who may have been imported 
 since the establishment of that Constitution. So far as it respects the 
 past, it can have no operation, and must be construed to intend that, 
 from and after the publication of said Constitution, slaves imported 
 into the Territory should immediately become free." u 
 
 The old inhabitants, especially the French settlers, held slaves and 
 had seen themselves in danger of losing their property under strict 
 adherence to the Ordinance. But St. Clair's ruling eased the tension 
 and the older families went on holding slaves just as they had done 
 before the Ordinance was passed." 
 
 The non-slavery-holding class resented slavery in Indiana. So 
 bitter continued the feeling over slavery that in 1819 Abe Lincoln's 
 neighbor, Ratcliff Boon, ran for Lieutenant Governor on Governor 
 Jonathan Jennings' platform of "No slavery in Indiana" and was 
 elected. But while the Jennings-Boon election muted the clamor for 
 legalized slavery in the Hoosier State, the loathsome business of 
 stealing free Negroes went steadily on. Steve Hardin, a free Negro, 
 living a little way northwest of Lincoln's cabin, was stolen. With the 
 help of Indiana "nigger-ketchers," a Kentucky "patter-roller" named 
 J. Teal trailed Hardin to where he was visiting a farmer south of Vin- 
 cennes. Word came back, "They've toted Stevey down to New 
 Orleans and sold him." 1S 
 
134 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 A few miles west of Abe Lincoln's home, towards Princeton, two 
 free Negroes lived in a cabin. "Ketchers" broke into the cabin, hand- 
 cuffed the freedmen, took them to Kentucky and turned them over to 
 "patter-rollers," who took them on down south and sold them into 
 New Orleans slavery. 14 John Hint on of Petersburg, northwest of 
 Lincoln's home, caught a free, eighteen year old mulatto boy and sold 
 him to Thomas Terrel of Clarksville, Tennessee. Either the boy ran 
 away or was re-stolen, for Terrel advertised for him in Vincennes' 
 Western Sun, offering a big reward. 15 Stealing free Negroes and selling 
 them into slavery aroused abolitionists and emancipating preachers all 
 the way from Lincoln's Buck Horn Valley community to the Wa- 
 bash River. 
 
 No one whom Abraham heard speak was more determined to 
 destroy the traffic in human beings than the Reverend Adam Shoe- 
 maker, a feet-washing Baptist preacher. Abe Lincoln saw the Reverend 
 Shoemaker stand in the wild-cherry pulpit Thomas Lincoln had built 
 and pound the Bible while he exhorted the Pigeon Creekers to stamp 
 out slavery in Indiana. Since 1806 the battle cry of his Baptist 
 brothers and sisters had been "Equal rights for all men: Emancipa- 
 tion! Let every man work for a living!" Adam Shoemaker carried 
 that cry up and down the frontier. 
 
 Shoemaker earned the title of The Emancipation Preacher because 
 he "exposed the horrors of slavery and awoke the people from their 
 stupor." 16 Abe heard him lambast both the Northern slave-traders 
 and the Southern slave-breeders. The minister denounced such 
 hypocrites as the New England ship owner who, after his vessel had 
 disposed of its human cargo in Southern markets, piously gave thanks 
 on the following Sabbath that "an over-ruling Providence had been 
 pleased to bring to this land of freedom another cargo of benighted 
 heathen to enjoy the blessing of a Gospel dispensation." 17 Shoemaker 
 denounced the contention of Southern planters that it was morally 
 all right to breed Negroes and sell their offspring as you would breed 
 and sell hogs and cattle. According to the Reverend's lights, slave- 
 traders, slave-breeders, slave-owners, man-stealers were all the hench- 
 men of the devil, for they violated God's commandments by trafficking 
 in human souls. Preacher Shoemaker's sermons, delivered from 1822 
 to 1827, were building up in Abe Lincoln's impressionable mind an 
 abiding hatred for human slavery. 18 
 
 Abe had passed his fourteenth birthday only a few weeks before 
 Thomas Clay, a Davies County, Kentucky, slave-holder, created a 
 furor in the Pocket Country by deliberately bringing his slaves across 
 
SLAVERY 135 
 
 the Ohio River into Indiana. Clay led his slaves directly to the 
 Spencer County courthouse at Rockport and, on April 18, 1823, eman- 
 cipated them. With this act Thomas Clay familiarized Abraham 
 Lincoln with emancipation and added more bitterness to the slavery 
 question raging in Southern Indiana. 
 
 Thomas Clay's recorded deed of manumission, on file in the court- 
 house at Rockport, reads: "I have and do hereby Emancipate 
 Liberate and Set Free the negro Slaves herein named to wit Old 
 Samuel and his wife Biddy. Betty Rachel and her children Henry and 
 Juliette the last two being under age I reserve to myself or agent the 
 management of them until the first day of June in the year 1827 when 
 they will be of lawful age to act for themselves (as well as the others 
 herein named) as free born people of colour and the clerk is required 
 to give them a certificate of their freedom on presentment." M 
 
 With slave-holders beginning to cross the Ohio to emancipate their 
 slaves, while "nigger-ketchers" and "patter-rollers" plied their man- 
 stealing trade in the Indiana border country, it was only natural 
 that the slavery issue should be intensified during the 1824 Presi- 
 dential campaign, absorbing the attention of Lincoln and his fellow 
 Pigeon Creekers. 
 
 Another Clay added interest to this bitter issue. Henry Clay, 
 Speaker of the House of Representatives, who was admiringly called 
 by Western backwoodsmen the "Mill Boy of the Slashes," was one of 
 the four Presidential candidates. Abe Lincoln's interest in Clay 
 was intense at this time. "Anything about Henry Clay was eagerly 
 read by Abe," according to William Jones. 20 It was in the Jones' store 
 at Gentry ville that the fifteen year old Lincoln read in the July 19, 
 1824, Vincennes Western Sun what the elder Gentrys, Grigsbys, and 
 Lincolns had long known: that during the Kentucky Constitutional 
 Convention of 1793, Henry Clay had vigorously tried "to have a 
 clause inserted for the gradual abolition of slavery." The Western Sun 
 went on to say that in the critical moment only four years ago "when 
 the north and south had almost assumed the armour and attitude of 
 defiance (over the Missouri question) ; when the slave-holding and 
 non-slave-holding states arrayed in bitter enmity and hostile phalanx 
 against each other; when a dissolution of the Union appeared almost 
 inevitable" Clay began "marking out the course of reconciliation 
 allaying the heart burnings and sectional feelings of the belligerent 
 parties" which led those "jarring interests ... to a happy and ami- 
 cable adjustment." 
 
 From stump speakers, political discussions in Jones' store and in 
 
136 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 the Lincoln, Gentry, and Grigsby homes, Abe and his friends Joe 
 and Nattie acquired a good understanding of Clay's compromise of 
 1820, which let Missouri enter the Union a slave state and Maine 
 enter free, thus balancing a slave state against a free state. Henry 
 Clay's having "declaimed in favour of gradual emancipation," as 
 reported by the Western Sun, weakened his political standing with pro- 
 slavery sympathizers such as the Gentrys while it strengthened him 
 with the Lincolns and Grigsby s. 21 "Mr. Clay has without fee or 
 reward acted as counsel for a great number of slaves when suing for 
 their freedom," declared the Sun. Clay's fight against slavery in- 
 creased Lincoln's admiration for him: "I can express all my views on 
 the slavery question by quotations from Henry Clay." a 
 
 About this time Abe obtained one of the most widely discussed 
 slavery books ever circulated in Indiana: Captain James Riley's 
 Authentic Narrative. 23 A trader and master of the American brig, 
 Commerce, Riley was shipwrecked on the west coast of Africa in 
 August, 1815. After his escape from cannibalistic natives he fell into 
 the hands of Arabs, who enslaved him. Two old women stripped him 
 and forced him and his shipmates to walk naked and drive camels 
 into the blazing Sahara Desert. Captain Riley wrote that a Negro 
 slave "would poke our sore flesh with a sharp stick to show the Arabs 
 what miserable beings we were." When one of Riley's shipmates 
 protested, Riley advised to "Let the Negro laugh if he can take 
 pleasure in it. He is merely a poor slave himself, and is only trying to 
 gain favour of his masters and mistresses." 
 
 Put up for sale in a slave market, Riley related, buyers "found 
 fault with my shins which had been a long time sore." Finally, Sidi 
 Hamet bought the captain for two blankets and a bundle of ostrich 
 feathers; subsequently he threatened to cut Riley's throat unless an 
 American at Swearah paid ransom money. Riley concluded his Narra- 
 tive: "I have learned to look with compassion on my enslaved and 
 oppressed fellow-creatures. I will exert all my remaining faculties in 
 endeavours to redeem the enslaved and to shiver the road of oppres- 
 sion." He appealed to the United States Government to devise a 
 plan of gradual emancipation which would "wither and extirpate the 
 accursed tree of slavery." 
 
 And even as young Lincoln read about the terrors of Arabian slavery, 
 "patter-rollers" again invaded Indiana, looking for an attractive 
 colored girl. Local "nigger-ketchers" knew exactly where to fill their 
 order. Mathias Mount, living only a few miles from Lincoln's home, 
 had a free Negro girl working for his family. Not aware that "patter- 
 
SLAVERY 137 
 
 rollers" were around, the Mounts sent the girl on an errand to a 
 neighbor's house. She never returned. 24 The next victims were an 
 aged couple living west of the Lincolns. The old man worked for the 
 Sawyer family and his wife worked for the Montgomery s. On his 
 way to mill, the old Negro was waylaid by "ketchers," taken to 
 Natchez, Mississippi, and sold back into bondage. 25 
 
 Such stealing and selling of free Negroes was instilling in the adoles- 
 cent Lincoln an intense hatred for slavery. 26 And while he gaily 
 learned clog-dancing from Negro slaves down at Troy, it must have 
 occurred to him that some of the blacks belonged to the river town's 
 leading citizen and taxpayer, James McDaniel, a slave-holder who 
 openly operated on Indiana's free soil. 27 
 
 As July 4, 1826, approached a cry went up everywhere for fitting 
 celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence. In William Wood's copy of The Telescope, Lincoln read Editor 
 Beach's attack on slavery: "If we make no efforts on this day of our 
 celebrations to emancipate the slave population and abolish the foreign 
 and domestic slave trade, shame must cover us. Shall a slave trade 
 of 250,000 annually continue which had but 80,000 when prohibited?" M 
 Three weeks later, Editor Beach quoted a British subject, Mr. 
 O'Connel: "I have come now to the boasted land of freedom. You 
 threw off the allegiance you owed us because you thought we were 
 oppressing you with the Stamp Act. You boasted your deliverance 
 from slavery. On what principle do you now continue your fellow- 
 men in bondage, and render that bondage even more galling by 
 ringing in the ears of the sufferers from your tyranny what you have 
 suffered for freedom?" 
 
 In the August 26 issue of The Telescope Abe read about a freeborn 
 Negro of New York being picked up in Washington, D.C., and thrown 
 in jail. If his owners did not call for him soon he would be sold for 
 jail fees. "He has no owners but God!" cried Editor Beach. "And 
 yet 'We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created 
 equal.' The inconsistency is too glaring — the blot upon our escutcheon 
 too deep — to leave any patience. And yet we talk of European 
 tyranny and despotism." 
 
 From travelers coming into Gentryville Abe got the news that Miss 
 Frances Wright, using Robert Owen's Utopian Socialistic Colony at 
 New Harmony for her headquarters, was working out a self-emanci- 
 pation plan. Miss Wright's scheme called for a slave to work out his 
 freedom through credit for his labor, less the cost of his food, clothing, 
 and shelter. With $10,000 General Lafayette had advanced her, 
 
138 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 Fanny Wright had bought a 2,000 acre place on the Wolf River near 
 Memphis, Tennessee, and named it Nashoba. 29 George Flower, 
 leader of the English settlement at Albion, Illinois, assisted her. 
 From one end of Buck Horn Valley to the other, Abe Lincoln heard 
 his neighbors jubilantly praise or angrily denounce Fanny Wright's 
 efforts to free slaves and pay their owners. 
 
 Perhaps at no time between the Missouri Compromise and the 
 outbreak of the Civil War, did Abe Lincoln hear a greater tumult 
 over the slavery issue than in 1827 and 1828. In the fall of 1826, about 
 the time he and Jefferson Ray flatboated down the Ohio and Missis- 
 sippi Rivers, peddling their cargoes to planters along the Tennessee 
 and Arkansas shores, Mexico suddenly freed all slaves in Texas. 
 According to the Little Rock Arkansas Gazette, October 10, 1826, 
 slave-holders had emigrated to Texas "under an assurance, we are in- 
 formed, from local authorities of Texas, that they could hold their 
 slaves." Mexico's action, said the Gazette, has "produced the greatest 
 of consternation among slave holders" and they are "hurrying off 
 their slaves in great numbers into Louisiana and Arkansas." 
 
 After settling with Ray, Lincoln got a job cutting firewood on Sheriff 
 William D. (Wappanocca) Ferguson's plantation in Crittenden Coun- 
 ty, Arkansas Territory. There he observed at close range a Southern 
 planter who treated his slaves with consideration. There, also, while 
 cutting tupelo gum alongside Negro slaves, he was right across the 
 Mississippi and a little way above the mouth of Wolf River where 
 Miss Frances Wright's self-emancipation experiment at Nashoba was 
 going full tilt. It can only be surmised that the Ferguson slaves 
 told Lincoln what they knew about the experiment and Lincoln told 
 them what he had heard at Gentryville and elsewhere in the Indiana 
 Pocket Country about Miss Wright's association with the Owen New 
 Harmony movement. Surely here Lincoln was seeing a different side 
 of the slavery issue. This must have brought more forcefully to his 
 attention the idea that slaves were property; that freeing them without 
 compensation to their owners was not consistent with justice or 
 property rights under the Constitution. 
 
 On his return home Abe Lincoln found many of his fellow Pigeon 
 Creekers as firm as ever in their belief that Congress had authority to 
 abolish slavery in the District of Columbia and should do so at once. 
 In the March 10, 1827, copy of The Telescope, Lincoln read Editor 
 Beach's obvious attempt to arouse widespread interest in the idea: 
 "Hail Columbia! Happy Land! A Regular Market for Men unblush- 
 ingly advertized within sight of the capital of this land of liberty. 
 
SLAVERY 139 
 
 And this is but one of the many such establishments under the very 
 eyes of Congress. What say you, Americans?" 
 
 As if to answer Editor Beach, some slaves banded together and 
 began plundering Southern plantations. Pro-slavery sympathizers in 
 both North and South, fearing a general uprising, armed themselves 
 and went out to put down the rebellion. Lincoln read in The Tele- 
 scope: "A nest of runaway negroes was discovered in the fork of the 
 Alabama and Tombeck rivers. The negroes were attacked and after a 
 severe action were conquered. Three negroes were shot, viz.: Bust, 
 Hector, and Hal. Several were taken prisoners and others escaped 
 They had two cabins and were about to build a fort. They fought 
 desperately." M 
 
 To the exasperation of slave-holders and slave-traders, New York 
 freed her slaves. In the Vincennes Western Sun, August 4, 1827, 
 Lincoln read, "On July 4th instant Slavery ceased in the state of New 
 York. The event was celebrated on the 5th by the colored population 
 of the city in a very orderly manner. It is said that more than three 
 thousand joined in the procession." By freeing her slaves, New York 
 had condemned the slave system and offended Southern planters who 
 needed more slave labor in order to work their vast plantations. The 
 planters retaliated by calling for free trade with Great Britain, their 
 best market for cotton, hemp, and tobacco. "A tax on imports was in 
 incidence a tax on exports," they argued. 81 
 
 In spite of increased activity by Northern slave-runners, Lincoln and 
 his anti-slavery neighbors learned from news and rumors reaching 
 Gentryville that the demand for slaves far exceeded the supply. To 
 meet that demand the more Northerly slave-holders bought virile 
 Negro men and fecund women and bred them like cattle. One breeder 
 advertised in the Western Sun a Negro woman he owned who "is in 
 her 42nd year and has had 41 children, and at this time is pregnant 
 with her 42nd child and possibly with her 43rd as she has frequently 
 had doublets." 82 The courts held that the breeders who owned the 
 mothers also owned the offspring "just like that of other animals." M 
 
 Standing on the north bank of the Ohio River, Abe Lincoln often 
 watched boats going down stream loaded with Negro field hands, house 
 servants, and wornout breeders. He saw them sitting chained together; 
 saw them rocking back and forth in misery; heard them singing, 
 praying, weeping. Such scenes must have disturbed him deeply. In 
 his ears dinned the propaganda for and against the slavery system. 
 Many slave-holders south of the Mason-Dixon Line said they were 
 not responsible for the introduction of the institution into America. 
 
140 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 They pointed out they were not even engaged in the profitable busi- 
 ness of running in slaves from Africa. They had left that job to 
 the Northerners. 
 
 Some argued that "Slavery, as it exists in the United States, is the 
 Providentially-arranged means whereby Africa is to be lifted from her 
 deep degradation to a state of civil and religious liberty." M They 
 contended that according to the Bible slavery was established "as a 
 punishment of sin upon Ham's posterity." They cited Genesis IX, 
 22-27. They claimed that the natives in Africa had no temples, no 
 priests, no legends, no history, no sacred grove; "all is one unbroken 
 night of palpable darkness; no other people ever departed so far 
 from God. Satan has employed his sagacity with fatal success in 
 erasing every vestige of religious impressions from their minds." 
 They further argued that "The African was not reduced to slavery 
 by being brought to the United States." He was already "a slave in 
 his own country — subject to much more severe bondage there than 
 it is possible for him ever to experience here" " 
 
 Others declared: "Slavery is an evil; but under the wise direction of 
 God it will become a blessing to the Negroes. The whites who have 
 enslaved them will make them compensation for the sufferings through 
 the gift of Christianity, the instructing them in agriculture and handi- 
 craft arts . . . thus they may be first instructed, and then gradually 
 emancipated, and colonized in Africa . . . the heathen nations being 
 finally Christianized and civilized through the Christianized and 
 emancipated slaves of America." M 
 
 In addition to hearing Scriptural arguments favoring slavery, Abe 
 saw favorable living conditions on the Pate and Ferguson plantations. 
 There were no indications of cruelty at either place. Following his 
 ferryman's trial in Squire Samuel Pate's Kentucky magistrate court, 
 Abe crossed the Ohio River a number of times and visited the court. 
 Pate held fifty-three slaves. Many of the men were clog-dancers, 
 preachers. The women were excellent singers. From tobacco barns on 
 the high ground to fields near the river the Negroes sang as they 
 worked. At noon when Aunt Sarah, the head cook, blew on the big 
 conch shell the slaves came laughing and joking. Harrison Pate, 
 the Squire's body servant, showed genuine affection for his master. 87 
 
 On the Pate plantation, as on others south of the Mason-Dixon 
 Line, there were aged Negroes who had to be fed, clothed, sheltered, 
 doctored. Few of them were able to do anything but shell a bit of corn 
 or other light work. Some spent their last days resting in the sun. 
 Children had to be taken care of until old enough to carry water to 
 
SLAVERY 141 
 
 field hands or to bring up the cows at milking time. Yet old and 
 young were treated the same as able bodied slaves. One planter, in 
 1827, expressed the feelings of many of his fellow-planters: "We are 
 the slaves; not the blacks. They hang about us and grow up in- 
 creasing and multiplying all our curses." Declared Bishop James O. 
 Andrew: "I am a slave-holder for conscience sake. How am I to 
 free them? Some of them are too old to work and are an expense to 
 me. Some are little children. Where shall I send them? Many 
 of them would not go. I believe that the providence of God has 
 thrown these creatures into my hands and holds me responsible for 
 their treatment." 38 
 
 Abe heard, too, that slave-holders suffered economically when slaves 
 died or were stolen. To pick up easy money Southern men kidnapped 
 their neighbors slaves, ran them into an adjoining slave state and sold 
 them. Handsome Negro sailors enticed slave girls on board vessels 
 and took them up North. Abolitionists helped Negroes flee from 
 plantations. To an owner the disappearance of a slave meant the 
 loss of property. Since the slaves who disappeared usually were in 
 their prime, the owner felt their loss very keenly; in many cases he had 
 raised the slaves from infancy. Hearing these sides of the slavery 
 problem, Abe was becoming convinced that slave-holders should be 
 paid for their slaves before being required to free them. 
 
 Meanwhile in Lincoln's Indiana pocket country leaders of the 
 American Colonization Society increased their efforts to free slaves 
 in proportion to the efforts of Southern breeders and Northern 
 importers to supply the heavy demand for slave labor. Replying to 
 enemies of colonization, Henry Clay, a vice president of the Society, 
 explained that the establishment of a colony on the coast of Africa was 
 for American slaves already free or those whose freedom was to be 
 purchased. The Charleston, South Carolina, Mercury, spokesman for 
 the pro-slavery forces, countered with: "How dare the people of 
 this society, the men of Ohio and the Wabash, presume to discuss a 
 subject of which they know nothing, when their discussion can pro- 
 duce no other fruit than the bitter apple of disunion." 39 
 
 The Telescope, September 15, 1827, lashed back with a quotation 
 from the Genius of Universal Emancipation. "Man has no property in 
 man," Abe read. "Neither has one generation a property in the 
 generations that follow." To this the Mercury responded by accusing 
 the Colonization Society of raising false hopes in the slaves "that 
 Congress may adopt some measure to mitigate their condition. It will 
 be a declaration of war and must be treated and resisted as such. 
 
142 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 There must be no discussion. Discussion will bring on us one and all 
 complete ruin if we are weak enough not to check it at the outset, and 
 at every hazard, aye, at the hazard of dissolving the union!" 
 
 Listening to American Colonization Society leaders, and to others 
 who feared a break-up of the Union over slavery, added no comfort 
 to teen-age Lincoln's disturbed feelings. "I used to wander out in 
 the woods all by myself," he told Henry C. Whitney. "I knew I was 
 not alone just as well as I know that you are here now. Still I could 
 see nothing and no one. But I heard voices. Once I heard a voice 
 right at my elbow — heard it distinctly and plainly. I turned around, 
 expecting to see someone. No one was there. But the voice was 
 there." 40 Whitney: "What did it say?" Lincoln did not reply. 
 Gloom and a look of pain settled on his lean face. In his family 
 Bible was Ostervald's footnote to Exodus III: "Reflection upon this 
 chapter regards the manner of God's calling Moses and revealing His 
 design to make him the deliverer of his people Israel." Did Abraham 
 Lincoln, alone in the silent Indiana forest, believe he had heard a 
 voice calling him even as Moses had heard God's voice in the burning 
 bush on the mountainside? 
 
 By the middle of February, 1828, every crossroads and trail-fork in 
 Lincoln's border country sizzled over the justice or injustice of Con- 
 gress' refusal to pay a Louisiana slave-holder for a Negro who had been 
 wounded in the military service of the United States. During the 
 Battle of New Orleans one of Marigny D'Auterive's slaves, a cart and 
 a horse were pressed into service under General Jackson. The cart 
 was wrecked, the horse killed, and the slave wounded in an eye and an 
 arm. Congress paid D'Auterive for the cart and horse, but would not 
 pay a penny for the disabled Negro. 
 
 The Committee on Claims reported to the House "that the United 
 States is not bound in any case to pay for slaves injured or lost because 
 they are not considered property." Representative Livingston of 
 Louisiana leaped to his feet and shouted, "Slaves not property! What 
 are they then? If they are not property the whole foundation on 
 which the Constitution of this Union rests is shaken!" To this 
 Representative Clark of New York retorted, "The honorable gentle- 
 man from Louisiana seems to think that to deny the right of compen- 
 sation in this case would be to sap the foundations of the Constitution 
 and dissolve the Union!" 
 
 Representative Drayton of South Carolina got the floor. "Much 
 as we value this Union," he warned solemnly, "we would rather see 
 it dissolved than yield to such violations of our rights. We would 
 
SLAVERY 143 
 
 rather see our cities in flames, our plains drenched in blood — rather 
 endure all the calamities of civil war, than parley for an instant upon 
 the right of any power other than our own to interfere with the regula- 
 tion of our slaves." 41 
 
 Amid alarming threats of civil war and dissolving the Union the 
 country moved into the tempestuous Jackson-Adams campaign of 
 1828 just as Lincoln reached his nineteenth birthday. Less than two 
 months after Jackson was elected President of the United States, 
 Allen Gentry and Abe Lincoln shoved off on their flatboat from Rock- 
 port, Indiana, headed for New Orleans. It was late January, 1829, when 
 Captain Gentry and Bowhand Lincoln reached the Louisiana sugar 
 coast. Plowing had begun for the new planting. From the fields came 
 the slave-drivers' singsong to their plowgangs: "Put them plows in 
 the ground and drive them mules!" Slaves put out for breaking 
 were being flogged by professional breakers. Women with nursing 
 children were in the suckers gang up by the cane mills. Other women 
 hoed in the fields. 
 
 Gentry and Lincoln snubbed their boat into the soft Mississippi 
 River bank and began peddling the cargo to planters. Foremen 
 drove their slaves on board. After picking up their masters' pur- 
 chases, the slaves coonjined down the gangplank to the crack of 
 drivers' whips, swaying to the rhythm of jungle songs. As Abe Lin- 
 coln watched them sway away to the warehouses, he fully compre- 
 hended at last his Scotch Pigeon Creek neighbors' quotation from 
 Robert Burns: 
 
 "Maris inhumanity to man 
 
 "Makes countless thousands mourn. 9 ' 
 
 Six miles below Baton Rouge where long, narrow plantations 
 radiated back from the curving Mississippi like spokes in a wheel, 
 Gentry and Lincoln anchored their flatboat for the night at Madam 
 Dunchene's plantation. Hardly had they dropped off to sleep when 
 Lincoln was aroused by a suspicious noise on the river bank. He 
 sat up and, Hoosier fashion, called out, "Who's here?" Receiving no 
 reply, he jumped to his feet and through the partial darkness saw 
 seven Negroes coming at him. Gentry yelled, "Get the guns! Shoot 
 em! 
 
 Abe and Allen suspected that the Negroes were runaway slaves 
 turned bandits. No telling how many more would swarm in from 
 the swamps and bayous. They might be killers from the runaway 
 slave nest armed pro-slavery people had broken up eighteen months 
 
144 
 
 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 A flatboat on the Wabash River. 
 
 before at the fork of the Alabama and Tombeck rivers. Again Gentry 
 yelled, "Shoot 'em!" Lincoln grabbed a handspike and knocked one 
 big Negro into the river. Three others leaped on board. Gentry 
 rushed in, swinging a club. More Negroes boarded the boat. One 
 husky black hit Abe on the head with a heavy stick of timber. Blood 
 oozed from above his right eye. Luckily, the club was so long it 
 reached beyond Lincoln and its end struck the deck, easing the blow. 
 Up and down the deck, slippery with blood, whites and blacks 
 fought savagely. At last Gentry and Lincoln drove the bandits off 
 the boat, cut cable and left.* 2 
 
 After a few days the men sold their cargo and caught a cotton boat 
 for New Orleans.* 3 Such boats had low, broad decks for carrying baled 
 cotton. They drew very little water and so were able to put into 
 shallow tributaries and bayous. Sometimes their decks were piled 
 with cotton bales almost to the tops of the smokestacks. And from 
 high on the bales, Abe Lincoln soon was seeing for the first time the 
 great Southern metropolis, the city of New Orleans. Its half-moon 
 shaped harbor was matted with ships' masts. Riding at anchor, 
 according to New Orleans newspapers for February 14 to 20, 1829, 
 were 11 sloops, 18 schooners, 66 brigs, and 58 full rigged ships. All 
 were being made ready to sail for the great ports of the world. Two 
 weeks before Lincoln left Rockport, the Vincennes Western Sun 
 described this Louisiana seaport as a city of "airy mansions of wealthy 
 planters surrounded with orange, banana, lime and fig trees." 
 
 Abraham Lincoln reached his twentieth birthday just about the 
 time his boat docked at New Orleans. Cotton boats regularly tied 
 up at the open space at Esplanade Avenue and the levee. He and 
 Gentry walked down the gangplank and sauntered up the levee to 
 
SLAVERY 145 
 
 a crowd around a raised platform where Negroes, wearing hipclouts, 
 stood. Due to his height Lincoln could see over the crowd and 
 what he saw angered him. For probably the first time in his life he 
 was witnessing the scene he had heard discussed so often — people 
 selling people. He doubled his fists tightly; his knuckles went white. 
 He watched men wearing big white hats and long black coats buy 
 field hands and house servants. Black and ugly, such Negroes sold 
 for $500 to $800 dollars each. The sale of "fancy girls" began. Bids 
 started at $1500 or almost twice the top sale price for field hands. 
 Bidding continued until some of the girls were knocked off at $2500 
 apiece. Unable to stand it any longer, Lincoln muttered to Gentry: 
 "Allen, that's a disgrace! If I ever get a lick at that thing I'll hit it 
 hard." Gentry: "We'd better get out of here, Abe."* 4 
 
 The two Hoosiers left the slave market and entered the Vieux Carre, 
 gay section of New Orleans. On all sides they heard Negroes speaking 
 French, whalemen swearing in Kanaka, pirates grunting words with 
 double meanings. They saw river bullies fighting underworld ruffians 
 for the favors of women. Wealthy Creole ladies jolted by in horse- 
 drawn, silver-mounted barouches. People chatted on balconies of 
 lacy ironwork. Strumpets flung open window shutters and invited 
 passing men to drop in for a spell. Abe and Allen kept right on 
 moseying along. 
 
 Beyond Royal and Bourbon Streets and about halfway to Dauphine, 
 on the downtown side of Saint Ann Street, stood a story-and-a-half 
 brick home, plastered on the outside. Here, it is believed, Lincoln and 
 Gentry rented a room. From its dormer windows one could see the 
 triple spires of Saint Louis Cathedral.* 6 
 
 For hours the two flatboatmen went sight-seeing. Because part of 
 the city was almost as low as the riverbed, the only natural drainage 
 was away from the river and towards the swamps and Lake Pontchar- 
 train; thus water stood in the streets, garbage rotted in the gutters, and 
 cesspools sent up stifling odors. Footpads added to the city's troubles 
 by lurking in dark corners, dashing out and stabbing law-abiding 
 people. The situation was so bad the Louisiana Courier demanded, 
 "What is the city guard about? Do they merely receive the money 
 of the citizens to vex them, and to run with drawn swords into the 
 private yards in pursuit of negro boys for having fired a few squibs?" ** 
 
 There were other people who vexed citizens, too. They were eman- 
 cipated slaves. Abe and Allen watched them strut along. Freed by 
 their white masters, many of these Negroes had acquired enough 
 money to buy black slaves for themselves. Some even owned plan- 
 
146 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 tations where they cruelly worked their colored fellowmen. Slaves 
 feared and hated them. "Dey is bad masters. If I was sold to a 
 black man I'd drown myself. I would dat. I'd drown myself!" 
 declared one old New Orleans slave.* 7 
 
 At the American Theatre, Lincoln saw billed for February 19th 
 "that justly celebrated tragedian, Mr. Booth. He will make his first 
 appearance in his own peculiar character of Richard III." a The 
 tragedian was the very popular Shakespearean actor, Junius Brutus 
 Booth, father of John Wilkes Booth. Richcvrd HI was one of Lincoln's 
 favorite plays. 
 
 After three days in New Orleans, Lincoln and Gentry boarded a 
 steamboat for Cincinnati and other Ohio River landings. 49 Whenever 
 it pulled into shore at night to wood-up, an iron stove filled with fire 
 was hoisted high on a rod. By the stove's red glow Lincoln watched 
 slaves coonjine loads of cypress and cotton wood onto the steamer's 
 deck. Listening closely he may have heard the low humming of slaves' 
 forbidden song of spiritual freedom: 
 
 "My Mother! how long? Mother, 
 "How long? Mother, how long? 
 "Will sinners suffer here? 
 "We'll soon be free! We'll soon 
 "Be free! We'll soon be free! 
 
 Any slave caught singing that song was given thirty-nine lashes. 60 
 By the middle of March, 1829, Abe Lincoln was home again east of 
 Gentry ville. He showed the big scar over his right eye to John Romine 
 and explained how a Negro bandit had made it with a club. 51 Restless 
 and unable to find steady work on the Ohio River, Abe lit out for 
 Louisville, Kentucky. Two years before he had worked near there on 
 the Portland Canal and had been paid off in silver dollars. 62 This time 
 he got a job in a tobacco warehouse at Fifth and Main Streets where he 
 worked beside Negro slaves, handling heavy casks of tobacco in the 
 rear of the long building. 
 
 At the entrance to the warehouse on the Fifth Street side a pitcher 
 of drinking water stood on a shelf. Accidentally, a white boy knocked 
 the pitcher off and broke it. The noise attracted the owner's son, who 
 stepped to the door, looked in and, without a word, ran to the office, 
 returned with a blacksnake whip and started flogging a nearby slave. 
 Keyed up over the injustice, Lincoln said sharply, "Don't do that! A 
 boy came in here and broke your pitcher." The owner's son growled, 
 "Keep out of this or I'll give you some of it!" Lincoln glared. 
 
SLAVERY 147 
 
 The man lashed Abe Lincoln twice. The sting of that whip detonated 
 in Lincoln's mind an accumulation of explosive resentments against 
 slavery. He knocked the man to the ground and smashed hard fists 
 into his bleeding face. Some white Kentuckians who also hated 
 slavery advised Lincoln to run to the ferry and escape across the 
 Ohio to Indiana. 
 
 Abe saw a mob forming up the street and knew if he ran bareheaded 
 he would easily be detected: "But I don't have a hat!" Someone 
 tapped him on the shoulder. He whirled around and saw a white 
 man grinning at him: "I've got a hat." Abe snatched the hat and, 
 with slave-holder's blood on his hands, fled toward the river. A ferry- 
 man overtook him. "This way!" the man yelled. As they ran along 
 Main Street, Abe looked back and saw the mob gaining on them. His 
 long legs carried him faster than they ever had before. He made it 
 to the river, jumped into a skiff and rowed away from the bank. 
 
 When the mob of men arrived at the shore they threw rocks at him. 
 He dodged as best he could and rowed in close to Punkin Patch Island. 
 Then he shot across the Ohio River and landed on the Indiana side 
 near the head of the falls, not far from where Henry Clay had fought 
 a duel in 1809 with Humphrey Marshall. 
 
 Lincoln darted into the thick woods, heading northwestward. As 
 he pushed his way through briars and tangled grapevines he began 
 to realize the enormity of his act. He had defended a Negro slave. 
 He had struck a Kentucky slave-holder's son. Slavery sympathizers, 
 especially "patter-rollers," would surely cross the river and try to catch 
 him. To throw pursuers off his trail, he avoided well-traveled paths 
 and highways such as the Louisville-Vincennes-St. Louis stagecoach 
 road and the Louisville-Corydon-Boonville road. Abe Lincoln skulked 
 through the Indiana wilderness, living on roots, dry berries, acorns, 
 beechnuts, wild honey — anything he could find that was edible. 
 Finally, he reached Terre Haute on the Wabash. Fox-like he circled 
 back, throwing real and imagined pursuers off his trail, and arrived 
 home. 53 
 
 This probably was one of Lincoln's last contacts with slavery during 
 his formative years in the Indiana border country. And it helped him 
 shape his total impressions of this controversial institution. He had 
 seen slavery and had taken part in discussions concerning it. But like 
 the nation itself, he was no doubt still confused over the problems — 
 and their solutions — relating to man's ownership of man. 
 
 He had grown to hate slavery; he had promised himself that if he 
 ever got a lick at the evil he would hit it hard. Yet he realized that 
 
148 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 there was a wide, deep gulf separating the viewpoints of pro-slavery 
 and anti-slavery people. He could see that for some Americans the 
 slave was not really a human being at all, but, rather, a farm animal 
 similar to a horse or an ox that worked in the fields. He knew that 
 for them the slave, just as the horse or ox, was property which had 
 been bought at great cost or raised at considerable expense to the 
 owner, through several non-productive years. Furthermore, he had 
 seen that with some slave-holders the institution was a comparatively 
 benevolent one, giving to some Negroes greater security and more 
 personal comforts than they might have been able to procure for them- 
 selvs in the open labor market. Still it was interminable bondage. 
 
 Perhaps, and most important of all, Abe Lincoln had seen that 
 many of the people who took violent stands on the controversy were so 
 irrational about the subject that they were on the one side willing to 
 deprive slave-holders of their property without recompense; or, on 
 the other side, to sacrifice even the Union in order to maintain their 
 property rights. 
 
 Lincoln's own strong belief in the necessity of preserving the Union 
 and his adherence to the views of Henry Clay and Frances Wright, un- 
 doubtedly were shaping his personal feelings into a middle-of-the-road 
 stand. He would compensate the "property owners" and preserve the 
 Union; but he would work toward the eventual abolition of slavery. 
 Back of this resolve was the memory of a New Orleans where he had 
 seen mankind sold on the auction block. It remained with him as a 
 goad. "There I saw slavery and slave markets as I had never seen 
 them in Kentucky," he wrote. 54 
 
Chapter Twelve 
 PARTING DAY 
 
 By the late summer of 1829 the Lincoln household experienced a 
 new fear. During the recent hot, steamy days and nights "milksick" 
 and malaria had again invaded Buck Horn Valley. The Lincolns 
 could fight malaria, or buck-ager, as it was locally called, by just 
 hanging on and shaking it out; or by following the suggestions carried 
 by the Vincennes Western Sun: "When the fit is on take a new laid 
 egg in a glass of brandy and go to bed immediately." But the milksick- 
 ness which had killed Nancy Hanks Lincoln, Uncle Tom and Aunt 
 Betsy Sparrow, and scores of others in 1818, was truly a formidable 
 specter. Dennis Hanks probably expressed the family's attitude: "I 
 was determined to leave and hunt a country where the milksick is not. 
 Liked to have lossed my own life with it." * 
 
 Besides the fear of another epidemic, word kept coming from John 
 Hanks over in Illinois that where he was there was plenty of new 
 sod which had never had a plow point stuck into it. John's descrip- 
 tions had aroused Tom Lincoln's restless, pioneer spirit. And Abe 
 must have noticed it. "Pap, reckon we'll be pulling out?" he asked. 
 "We're pulling out," said Tom. 
 
 Before leaving Indiana, the Lincolns had a number of affairs to take 
 care of. Paying debts, for one thing. When Tom and Abe went to 
 mill they usually paid for their grinding in toll. Not only did they 
 take corn to the Gordon mill and Little Joe Phillips mill, but also to 
 the Huffman mill six miles eastward on the Anderson River, and to the 
 Enlow mill seventeen miles northward. Tom Lincoln owed Thomas 
 Enlow for corn grinding. To pay up the old score, Tom made a lift- 
 top desk of wild cherry and presented it to Enlow. 2 That out of the 
 way, Thomas and Sarah Bush Lincoln asked for and received their 
 church letters from the Pigeon Creek congregation. On the 26th 
 of November Tom gave a bond of agreement to sell his farm to 
 Charles Grigsby, one of the double-wedding bridegrooms. 8 
 
 In the meanwhile Abe's stepbrother, John D. Johnston, had found 
 an opportunity for him and Abe to make some cash money by operat- 
 ing a whiskey still for John Dutton. Articles of agreement, appar- 
 ently drawn up by Abe, were signed by Dutton and Johnston. Abe 
 
 149 
 
150 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 left the paper with Henry Brooner for safekeeping. 4 Dutton's still, 
 classed as a "short-worm" type, was on his farm just north of the 
 Henry Brooner place on the Holland-Princeton road. Around it grew 
 an excellent stand of hickory and sassafras with which to fire the still. 
 Nearby gurgled a big spring of very hard water. Lincoln described 
 it to Stephen A. Douglas as "a little still-house up at the head of a 
 hollow." 5 Lincoln received $18 a month for working in it. 6 
 
 With his little feist dog, Honey, at his heels, Abe labored over the 
 bubbling swill. Never a man to do things by half, he burned into 
 each run a bouquet highly pleasing to Dutton's customers. The making 
 of whiskey, Lincoln later pointed out, was "regarded as an honorable 
 livelihood and he who could make the most of it was the most enter- 
 prising and respectable" for "when all such of us first opened our 
 eyes upon the stage of existence, we found intoxicating liquor recog- 
 nized by everybody, used by everybody, repudiated by nobody." ' 
 The full gesture of hospitality in a frontier cabin was a pitcher of 
 water, a lump of sugar and a jug of whiskey available to preachers and 
 sinners alike. 
 
 With the pungent fumes of Dutton's mash-filled retort clouding 
 about him, Abe Lincoln reached the legal age of 21 on February 12, 
 1830. He now was a free man and no longer bound to hand over his 
 earnings to his father. 
 
 To help with the final preparations for pulling out of Indiana he and 
 his stepbrother returned home. By selling to Henry Brooner his 
 half-interest in the rifle-gun, he added to the ready cash fund. 8 He 
 visited Jones' store: "I want some goods to peddle along the road 
 to Illinois." Jones made up a pack-peddler's kit of needles, thread, 
 knives, forks, necklaces, breastpins, and pocketbooks. 9 The bill came 
 to $36 dollars. Since Abe was unable to pay it all Jones extended 
 him credit. Meanwhile, an unusually large pair of shoes had caught 
 Abe's eye. He asked if he might try them on. Jones nodded. The 
 shoes fit all right but there still was the money question. Under- 
 standing Abe's problem, Jones told him to take them, too. Store 
 loafers hinted that trusting the lanky peddler for all that merchandise 
 was risky business. "I am satisfied," replied Jones, "Abe is honest. 
 He'll make a great man one of these days." 10 
 
 February 20 was a very busy day for Thomas Lincoln. That day 
 the Pigeon Creek church elected him moderator to settle "the difficulty 
 between Sister Grigsby & Sister Crafford." On that same day he and 
 his wife appeared before Justice of the Peace William Starke and 
 deeded their 80-acre farm to Charles Grigsby for the "sum of 
 
PARTING DAY 151 
 
 One hundred and twenty-five dollars to them in hand." The deed, 
 formally recorded in the Spencer County Deed Record Book-B, pages 
 63-64, states that this "is the same tract or parcel of land which 
 the said Charles Grigsby holds a bond on the said Thomas Lincoln, 
 dated November 26th, 1829." Tom signed it Lincoln, not "Linkern 
 alias Lincoln" as he had signed less than two years before. Neighbors 
 said Abe had "remodelled the spelling and corrected the pronouncia- 
 tion." 1X Sarah Bush Lincoln signed the deed by making her mark, an 
 indication that she could write no better than Abe's mother. 
 
 Abe and his dog Honey went about the neighborhood paying final 
 visits. They dropped into Joseph Richardson's place where some men 
 were making handspikes. "What are you going to do with them?" 
 Abe asked. "Carry that chickenhouse on them," a man replied 
 pointing to a shed made of poles pinned together. After looking at 
 the chickenhouse a moment Abe asked "is it heavy?" 
 
 Richardson: "Heavy enough, probably about 600 pounds. It'll 
 make three ordinary men grunt and swear." Abe: "I reckon I can 
 shoulder and carry it. Where do you want it put?" 
 
 Richardson indicated the spot. And, while he and the men watched 
 in astonishment, Abe stepped into the center of the chickenhouse, 
 grasped the handspikes run under it, slowly straightened up — and 
 carried the building to its new location. 12 
 
 In the midst of the preparations for moving to Illinois, Abe found 
 time to read the Western Sun in Jones' store. The great Webster- 
 Haynes debate was on, "arraying one portion of the Union against 
 another." Webster was accused of attempting to "defeat the alliance 
 between the South and the West by creating dissention between 
 them." 13 By following the Western Suns analysis of the speeches, 
 Abe learned about the art of debate and political strategy. In one 
 speech Daniel Webster said: "It is, sir, the people's Constitution, 
 the people's government, made for the people, made by the people 
 and answerable to the people." 
 
 The three covered wagons which Tom and Abe had been working 
 on were finished. All had solid wheels made from boles of gum trees. 
 About one wagon which had no iron parts at all, Abe commented: 
 "I'm sure proud of this job." On that wagon they put the heaviest 
 load. 14 By Sunday evening, February 28, three beds, the bureau, a 
 table, a set of chairs, a clothes closet, cooking utensils, a pair of 
 andirons, axes, carpenter's tools and some other things, were packed 
 into the wagons. Then the three families — Lincolns, Hankses, Halls 
 — went to the big two-story house of hewn-logs owned by James 
 
152 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 Gentry, Sr., just east of Gentry's store. There they spent their last 
 night on Spencer County soil. Next morning they returned to the 
 Lincoln cabin. 15 
 
 With the oxen hitched to the wagons and Abe's horse, Bulger, tied 
 to the tail gate, everything was in readiness that first day of March 
 1830. Again, as in Kentucky, neighbors stood around talking; they 
 didn't like to see the Lincolns leave. 
 
 Tom joked for a while, then glanced at the eastern horizon, "Folks, 
 the sun is a-rising high in the sky. We got to be getting along." But 
 Abe was missing. Looking in all directions, squinting his one good 
 eye, Tom growled, "Where's that tarnal Abe?" No one answered. 
 After a while someone said: "More'n likely he's off somewhere with a 
 book." Bending an index finger in his mouth, Tom blew a shrill blast. 
 
 Down the hillside from Nancy Hanks Lincoln's grave, they saw 
 Abraham coming, stumbling, rubbing his cheeks. 
 
 Tom Lincoln, with an ox-whip in his hand, showed impatience to 
 be off to Illinois. But as he watched Abe he perhaps recalled the time 
 back in December, 1816, when moving from Kentucky to Indiana, 
 Nancy had come down with Sarah and Abraham from the Redmond 
 graveyard on Muldraugh's stony hilltop. 
 
 Jimmy Grigsby whispered to someone in the crowd, "Watch old 
 Tom flail him." Abe came up and stopped in front of his father. 
 Neighbors craned their necks, eager to see what might happen. "Here, 
 take this," said Tom matter of factly. He handed the whip to Abe, 
 then waved an arm and shouted, "Start on!" 18 Abe stepped to the 
 head of the column and cracked the whip in the frosty air. 
 
 The oxen leaned hard against their heavy yokes, stiffened their 
 tails and pulled. Slowly the thick, solid wheels began rolling west- 
 ward, creaking in the half-frozen mud. Tar buckets began swinging. 
 Honey barked excitedly and jumped ahead of the oxen. Neighbors 
 trudged alongside the wagons. The Lincolns were pulling out. In 
 a poem Abe latei wrote he called the event "that parting day." 17 
 
 Three families, totaling 13 people, made up the caravan: Thomas 
 Lincoln, 54; Sarah Bush Lincoln, 41; Abraham, %1\ John D. Johnston, 
 14; Dennis Hanks, 31; his wife, Elizabeth Johnston Hanks, 23; their 
 four children, Sarah Jane, Nancy Ann, Harriet and John Talbott, 
 all under 9; Squire Hall and his wife, Matilda Johnston Hall, 19; and 
 their 3 year old son, John. 18 
 
 The movers followed the ridge road which walled out Pigeon Creek 
 swamplands to the northward. Due to freezing and thawing, the road- 
 bottom had dropped out, letting the wheels sink almost hub-deep into 
 
PARTING DAY 153 
 
 the stiff yellow mud; consequently, the stolid oxen drawing the 
 heavily loaded wagons made barely two miles an hour. 
 
 When the movers reached Jones' store a shout went up from the 
 men, women and children gathered there from miles around to say 
 good-bye. "You're late," said William Jones. "Yes," Tom Lincoln 
 answered, "one of my oxen strayed off last night and I had to hunt 
 him. Found him up at Dave Turnham's." Tom had just sold about 
 a hundred head of hogs and 450 bushels of corn to Turnham. 19 
 
 In accordance with the early Indiana custom, as many neighbors as 
 could leave their work went a Biblical day's journey with departing 
 friends. So, on that parting day, the Lincolns were accompanied west- 
 ward on the Cory don-Gentry ville-Boonville road by men and boys: 
 James Gentry, Sr., Joseph Gentry, John Romine, William Jones, 
 James Grigsby, Nathaniel Grigsby, Redmond Grigsby, Hezekiah 
 Harris, William Mason, Uriah Hartley, Jesse Isaacs, Robert Craig, 
 William Roberts, John Kelly, and William Whittinghill. It is 
 believed that John Tuley, Henry Brooner, John W. Lamar, and David 
 Turnham also went a piece with the Lincolns. Turnham, who for 11 
 years had known Abe Lincoln intimately, wrote, "I never knew any- 
 thing dishonorable of him." " 
 
 About a mile west of Jones' store and near the home of The Miracle 
 Woman, the movers forded Pigeon Creek. The water was so high 
 there that, "on account of the low wheels of the wagons, Mrs. Lincoln 
 was taken across Pigeon Creek on a horse behind one of the neigh- 
 bors." 21 
 
 The Lincolns had now left Spencer County and entered Warrick. 
 Mass Clark, with several Warrick County neighbors, greeted them on 
 the creek's west bank. 22 "What road you going to take?" a Spencer 
 County friend asked. "Were going by way of Boonville," Abe an- 
 swered. "It is the only way we can go." a 
 
 Two miles farther westward the movers reached Pokeberry Creek. 
 A temporary corduroy road of birch poles had to be built so the oxen 
 could pull the wagons across. After helping the Lincolns to ford the 
 stream, Mass Clark bade them farewell. 
 
 As darkness closed in on the mud-splattered travelers a wet, cold 
 wind hummed through the leafless trees. But they kept on going. 
 They passed through Lickskillet and Loafer's Station. Then their 
 wagons mired down and had to be pried out. They struggled over 
 Dividing Ridge. Just beyond Little Zion, sister church of Pigeon 
 Creek, Brother Thomas Lincoln led his people off the road, halted and 
 prepared to make camp for the night on Brother John Phillips' farm. 
 
154 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 Edmund, Brother Phillips' son, ran out and accompanied them to the 
 house. 24 
 
 When no one was noticing Abe whispered to Nathaniel and Red- 
 mond Grigsby: "Boys, don't let anyone see this." He handed them a 
 diary he had been keeping lately. "There are some things in there," 
 he confided, "I would not want anyone to see." Possibly Abe was 
 remorseful about some of his writings and was taking this means of 
 explaining to the Grigsbys that he was sorry. Redmond Grigsby 
 promised, "We'll take care of it." " 
 
 While the Lincoln-Hall-Hanks families were bedding down for the 
 night at the Phillips house, Joseph Gentry, Hezekiah Harris and the 
 three Grigsby boys, having gone the full Biblical day's journey, shook 
 hands all around and started back toward their Pigeon Creek homes. 
 Abe was reluctant to let them go; he walked between Nattie Grigsby 
 and Joe Gentry far into the dark wilderness. Finally, Lincoln bade 
 Nattie and Joe farewell, thus ending the three-way friendship which, 
 begun in boyhood, had lasted through youth and into manhood. 
 
 Early Tuesday morning, March 2nd, the Lincoln caravan again 
 was on the road. This time the movers must travel alone. Their 
 groaning wagons broke through ice-crusted mudholes and made it 
 hard going for the oxen. Swinging rhythmically back and forth like 
 pendulums, slowly the tar-buckets ticked off Abe Lincoln's march 
 toward greatness. 
 
 In the afternoon the movers reached Boonville, turned northward 
 and followed the well-traveled state road which connected Newburgh 
 on the Ohio with Vincennes on the Wabash. This highway bisected 
 the Pocket Country. Mile posts and cheerful taverns lined its sides; 
 road supervisors kept its corduroy sections in passable condition. Like 
 the Lincolns, other movers were traveling its length, seeking new 
 homes. Stage coaches lumbered by, spattering everybody with half- 
 frozen mud. Mail coaches required 18 hours to travel from Boonville 
 to Vincennes, a distance of only 62 miles. 26 
 
 About dark the Lincolns made camp on Brother Joseph Langford's 
 farm, three miles north of Boonville. Brother Langford and Brother 
 Thomas Lincoln were close friends as well as fellow members of the 
 Regular Baptist Association. 27 
 
 On Wednesday Abe began peddling the notions he had brought 
 along from Jones' store. "I didn't have a large stock, but I charged 
 large prices. I made money," he said. 28 He sold a pocket-book and 
 some tableware to Solomon Turpen who lived three miles north of the 
 
PARTING DAY 155 
 
 Langford farm. In the pocket-book was pasted a piece of paper bear- 
 ing the words: "A. Lincoln, Agent." 29 
 
 Eight miles farther north, after crossing bridges over Otter and Big 
 Creeks, the Lincolns halted for a brief visit with Nicholas Anderson 
 Hanks, a cousin of Abraham's mother. 30 Again the movers pushed on. 
 To their left lay Indiana's wild Buckskin country. Over-flow land 
 sheeted with ice made traveling exceedingly hard for the weary oxen. 
 To make the pulling easier, the men-folk scooped tar out of the buckets 
 and greased the wooden axles. Evening found the Lincoln-Hall-Hanks 
 caravan ten miles farther northward and camped at Millseat, a Patoka 
 River crossing. There Abe tried to sell something to visitors — 
 Benjamin Ashby, a 35 year old man, and Arthur Thompson, a 14 
 year old boy, but neither one had any money; Abe traded a pocket- 
 knife to Thompson for some hides. 31 
 
 Because of the treacherous condition of the road between the Patoka 
 and White Rivers, the Lincolns traveled barely ten miles on Thursday. 
 Since it was very hazardous to try to ford streams after dark, Tom 
 Lincoln decided to leave the state road and make camp at White Oak 
 Spring Fort. Here Abe saw a blockhouse built to shelter travelers 
 and others fleeing from troublesome Indians. A family living near 
 the fort brought a pone of cornbread to the Lincolns. 
 
 Friday was a very trying day for the movers until they crossed the 
 broad, swollen White River at Rocky Ford near Petersburg. Then 
 they followed the winding ridge road up one hill and down another. 82 
 Late in the afternoon they came to a small farmhouse. While the oxen 
 rested Abe took his peddler's kit to the door and was met by a red- 
 faced woman carrying a whip. Behind her stood her husband, a mild- 
 looking, tow-headed man. Abe saw the place was full of children 
 ranging in age from 17 months to 17 years. Almost all seemed to be 
 crying. The woman barked, "What do you want?" "Nothing, 
 madam," said Lincoln. "I merely dropped by to see how things were 
 going." "Well, you needn't wait!" she snapped. "There's trouble 
 here and lots of it, but I can manage my own affairs without the 
 help of outsiders." "I can see that," said Abe. "This is just a 
 friendly row," she raced on. "But I'll teach these brats their place if 
 I have to lick the hide off of every one of them!" Abe nodded and 
 stepped back out of range of the whip. "I don't do much talking," 
 she claimed, "but I run this house. And I don't want no sneaking 
 around a-trying to find out how I do it, either!" w 
 
 Again Lincoln nodded and walked back to the covered wagons. 
 The movers pulled away from the warring cabin and struck the cres- 
 
156 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 cent hills walling in part of Vincennes. To their left was the great, 
 flat-topped mound which Indians had used in their sun-worshipping 
 rites. They descended the long slope, entered the old town and halted 
 on the banks of the Wabash. 
 
 Since tires of one wagon needed setting, Tom Lincoln camped near 
 Slawson's blacksmith shop and the printing office of the Vincennes 
 Western Sun. Back of their camp loomed Vincennes University which 
 Abe's friend, William Jones, had attended. Up the river a few rods 
 was Governor William Henry Harrison's mansion where, Abe had been 
 told, Chief Tecumseh's quarrel with Harrison over the Ten O'Clock 
 Line Treaty had brought on the Battle of Tippecanoe, and destroyed 
 forever the hopes of any successful Indian confederacy. 
 
 On Saturday morning Tom and Abe rolled their wagon wheels into 
 the blacksmith's shop. There Jesse Slawson, a native of Maine, known 
 as "the old man of them all," ran his tire-measuring wheel around the 
 outside and inside the rims to determine the amount of iron to be cut 
 out. After the tires had been heated glowing hot in the forge Slawson 
 placed them on the hardy of his anvil and let Tom and Abe take turns 
 at swinging the hand-hammer. 34 That job done Abe strolled over to 
 the Western Sun office where for the first time he saw a printing 
 press. The editor, Elihu Stout, was setting type. Abe watched him 
 lock the forms with wooden wedges, pat down the ink with balls and 
 start printing the newspaper. 
 
 Since 1823 Abe had been reading Stout's paper in Jones' store at 
 Gentry ville. It was the only newspaper Abe had regularly read. 35 
 From Jones, Lincoln had heard much about Stout, who, perhaps more 
 than any other man, molded public opinion in Indiana. Heavy 
 shouldered, stern faced, courageous Elihu Stout, born fifty-eight years 
 before in Newark, New Jersey, was a friend to both Henry Clay and 
 Andrew Jackson. He had begun editing the Indiana Gazette at Vin- 
 cennes, July 31, 1804; had been burned out; and had resumed publica- 
 tion under the name of Western Sun & General Advetrtizer, July 4, 
 1807. 
 
 With growing interest Lincoln watched Stout operate the Adam 
 Ramage hand press. Made of Honduras mahogany, the press had an 
 iron screw and wooden platen faced with brass. Two pulls of the big 
 lever and two turns of the bed crank were required to print one 
 side of the soft, moist paper. 38 The longer Abe watched the more 
 he hankered to experience the feel of printing words. He moved in 
 a little closer and offered to help; the editor stepped aside. 
 
 Lincoln grasped the lever and began working the press on which 
 
PARTING DAY 157 
 
 Stout had printed the Statutes of Indiana Territory. That Saturday, 
 March 6, 1830, issue of the Western Sun Abe helped print contained 
 sixteen columns of advertisement, poetry, news, philosophy, and laws 
 of the State of Indiana. Page one devoted three columns to a recent 
 act of the Indiana legislature concerning the building of the Wabash 
 and Erie Canal. There was a news story about a farmer who had just 
 been scalped by the Indians. A brief history of Indiana closed column 
 four. Page two carried a news story of great local interest: "Gen. 
 Wm. H. Harrison, late minister to Columbia, had arrived at New 
 York"; President Jackson's hickory broom had swept Old Tip out of 
 office. 
 
 Page three disclosed that a tall, slim young woman with dark eyes 
 and very black hair had been left in Vincennes "by an elderly man and 
 his son because their carriage had broken down." Since the young lady 
 was "totally deranged" hope was expressed that friends or relatives 
 reading the story would do something about "this unfortunate female." 
 
 Under the heading "Poetical Asylum," on page four, was an original 
 poem of seventeen stanzas satirizing "Them Yankys the bane of the 
 nashun" who were bound for Texas "jist like Old Eden." The arrival 
 and departure of the mails was also noted on page four. Mail was due 
 from Louisville on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday; from St. Louis 
 on Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. An essay on seven as a signifi- 
 cant number reminded readers that Hippocrates, like Shakespeare, 
 divided the life of man into seven ages. While working for David 
 Turnham, Abe Lincoln had read in A s You Like It Jaques' whole 
 speech on man's seven ages. Did the Western Sun essay set Abe 
 to speculating on the number seven in his own life? His given and 
 surnames each contained seven letters. He had entered Indiana at 
 the age of seven and was leaving at 21 (three 7's) . His sister, Sarah, 
 had died at 21; his mother at 35 (five 7's) . S7 
 
 After helping to print the paper and after talking with the editor, 
 Abe had a better understanding of a statement by Stout in the Sun a 
 few months before: "Every man should have a newspaper in his 
 family if he justly values his rights as a citizen of a free republic." " 
 
 The Lincolns soon discovered that Sunday in Vincennes was a noisy, 
 carefree day. From the five thousand acre common field, bordering 
 the town and cultivated after old French custom, farmers trooped in to 
 mingle hilariously with travelers, coureurs de bois, gamblers, and cut- 
 throats. They walked the wide streets, sometimes making passes at 
 black eyed Creole girls. They fired guns. They crowded into taverns, 
 drank wine and danced with gay women while fiddlers scraped out 
 
Albert T. Reid's conception of Lincoln 
 in the Vincennes Western Sun office. 
 
 158 
 
PARTING DAY 159 
 
 merry tunes. Blacksmiths blew and hammered — all making the Lord's 
 Day close kin to a witch's sabbath. 89 
 
 In spite of the biting cold, Tom Lincoln broke camp on Monday 
 morning, March 8, 1830, and headed his people for Haines' ferry. They 
 passed Captain Peter Jones' tavern, at whose door Negro slaves were 
 illegally sold; passed Territorial Hall from which the Old Northwest 
 and Louisiana Territories had been governed. They took a good look 
 at the abandoned bank which had swallowed up Tom Lincoln's 
 deposits. Before them rose Saint Xavier's Cathedral, set against the 
 wide, sweeping bend of the Wabash River. 40 They gazed at the ruins 
 of the old fort George Rogers Clark and his American Long Knives 
 had wrested from British General "Hair Buyer" Hamilton's Red Coats 
 in February, 1779. 
 
 The Lincoln-Hall-Hanks caravan drove down onto the ferry and 
 crossed the Wabash from Indiana into Illinois. The river was so high 
 that water covered the road and the low prairie. Abe picked up his 
 little dog, Honey, and climbed into one of the wagons, but Honey 
 jumped out, fell on a thin sheet of ice, broke through and was 
 drowning. Abe leaped into the waist-deep water and seized the feist. 
 "I saved him," he said. 41 The oxen, breasting the icy flood waters, 
 leaned hard against their yokes, and resumed pulling the Lincoins 
 towards John Hanks and the Promised Land. 
 
 Abe Lincoln's life in Indiana had drawn to a close. He had entered 
 the state when only a child, passed through adolescence and, several 
 weeks before, had reached the legal age of 21. During that character- 
 forming period he had experienced great sorrows and some joys. Back 
 on Pigeon Creek he had seen his mother and sister buried. Here he 
 had gone to subscription schools and had read widely. He had become 
 familiar with what some people considered a complete library: the 
 Bible, Blackstone's Commentaries, and Shakespeare's plays.* 2 He 
 had been news commentator for the Jones' store customers. He had 
 composed poetry, prose, and a song. He had seen some of his writings 
 in print. He had mounted stumps and out-preached preachers. He 
 had been in and out of puppy love. He had heard prominent lawyers 
 plead cases; he had been hauled into court as defendant; he had read 
 some law; and he had won the "gray goose" case. He had been a 
 deputy constable, militiaman, ferryman, flatboatman, farm hand, 
 church sexton, carpenter's helper, whiskey-still worker, hog butcher, 
 and rail splitter. Yet "When I became of age I did not know much," 
 he said. 43 
 
 He had been recognized as the undisputed champion fist-fighter in a 
 
160 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 rough locality. He had been mistakenly considered dead. He had 
 learned to clog-dance. He had observed at close range successful 
 office-seekers and had been Hoosierized in politics. He had become 
 a follower of Henry Clay. He had listened to Utopian socialistic 
 discussions. He had been to New Orleans. He had worked along- 
 side black men in Arkansas and in Kentucky. He had seen slavery 
 at its best and at its worst. For the past six years he had repeatedly 
 heard the slavery issue advanced as a reason for dissolving the Union. 
 He had helped print an issue of the Vincennes Western Sun. He had 
 heard voices. And he had vowed, "I will study and get ready end 
 some day my chance will come." 
 
Chapter Thirteen 
 LASTING IMPRESSIONS 
 
 Abe Lincoln lost the last of his baby teeth, passed through chaotic 
 adolescence, and entered manhood while living in the Pigeon Creek 
 community of Spencer County, Indiana. Those were his formative 
 years; they were from late seven to early twenty-one, the period which 
 psychologists and psychiatrists recognize as the time when much of 
 man's basic personality is formed, the time when man's faculties for 
 reasoning and analyzing mature. 1 Lincoln himself seems to have 
 recognized this as a particularly important period of his life. Speak- 
 ing at Trenton, as President-elect, he told the New Jersey Senate: 
 "You all know, for you all have been boys, how those early impressions 
 last longer than any others." The same idea cropped out when, as 
 President, he told the 140th Indiana Volunteer Regiment: "I was 
 born in Kentucky, raised in Indiana, lived in Illinois." From all these 
 places came experiences which influenced his later life. 
 
 Lincoln's sorrows, pleasures and pains, loves and hates, observations 
 of people, the schools he attended and the books he read, the argu- 
 ments he listened to over slavery and the threats to the Union, the 
 religious rites he watched, the neighborhood superstitions he en- 
 countered, the dreams he heard repeated, the sounds he heard in the 
 dark woods — these fragments of his daily life in the Hoosier State 
 buried themselves deep in his youthful mind; in his Presidential years 
 they bobbed to the surface and influenced his behavior and speech. 
 As President, for example, he called deserter cases his "leg cases." A 
 deserter had legged it safely off to Mexico; when the President ap- 
 proved his courtmartial sentence he observed: "We will condemn him 
 as they sell hogs in Indiana, 'as they run.' " 2 He picked up his 
 fellow backwoodsman's notions of freedom and property rights: "A 
 man has the right to do anything but injure his neighbor." William 
 Jones, storekeeper at Gentryville, had watched Lincoln grow up and 
 had chatted with him in the White House. "Mr. Lincoln," Jones 
 boasted proudly, "laid the foundation of his character in Spencer 
 County, Indiana." 3 
 
 During his Presidential years Lincoln often needed courage to with- 
 stand bickering friends and scheming enemies. Some of that courage 
 
 161 
 
162 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 came from memories of the scene in the log cabin on Pigeon Creek, 
 when his mother lay dying on the cornshuck tick in the corner. "I 
 am going away, Abraham, and I shall not return," he heard her say. 
 "Live as I have taught you. Love your heavenly Father." He 
 saw lines of pain cut across her tired face, but he saw no hint of fear 
 in her gray eyes. It may have been the memory of his mother's 
 courage as she faced death that helped him to declare, "When the time 
 comes for dealing with slavery, I trust I shall be willing to act though 
 it cost my life."* 
 
 Memories of Lincoln's Indiana days were as much a part of him as 
 his long shin bones and his quiet humor. How tenaciously he clung to 
 those memories was demonstrated on the eve of his fifty-second 
 birthday when, as President-elect, he was on his way to Washington, 
 D.C. Upon entering Indiana he spoke of his early residence in Spencer 
 County. At Lafayette he talked of the great changes in the state since 
 his boyhood. At Thornton he was telling a tale when his train began 
 pulling out and people ran alongside to hear him end the story. At 
 Indianapolis, after telling a crowd of 20,000 people, "I grew to my 
 present enormous height in this state," he urged: "Constantly bear 
 in mind that not with Presidents not with office-seekers, but with you 
 is the question: Shall the liberties of this country be preserved to the 
 latest generations?" 5 
 
 A forty-three year old man pushed through the crowd, waved a hat 
 and yelled: "Abe Lincoln! The flatboat trip! Cunningham!" Police 
 grabbed him. "Abe! The trunk! The trunk!" the man shouted. 
 
 "That's Jimmy Cunningham!" the President-elect called to the 
 policemen. "Let him through!" 
 
 "Abe, I still got your trunk. Couldn't put off at Rockport. What 
 you want me to do with it?" Jimmy had kept it since 1829. 
 
 "Keep it, Jimmy," said Lincoln. "Keep it until I call for it." 8 
 
 The next day — his fifty-second birthday — Lincoln spent traveling 
 across southern Indiana. The February sun shone brilliantly on his 
 special train all the way. At Greensburg, John Doakes handed him a 
 big red apple. A while later he passed a little east of Blue Creek 
 where members of Uncle Josiah Lincoln's family still lived. There he 
 had borrowed William B. Johnson's copy of Pilgrim's Progress. 
 
 Lincoln's train stopped briefly at Lawrenceburg. Again in his old 
 boyhood environment and feeling very much at home, the President- 
 elect looked across the slow-moving Ohio River to Kentucky and 
 
LASTING IMPRESSIONS 163 
 
 promised a tumultuous audience, "The power entrusted to me shall 
 be exercised as perfectly to protect the rights of your neighbors across 
 the river as to protect yours on this side. My power is temporary and 
 fleeting. Yours is as eternal as the principles of liberty." 7 Those 
 were the last words he spoke on Hoosier soil. 
 
 Following the inaugural ceremonies in Washington, people lined up 
 at the White House to shake President Lincoln's hand. Among them 
 were five of Lincoln's former Gentryville neighbors, including William 
 Jones. Cordially Lincoln greeted the first four men by name and 
 asked how the folks were back at Pigeon Creek. But when Jones came 
 up the President decided to have a little fun. Casually he took the 
 storekeeper's hand and pretended not to know him. Disturbed by 
 this Jones exclaimed, "Mr. President, I'm from Gentryville! My name 
 is Jones. Reckon you don't remember me." Lincoln grinned: "Oh, 
 yes, Mr. Jones, I remember you very well." Then he bent down and 
 whispered, "And I remember that shoe transaction." 8 
 
 After Fort Sumter had been fired upon and the country was greatly 
 excited, William Jones wrote to the President: "Sir, a number of the 
 sons of your old friends have formed themselves into a volunteer com- 
 pany and selected their officers and have been using every effort to 
 get into the U.S. Service but have failed. They urge that your old 
 resident County should be represented in the Army and swear that 
 death or victory is their motto. And ask through you an entrance 
 into the Army. They are willing to March to any point to be 
 received. Three of them are my sons. Annexed you have their 
 appeal." 
 
 Calling themselves the Spencer Legion, the boys, in their appeal, 
 told the President that they wanted "to get into the U.S. Service 
 either 3 years or during the war and feel that we have been wronged 
 by our Adjutant Gen'l." They concluded with: "Any place you may 
 assign us in the Union we will never dishonor your early residence 
 in Old Spencer." 9 Among the names signed to the letter were, besides 
 those of Jones' three sons, some which Lincoln recalled as those 
 of Pigeon Creek families: Grigsby, Richardson, Crawford, Turnham, 
 Blackford, Clark, Taylor, Ray. 
 
 Touched by this eagerness of sons of his former neighbors to help 
 him preserve the Union, President Lincoln requested the Secretary 
 of War to accept four additional Indiana regiments. "Probably they 
 should come from the triangular region between the Ohio & Wabash 
 rivers, including my old boyhood home," he wrote on June 17th. 10 
 
164 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 The regiments were accepted. William Jones, then past sixty, served 
 as Lieutenant Colonel of the 53rd Indiana Volunteers. 11 
 
 But not all appeals to President Lincoln were calculated to help him, 
 as is shown by that of a committee of reformers who, ranting against 
 General Grant's liquor drinking, urged that he be recalled from com- 
 mand. Lincoln good-naturedly asked, "Gentlemen, can you tell me 
 where General Grant procures his whiskey? If I can find out I will 
 send every general in the field a barrel of it!" 12 
 
 As a boy Lincoln had spent his first winter in Indiana under the 
 eves of the Grigsby still-house; the youthful Lincoln, just turned 
 twenty-one, used part of his last winter in the state firing John 
 Dutton's whiskey still, a little way north up a hollow. The in- 
 tervening years he had spent among sturdy Hoosier pioneers who were 
 by necessity tolerant of drinking. So, although Lincoln was not a 
 drinking man, he was quite able to assess Grant's military worth 
 without being alarmed about the General's drinking habits. 
 
 One Sunday morning Senator Charles Sumner roamed the White 
 House looking for the President. When he found him he was out- 
 raged at what he saw. "Why, Mr. President!" he exploded. "Do you 
 black your own boots?" Responded Lincoln: "Senator, whose boots 
 do you think I black?" 13 The self-reliant Lincoln who mended his 
 own footgear with the Widow McFarland's cobbler tools back on 
 Pigeon Creek had remained the same unassuming Lincoln in the White 
 House. 
 
 While he was being reared in Indiana, Lincoln rubbed shoulders with 
 the great and small of the frontier. Of all those whom he encountered, 
 perhaps none had more to do with forming his character than the 
 Grigsby family and William Jones. Of course, there were the Gentrys, 
 Turnhams, Oskins, Homines, Brooners, Halls, Crawfords, Richard- 
 sons, Lamars, Azel W. Dorsey, William Wood, John Pitcher, Ratcliff 
 Boon, Squire Pate, Joseph Lane, Daniel Grass, and others who in- 
 fluenced him. But it was the Grigsbys whom Abe met first when he 
 arrived at Pigeon Creek. It was Aaron, eldest of the houseful of 
 Grigsby children, who chose Abe's only sister, Sarah, for his wife. 
 It was the Lincoln-Grigsby contact, running all the way from friend- 
 ship to fist-fights and back again to solid friendship, that inspired 
 Lincoln to make the most successful of his early literary efforts. 
 When the Civil War broke out the Grigsbys, to a man, joined or tried 
 to join the Northern Army to help "Abe Linkern," save the Union. 
 
 William Jones, too, proved himself a stanch Union man by disre- 
 garding his personal feelings toward slavery as an institution and 
 
LASTING IMPRESSIONS 165 
 
 aligning himself with Lincoln the moment war began. How much 
 the suave, friendly, sensible Jones influenced Lincoln's opinions 
 regarding the rising problems of slavery and preservation of the Union 
 probably cannot be overestimated. Son of a well-to-do Vincennes 
 slave-holder, Jones had been educated at Vincennes University with 
 proceeds derived from slave-labor. At his store in Gentryville, begin- 
 ning in 1823, he regularly supplied Lincoln with newspapers to read 
 and an audience to whom Lincoln could tell what he had read. Con- 
 ceivably, however, the same basic Hoosier training which persuaded 
 William Jones to place the value of the Union above his personal gain 
 planted in Abraham Lincoln's mind the conviction that at whatever 
 cost to himself and to the American people, the Union must be pre- 
 served. 
 
 That man is controlled by the designs of Providence, the doctrine 
 of Abe's parents and neighbors along Pigeon Creek, had abided with 
 Lincoln the President. "I hold myself as an instrument of Provi- 
 dence," he declared in 1862. "I am conscious every moment that all 
 I have is subject to the control of a Higher Power." 14 As the war 
 wore on he more and more felt himself selected by that Higher Power 
 to save the nation. "God selects His own instruments, and some- 
 times they are queer ones; for instance He chose me to steer the ship 
 through a great crisis." " 
 
 Steadfastly Lincoln believed in his own destiny. Once after reading 
 Deuteronomy III: 22-27, he remarked that the oftener he read those 
 words "the more, it seems to me, that God has written them for me as 
 well as for Moses. Has He not taken me from my poor log cabin, by 
 the hand, as He did Moses in the reeds of the Nile, and put me at the 
 head of the greatest and most blessed of modern nations just as He 
 put that prophet at the head of the most blessed nation of ancient 
 time?" 19 
 
 During his formative years Lincoln read in his parents' Ostervald 
 Bible the footnotes to Exodus II and Isaiah XLV relating how Moses 
 by direction of Divine Providence had led his people from the tyranny 
 of the Egyptians. In a footnote to Exodus III he found: "Reflection 
 upon this chapter regards the manner of God's calling Moses and re- 
 vealing His design to make him the deliverer of his people Israel. By 
 the miracle of the burning bush, which Moses saw in flames without its 
 being consumed, God was pleased to engage his attention, and to con- 
 vince him that He was there in a peculiar manner present." 
 
 To Henry C. Whitney, Lincoln confided that when he was a boy 
 he used to wander by himself into the dark, silent Indiana forest. "I 
 
166 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 knew I was not alone," he said. "I heard voices. Once I heard a voice 
 right at my elbow. Heard it distinctly and plainly. I turned around 
 expecting to see someone. No one was there. But the voice was 
 there." 17 Was the voice the same Moses heard in the burning bush? 
 Did Lincoln ever hear the voice again after leaving Indiana? Follow- 
 ing the disastrous Second Battle of Bull Run, Lincoln told a friend: 
 "I have talked with God. It is His cause, and the Union is His. As 
 Hewilleth, so it will be." M 
 
 Was Lincoln's feeling of having direct communication with the Al- 
 mighty derived from what he had heard regarding the Saints of the 
 Lord at Pigeon Creek Church? To the demand that he issue the 
 Emancipation Proclamation at once, he answered the Religious De- 
 nominations Committee of Chicago: "If it is probable that God would 
 reveal His will to others on a point so connected with my duty, it 
 might be supposed that He would reveal it directly to me; for, unless I 
 am more deceived in myself than I often am, it is my earnest desire 
 to know the will of Providence in this matter. And if I can learn what 
 it is, I will do it." 19 
 
 Anxious at all times to act wisely in order to re-unite the nation, 
 President Lincoln sought the religious guidance offered him when a 
 boy. Instinctively he looked back to his early experiences for help. 
 Morning after morning, between four and five o'clock, he knelt in the 
 White House and prayed: "Oh God, I cannot see my way clear. Give 
 me light. I am ignorant. Give me wisdom." 20 His appeal to the 
 Almighty closely followed the pattern of words used when, struggling 
 for enlightenment in his youth, he opened "Brush College" by saying 
 to James Grigsby: "There is no darkness but ignorance, Jimmy, and 
 there is darkness in my soul." For him the way had grown dark in 
 1864 and he was fearful. 
 
 But Lincoln did not fear personal harm. Although many about 
 him were panic-stricken in mid-July of that year, when General 
 Jubal E. Early's Confederate infantry and artillery appeared in front 
 of Fort Stevens at the north entrance to Washington, D.C., Lincoln 
 did not flinch. He went to the fort and, while bullets zinged about his 
 head, he calmly watched the battle. "I have all my life been a fatal- 
 ist," he told Isaac Arnold. "What is to be will be, or rather, I have 
 found all my life as Hamlet says, 
 
 'There is a divinity that shapes our ends 
 'Rough-hew them how we wiLV."* 1 
 
 Like his mother and like Generals Washington and Marion, whose 
 
LASTING IMPRESSIONS 167 
 
 biographies he had read during his boyhood, President Lincoln had 
 little fear of death. When his friends, thinking assassins might attack 
 him, tried to persuade him to cease his lonely strolls in the dead of 
 night he was heedless. In his heart he continued to cling to the 
 simple Primitive Baptist doctrine of his Pigeon Creek neighbors. 22 
 
 Yet while Lincoln had little fear of death for himself, he refused to 
 sign the death warrants of twenty-four deserters, arguing, "There are 
 already too many weeping widows in the United States." His religious 
 training, received while attending Pigeon Creek Church, and his 
 attitude toward the values of life, gained from books he read in that 
 neighborhood, had asserted themselves. In Dr. Matthew Hole's Prac- 
 tical Discourses Upon All the Collects, Epistles and Gospels, which 
 he had borrowed from the Tuley family north of Gentryville, Lincoln 
 read Hole's explanation for the tenth Sunday after Trinity: "From our 
 Saviour's weeping over Jerusalem, we may observe his tender Sense 
 and Concern for the Miseries of other Men. We learn of his . . . 
 Willingness to pardon." In his Scott's Lessons he had read the speech 
 of Lucius: "Already our quarrels have fill'd the world with widows 
 and orphans. Sythia mourns." Lincoln's concern for the miseries of 
 other men showed itself in his numerous refusals to add to the in- 
 creasing number of weeping widows and in his many other acts of 
 mercy. 
 
 Despite those acts of mercy, however, and despite his public acknow- 
 ledgments that he considered himself an instrument of Providence and 
 relied for guidance upon a Higher Power, Lincoln's enemies raised the 
 cry that he had no religion. Without rancor he answered them: "My 
 religion is like that of an old man named Glenn, in Indiana, whom 
 I heard speak at a church meeting. 'When I do good, I feel good; when 
 I do bad I feel bad. And that's my religion.' " M 
 
 During his growing-up days in Indiana, Lincoln attended about 
 three full terms of the community's subscription schools. To attain 
 his goal of being somebody, as he put it, he supplemented his brief 
 formal schooling with reading books and establishing "Brush College" 
 where he further taught himself by reading aloud to James Grigsby. 
 To learn some elements of the law he borrowed and read Constable 
 David Turnham's Revised Laws of Indiana and Sheriff John Pitcher's 
 Commentaries by Blacks tone. He always strove to improve his edu- 
 cation. "I will study and get ready and some day my chance will 
 come," he said at sixteen, while working for Elizabeth and Josiah 
 Crawford. 
 
 He attained his highest ambition and entered the Presidency just 
 
168 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 as the Civil War threatened to destroy the Union. To the quarreling 
 North and South he cautioned: "Suppose you go to war, you cannot 
 fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on 
 either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions of intercourse are 
 again upon you. My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well 
 upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking 
 time. We are not enemies but friends." 
 
 Those words were similar to the ones he had used so effectively in 
 the gray goose trial back at Gentryville when he made use of his 
 meager knowledge of the law for the first time. To his quarreling 
 Hoosier neighbors he had said, "After you have had your trial today, 
 no matter which way it goes what has either of you gained? I tell you 
 that whichever one wins is going to lose! You'll lose your friendship 
 for one another. I'd get together here and now. Make up and be 
 friends." But, unlike the folk at Gentryville, the North and South 
 would not get together and be friends. Consequently, Secessionist 
 batteries fired upon Fort Sumter, April 12, 1861, and the War Between 
 the States opened. 
 
 In his mature life Lincoln sometimes felt the handicap of not having 
 a formal legal training. He had picked up his knowledge of law here 
 and there, just anywhere he could find it. And this hit-and-miss 
 method of education reminded him of the similar hit-and-miss feeding 
 of wild hogs in the Indiana wilderness: rooting here and there for 
 acorns, pignuts, beechnuts, and other mast. He remembered, too, 
 that they made a poor showing when compared with regularly corn- 
 fed farm animals. So when a prominent lawyer, visiting him in the 
 White House, said, "We do not forget that you too, Mr. President, 
 are a distinguished member of the bar," Lincoln humbly ranged him- 
 self alongside the wild hogs. "Oh, I'm only a mast-fed lawyer," he 
 replied. 24 
 
 Of all the prominent lawyers who came to the White House asking 
 favors, perhaps the one Lincoln least expected was John A. Brecken- 
 ridge, defense attorney in the hog-stealing murder case at the Boon- 
 ville, Indiana, courthouse. Mr. Breckenridge offered his hand to 
 the President. "Yes, sir," said Lincoln, "I'll shake hands with you 
 even if you would not shake hands with me." Recalling Brecken- 
 ridge's impassioned plea to the jury, Lincoln added: "Mr. Brecken- 
 ridge, that was the best speech that up to that time I had ever heard. 
 If I could, as I then thought, make as good a speech as that my soul 
 would be satisfied." 25 
 
 In December, 1862, John Pitcher, former sheriff at Rockport, In- 
 
LASTING IMPRESSIONS 169 
 
 diana, the man who had lent young Lincoln law books, came to the 
 White House at Lincoln's invitation. Pitcher, now a judge, talked 
 about his son, Thomas G., a Regular Army captain. The officer had 
 been cited for gallantry in action in both the Mexican and Civil 
 Wars and had been so severely wounded at Cedar Mountain that he 
 was still in a hospital. Lincoln, wanting to do something for the 
 captain, asked the judge for suggestions. In a letter written Christmas 
 Day while on his way home, the Judge explained that it was a "most 
 embarrassing duty" to answer the President's request. "In regards 
 to my son's renomination," he wrote, "I have not been in the habit of 
 asking favors and don't [know] how to do it well." Lincoln overlooked 
 the judge's embarrassment and promoted Thomas to the rank of 
 brevet brigadier general. 26 
 
 In his eloquent and immortal Gettysburg Address the following 
 November Lincoln described the United States as "a new nation 
 conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men 
 are created equal." He had first read the words "all men are 
 created equal" in David Turnham's copy of The Revised Laws of 
 Indiana. Later he referred to that phrase as the "electric cord in the 
 Declaration." And when in his Gettysburg Address he averred that 
 "this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom," he 
 reached back, perhaps subconsciously, to a phrase he had read in 
 Josiah Crawford's copy of David Ramsay's Life of Washington. 
 While the British Army lay at Staten Island, General Washington had 
 told his countrymen: "The time is near at hand which must probably 
 determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves — the fate of 
 unborn millions now depends, tmder God, on the courage and conduct 
 of this army." 
 
 When Lincoln closed his Gettysburg speech with "that Government 
 of the people, by the people, for the people" he rephrased Daniel Web- 
 ster's reply of January 18, 1830, to Robert Y. Hayne in the U.S. 
 Senate: "It is, sir, the people's government, made for the people, made 
 by the people, and answerable to the people." Lincoln admired Web- 
 ster's speech so much he called it "the grandest specimen of American 
 oratory." " From it he gleaned many of his arguments for the pre- 
 servation of the Union. Lincoln's attention had been called to Web- 
 ster's speech by the editor of the Vincennes Western Sun. 
 
 Even in his rugged humor, for which he became well known, Lincoln 
 showed much evidence of his Hoosier life and education. One morn- 
 ing, after considerable hominy had been ordered for Federal troops, the 
 President casually remarked to his Cabinet that at last he saw how the 
 
170 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 word hominy originated. He noticed "it came from the Latin word 
 homo, a man," he said. Then pleased that his scholarly Secretary of 
 State, Governor Seward, appeared astonished, Lincoln explained: 
 
 "When we decline homo it is: 
 homo, a man 
 hominis, of man 
 homini, for men 
 
 "So you see hominy being 'for men' comes from the Latin." " 
 
 Eating hominy along Pigeon Creek had left an indelible mark on 
 Lincoln's memory. Nattie Grigsby wasn't exaggerating when he 
 told friends: "Abe and me many a time et hominy and fat pork 
 together." * 
 
 Throughout his life Lincoln ate sparingly, adhering to the advice 
 of Socrates he had read in Scott's Lessons: "We should eat and drink 
 in order to live, instead of living as many do, in order to eat and 
 drink." In the White House President Lincoln seldom had more than 
 an egg and a cup of coffee for breakfast and a glass of milk, some 
 bread and fruit for luncheon. Whether it was due to his careful eat- 
 ing or his other temperate habits, Lincoln retained far into manhood 
 much of the great physical strength of his youth. With thumb and 
 forefinger the President once grasped the extreme end of the handle of 
 a heavy axe and held it at arm's length— an almost unbelieveable feat 
 of strength. 80 "When I was eighteen years of age I could do this," he 
 told General Egbert W. Veile. "And I have never seen the day since 
 I could not do it." According to numerous stories, Abraham Lincoln 
 was unbelieveably strong from about seventeen years onward. 
 
 Besides his great strength and early eating habits, the "blab-school" 
 practice of his youth carried over into Lincoln's mature life. Occasional 
 evidence of this practice was especially noticed by Superintendent 
 Chandler of the War Department telegraph office. To keep in touch 
 with Grant and his other generals, Lincoln often went to Chandler's 
 office to send them messages. "His lips moving, frequently he spoke 
 a sentence aloud or in a half whisper," Chandler recalled. When 
 satisfied he had the proper expressions the President would write out 
 his messages. Inserts and erasures were few, for he had carefully 
 selected his words and arranged them in proper sequence in his mind 
 before putting them on paper. 
 
 Lincoln made such good use of this habit in his early political cam- 
 paigns that by the time he was nominated for the Presidency in 1860 
 his speeches were widely recognized as having great power of expres- 
 sion. His House-Divided speech, his debates with Stephen A. Douglas, 
 
LASTING IMPRESSIONS 171 
 
 and his Columbus, Ohio, speech had attracted so much attention in the 
 East that he was invited to New York to deliver the Cooper Union 
 Address. After listening to him, Professor John P. Galliver of An- 
 dover, Massachusetts, asked him how he had gained such a knowledge 
 of the English language. "Well," replied Lincoln, "if I have any power 
 that way, I will tell you how I suppose I came to get it. You see 
 when I was a boy over in Indiana, all the local politicians used to come 
 to our cabin to discuss politics with my father. After they left, I'd 
 lay awake for hours just a-putting their ideas into words so that the 
 boys around our way could understand." a 
 
 While putting political ideas into understandable words for the boys 
 around his way, Lincoln noticed that when the Bible was quoted it 
 produced an emotional effect on his adult Pigeon Creek neighbors. He 
 also saw it happen in his own home when, after listening to visiting 
 preachers on those Sundays his stepmother could not attend church, 
 he returned and quoted to her, verbatim, the sermons he had heard. 
 This habit fastened in his memory many verses of the Bible. All 
 of his great speeches and letters reveal the influence of Biblical 
 phrasing. 
 
 Probably his first experiment with Bible idiom was his "Adam and 
 Eve's Wedding Song" written for the marriage of his sister Sarah to 
 Aaron Grigsby in 1826. He made the Garden of Eden short-rib 
 operation fit the version in Genesis and when his neighbors liked it so 
 well that they memorized it he sensed a new and effective use for 
 the Scripture. 
 
 Several years later he experimented again. This time he wanted 
 to retaliate for not having been invited to the Grigsby double-wedding 
 infare — he had been at outs with the elder Grigsbys since his sister had 
 died in childbirth — so he wrote a satire and called it the "First 
 Chronicles of Reuben" or the "Book of Chronicles." With calculated 
 artistry he copied the rhythmic, smooth-flowing prose style of the 
 Old Testament. He scattered copies of his piece around Gentryville 
 and heard his neighbors laugh at the Grigsby affair, the precise effect 
 he desired. Eventually differences with the Grigsbys were patched up. 
 "No family after this loved Lincoln so well. We all voted for him," 
 Nathaniel Grigsby proudly related. 32 
 
 Thus, at twenty, Abraham Lincoln had discovered how to arouse 
 a whole community to merriment. His Pigeon Creek neighborhood 
 had become for him a literary workshop where he experimented 
 with words and watched people's reactions to them. His study of the 
 
172 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 art of phrase-making, begun in Indiana, lasted to the day of his 
 death. 
 
 Lincoln's statement that when he was a boy in Indiana "all the 
 local politicians" used to come to his cabin covers a period of time 
 when some of the politicians were emerging as prominent state 
 builders. Some of them even appeared in Lincoln's later races for 
 office. Early contacts with them undoubtedly helped him to appraise 
 their actions and motives. 
 
 Only a few days before Lincoln was nominated for President on 
 the Republican ticket in 1860 a former neighbor, Joseph Lane, was 
 nominated for Vice President on the Breckenridge Seceder's ticket. 
 Even though the Breckenridge-Lane ticket put a second Democratic 
 slate of candidates into the field, thereby splitting the party, a less 
 able politician than Lincoln might have been defeated. But Lincoln 
 knew a lot about Lane and Lane's methods; this knowledge he found 
 useful when he felt he had to suggest to visiting delegations how they 
 might pour a little more water on his own political wheel. 
 
 Joseph Lane, now a U.S. Senator from Oregon, had attained an 
 office Lincoln had wanted a few years before: Governor of the Terri- 
 tory of Oregon. Back in Lincoln's Pigeon Creek days, Lane had helped 
 considerably in sweetening Ratcliff Boon of Warrick County. Long 
 after Boon quit fighting the local political machine and had been 
 elected Lieutenant Governor of Indiana (subsequently becoming 
 Governor) the spirit of his simple, direct political announcements 
 stuck with Lincoln. During Lincoln's first race for the Illinois legisla- 
 ture in 1832 his appeal had Lane's simplicity: "I have no wealthy or 
 popular relations or friends to recommend me. My case is thrown 
 exclusively upon the independent voters of the country." Boon had 
 told Indiana voters: "In presenting myself to you I have nothing to 
 claim through my ancestors, but alone depend on what may be thought 
 I justly merit." S2a 
 
 As a youngster Abe developed an easy familiarity with Governor 
 Boon, state legislator Joseph Lane, and other members of the govern- 
 ing body of Indiana when they rode by the Lincoln home on their 
 way to the state capital at Corydon. Waving at the Governor and 
 legislators, asking them for the latest news, Abe grew up with a high 
 regard for political offices but with little awe of the men who held 
 them. 
 
 In the White House Lincoln was neither servile nor pompous. 
 During the summer of 1863, his secretary John Hay, who was born 
 
LASTING IMPRESSIONS 173 
 
 in Indiana a little way north of the home of Josiah Lincoln, Abraham's 
 uncle, wrote that the President "is managing this war, the draft, 
 foreign relations, and planning a reconstruction of the Union, all in one. 
 The old man sits here and wields like a backwoods Jupiter the bolts of 
 war and the machinery of the government." 83 The model of that 
 "backwoods Jupiter" could easily have been Eatcliff Boon, whom 
 young Abe and his Hoosier neighbors called King of Warrick. 
 
 In an attempt during the Presidential campaign to play down Lin- 
 coln's popularity in order to boost that of Lane, the Evansville 
 (Indiana) Enquirer, June 26, 1860, printed in Lincoln's boyhood 
 country, editorialized: "The great argument in favor of Lincoln con- 
 sists of his having split a few fence rails in his earlier days. Joe Lane, 
 the seceders' candidate for Vice President, used to split cordwood in 
 Vanderburgh County and if he continues as a candidate we predict 
 a thousand cords of wood can be found as examples of old Joe's handi- 
 craft." 
 
 Rivermen who remembered Lincoln as one of themselves because of 
 of his flatboat trips down the Ohio ignored Lane and took up the 
 fight for Lincoln. According to the Evansville Journal (June 23, 1860) , 
 the men had lashed to the bows of their flatboats "a huge rail, about 
 twenty feet high, near the top of which appears an axe and maul, 
 crossed, forming an excellent representation of the Lincoln coat of 
 arms." Other supporters hired an artist to paint a six-by-ten foot 
 picture of Lincoln splitting rails in Indiana. Hoisting it on a long pole 
 they carried it, banner fashion, to political rallies throughout the 
 Hoosier State. 34 This must have reminded Candidate Lincoln of the 
 Adams-Jackson campaign of 1828, when he and fellow Pigeon Creekers 
 set up hickory poles and wildly danced and whooped around them. 
 
 As the 1860 Presidential campaign grew hotter Lincoln's political 
 enemies resolutely dug into his Indiana years for material with which 
 to substantiate rumors being circulated against him. Some of his old 
 time Spencer County pro-slavery enemies joined in the fight by 
 whispering a rumor that thirty years before they had heard Store- 
 keeper Jones of Gentry ville swear, "Abe Lincoln has slid! That 
 damned rascal has run off with my goods!" They referred, of course, 
 to the notions and other items Abe had obtained on credit at Jones' 
 store to peddle along the highway from Indiana to Illinois. In the 
 September 20, 1860, Rockport (Indiana) Planter, William Jones 
 denied ever having said it and branded the tale slanderous and a lie. 
 The tale so angered William Grigsby, the man with whom Lincoln had 
 quarreled over the spotted pup, that he belligerently stalked Buck 
 
174 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 Horn Valley, challenging, "I'll whip anyone who dares to speak one 
 word against my old friend, Abe Linkern." 
 
 Temporarily in Missouri, Nathaniel Grigsby wrote to Lincoln. In 
 answering Nattie, after telling the news of his family, Lincoln added: 
 "There is now a Republican electoral ticket in Missouri, so that you 
 can vote for me if your neighbors will let you ... I would advise you 
 not to get into any trouble about it. Give my regards to your 
 brother Charlie." Charles was one of the double-wedding bridegrooms 
 whom Lincoln had lampooned in the "Chronicles of Reuben." * 
 
 Over at Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln received material evidence that 
 he had other loyal friends on Pigeon Creek as anxious to help him as 
 his enemies were to find Hoosier experiences to defeat him. Josiah 
 Crawford, in whose home Lincoln had vowed, "I will study and get 
 ready," sent a piece of whiteoak rail to be made into a cane. The 
 Presidential-nominee told newspaper men, "It is part of one of the 
 rails I cut for him in 1825, when I was sixteen years old." w From G. 
 W. Rathbone of Evansville, Indiana, Lincoln received this message: 
 "At the request of our mutual friend Wm. Jones of Gentry ville, I send 
 you herewith, a cane, the first work on which was done by yourself 
 thirty-five years ago." w Obviously, it was Abe's walking stick which 
 Jones had put away so long ago for a keepsake. "I always used to 
 carry a cane when I was a boy," Lincoln explained. 
 
 Feeling humble, but prepared for the struggle against Seceders who 
 were determined to keep slavery even at the expense of the Union, 
 Lincoln said: "I know there is a God and that He hates injustice and 
 slavery. I see the storm coming and I know that He has a hand in it. 
 If He has a place and work for me — and I think He has — I believe I 
 am ready." w 
 
 Many of Lincoln's fixed beliefs may be traced back to his experiences 
 in Indiana. He believed a storm could be an overwhelming force. 
 "Of all the forces of nature," he said, "I think the wind contains the 
 largest amount of motive force ... to level a forest." 89 He had 
 seen the storm of 1827, predicted by the local Miracle Woman, level a 
 wide swath of virgin timber through Buck Horn Valley. In Novem- 
 ber, 1860, that swath could still be seen as plainly as the storm of war 
 then about to strike the nation. Lincoln had been elected President 
 hardly three months when angry delegates from planting states met 
 in Montgomery, Alabama, organized the Confederate States of 
 America and on February 11, 1861, chose Jefferson Davis as their 
 Provisional President. President Davis, adding excitement to that 
 rising storm, declared: "If war must come, it must be on Northern 
 
LASTING IMPRESSIONS 175 
 
 and not on Southern soil. We will carry war where it is easy to 
 advance, where food for the sword and torch awaits our armies in the 
 densely populated cities." *° 
 
 With sword and torch North and South attacked each other. After 
 more than three years of strife, worries, disappointments, and betrayals 
 had ploughed deep furrows in Lincoln's tired face; he was more 
 wearied in mind than in body. He tried to rest but, as he expressed 
 it to F. B. Carpenter, "The remedy seemed never to reach the tired 
 spot." a He knew that each day more homes, North and South 
 alike, sank into mourning. But still the war must go on if the Union 
 was to be restored. 
 
 In 1863 someone warned President Lincoln that if he let Colonel 
 James F. Jaquess go as a religious peace emissary to President Davis 
 it might give France and Great Britain the pretext they were waiting 
 for to recognize the Confederacy. President Lincoln observed that he 
 also feared he might be accused by the Copperheads of showing the 
 white feather and thus discourage loyal people. Recalling a tale from 
 his old Aesop's Fables, read as a boy, he said, "You see, I don't want 
 to be like the dog that crossed the brook with a piece of meat in its 
 mouth, and dropped it to catch at its enlarged shadow in the water. 
 I want peace. But I can't afford to discourage our friends and so per- 
 haps make it more difficult to save the Union." 42 Surely he knew 
 France, Great Britain and Spain were giving comfort to the Con- 
 federacy and that the ruling classes of those three countries did not 
 want to see the new democracy in the New World succeed. Even 
 before his First Inauguration he knew French leadership had begun to 
 encourage Southern secession. 
 
 Back in February, 1861, the Indianapolis State Guard, an anti- 
 Lincoln newspaper, gleefully published a letter written by a French 
 Senator, M. Hennocque, to the South Carolinian, Professor Dubos, in 
 which it was stated that Emperor Napoleon III did "not see why 
 South Carolina should not secede from the Union" and that the 
 Emperor "will recognize your government as soon as it is regularly 
 organized and constituted." The letter was mailed from Paris on 
 January 14th. 
 
 In David Ramsay's Life of Washington and William Grimshaw's 
 History of the United States, Lincoln had read, while at Gentryville, 
 how President Washington struggled to keep peace with both France 
 and Great Britain while M. Genet, the French agent to the United 
 States, outfitted privateers at Charleston, South Carolina, to prey on 
 British shipping. 
 
176 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 In January, 1824, Lincoln had read in the Vincennes Western Sun 
 about President Monroe's hands-off policy; after almost forty years he 
 still maintained a sturdy regard for the spirit of that doctrine. As 
 President, Lincoln was faced with as great a dilemma as had faced 
 either President Monroe or President Washington, for, in June, 1864, 
 the French Emperor set up Maximilian of Austria as Emperor of 
 Mexico. It was plain to Lincoln that Napoleon III had put in motion 
 a three-fold plan: aid the Confederacy, weaken the American Union, 
 re-annex the old Louisiana Territory. 
 
 By setting up Maximilian, Emperor Napoleon had taken the first 
 step toward openly defying Monroe's warning that "we should con- 
 sider any attempt on their [European Powers] part to extend their 
 system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace 
 and safety." Great Britain was watching Napoleon's every move. 
 Spain watched, too, ready to undo the work of Simon Bolivar, the 
 great South American patriot about whom Lincoln had heard and 
 read so much back on Pigeon Creek. Lincoln remembered the ardent 
 sympathy his aged American Revolutionary War-veteran neighbors 
 had expressed for the George Washington of the South American revo- 
 lutionists. He remembered he had been stirred by Bolivar's proclama- 
 tion carried in the Vincennes Western Sun of March 3, 1827: "The 
 loathsome and sanguinary serpent of discord flees from the center of 
 Columbia! Internal enemies are no more. This day is the triumph of 
 peace. Granadians! Your brothers of Venezuela are the same! 
 Columbians! Forget the days of sorrow and may their remembrances 
 be blotted out!" 
 
 Lincoln further remembered that in 1825, his political idol, Henry 
 Clay, while Secretary of State, had boldly defended the South Ameri- 
 can colonies by declaring, "If the leagued despots of Europe should 
 attempt to aid in the subjugation of Spanish America, the whole 
 energy of the United States would be brought into requisition to repel 
 aggression." Clay proposed a sort of Pan American Union, a system 
 which "would constitute the rallying point of human freedom against 
 all the despotism of the old world." " Of this Lincoln said, "Mr. 
 Clay's efforts in behalf of the South Americans are among the finest 
 on record, upon the noblest of all themes — a love of liberty and right, 
 unselfishly, and for their own sakes." ** 
 
 As President Lincoln saw he must exert all possible effort to 
 neutralize the meddling of European powers in both Spanish America's 
 and our own Civil War affairs. With able help from Secretary of State 
 Seward, he succeeded to a remarkable degree by getting one power to 
 
LASTING IMPRESSIONS 177 
 
 suspect the other two. 45 But a day came when even Lincoln's patience 
 ended. At a Cabinet meeting he described the time he went up to 
 the warring Indiana farmhouse to peddle some notions and a woman 
 met him at the door. She told him the angry noises were just a family 
 row, which she could manage without any outside help. "And I 
 don't want no sneaking around trying to find out how I do it, either," 
 she warned. "That's the case here," said the President. "We must 
 let other nations know we propose to settle our family row in our own 
 way." Turning to the Secretary of State, he directed, "Now, Seward, 
 you write some diplomatic notes to that effect." 46 
 
 Treason trials at Indianapolis further harrassed Lincoln. Back there 
 sixty persons had been tried for conspiring to resist the draft, and to 
 set up a Northwestern Confederacy friendly to Southern Confederacy. 
 Federal enrolling officers had been shot. There had been secret mur- 
 ders. A plot had been discovered to kidnap and kill Governor Morton, 
 Lincoln's friend, and to seize the State Government of Indiana. 47 
 Several conspirators, directing the Knights of the Golden Circle and 
 Order of American Knights in trying to break up the Union, had 
 been condemned to death by a military commission. On being told 
 there were many thousands in the State who were not only politically 
 against him, but who were siding with the "dark lantern knights," 
 as the dis-unionists were derisively called, President Lincoln scoffed 
 at the idea, let his Hoosier spirit get the better of his good judgment, 
 and pardoned the condemned men. "Nothing can make me believe 
 that one hundred thousand Indiana Democrats are disloyal," he 
 declared. 48 
 
 Earlier in the year friends of Lincoln had pointed out to him that 
 Secretary Chase, frantic for the next Presidential nomination, was 
 undermining him. They did admit, however, that Chase was zealously 
 trying to make the Treasury Department function efficiently. 49 It 
 was in this connection that Lincoln told his friends about the time in 
 his boyhood days when he and his stepbrother, John D. Johnston, were 
 plowing corn. A chin-fly got on their slow, old horse and began biting 
 it very hard. Away went the horse, pulling the plow rapidly across 
 the field. Lincoln added that if any Cabinet member "has a Presi- 
 dential chin-fly biting him, I'm not going to knock it off, if it will make 
 his department go." 50 
 
 In spite of Lincoln's enemies in the North, there were enough 
 Republicans and War Democrats who pledged themselves Union men 
 and re-elected him President. 51 On December 6, 1864, he told Con- 
 gress, "The war will cease on the part of the Government whenever it 
 
178 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 shall have ceased on the part of those who began it." It looked as if 
 he intended to treat the Secessionist slave-holding leaders the same 
 way he had treated the Negro slave-bandits who attacked him on his 
 first flatboat trip to New Orleans: fight them only until they quit. 
 
 The specter of the North winning the war and Lincoln subjugating 
 the South frightened thoughtful Rebels. Some of them suggested 
 repealing the Declaration of Independence, thereby automatically 
 returning the South to active protection under the British crown. 
 They argued that then Lincoln would have a brand new war on his 
 hands. 52 Before trying out that scheme, however, Confederate Presi- 
 dent Davis sent Duncan Kenner to France and Great Britain, offering 
 emancipation of the slaves in exchange for public recognition of the 
 Confederacy. 53 
 
 With the War of the Rebellion drawing to a close, Lincoln held an 
 informal Cabinet meeting to discuss what to do with Davis and other 
 Secessionist officials. Almost everyone was for hanging them. Lincoln 
 kept quiet and listened. Finally, Joshua F. Speed, who also was there, 
 asked the President for his views. "Well, Josh," said Lincoln, "when 
 I was a boy in Indiana I went to a neighbor's home one morning and 
 found a boy about my size holding a coon by a string. The boy, 
 fearing his father was going to kill the coon as soon as he returned 
 home, tearfully said, 'If I let him go, Dad would give me hell. But 
 if he would get away by himself it would be all right.' " The President 
 added: "Now if Jeff Davis and those other fellows will only get away, 
 it will be all right. But if we should catch them and I should let 
 them go, 'Dad would give me hell.' " M 
 
 Upon General Lee's evacuation of Richmond, April 2, 1865, Jeff 
 Davis fled from the Confederate capital. And that was all right with 
 
 Abe Lincoln. 
 
 * * * 
 
 In addition to his acquaintance with political stump-speakers and 
 political-fixers during his formative years, Lincoln also had learned 
 about the sociological experimenters Robert Owen and his son, Robert 
 Dale Owen, at New Harmony on the Wabash River, just ten miles 
 west of Thomas Lincoln's Posey County, Indiana, farm. There on 
 the river, schemes for the self-emancipation of slaves, for freeing man- 
 kind from the "contest between individuals," and for guaranteeing 
 to everyone an equal chance at education and the pursuit of happiness 
 were being explored in conference or were actually being tried out by 
 the experimenters. 
 
 The President was wrestling with the idea of a proclamation of 
 
LASTING IMPRESSIONS 179 
 
 amnesty when Robert Dale Owen dropped into the White House one 
 Sunday morning. Sixty-three years old now, Owen was more mature 
 in judgment than when he had taught at the New Harmony Utopian 
 experiment. He had become a leading Indiana Democratic politician 
 and had done a good job of buying arms for his state's troops since 
 May, 1861. Back in September, 1862, he had written President 
 Lincoln, urging him immediately to issue an Emancipation Proclama- 
 tion to free the slaves. Owen argued that "Property in man, always 
 morally unjust, has become nationally dangerous. Property that en- 
 dangers the safety of the nation should not be suffered to remain in 
 the hands of its citizens. A chief magistrate who permits it to so 
 remain becomes responsible for the consequences." Owen's letter, 
 according to Secretary Chase, "had more effect in deciding the Presi- 
 dent to make his proclamation than all other communications com- 
 bined." ■ 
 
 "Mr. President," said Mr. Owen when he called at the White House, 
 "I have here a paper that I have prepared with some care. I wish to 
 read it to you." The President settled himself to listen. When Owen 
 referred to the Whiskey Rebellion in Washington's administration, 
 Lincoln sat up and exclaimed: "What! Did Washington issue a 
 proclamation of amnesty?" Owen: "Here it is, sir." Lincoln: "Well, 
 I never knew that." 
 
 Robert Dale Owen read through to the end and handed the paper 
 to the President. As Lincoln accepted it he told his visitor: "Mr. 
 Owen, you have conferred a very essential service both upon me and 
 the country." M 
 
 On December 8, 1863, the President issued his Proclamation of 
 Amnesty and Reconstruction. In it he made "known to all persons 
 who have directly, or by implication, participated in the existing re- 
 bellion, except as hereinafter excepted, that a full pardon is hereby 
 granted to them . . . upon condition that they shall take and sub- 
 scribe to an oath." 
 
 Lincoln's sister-in-law, Emilie Todd Helm, widow of Confederate 
 General Ben Hardin Helm, took the oath and was among the first to 
 benefit by Robert Dale Owen's work. Mrs. Helm had come to the 
 White House to grieve with her sister, Mary Todd Lincoln, over the 
 death of their brother David, a Confederate soldier who had died of 
 
 wounds received at Vicksburg. 
 
 * * * 
 
 When President Lincoln was accused by Secretary Chase's friends 
 of attempting "to put down this rebellion with the left hand while 
 
180 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 supporting Slavery with the right hand," w those fault finders ob- 
 viously did not realize how deep an impression the slavery issue had 
 made upon the President during his growing-up years in Indiana. 
 
 Lincoln had matured in a border country. He had seen slavery 
 both at its worst and in a form which some borderland people con- 
 sidered not too bad. Beginning in 1820 he had observed how the 
 slavery question had threatened the Union: "A sullen gloom hung 
 over the nation. All felt the rejection of Missouri was equivalent to 
 the dissolution of the Union." 58 
 
 When the first threats of dissolution were heard at Pigeon Creek 
 Lincoln had read David Turnham's copy of the Statutes of Indiana 
 and had written: "The Constitution should be sacred; the Union 
 perpetuated and the laws revered, respected, and enforced." 59 More 
 than thirty years later he set out to enforce the laws in order to per- 
 petuate the Union. "So long as I am President," he declared, the 
 war "shall be carried on for the sole purpose of restoring the Union." * 
 But in restoring it he would also recognize the Constitution's guaran- 
 tee of the individual's lawful rights to personal property. He would 
 not allow his own prejudice against human servitude to override the 
 laws of the land that recognized slaves as property. 
 
 When Lincoln was seventeen years old he was charged in a Ken- 
 tucky magistrate's court with violating the legal rights of Ohio River 
 ferrymen. There Squire Samuel Pate, a slave-holder, demonstrated 
 that the precepts of the law should prevail over a judge's financial 
 gain by finding Lincoln not guilty as charged by the Dill brothers who 
 rented ground of the Squire for use as their ferryboat landing. Squire 
 Pate's respect for the law and his devotion to the Constitution sharply 
 outlined themselves in Lincoln's legal thinking. 
 
 On the Squire's plantation, from the big house down to the river 
 bottoms, Lincoln had seen only kindness to slaves. Still it was 
 slavery. "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong," he said. In 
 spite of that wrong he was sure that slavery was lawful south of the 
 Ohio; otherwise, how could a man of Squire Pate's integrity hold 
 slaves? 
 
 When again a sullen gloom hung over the nation and dissolution 
 threatened the Union in 1860, Lincoln's early border-country experi- 
 ences gave him a broad understanding of the slavery problem. "I 
 believe," he said, "the devotion to the Constitution is equally great 
 on both sides of the river. The only dispute on both sides is 'what 
 are their rights.' " 61 Speaking before Congress July 4, 1861, he re- 
 called that Secession advocates had carried their idea of their rights so 
 
LASTING IMPRESSIONS 181 
 
 far as to invent "an ingenious sophism that any state of the Union 
 may consistently with the Constitution withdraw from the Union 
 without the consent of the Union or any other state. With rebellion 
 thus sugar-coated they have been drugging the public mind of their 
 section for more than thirty years." 
 
 In his first inaugural address President Lincoln declared: "No 
 State upon its mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; 
 that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void; and that 
 acts of violence, within any State or States, against the authority of 
 the United States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to 
 circumstances. I, therefore, consider that, in view of the Constitution 
 and the laws, the Union is unbroken." 
 
 Back in Indiana days Lincoln had read in David Turnham's copy of 
 the Revised Statutes of Indiana, Article I, Section 10 of the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States: "No State shall enter into any Treaty, 
 Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; 
 coin money." If a state were not allowed to do any of those things, 
 Lincoln felt no state or states could withdraw from the Union. Never- 
 theless, by Inauguration Day, March 4, 1861, the Confederate States 
 or America had been set up and were functioning. 
 
 From the outbreak of the Civil War, Abolitionists and Northern 
 fanatics demanded that President Lincoln immediately free all slaves. 
 Steadfastly he resisted them. "What I do about slavery and the 
 colored race, I do because I believe it helps save the Union," he 
 wrote to Horace Greeley. "I would save the Union. I would save it 
 the shortest way under the Constitution." To his way of thinking 
 nothing in nature changed suddenly. Even erosion, which in his boy- 
 hood he had seen at work along the Ohio River and Pigeon Creek 
 eating away the banks, was gradual. So, while feeling action against 
 slavery should be as relentless as erosion, Lincoln insisted: "Gradual 
 and not sudden emancipation is better for all." 6a 
 
 Adhering to his teen-age conviction that the law should be revered 
 and property rights under the Constitution respected, President Lin- 
 coln drew up a plan for the Government to pay owners $400,000,000 
 for their slaves. He read it aloud to his Cabinet. None voiced 
 approval. Slowly he folded the paper and placed it in his pocket. 
 "You are all opposed to me," he commented sadly. 63 By proposing that 
 masters be compensated for loss of their slaves he had multiplied his 
 enemies and shaken the faith of his weaker friends. "Man has no 
 property in man," many taunted him. Those words were not new to 
 Lincoln. He had read them at Gentryville in 1827 in William Wood's 
 
182 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 Telescope. Still the law recognized slaves as valuable chattel. As 
 property, the President reasoned the government should pay the 
 masters for them before freeing the slaves. Since his youth he had 
 believed slavery should be abolished. He had known of legal ways to 
 do it. 
 
 Frances Wright's self-emancipation system was working quite satis- 
 factorily at the time Abe's father owned the Posey County farm near 
 Robert Owen's New Harmony Utopian experiment. In a letter to 
 General McClernand, Lincoln seems to have had in mind something of 
 Miss Wright's plan when he suggested that the slave-holding states 
 "adopt systems of apprenticeship for the colored people, conforming 
 substantially to the most approved plans of gradual emancipation." M 
 Also he remembered Clay's system. "I had hoped and prayed," the 
 President told McClernand," that the gradual emancipation plan of 
 Henry Clay might soon lead to its [slavery] extinction in the United 
 States." * During his only term in Congress he introduced a bill to 
 abolish slavery in the District of Columbia "with the consent of the 
 voters of the District and with compensation to the owners," but the 
 measure was defeated. 66 
 
 Hoping to stop the war, save the Union, and solve the slavery 
 question, President Lincoln told the border slave states on July 12, 
 1862: "I do not speak of emancipation at once but of a decision to 
 emancipate gradually. How much better for you as seller and the 
 nation as buyer, to sell out and buy out that without which the war 
 could never have been than to sink both the thing to be sold and the 
 price of it in cutting one another's throats!" 67 Did Lincoln believe 
 that if the war were ended at once and the Union saved, slave-holders 
 would sell their slaves? Or did he feel that some masters would take 
 their slaves to free soil and emancipate them as Thomas Clay, of 
 Kentucky, had done in 1823, when he crossed the Ohio River and freed 
 his slaves in Lincoln's own Spencer County, Indiana? 
 
 Unfortunately for the country neither the slave-holders of the South 
 nor the immediate emancipationists of the North heeded Lincoln's 
 plea. So the war went on. And mourning invaded home after home, 
 even the White House. Another of Mrs. Lincoln's brothers, Samuel 
 Todd, was killed at Shiloh. As a little girl Mary Todd had cuddled 
 Baby Sam. Bravely now she held back her sobs; the wife of the 
 President of the United States must not betray grief for a Rebel soldier. 
 More sorrow entered the White House. In August, 1862, Lincoln re- 
 ceived word that during a skirmish near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 
 still another of his wife's brothers, Lieutenant Alexander H. Todd, a 
 
LASTING IMPRESSIONS 183 
 
 Confederate officer, had been killed. When that news reached her, 
 Mrs. Lincoln dropped to her knees on the White House floor, sobbing, 
 "Oh, little Alec! Why had you to die?" 68 And while she wept the 
 scar over President Lincoln's right eye grimly reminded him that 
 on his first flatboat trip to New Orleans, 1829, a Louisiana Negro 
 slave-bandit had struck him with a club and almost killed him. It 
 had happened near that same Baton Rouge where Alec was shot. 
 
 Steadfastly holding to his objective of saving the Union regardless 
 of the slavery issue, President Lincoln patiently endured the almost 
 daily visits of Senators Ben Wade, Zack Chandler, and Charles Sum- 
 ner, who came demanding that all slaves be freed at once. They 
 bitterly opposed Lincoln's plan to pay the owners. They disregarded 
 the fact that immediate emancipation of the slaves would economically 
 ruin at least one-third of all Southerners. They resented Lincoln's 
 suggestion that the North share equitably with the South the cost 
 of emancipation. They could not say with him: "I have no prejudice 
 against the Southern people. They are just what we would be in their 
 situation. If slavery did not now exist among them, they would not 
 introduce it. When Southern people tell us they are no more respon- 
 sible for the origin of slavery than we, I acknowledge the fact." 69 
 
 Quite likely not one of those three Senators had known slave- 
 masters of the quality of Squire Samuel Pate, Sheriff W. D. Ferguson, 
 and former slave masters such as James Gentry or William, son of 
 Judge Peter Jones. But Lincoln had known them and he further 
 knew that Jones and the Gentrys were now fighting in the ranks of 
 the Northern Army — not to save slavery, but to save the "Union. 
 
 One day as the President stood watching Chandler, Wade and 
 Sumner walk toward the White House, he remarked to General Hen- 
 derson that those three Senators reminded him of a dull little fellow 
 reading the Bible in class in the old log schoolhouse back along Pigeon 
 Creek. The boy, who already had found trouble in pronouncing Shad- 
 rach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, cried out when he saw them mentioned 
 again on the page, "Here's them same damn three fellers again!" 70 
 
 When, however, it came to dealing with slave-traders, Lincoln was 
 not at all sympathetic. Nathaniel Gordon, sentenced to be hanged 
 for slave-trading, begged the President to change the sentence to 
 life imprisonment. Lincoln merely granted him a respite of fourteen 
 days to "prepare for the awful change which awaits him." He said 
 the man who would "rob Africa of her children to sell into inter- 
 minable bondage, I will never pardon." 71 Lingering in his memory 
 were the horrors which Kentucky "patter-rollers" and Indiana "nigger- 
 
184 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 ketchers" had brought to free and fugitive Negroes of the Pigeon 
 Creek region by stealing them and dragging them across the Ohio 
 River into slavery. A decade after leaving that border country, while 
 on board an Ohio River steamboat, Lincoln again saw the work of 
 slave-catchers. About a dozen Negroes were on the boat, shackled 
 together with irons. "I hate to see the poor creatures hunted down 
 and caught and carried back to their stripes and unrequited toil," 
 Lincoln wrote to Joshua F. Speed. "I see something like it every 
 time I touch the Ohio or any other slave border." 72 To an Indiana 
 regiment the President said, "Whenever I hear anyone arguing for 
 slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally." 73 
 
 Lincoln's determination to save the Union overshadowed all regard 
 for any immediate group, race, or section of the United States. He 
 believed that somewhere along this republic's march of progress, 
 slavery surely would fall by the wayside because it violated the spirit 
 of the Declaration of Independence. At Pigeon Creek he had grown 
 up among veterans of the American Revolution and the War of 1812. 
 From them he had learned first-hand the high cost of bringing "forth 
 upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated 
 to the proposition that all men are created equal." More than once 
 Lincoln quoted Henry Clay's speech of the late 1820s in which he 
 said Clay "told an audience that if they would repress all tendencies 
 to liberty and ultimate emancipation, they must go back to the era of 
 our independence and muzzle the cannon which thundered its annual 
 joyous return on the Fourth of July; they must penetrate the human 
 soul, and eradicate the love of liberty; until they did these things they 
 could not repress all tendencies to ultimate emancipation." 7i 
 
 To preserve the Union and the spirit of the Revolutionary patriots 
 had been Lincoln's ideal ever since he read Weems' Life of Washington 
 in his childhood. As President-elect he told the New Jersey Senate: 
 "I recollect thinking then, boy even though I was, that there must 
 have been something more than common that these men struggled for 
 . . . that something that held out a great promise to all people of the 
 world for all time to come — I am exceedingly anxious that this Union, 
 the Constitution, and the liberties of the people shall be perpetuated in 
 accordance with the original idea for which that struggle was made." 
 
 At Philadelphia's Independence Hall Lincoln added: "I have never 
 had a feeling, politically, that did not spring from the sentiments 
 embodied in the Declaration of Independence. It was not the mere 
 matter of separation of the colonies from the motherland, but that 
 sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty not 
 
LASTING IMPRESSIONS 185 
 
 alone to the people of this country, but hope to all the world, for all 
 future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the 
 weights would be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all 
 should have an equal chance." 
 
 While Lincoln's policies displeased Senators Chandler, Wade, and 
 Sumner, it was Wade who usually was irritated by the President's 
 story-telling talent — much of which had been nurtured at Gentryville 
 and on Taylor's ferry at the mouth of Anderson River near Troy, 
 Indiana. Once Wade came to the White House to urge the President 
 to dismiss General Grant. "Senator," said Lincoln, "that reminds me 
 of a story." Wade interjected: "It is with you, sir, all story, story! 
 You are the father of every military blunder that has been made dur- 
 ing the war. You are on your road to hell, sir, with this government. 
 You are not a mile off this minute." Good-naturedly Lincoln respond- 
 ed: "Senator, that is just about the distance from here to the Capitol, 
 is it not?" 75 
 
 The accusation that he led the country within a mile of hell seemed 
 not to worry President Lincoln nearly so much as the problem of com- 
 bating the slave-holding oligarchy. This one-third of the Southern 
 voting population had been a big factor in bringing on the rebellion 
 against the United States Government. Lincoln called the action of 
 that minority "an attempt for the first time in the world to construct 
 a new nation on the basis of human slavery." 76 His experiences among 
 slave-holders had led him to believe that generally they looked upon 
 a hired laborer as being in a static social position. He said they 
 assumed that "whoever is once a hired laborer is fatally fixed in that 
 condition for life. This is the mud-sill theory." 77 Mud-sills were those 
 logs which he had helped lay at the bottom of his Indiana cabin 
 homes and which eventually became a fixed part of both cabin and 
 earth. 
 
 Orators of the Confederacy pointed out that their new government's 
 cornerstone rested "upon the great truth that slavery is the Negro's 
 natural and normal condition." 78 To grub out that cornerstone and 
 the "great truth" under it as effectively as he had grubbed out the 
 stumps from Buck Horn Valley land, President Lincoln on September 
 22, 1862, warned the rebellious states that unless they returned to the 
 Union he would free their slaves. It was plain that while he recognized 
 their property rights in their slaves he had determined to follow the 
 suggestion of his old Indiana neighbor, Robert Dale Owen, and re- 
 move from the control of Southern rulers the "property that endangers 
 the safety of the nation." 
 
186 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 Less than three months later the entire North was stunned by 
 bloody defeat at Fredericksburg. Gloom once more settled above the 
 Mason-Dixon line. Distrust of Lincoln's policies rapidly mounted. 
 Nevertheless, since not a seceded State had heeded his warning, 
 President Lincoln used his war powers to issue the Emancipation Proc- 
 lamation on January 1, 1863: "All Persons held as slaves hencefor- 
 ward shall be free." He had fulfilled the promise made as he and 
 Allen Gentry stood watching the sale of "fancy girls" on the levee at 
 New Orleans in 1829. "Allen," he then had said, "If I ever get a lick 
 at that thing I'll hit it hard." 79 John Hanks claimed Lincoln made a 
 similar statement to him in New Orleans in 1831, but Lincoln con- 
 tradicted this in 1860: "Hanks had not gone to New Orleans, but hav- 
 ing a family, and being likely to be detained from home longer than 
 at first expected, had turned back from St. Louis." w 
 
 The Emancipation Proclamation frightened some slave-owners but 
 not W. D. (Wappanocca) Ferguson, the man for whom Lincoln had 
 chopped tupelo gum in Crittenden County, Arkansas, in 1826 and 
 1827. Ferguson called at the White House to complain to the Presi- 
 dent that General Grant's soldiers, wintering at Memphis, Tennessee, 
 had been crossing the Mississippi River and raiding his plantation. 
 He said he had appealed to Grant for relief but had received no 
 response. So would the President do something about the situation? 
 Despite the fact that Ferguson still held slaves, Lincoln accommodated 
 his old employer. He wrote Grant a note which said in effect that 
 all of Mr. Ferguson's property must be respected by the Union forces. 81 
 
 As was to be expected the Emancipation Proclamation quickly 
 engendered such bitterness throughout the Confederate states that 
 their armies fought even harder than before. At Chancellorsville, 
 General Lee's troops staggered General Hooker's Army of the Potomac 
 in one of the worst slaughters of the Civil War. On hearing of the 
 defeat President Lincoln, hands clasped behind his back, paced the 
 White House floor. "My God! My God! What will the country 
 say!" he moaned. 82 
 
 Mrs. Lincoln's frequent headaches increased with each announce- 
 ment that another of her brothers in Confederate uniform had fallen 
 in battle. Finally she said her dead son, Willie, was coming to 
 comfort her. That alarmed the President. "Her nerves have gone to 
 pieces," he remarked to her sister, Mrs. Helm. One day he led his wife 
 to an east window of the White House and pointed to a hospital for 
 the mentally ill: "Mary, if you don't control yourself, we will have to 
 put you over there." M He knew what mental illness could lead to 
 
LASTING IMPRESSIONS 187 
 
 for he had seen one of his brilliant Indiana schoolmates completely 
 break down. "I could not forget the impression his case made upon 
 me," he wrote. 84 
 
 But even while struggling to aid Mary Todd throw off her depres- 
 sion, Lincoln himself gave in to spells of melancholia. Back in his 
 boyhood days Pigeon Creekers — especially James Grigsby, the other 
 half of the "Brush College" student body — had noticed how similar 
 spells affected him. "Abe would get fits of blues, then he wouldn't 
 study for two or three days at a time," said Grigsby. 85 For weeks 
 following Willie's death, the President locked himself in a room on 
 Thursdays in order to grieve over his son's passing, sharing his grief 
 with all other fathers, of North and South alike, who had lost sons in 
 the war. And his grief was heightened as the two contending armies 
 clashed at Gettysburg. Again an anguished Lincoln paced the White 
 House corridors. His fear for the Union grew so great he cried out, 
 "Save, Lord, or we perish!" 88 Into his mind came his mother's last 
 words as she lay dying on the old cornshuck tick at Pigeon Creek: 
 "Remember, Abraham, our God is a prayer-hearing God." He would 
 heed her words. "I went to my room," said Lincoln, "and got down 
 on my knees and prayed Almighty God for victory at Gettysburg. 
 I told Him this was His country, the war His war; but that we really 
 couldn't stand another Fredericksburg or Chancellors ville. And then 
 and there I made a solemn vow with my Maker that if He would 
 stand by the boys at Gettysburg I would stand by Him. And He did 
 and I will." 87 
 
 After three days of savage fighting, July 1 to 3, 1863, General Meade 
 halted General Lee's northern invasion. Then while Meade hesitated to 
 strike what might have been a war-ending blow, the remnants of Lee's 
 army escaped across the Potomac River. More encouraging news 
 reached Lincoln: General Grant had captured Vicksburg on July 
 4th, opening up the Mississippi River to Union traffic. Knowing 
 from his flatboating days the great value of that river, the Presi- 
 dent wrote to James C. Conkling: "The signs look better. The Father 
 of Waters again flows unvexed to the sea." 
 
 Although the signs looked better to him along the Mississippi, 
 Lincoln was disturbed by the situation in the eastern war zone. To 
 arouse more aggressiveness in his military commanders there the Presi- 
 dent resorted to use of the Rule of Three Direct, the Golden Rule of 
 Proportion he had learned in Pike's Arithmetic while attending Azel 
 W. Dorsey's school near Gentryville. To General H. W. Halleck, 
 Lincoln wrote: "General Meade, as shown by the returns, has with 
 
188 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 him, and between him and Washington, of the same classes of men, 
 well over 90,000. For a battle, then, General Meade has three men 
 to General Lee's two. If the enemy's 60,000 are sufficient to keep our 
 90,000 away from Richmond, why, by the same rule, may not 40,000 
 of ours keep their 60,000 away from Washington, leaving us 50,000 
 to put to some other use? ... I can perceive no fault in this statement 
 unless we admit we are not the equal of the enemy, man for man. 
 I hope you will consider it." " 
 
 Whether it was due to his Rule of Three argument or to something 
 else, signs presently began to look so favorable for a Northern victory 
 that Lincoln started talking of ways to pardon the Rebels and get 
 them to return peacefully into the Union. And when James R. Gil- 
 more asked him, "Do you mean, sir, that as soon as Rebels lay down 
 their arms you will grant them a general amnesty?" Lincoln replied, 
 "I do. And I will say to you, individually I should be disposed to 
 make compensation for the slaves. The blacks must be freed. 
 Slavery is the bone we are fighting over." 89 Not waiting for the 
 Southern forces to lay down their arms, Lincoln went ahead and issued 
 the Proclamation of Amnesty. 
 
 Some time afterward the President became worried because the pro- 
 clamation had neither slackened the fury of the war nor improved the 
 plight of the slaves. Lincoln was reminded of the contents of his boy- 
 hood copy of Aesop's Fables. The book contained several woodcuts, 
 one of which showed three white men scrubbing a Negro in a potash 
 kettle full of cold water. Lincoln said the men thought scrubbing the 
 Negro might make him white but just about the time they believed 
 they were succeeding the Negro took cold and died. "Now," he con- 
 cluded, "I'm afraid that by the time we get through this war the Negro 
 will catch cold and die." *° 
 
 The spring of 1864 found Lincoln again in anguish. Lines were 
 growing deeper in his tired face. Grant had set out to capture Lee. 
 The opposing armies met in the Virginia wilderness and for a while 
 Grant made some headway in forcing Lee toward Richmond. Then in 
 the Battle of Cold Harbor on June 3rd Lee's army mowed down 
 Grant's men. That jarred the morale of Northern soldiers. "It's no 
 use. We can't whip Bobby Lee," the cry passed along the ranks. 91 
 
 Night after night, spending scarcely an hour in sleep, Lincoln 
 slowly walked up and down a narrow passageway, hands clasped 
 behind him, head dropped forward, staring out of eyes ringed in black. 
 Republican extremists struck at him because of his Amnesty Pro- 
 clamation; some accused his wife of being a Confederate spy. Peace 
 
LASTING IMPRESSIONS 189 
 
 Democrats demanded that he stop the war at once. When pro- 
 slaveryites called him "That bloody butcher!" he remembered how 
 he had loathed being hog-butcher for James Taylor and James Gentry, 
 Sr. Even when, editorially, Horace Greely screamed at him, "Stop 
 these rivers of human blood!" Lincoln would not stop the war. He 
 would free the slaves and save the Union. "I did not consider I had 
 a right to touch the State Institution of slavery until all other meas- 
 ures for restoring the Union had failed," he told F. B. Carpenter. 92 
 
 All the while it was becoming more evident that Lincoln's critics 
 and tormentors were incapable of understanding him, incapable of 
 knowing that within him dwelt the solitude of the forest. Pacing 
 those dark corridors of the White House, his long morning wrapper 
 flapping about his legs, Abraham Lincoln again was walking the dark 
 woodland trails of his boyhood and youth. Back in Indiana he had 
 communed with another world. He had heard voices. His sense of 
 mysticism, his superstitions, his faith in dreams had remained with 
 him — elusive, but ever present. He had talked with God, he said; 
 the war must go on. "We are going through on this line if it takes 
 three years more," he announced. 03 "The Constitution should be 
 saved; the Union perpetuated." 
 
 While Grant and Lee continued their fighting in the wilderness, 
 General Sherman left Chattanooga, cutting his way toward Atlanta. 
 At Acworth, Georgia, Lincoln's close friend, William Jones of Gentry- 
 ville, commanding the 53rd Indiana Volunteer Infantry, joined forces 
 with Sherman. Captain Allen Gentry of the 42nd Regiment Indiana 
 Volunteers, and hundreds of others from that area which Lincoln called 
 "the triangular region between the Ohio & Wabash rivers, including 
 my old boyhood home" were already on the march. Destined to be 
 laid away in a Georgia warehouse but certainly now moving along 
 with those troops was the six-by-ten foot banner depicting Abe Lin- 
 coln the Rail-Splitter. According to James M. Justice, a 16th Battery 
 Indiana Light Artillery private who had been wounded at the Second 
 Battle of Bull Run, Southerners hooted every time they saw the 
 banner. Twice Rebels captured it and twice the Hoosiers retook it. 
 An ominous bullet-hole defaced the forehead. 94 
 
 Sherman crossed the Chattahoochee River, was attacked three times 
 by J. B. Hood's army, but finally entered Atlanta, leaving dead on a 
 battlefield Lieutenant Colonel William Jones. Although shot through 
 both thighs early in the July 22nd engagement, the sixty-four year 
 old storekeeper continued to fight until a shell hit his head and killed 
 him instantly. 95 A little while before this John W. Lamar, to whom 
 
190 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 Lincoln had remarked at Gentryville, "I wouldn't give a cent for a boy 
 who doesn't know more today than he knew yesterday," had been 
 discharged from Colonel Jones' regiment in "the last stages of con- 
 sumption." Lamar was a first lieutenant. 96 
 
 Word came that the President's boyhood companion, Second Lieu- 
 tenant Nathaniel Grigsby, had been disabled while guarding an Ala- 
 bama railroad over which supplies passed to Sherman's Army. From 
 down there Grigsby wrote to the President: "My old friend. I am 
 in the service of my country contending for the government of our 
 fathers. In the battle of Pulaska we had 33 killed and wounded out of 
 our Regt Co G of the 10 Ind Cavalry." The company "was recruited 
 in old Spencer by myself and Wm. Jones Junior the son of Col. Jones 
 of Gentryville our old and lamented friend." After telling Lincoln that 
 David Turnham's son, Thomas, had attained the rank of orderly 
 sergeant, Nathaniel Grigsby added: "I brought out two of my sons 
 with me, one of them since died of smallpox [twenty year old Henry 
 Clay Grigsby] ... I have two other sons in the army in 42 Regt Ind 
 vol at Atlanta, Ga." m 
 
 At the outbreak of the war the elder Jones had written President 
 Lincoln that men of Spencer Legion "swear death or victory is their 
 motto." Sacrifices by Lincoln's former neighbors in this chaotic 
 year of 1864 proved to the President that they were holding to their 
 motto and encouraged him to cling tighter to his resolution to save 
 the Union. Consequently, he paid no attention when General McCellan 
 called him "the original gorilla," 98 or when Secretary of War Stanton 
 called him a damned fool. 99 He paid no attention when Secre- 
 tary of Treasury Chase referred to him as "born a poor white in a 
 slave state . . . anxious for approval" from those whom he "had been 
 accustomed to look up to." 100 Lincoln turned aside these verbal 
 arrows in the same spirit he had turned aside the sarcastic compli- 
 ments of Stephen A. Douglas. "I was not much accustomed to flat- 
 tery," he had told Douglas, "and it came the sweeter to me. I was 
 rather like the Hoosier with the gingerbread, when he said he reckoned 
 he loved it better than any other man, and got less of it." ** 
 
 April 15, 1865, was Abraham Lincoln's parting day. He had finished 
 his work; he had saved the Union. Thirty-five years before as he 
 pulled out of Indiana, crossing the Wabash River into Illinois, tar 
 buckets hooked onto the family wagons rhythmically swung back and 
 forth ticking off the end of one eventful period in his life and the begin- 
 
IMPRESSIONS 191 
 
 ning of another — even as they had ticked off his crossing the Ohio 
 River from Kentucky into Indiana, from a slave state to a free state. 
 
 Beginning in his childhood, when Sarah Bush Johnston had 
 appeared in his father's dream, Abraham Lincoln had firmly believed 
 dreams foretokened life's happenings. By careful study he had found 
 dreams mentioned in twenty chapters of the Bible. He reached the 
 conclusion that in bygone ages mankind often had received divine 
 guidance by way of dreams. 102 
 
 "I had a dream last night," President Lincoln told his Cabinet and 
 General Grant on Good Friday morning, April 14, 1865. "Ever since 
 the war began I have had the same dream just before every event of 
 great importance. I saw a ship sailing rapidly, badly damaged. It 
 portends some important event which will happen very soon." 103 
 
 Lincoln could not have known the important event would be pre- 
 cipitated by John Wilkes Booth, popular Shakespeare tragedian; that 
 Booth had selected this Good Friday for assassination day. Yet 
 Lincoln knew of Shakespeare's interest in the so-called Mystical Num- 
 ber 7, having read about it in an essay in the Vincennes Western 
 Sun he had helped print on March 6, 1830. He was fifty-six and he 
 knew that was eight times seven. From Genesis to Revelation he 
 had seen the number mentioned many times. On his first trip 
 down to New Orleans, in 1829, seven Negro slave bandits attacked 
 his flatboat. One slave nearly killed him with a club. 
 
 Although not aware the date of his assassination had been set, 
 there is evidence that President Lincoln felt a singular foreboding 
 of danger while walking to the War Department late that April 
 afternoon with his bodyguard, William H. Crook. He was in such 
 a state of uneasiness that the bodyguard couldn't help but notice it. 
 "Crook, do you know," said Lincoln, "I believe there are men who 
 want to take my life?" Then, half talking to himself he added. 
 "And I have no doubt they will do it." 
 
 "Why do you think so, Mr. President?" 
 
 "Other men have been assassinated," said Lincoln. 10 * 
 
 Only a few days before the President had told Mrs. Lincoln and 
 Ward Hill Lamon about a recent dream. He said he dreamed he went 
 into the East Room and saw a corpse resting on a catafalque. He 
 asked one of the soldiers on guard, " 'Who is dead in the White House?' 
 The soldier answered 'The President. He was killed by an assassin!' " 
 
 President Lincoln added: "I slept no more that night; and although 
 it was only a dream I have been strangely annoyed by it ever since." 
 
 To Mrs. Lincoln's cry, "That is horrid! I wish you had not told it," 
 
192 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 he calmly replied, "It is only a dream, Mary. Try to forget it." But 
 he could not forget it. 
 
 Later he talked about it with Lamon and closed with Hamlet's 
 Soliloquy on death: "To sleep: perchance to dream! ay, there's the 
 rub!" 105 He first had read that line back at Pigeon Creek. It had 
 burred into his mind. 
 
 Not only "Hamlet" but still another Shakespearean drama, 
 "Richard III," stalked Lincoln's closing hours. Edwin, brother of 
 John Wilkes Booth, visited the President at the White House. Like 
 John, Edwin excelled in playing the character of Richard the Evil 
 Doer; but with gestures, postures and inflections Lincoln demon- 
 strated to Booth the way he felt parts of "Richard III" should be in- 
 terpreted. 106 Even before Booth's visit the President had written to 
 the actor, James H. Hackett: "I should like to hear you pronounce 
 the opening speech of Richard III." 1OT To the portrait painter, F. B. 
 Carpenter, Lincoln explained how Richard, brother of Edward IV, 
 "appears upon the stage, just after the crowning of Edward, burning 
 with repressed hate and jealousy." According to Carpenter the Presi- 
 dent repeated Richard's soliloquy with force and power. 108 
 
 Call it designs of Providence or merely coincidence, Abraham Lin- 
 coln's first awareness of the Booth family came while he and his 
 Hoosier neighbor, flatboat captain Allen Gentry, roamed the streets 
 of New Orleans in February, 1829. Billed there at the American 
 Theatre was Junius Brutus Booth. "That justly distinguished 
 tragedian, Mr. Booth, will make his first appearance in his own 
 peculiar character of Richard III," ran the announcement. 109 The 
 distinguished tragedian was the father of Edwin and John Wilkes. 
 
 Enraged over the way the war of American brothers was ending, 
 John Wilkes Booth prepared to do for Lincoln, that Good Friday 
 evening, what Richard planned for his brother: 
 
 "Simple, plain Clarence! I do love thee so, 
 "That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven." 
 
 Armed with dagger and loaded pistol Booth sneaked to the Presi- 
 dential box in Ford's Theater, where President and Mrs. Lincoln sat 
 laughing at Laura Keen, in Tom Taylor's comedy, "Our American 
 Cousin." Booth pushed open the door and fired a bullet into the 
 back of Lincoln's head. The bullet lodged close behind the scar made 
 by the Louisiana slave bandit's club. 110 
 
 Long since that parting day the world has acknowledged Abraham 
 Lincoln's greatness without realizing that a large share of that great- 
 
LASTING IMPRESSIONS 193 
 
 ness was built upon a foundation laid in Indiana. It was there he 
 grubbed out much of his basic education, developed his self-reliance, 
 acquired his attitudes toward slavery and the Union. There he under- 
 went his first intense sorrows. There he felt his earlier concern for the 
 miseries and calamities of mankind and for all living creatures. There 
 he found his faith in God. And there he made up his mind he was 
 going to be somebody someday. 
 
NOTES 
 
 (For full titles of works cited see Sources) 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 1. Nicolay & Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History (hereinafter referred to as 
 History) , Vol. I, 42. 
 
 2. Original in Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. 
 
 3. President-elect Lincoln's address to New Jersey Senate, Feb. 21, 1861. 
 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 
 1. Tarbell, Early Life, 42. Thomas Lincoln of Hardin County, Kentucky, 
 appointed road surveyor in place of George Redmond, May 13, 1816. (The name 
 Redmond sometimes spelled without final "d") . In Indiana the county office was 
 called supervisor. Lincoln Lore No. 657: Factors contributing to the 1816 Lincoln 
 migration. 
 
 2. Gladly land was hilly ground crusted with rich topsoil. Eli L. Grigsby affidavit 
 describes the meeting of Reuben Grigsby, Sr. and Thomas Lincoln on a trail in 
 Southern Indiana (near present village of Santa Claus) in the summer of 1816. 
 
 3. Discovery of Baby Thomas Lincoln's grave, National Republic, Feb. 1934, an 
 article by author; Lamon t Life, 20. 
 
 4. Barrett, 21-22; Gridley, 48. 
 
 5. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, N. Grigsby, Sept. 4, 1865, and John W. Rowbottom, 
 June 24, 1865, letters; Grigsby affidavit; Barrett, 22; Holand, 26; Thayer, 77; Rock- 
 port Journal, Oct. 2, 1902; Huntington Library Herndon-Lamon Collection, LN 2408, 
 Vol. I, 223-224; Warren, 297. 
 
 6. Armstrong's Notes: "Pocket Reminiscences," p. 2; Herndon & Weik, I, 13. 
 
 7. Grigsby affidavit. 
 
 8. Gridley, 48, 52; statement of John J. Hall, nephew of Thomas Lincoln. 
 
 9. Grigsby affidavit; Cockrum, 161; Brooks, 12-13; Gridley, 142-143; Esarey's Home, 
 18-19; Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 13, D. F. Hanks, June 8, 1865, statement and Vol. 
 23, D. F. Hanks undated letter; Ehrmann, 91 (Murr statement) 
 
 10. W. D. Doak's letter, Greenville (Ohio) Advocate, Aug. 8, 1929; on wall of 
 Clarence Hall's home, Charleston, Illinois (Mr. Hall is grandson of President Lin- 
 coln's stepsister, Matilda Johnston Hall) ; Lincoln Lore No. 767 (slightly different) . 
 
 11. Oldroyd, 121; Holland, 436. 12. Nicolay & Hay, History, I, 639. 
 
 13. Grigsby affidavit; Peter J. Wahl statement, Richland, in author's collection. 
 
 14. Grigsby affidavit. 15. Ibid. 
 
 16. The Reverend Mr. Frederick Ostervald, a Swiss divine, born in 1663, died in 
 1747, pointed out in the Preliminary Discourses that "Many it is true, for want of 
 learning, may not be in a capacity to read the Scriptures); which is a great misfortune, 
 and a shame to Christians." This statement may have prompted Nancy Hanks Lin- 
 coln to say she would rather Abraham learn to read the Bible than to own a farm. 
 
 17. Brockett, 743. 
 
 18. Grigsby second affidavit: F. F. Browne, 63-64. ("Proud to meet you" is still a 
 
 194 
 
NOTES 195 
 
 common salutation among older people of the Indiana Lincoln country.) 
 
 19. Lindley, 188 (Morris Birbeck, July 23, 1817). 
 
 20. Tarbell, Early Life, I, 35; Dr. Christopher Columbus Graham's Reminiscences. 
 
 21. Grigsby affidavit (The site of the cabin is about three-fourths of a mile south 
 of Nancy Hanks Lincoln's grave) . 
 
 22. Nicolay & Hay, History, I, 639; Howells, 22. 23. Grigsby affidavit. 
 
 24. R. H. Browne, 86; Nicolay & Hay, History, I, 639. 
 
 25. Western Sun, Sept. 5, 1818. 26. Grigsby affidavit. 
 
 27. Herndon & Weik, I, 13; Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 15, D. F. Hanks, Feb. 22, 1866, 
 letter: "I am a Base Born child. My mother was Nancy Hanks the ant of A 
 Lincoln mother." 
 
 28. Credit Number F. C. 2566 (under) General Land Office, Vincennes Office, De- 
 partment of the Interior, Washington, D.C. 
 
 29. Davis Inlow to author at Lincoln City, Nov. 1930. Mr. Inlow, then ninety, had 
 as a boy often seen the Lincoln home. 
 
 30. Brooks, 29. 31. Herndon & Weik, I, 44. 
 
 32. Henry Watterson in Cosmopolitan Magazine, March, 1909, p. 369. 
 
 33. Brooks, 29. 34. See Note 28 above. 
 
 35. There still are mild outbreaks of "the trembles" in the Lincoln country. 
 
 36. "Milk Sickness, the Result of Richweed Poisoning," by Dr. James F. Couch, 
 Journal of the American Medical Association, July 28, 1928, Vol. 91, 234-236; "The 
 Toxic Constituent of Richweed or White Snakeroot (Eupatorium urticaefolium) " by 
 Dr. Couch, Journal of Agricultural Research, Vol. 35, No. 6, Sept. 15, 1927; "Tremetol, 
 The Compound that Produces 'Trembles' (Milksickness) " by Dr. Couch, Journal of 
 the American Chemical Society, 51 (1929) , 3617. John Tuley to John W. McCoy. 
 
 37. Holland, SO. 
 
 38. The Creed reads: "the doctrine of election by grace and that the elect were 
 chosen in Christ Jesus before the world began." This doctrine members called, "the 
 designs of Providence." 
 
 39. The will of Thomas Sparrow is on file in the Spencer County courthouse, 
 Rockport. It also is published in Lincoln Lore No. 383. 
 
 40. See Note 37 above; Herndon & Weik, I, 26-28. 41. Hobson, 18-19. 
 
 42. Redmond Grigsby to Charles F. Brown, Rockport; Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 
 14, William Wood statement, Sept. 15, 1865. 
 
 43. Oldroyd, 121; Holland, 436; Arnold's Lincoln, 20; Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 13, 
 Dennis Hanks, June 13, 1865, letter. 
 
 44. "David Elkins" by Dr. J. Edward Murr in the Christian Advocate, Oct. 17, 
 1935, p. 938; Cockrum, 331. 
 
 45. Judge Ralph E. Roberts, grandson of William Roberts, Rockport, and John 
 Gentry, son of Joseph Gentry, Lincoln City, to author. Ehrmann, 92; Herndon-Weik 
 MSS, Vol. 15, N. Grigsby, March 15, 1866, letter. 
 
 46. Hobson, 18. 
 
 CHAPTER TWO 
 
 1. Rockport Journal, Feb. 11, 1898, statement by Henry C. Whitney, friend of 
 President Lincoln; J. B. McClure, 273-274. 
 
 2. Huntington Library Herndon-Lamon Collections, LN 2408, Vol. I, 234. 
 
 3. McMurtry, 9. 
 
196 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 4. J. B. McClure, 273-274; Lamon, Life, 29; Samuel Haycraft letter to Herndon, 
 Dec. 7, 1866, in Herndon & Weik, I, 29. 
 
 5. Herndon- Weik MSS, Vol. 15, D. F. Hanks, March 12, 1866 letter. 
 
 6. Ibid., Vol. 14, Matilda Johnston Hall Moore (Lincoln's stepsister) , Sept. 8, 1865, 
 statement. 
 
 7. Brooks, 29. 8. Nicolay & Hay, History, I, 639. 
 9. S.W.I.H.S. manuscript Jonesboro by Jeanette Bullock. 
 
 10. Herndon- Weik MSS, Vol. 22, folio 3824, Mrs. Thomas Lincoln statement; Vol. 
 14, her Sept. 8, 1865, statement; Murr, XIV, 180. 
 
 CHAPTER THREE 
 
 1. Lindley, 188 (Morris Birbeck, July 23, 1817). 
 
 2. John Tuley, boyhood friend of Lincoln, to his grandson, John W. McCoy. 
 
 3. Clerk's Records of Cumberland (now Monroe) County, Kentucky; Burkesville, 
 Kentucky: Cumberland County surveyor's Book "A", 309, 396. 
 
 4. Grigsby affidavit. 5. Arnold's Lincoln, 15-16. 6. Grigsby affidavit. 
 
 7. S.W.I.H.S. "Life of James Gentry, Jr." by his granddaughter, J. Helen Rhodes 
 (manuscript) ; Goodspeed, 452; Joseph Gentry to his son, John Gentry. 
 
 8. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, N. Grigsby, Sept. 4, 1865, letter. 
 
 9. Ibid., Vol. 15, D. F. Hanks, Jan. 26, 1866, letter; Murr, XIV, 181. 
 
 10. Atkinson, 29. 
 
 11. Nicolay & Hay, History, I, 640; Murr, XIII, 343 and XIV, 154. (The site of 
 the Noah Gordon mill is about one-half mile south of Old Pigeon Church on the Hevron- 
 Spurlock farm.) 
 
 12. Lamon, Life, 68. 13. Herndon & Weik, I, 50-51. 
 
 14. Original in Oliver R. Barrett's Lincoln Collection, Chicago; Herndon & Weik, 
 I, 14, and Lamon, Life, 62, quote this poem but both have edited it slightly. 
 
 15. Marriage Record Book No. 1, page 2, Spencer County courthouse, Rockport, 
 Indiana; Rockport Sentinel, June 13, 1883, interview with Mrs. Margaret McFarling 
 (McFarland) Cissna, written by her daughter, Mrs. M. F. Crooks. Map and sketches 
 of Bureau County, Illinois, by N. Matson, 1867, page 108. 
 
 16. Told to author by old settlers of Lincoln City and published in National Republic 
 Magazine, February, 1931. 
 
 17. John W. McCoy, grandson of John Tuley, to author. 
 
 18. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 15, David Turnham, Feb. 21, 1866, letter. 
 
 19. Gridley, 48, interview with John J. Hall. 
 
 20. Angle, 29-30; Ehrmann, 74 21. Armstrong, Notes. 
 
 22. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, Matilda Johnston Hall Moore (Lincoln's stepsister) 
 Sept. 8, 1865 statement: Vol. 22, folio 3822-3823. 
 
 23. Western Sun, Feb. 15, 1823. 
 
 24. David Inlow statement to author at Lincoln City, Nov. 1930: Joseph Gentry 
 told story to Mr. Inlow. 
 
 25. Murr, XIV, 33. 
 
 26. John Tuley in Rockport Journal, Feb. 12, 1897; Lamon, Life, 57; Herndon-Weik 
 MSS, Vol. 14, John R. Dougherty, Sept. 17, 1865, statement. 
 
 27. William Jones told Joseph D. Armstrong in 1858, "I have been a regular sub- 
 scriber to the Vincennes Sun since I came to Spencer county." Of Lincoln, Jones 
 said to Armstrong, "Abe was fond of reading, especially the Whig papers. And any- 
 
NOTES 197 
 
 thing about Henry Clay was eagerly read and digested by Abe." In the Oakland 
 City Enterprise, Nov. 16, 1899, Joseph D. Armstrong states that "The facts were 
 noted by me during the year 1858, when Mr. Lincoln first came into national pro- 
 minence, and again in 1860, when he was made the standard bearer of the Republican 
 Party." Mr. Armstrong, a Democrat, made notes of Lincoln during the political 
 campaigns. His penciled notes and published papers are in the possession of his 
 daughter, Mrs. Mina Armstrong Cook, Rockport. 
 
 28. Western Sun, Feb. 8, 1817. 
 
 29. Peter Jones' Estate, Sept. 1819, Knox County. Clerk's Office, Box 7. 
 
 30. Ibid., Minutes of Board of Trustees, Vincennes University, Feb. 18, 1817. 
 
 31. Ibid. 32. Carpenter, 256. 
 
 33. Huntington Library Herndon-Lamon Collection, LN 2408, Vol. I, 235. 
 
 34. Hobson, 23. 
 
 35. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 15, David Turnham, Feb. 21, 1866 letter. 
 
 36. Joseph D. Armstrong in Oakland City Enterprise, Nov. 16, 1899, from William 
 Jones' statement to Armstrong in 1858. 
 
 37. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 15. David Turnham, Feb. 21, 1866, letter; Lamon, 
 Life, 24. 
 
 38. Hobson, 24-25. 
 
 39. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 15, D. F. Hanks, March 22, 1866, letter. 
 
 40. Grandview Monitor, Sept. 12, 1935. 41. A. K. McClure, 23. 
 
 42. Jacob Reynolds statement to author at Lincoln City, November, 1930 (Mr. 
 Reynolds was the grandson of Joseph Gentry from whom he had the story) , National 
 Republic, February, 1931. 
 
 43. Roberts, 116. 
 
 44. Armstrong's Notes, 1874; Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, William Wood, Sept. 
 15, 1865, statement undoubtedly meant this episode. 
 
 45. Lowry, 328. 46. Indiana Magazine of History, XXIV, 68. 
 47. Lowry, 490. 48. Nicolay & Hay, History, I, 14. 
 
 49. George Bonnie Enghof, grandson of Betsy Ray Grigsby, to author. Nov. 22, 
 1935. In calling the colt Bulger it is believed that Sarah Lincoln was using the Indiana 
 backwoodsman's pronounciation of the old Scotch word "buller" which, it is said, 
 meant to rear. Several of Lincoln's neighbors were Scotch immigrants. 
 
 50. Tracy, 121. 51. Rice, 458. 
 
 52. Scripps, 14-15; New York Herald, Oct. 20, 1860. 
 
 53. Murr, XIII, 338; Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 16, Elizabeth Crawford, Sept. 7, 
 1866, letter; Will F. Adams in Grandview Monitor, Aug. 1, 1935; New York Herald, 
 Oct. 20, 1860. 
 
 54. Hertz, n, 791 (Lincoln to St. Marie Brass Band and St. Cecelia Society). 
 
 55. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 16, Elizabeth Crawford Sept. 7, 1866 letter. 
 
 56. Gentry, 269; Nicolay & Hay, History, I, 87-88; Indianapolis Star, March 12, 
 1939; Lincoln Lore No. 529 (reprint of Lincoln's original manuscript in Library of 
 Congress) . 
 
 57. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, John Romine, Sept. 14, 1865 statement. After 
 talking for several years with Lincoln's old neighbors, Joseph D. Armstrong, in 1874, 
 in his Spencer County and Its Prominent Citizens, 1874, wrote of Lincoln: "By 
 those of his comrades who did not appreciate study he was considered lazy; by others 
 he was pronounced industrious." 
 
 58. Mrs. Elizabeth Crawford's public statement at Lincoln City, July 4, 1881, 
 
198 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 reprinted in Rockport Journal, June 9, 1916. The well which Lincoln dug for Craw- 
 ford is still in use. 
 
 59. Huntington Library Herndon-Lamon Collection, LN 2408, Vol. I, 136. 
 
 60. Ibid., 135. 61. Ibid., 136. 62. Tarbell, 67. 
 
 63. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14: Mrs. Joseph Crawford states that by 1828 Lin- 
 coln felt himself destined to be a great man and remarked that he would be President 
 someday. Lamon, Recollections, 110: "From early youth he seemed conscious of a 
 high mission ... a vision of grandeur and of gloom." 
 
 64. Tarbell, Early Life, 62; Lamon, Recollections, 110. 
 
 65. Original in Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. 
 
 66. Grigsby affidavit. (In the Pigeon Creek neighborhood are three Indian work- 
 shops containing stone hoes, drills, pipes, arrowheads, tomahawks, earthenware, jewelry, 
 mortars and pestles.) 
 
 67. Norfolk, 129. 
 
 68. Barton, 49-50; Butterworth, 39-54: "a true pcture in a framework of fiction." 
 
 CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 1. Murr, XIII, 323-325; Dr. Murr to author. 2. Angle, 211. 
 
 3. Esarey, 425; Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 15, N. Grigsby, Jan. 21, 1866, letter. 
 
 4. Murr, XIV, 182. 
 
 5. Lamon, Life, 49-50; Hobson, 22; Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, Green B. Taylor 
 Sept. 16, 1865, statement. 
 
 6. Townsend, 34-39; Mrs. A. H. Bergenroth's manuscript in author's collection. 
 (Mrs. Bergenroth, deceased, lived in Troy, and was the granddaughter of Reuben 
 Bates who established a store at Bates Landing below Troy in 1812. Mr. Bates was 
 well acquainted with Abraham Lincoln and the Taylor family.) 
 
 7. Henry Whittinghill of Boonville to author. 
 
 8. Spencer County, Marriage Record Book, No. 1, 1816-1843, p. 20. 
 
 9. Grigsby affidavit. 
 
 10. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 15, Mrs. Elizabeth Crawford, May 3, 1866, letter. 
 
 11. Indiana Magazine of History, XV, 140-141; Lindley, 308-310. 
 
 12. Abraham Lincoln's complete "Adam and Eve's Wedding Song" was remembered 
 by Mrs. Elizabeth Crawford and quoted in her May 3, 1866, letter (see Note 10 
 above) . 
 
 13. Kidson, 153; Sharp, n, 272, has slightly different version sung by Mr. Jasper 
 Robertson at Burnsville, N.C., Sept. 29, 1918. 
 
 14. Grigsby affidavit. 
 
 15. Mudge, 57-58; Selby, 59; Murr, XIV, 18-19; Ehrmann, 86; Dr. Murr's 1892 
 interview with Jefferson Ray, Jr., son of the flatboat captain, and William Forsythe who 
 stated the trip ended at Memphis, Tennessee; statement of William Jefferson Ray, 
 Santa Claus, to author. 
 
 16. Cummings, 92. 
 
 17. William Jefferson Ray to author. On his return to Indiana, 1827, Jefferson Ray 
 remembered Lincoln's philosophy and on it built a great flatboating business which 
 flourished for many years. 
 
 18. Fletcher Chenault in Arkansas (Little Rock) Gazette, July 4, 1927, "Abe Lin- 
 coln Lived and Worked in Arkansas." Mr. Chenault interviewed Judge Jesse N 
 
NOTES 199 
 
 Cypert, whose father served in the Arkansas Senate with William D. Ferguson, then 
 a State Senator. "Wappanocca" Ferguson told Cypert the story. 
 
 19. General Egbert L. Veile in New York Independent, April 4, 1895. 
 
 20. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, William Wood, Sept. 15, 1865, statement; Murr, 
 XIV, 182. 
 
 21. "Spencer County and Its Prominent Citizens," by J. D. Armstrong, 1874; War- 
 rick County Brief, 53 — W. H. Scales affidavit; Carpenter, 256; W. H. Scales and Henry 
 C. Whittinghill to author. 
 
 22. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, David Turnham, Sept. 15, 1865, statement; 
 Lamon, 58-59. 
 
 23. Holland, 33; J. B. McClure, 22; Lamon, Life, 58; Arnold, Life, 27. In Hoosier 
 vernacular the word "clever" means kind, neighborly, sociable. 
 
 24. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 15, Mrs. Elizabeth Crawford, Feb. 21, 1866, letter. 
 
 25. Hobson, 51-52: states that the Reverend Mr. Farmer was a United Brethern 
 preacher who recently had held a big camp meeting in a grove near Gentryville; 
 Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, William Wood, Sept. 15, 1865, statement; Vol. 16, David 
 Turnham, Sept. 5, 1866, letter. 
 
 26. Ordinance Book of Board of Trustees in City Clerk's Office, Vincennes: slave 
 ordinance passed May 15, 1815. 
 
 27. Hobson, 29. The Lincoln-Brooner gun is in the Chicago Historical Society 
 Museum. 
 
 28. Grigsby affidavit. 29. Warren, 298. 
 
 30. Armstrong, Notes, 1874 manuscript; John Tuley to his grandson, John W. Mc- 
 Coy. (Tuley was boyhood companion of Lincoln in Spencer County) . The path of the 
 1827 hurricane was visible as late as 1870. 1827 always afterward was spoken of as 
 "the year of the hurricane." 
 
 31. Rockport Journal, Feb. 11, 1898, "Lincoln Heard Phantom Voices and Believed 
 in Destiny" by Henry C. Whitney. 
 
 32. Mrs. Mary J. Scott interview in Grandview Monitor, Aug. 26, 1920; Indiana 
 Magazine of History, XXI, 6. 
 
 33. Grigsby affidavit. 
 
 34. Publication of the Illinois Historical Society, 1907, XII, 165-167. 
 
 35. Hobson, 21-24; Charles T. Baker, Grandview, an authority on the Barker- 
 Lamar families genealogy, letter to author. Nettie Barker married John W. Lamar. 
 
 36. Grigsby affidavit; Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, N. Grigsby, Sept. 4, 1866 
 letter. 
 
 37. See Note 35 above. 38. Murr, XIV, 53-55. 
 
 39. Gentry affidavit. E. Grant Gentry, Rockport, had the Gentry-Lincoln flatboat 
 story from his grandmother, Katy Roby Gentry, wife of Allen Gentry and school- 
 mate of Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Gentry's sisters — Misses Anna, Hannah, and Rose, 
 of Rockport — told the same story to author; Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, N. Grigsby, 
 Sept. 12, 1865 statement. 
 
 40. Gentry affidavit. 
 
 41. John Gentry, son of Joseph Gentry, to author at Lincoln City. 
 
 42. S.W.I.H.S.: "The Honorable Daniel Grass" by Laura Mercey Wright 
 (manuscript) . 
 
 43. Ehrmann, 21; S.W.I.H.S.: letter by John Grass, M.D. 
 
 44. Gentry affidavit. 
 
 45. George Burton Cunningham, Chenault, Kentucky, to author. Mr. Cunningham, 
 
200 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 in Rockport Journal, July 13, 1928, tells how his father, James H. Cunningham, 
 received the trunk from Lincoln. 
 
 46. Gentry affidavit; Gentry, 269. 
 
 47. G. B. Cunningham, Rockport Journal, July 13, 1928. 
 
 48. Ibid. 49. Western Sun, Dec. 13, 1828. 
 
 50. Gentry affidavit. 
 
 51. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, William Wood, Sept. 15, 1865 statement; Murr, 
 XIV, 150. 
 
 52. Lamon, Life, 74. 
 
 53. Mrs. Josiah Crawford Stapleton statement in Evansville Daily Courier, July 
 5, 1881; Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, Jos. C. Richardson, Sept. 14, 1865 statement. 
 
 54. Statement of Betsy Ray Grigsby (Mrs. Reuben Grigsby, Jr.) , one of the 
 double-wedding brides, Rockport Journal, Feb. 12, 1897. 
 
 55. Ibid. 56. Ibid. 
 
 57. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, Joe C. Richardson, Sept. 14, 1865, statement. 
 
 58. Mrs. Reuben Grigsby, Jr., Rockport Journal, Feb. 12, 1897, statement; Mrs. 
 Elizabeth Crawford's version puts bridegrooms in bed with wrong brides; Herndon- 
 Weik MSS, Vol. 14, C. A. Crawford, Jan. 4, 1866 letter; Vol. 15, N. Grigsby, Feb. 
 12, 1866, letter. 
 
 59. Murr, XIV, 41. 60. See Note 54 above. 
 
 61. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, N. Grigsby, Sept. 12, 1865, statement. Shortly 
 after the assassination of President Lincoln an old house belonging to the Grigsby 
 family was being torn down. A boy poking around in the loft found the "Book 
 of Chronicles" — a roll of faded, musty papers. Asked what he was doing, he answered, 
 "I am reading a portion of the Scriptures that haven't been revealed yet." About 
 1892, James Gentry said to Redmond Grigsby, brother of Reuben, Jr. and Charles, 
 "Red, everybody's dead now but you. By gum, I'd let them (the Chronicles) 
 come out." Redmond Grigsby replied, "Jim, there is plenty of time for that yet." 
 (Murr. XIV, 41). In the summer of 1936, Mr. Eli L. Grigsby, Gentryville at 
 the request of the author, made a diligent search for the original copy of "The 
 Chronicles." Mr. Grigsby, who had not seen the Lincoln manuscript for several 
 years, finally reported that he was convinced a cousin of his, in poor mental health, 
 had burned it a year or so before. 
 
 62. Murr, XIV, 38-39; Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, N. Grigsby, Sept. 12, 1865, 
 statement. 
 
 63. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 16, N. Grigsby, Sept. 19, 1866, letter. 
 
 64. See Note 61 above; Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, J. C. Richardson Sept. 14, 1865, 
 statement; David Turnham, Sept. 15, 1865, statement. 
 
 65. Armstrong Notes, 1875; Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, Green B. Taylor Sept. 16, 
 1865, statement; Lamon, Life, 64-65, attributes the Lincoln-Grigsby fight to hard 
 feelings aroused by the "Chronicles of Reuben." Dr. J. Edward Murr interviewed 
 Joseph Gentry, Redmond Grigsby, and Wesley Hall, all of whom saw the fight; all 
 felt Lamon was mistaken. (Murr, XIV, 38-39) 
 
 66. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, N. Grigsby, Oct. 25, 1865, letter. 
 
 67. Grigsby affidavit. 
 
 68. Mrs. Reuben Grigsby, Jr. to her grandson, Charles Todd Enghof, Grandview. 
 
 69. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, N. Grigsby, Sept. 12, 1865, statement. 
 
NOTES 2G1 
 
 CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 1. Johnson, 156; Murr, XIV, 60-61. 
 
 2. Lincoln Lore No. 49 (quoting Lincoln to John Locke Scripps) . 
 
 3. Johnson, 157. 
 
 4. The Lincoln family Bible is preserved in the Lincoln Museum, Ford Theater, 
 Washington, D.C. Six inches wide, nine and a half inches long and three and a half 
 inches thick, it weighs about three and a half pounds. It was printed in 1799; its 
 binding of board and calf-skin is still in good condition. Great sections have been 
 carefully torn out; it is believed this was done to buy other Lincoln relics. Owners of 
 those pages, it is hoped, will return them to the Lincoln Museum to be rebound in 
 this, one of the most precious Bibles in America. Missing parts are Exodus IX to 
 XVIII, inclusive; II Maccabees XII; all of St. Matthew and to St. Mark VIII, 6. 
 Lincoln was especially fond of Isaiah. Consequently, Chapters XLV, XL VI, XLVIII 
 of Isaiah and their footnotes are thumbed and worn. II Esdras and Ecclesiasticus 
 (Prologue of Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach) of the books called the Apocrypha 
 indicate a great amount of usage. 
 
 5. Lamon, Recollections, 113-114. 
 
 6. The custom of mass funerals in June, prevailed at Old Pigeon Creek meeting- 
 house until the late 1930's. Elder Thomas France invited author to attend such a 
 service. 
 
 7. Brooks, 21; Hobson, 20; Arnold, Life, 20; Lincoln Lore No. 606; J. B. McClure, 
 251; Tarbell, Early Life, 64; Murr, XIV, 178. 
 
 8. "Funeral Sermon for Nancy Hanks Lincoln" Dr. J. Edward Murr, Christian 
 Advocate, Oct., 1935; Lincoln Lore No. 69; J. B. McClure, 251-253; Herndon-Weik 
 MSS, Vol. 13, D. F. Hanks, June 13, 1865, letter. 
 
 9. Holland, 29-30. 
 
 10. Tarbell, Early Life, 64 (Joseph Gentry statement) 
 
 11. J. B. McClure, 251-252. 12. Western Sun, Oct. 9, 1819. 
 
 13. Warrick County Brief, 43 — James W. Phillips affidavit; J. D. Armstrong's 
 "Pocket Reminiscences, Number 2;" Armstrong, Notes; Hobson, 22; Lincoln Lore 
 No. 84. 
 
 14. Spencer County and Its Prominent Citizens by J. D. Armstrong, 1874; Arm- 
 strong, Notes; Lincoln Lore No. 661. 
 
 15. J. D. Armstrong's "Pocket Reminiscences, Number 2." Sometime around 1870 
 a tramp spent the night in the log church; being too lazy to gather fuel from the 
 woods, he used Thomas Lincoln's wild-cherry pulpit for firewood. 
 
 16. Lamon, Recollections, 119-120. 
 
 17. Elder Thomas France's sermon at Figeon Creek meetinghouse, Nov. 3, 1935: 
 the customary statements and inquiries made by preachers there for more than a 
 century. 
 
 18. Huntington Library Herndon-Lamon Collection, LN 2408, Vol. I, 82; Herndon- 
 Weik MSS, Vol. 14, David Turnham, Sept. 15, 1865, statement. 
 
 19. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, Matilda Johnston Hall Moore, Sept. 8, 1865, 
 statement. 
 
 20. Murr, XIII, 343. 
 
 21. Huntington Library Herndon-Lamon Collection, LN 2408, Vol. I, 227. Detailed 
 account of Lincoln's religious activities, by Thomas B. McGregor, National Republic, 
 
202 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 Washington, D.C., Oct. 15, 1921; Hemdon-Weik MSS, Vol. 15, N. Grigsby, Jan. 21, 
 1866 letter. 
 
 22. James Grigsby to Professor Andrew M. Sweeney, who knew Grigsby many years. 
 
 23. Reverend Caleb A. Obenshain of Dewey, Oklahoma, in Kansas City (Missouri) 
 Journal, Jan. 22, 1909. Reverend Obenshain, a Baptist minister, climbed into the loft 
 of the Old Pigeon Church during 1866, and "discovered in a crevice between two of 
 the upper logs an old, faded memorandum book." Lincoln Lore No. 767. 
 
 24. Herndon & Weik, I, 79-80, footnote; Murr, XIII, 344; A. K. McClure, 20-21. 
 
 25. After rare book experts, bibliographers, Roman Catholic and Church of England 
 scholars, and the Library of Congress and the British Museum had failed to identify 
 the book — all pages before 259 were missing — for author, 1936-1937, he gave a 
 photostat of page 401 to Dr. Anson Phelps Stokes, Canon of Washington Cathedral, who 
 took it to Europe and turned it over to Dr. Willard Connelly, Director of the American 
 University Union of London and Paris. On December 15, 1937, Dr. Connelly wrote 
 to Dr. Stokes that the book had been identified. Dr. Connelly had taken the photo- 
 stat to Oxford University and "put it in the hands of my good friend, Dr. Caster, 
 Bodley's Librarian" who "put the problem under the scrutiny of his Senior Assistant, 
 Mr. J. C. Hindle. Aftei a search of three weeks Mr. Hindle solved the puzzle. The 
 photostat is a leaf from Practical Discourses upon all the Collects, Epistles, and Gos- 
 pels, to be us'd thro-out the year. Volume IV, Part II. By Matthew Hole, D.D., 
 Rector of Exeter College in Oxford. London, 1716, Octaveo." Mr. Hindle wrote Dr. 
 Connelly that "fortunately the Bodleian acquired this particular set of Hole's books 
 only shortly before the question came in. Otherwise he would have looked in vain." 
 The copy which Lincoln read was loaned to author by John W. McCoy, grandson of 
 John Tuley. 
 
 26. Warrick County Brief, 31 — Sarah Gray affidavit. 
 
 27. Lincoln Lore No. 76. 
 
 28. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, Matilda Johnston Hall Moore, Sept. 8, 1865 
 statement and her undated statement, Vol. 22, folio 3823-3824; Lamon, Life, 40. 
 
 29. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, folio 2314, Mrs. Thomas Lincoln, Sept. 8, 1865 
 statement; Vol. 14, N. Grigsby, Sept. 4, 1865 letter; A. K, McClure, 276. 
 
 30. William Fortune's Notes and Collection, Indianapolis. 
 
 31. Rockport Journal, Feb. 11, 1898: "Lincoln the Fatalist, Heard Phantom 
 Voices and Believed in Destiny" by Henry C. Whitney "a close personal Friend." 
 
 32. Drake, 125-126: Drake's wording differs from the traditional version of 
 Tecumseh's reply to Harrison. 
 
 33. Western Sun, Sept. 6, 1828. 34. Arnold, 81. 
 
 35. Thomas B. McGregor, National Republic, Oct. 15, 1921: quotes Minute Book. 
 
 36. Selby, 224; A. K. McClure, 304; will of Jesse Howell, Orange County, Dec. 17, 
 1822, Indiana State Aichives, Indianapolis. 
 
 37. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, William Wood, Sept. 15, 1865, statement. 
 
 38. Western Sun, Sept. 5, 1829. 
 
 39. "Minutes of the Salem Baptist Association Held at New Hope Meeting House" 
 the Fourth Lord's Day in Sept. 1829. 
 
 40. Lamon, Life, 63. 
 
 41. Minute Book of Pigeon Church, owned by Mr. Hilbert Bennett, member of the 
 Spencer County Historical Society, Rockport, Lincoln Lore No. 767. 
 
 42. Whitney, 38. 
 
NOTES 203 
 
 CHAPTER SIX 
 
 1. Tarbell, Early Life, 62 (Whipple, 52, quotes Tarbell's Early Life, 62) . 
 
 2. Huntington Library Herndon-Lamon Collection, LN 2408, Vol. I, 87. 
 
 3. Nicolay & Hay, History, I, 596. 
 
 4. Grigsby affidavit, Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, N. Grigsby, Sept. 4, 1865, 
 letter. 
 
 5. Still a common salutation among older people of the Indiana Lincoln country. 
 
 6. Lamon, Life, 34-35; A. K. McClure, 219; Stoddard, 42-43; Indiana Magazine of 
 History, XIV, 70; statements to author by Anna Caroline Roby Gentry's grand- 
 daughters, Misses Anna, Hannah, and Rose Gentry, Rockport. 
 
 7. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, N. Grigsby, Sept. 12, 1865, statement. 
 
 8. Daily Alta Calif ornian, San Francisco, March 8, 1888. 
 
 9. Whipple, 45; Williams, 9; Indiana Magazine of History, XIV, 43. 
 
 10. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, N. Grigsby, Sept. 12, 1865, statement. 
 
 11. Bounty Land Claim Wt. 83168-120-'55, Veterans Administration, Washington, 
 D.C.; Lincoln Lore No. 65. 
 
 12. Rice, 458. 13. See Note 10 above. 
 
 14. Original in Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. 
 
 15. Unnamed newspaper clipping, apparently dated 1881, entitled "Recollections 
 of ex-President Lincoln — at Lincoln City, July 4th" in William Fortune Collection, 
 Indianapolis; Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, Joseph C. Richardson, Sept. 14, 1865, 
 statement. 
 
 16. F. F. Browne, 44-45. 
 
 17. Oldroyd's Album, 35, quoting from "Sketch of Abraham Lincoln by Hon. Isaac 
 N. Arnold." 
 
 18. Journal of Illinois Historical Society, October, 1929, Vol. XXn, No. 3, p. 447; 
 Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, John R. Dougherty, Sept. 14, 1865 statement. 
 
 19. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, Jos. C. Richardson, Sept. 14, 1865 statement. 
 
 20. Ibid. John R. Dougherty, Sept. 17, 1865, statement; James Grigsby to 
 Professor Andrew M. Sweeney. 
 
 21. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 23, John Hanks undated statement; Vol. 14, Matilda 
 Johnston Hall Moore, Sept. 8, 1865, statement. 
 
 22. F. F. Browne, 52. 
 
 23. Lamon, Life, 37, footnote: "He read at Turnham's house Scott's Lessons and 
 Sinbad the Sailor;" Lincoln Lore No. 512. Mr. Ora Brown, Dale, owns Scott's 1806 
 edition which was known to Lincoln's neighbors. 
 
 24. Nicolay & Hay, History, II, 393. 25. Carpenter, 162. 
 
 26. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, Mrs. Thomas Lincoln, Sept. 8, 1865, statement. 
 
 27. Ibid., Vol. 22, folio 3825, Mrs. Thomas Lincoln statement. 
 
 28. Indiana Magazine of History, XV, 140-141; Arnold, 21. 
 
 29. Sherman T. Briscoe affidavit, Exhibit No. 21 in the Corydon, Lincoln Highway 
 Association Brief. Mr. Briscoe, a great-grandson of Josiah Lincoln, knew Professor 
 J. M. Johnson, son of William B. Johnson, who gave Briscoe the story about Abraham 
 Lincoln borrowing Pilgrim's Progress. Briscoe's statement to author at Milltown, 
 Indiana. 
 
 30. Murr, XIV, 53: interview with Lincoln's boyhood neighbors; Rockport Journal, 
 Feb. 11, 1898, Henry C. Whitney statement. 
 
204 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 31. Cave-stone country of Indiana see booklet "A Brief History of Crawford County" 
 by John H. Weathers, New Albany, 1936. 
 
 32. See Note 28 above: Briscoe affidavit. 
 
 33. New York Herald, Oct. 20, 1860; Scripps, 14-15. There is a dispute over 
 whether it was Ramsay's Washington or Weems' Washington which was damaged. 
 Lincoln is said to have approved Scripps' work, making it Ramsay's. Herndon-Weik 
 MSS, Vol. 14, Mrs. Crawford, Sept. 16, 1865, stated it was Weems. 
 
 34. Nicolay & Hay, History, I, 171; Oldroyd, 49. 
 
 35. See Note 19 above. New York Herald, Oct. 20, 1860. 
 
 36. Huntington Library Herndon-Lamon Collection. LN 2408, Vol. I, 137. 
 
 37. Abraham Lincoln's autographed copy of the Columbian Class Book is in the 
 Frank G. Logan Collection, Chicago Historical Society. 
 
 38. S.W.I.H.S.: letter by John Grass, M.D.; Ehramann, 21. 
 
 39. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, William Wood, Sept. 15, 1865 statement. 
 
 40. Nicolay & Hay, History, II, 366. 
 
 41. Rockport Journal, March 20, 1896 and Feb. 12, 1897. The bookcase, which 
 Abraham Lincoln made, is in the Temple of Fine Arts, Evansville. After the Lin- 
 colns moved from Indiana in 1830, the bookcase fell into the hands of Abraham's 
 close neighbor, John W. Lamar, Buffaloville. Captain Lamar gave the bookcase, in 
 1876, to Captain J. W. Wartman of Evansville, who gave it to the Temple of Fine 
 Arts. Shallow holes burned out by Lincoln's candles are quite noticeable in the table 
 top. 
 
 42. Hobson, 24. 
 
 CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 1. Grigsby affidavit; Professor Andrew M. Sweeney of Indianapolis to author. 
 Sweeney boarded with James Grigsby in 1870. 
 
 2. Ibid.; Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, N. Grigsby, Sept. 4, 1865, letter. 
 
 3. Andrew M. Sweeney to author. 4. Ibid. 
 
 5. Fortune, Notes. 
 
 6. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 18, John W. Lamar, May 18, 1867, letter. 
 
 7. Dunn, Greater Indianapolis, I, 554. 
 
 8. Indianapolis Gazette, April 5, 1823. 
 
 9. Unpublished manuscript of William L. Barker (deceased) , Boonville, in the 
 possession of his son, John Barker of Boonville. After many years of research 
 William L. Barker reconstructed this murder story from material found in three 
 authoritative sources. 
 
 10. Huntington Library Herndon-Lamon Collection. LN 2408, Vol. I, 124-125. 
 
 11. James Grigsby to Professor Andrew M. Sweeney. Mr. Seth Seacat to author, 
 July 13, 1937: "My mother was Mary Ann Crutchfield, daughter of Barbara Lincoln, 
 daughter of Josiah Lincoln. My mother told me the Breckenridge story lots of 
 times. That man Breckenridge!" This is the one story 80 year old Mr. Seacat, living 
 then at DePauw, Harrison County — just over the ridge from the home of William B. 
 Johnson, who loaned Lincoln Pilgrim's Progress — said remains fresh in the memories 
 of the Indiana branch of the Lincoln family. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, S. T. 
 Johnston, Sept. 14, 1865, statement. 
 
 12. Rice, 458. 
 
 13. Townsend, 34-39; Mrs. A. H. Bergenroth manuscript in author's collection; S. 
 
NOTES 205 
 
 Grant Johnson statement in Dale Reporter, Feb. 8, 1945; Barton, Women, 141-148. 
 Barton says the girl's name was Caroline Meeker. 
 
 14. Hon. and Mrs. R. G. Higdon, Frankfort, Kentucky, to author: Harrison Pate, 
 Negro slave was present at Lincoln-Dill brothers' trial. Mrs. Higdon, granddaughter 
 of Squire Samuel Pate. S. Grant Johnson letter to author, March 18, 1945; Murr, 
 XIV, 150-153. 
 
 15. Townsend, 40; Lamon, Life, 37; Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, N. Grigsby, Oct. 
 25, 1866, letter. David Turnham's copy of Revised Laws of Indiana, which Lincoln 
 read, is owned by Hon. William H. Townsend, Lexington, Kentucky. 
 
 16. Cumberland County Clerk's Records, Burksville, Kentucky; Cumberland County 
 Surveyor's Book "A", pp. 309, 396; letter by G. H. Hoffman, Burkesville, Kentucky, in 
 Grandview Monitor, Oct. 25, 1928. 
 
 17. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 15, David Turnham, Feb. 21, 1866, letter. 
 
 18. William Fortune's Notes; Ehrmann, 74. 
 
 19. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 28, folio 4661-4664, O. C. Terry, July 14, 1888, letter 
 containing Judge John Pitcher's statement. 
 
 20. S.W.I.H.S.: Judge John Iglehart's papers; S.W.I.H.S., Bulletin No. 16, p. 55. 
 
 21. Vincennes Sun, Dec. 10, 1916, Section 4, describes the volume of Blackstone 
 which Abraham Lincoln borrowed from Sheriff Pitcher and read. In 1916 it belonged 
 to LeRoy M. Wade, member of the law firm of Wade & Padgett, Vincennes. State 
 Senator Jesse E. Wade, Mount Vernon, in referring to the Blackstone newspaper item, 
 wrote on April 18, 1935, "This is a correct statement as given to me by Mr. Engler." 
 (Wade statement in author's collection) 
 
 22. Ibid, and Note 20 above. The 1803 edition of Christian's Blackstone's 
 Commentaries which Abraham Lincoln read in Indiana, its pages still badly stained 
 with Spencer County's muddy water, was given by Judge (former Sheriff) John 
 Pitcher to the Reverend Richard Flower, a farmer-preacher, living across the Wabash 
 River from New Harmony and near Albion, Illinois. Reverend Flower gave the 
 book to Colonel Alfred Dale Owen, son of Robert Dale Owen of the New Harmony 
 Utopian experiments and friend of President Lincoln. Colonel Owen gave the book 
 to Captain George W. Engler also of New Harmony. On Dec. 25, 1902, Captain Engler 
 gave the book to Hon. LeRoy M. Wade of the law firm of Wade & Padgett, Vincennes. 
 
 23. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, William Wood, Sept. 15, 1865, statement; Vol. 16, 
 David Turnham, Sept. 5, 1866, letter; A. K. McClure, 276. 
 
 24. Murr, XIV, 73-75. 
 
 25. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 22, folio 3825, Mrs. Thomas Lincoln statement. 
 
 26. Ibid., Vol. 14, Mrs. Thomas Lincoln, Sept. 8, 1865, statement. 
 
 CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 1. See Note 16, Chapter Seven above. 
 
 2. Buckley, 96. 
 
 3. Fortune, Warrick, 73; Lincoln Lore No. 597: The Lincolns and Audubon. 
 
 4. Ibid. 5. Atkinson, 8. 
 
 6. Fortune, Warrick, 77; Goodspeed, 251. 7. Western Sun, July 27, 1816. 
 
 8. Benton, I, 5-6; Western Sun, July 27, 1816. 
 
 9. Western Sun, May 8, 1819. 10. Dunn, 40. 
 11. Goodspeed, 272-273. 12. Carpenter, 256. 
 13. Fortune, Warrick, 78: Joseph Lane letter. 
 
206 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 14. Armstrong, Notes, 1870; Joseph D. Armstrong in Oakland City Enterprise, Nov. 
 16, 1899. 
 
 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 
 
 17. Grigsby affidavit; Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, N. Grigsby, Sept. 12, 1865, 
 statement. 
 
 18. Western Sun, July 24, 1824. 19. Ibid., May 15, 1824. 
 
 20. Joseph D. Armstrong in Oakland City Enterprise, Nov. 16, 1899. 
 
 21. Stanwood, 136, 140. 22. Prentice, 225. 
 
 23. Western Sun, March 19, 1825. 
 
 24. Warrick County Courthouse, Complete Record, pp. 128-129, Sept. 1825, Boon- 
 ville. 
 
 25. Hart, 251. 26. Western Sun, May 6, 1826. 
 27. Ibid., Oct. 14, 1826. 28. Ibid., March 3, 1827. 
 29. Ibid., Oct. 6, 1827. 30. Dewey, 182. 
 
 31. Western Sun, May 31, 1828. 
 
 32. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 15, Mrs. Elizabeth Crawford, Feb. 21, 1866, letter. 
 
 33. "Lincoln's Early Political Education" by M. L. Houser (Lester O. Schriver, 
 Peoria, Illinois) , 1944, 13. 
 
 34. Western Sun, Sept. 20, 1828. 35. Stanwood, 149; Channing, 342. 
 
 36. Huntington Library Herndon-Lamon Collection, LN 2408, Vol. I, 92. 
 
 37. Western Sun, Nov. 22, 1828. 
 
 38. Cincinnati (Ohio) Daily Gazette, May 9, 1829, typical of the papers. 
 
 39. Western Sun, June 27, 1829. 
 
 40. Hobson, 23; Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 18, John W. Lamar, May 18, 1867, 
 letter. Lamar says the braggart's name was James Larkins. Samson may have 
 been the nickname given him by Lincoln and others in ridicule. This affair took place 
 near present Santa Claus (Murr, XIV, 37-38) . 
 
 41. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 22, folio 3825, Mrs. Thomas Lincoln, undated state- 
 ment. 
 
 CHAPTER NINE 
 
 1. Lindley, 325; Lockwood, 9-11 and 20-21. 
 
 2. Atkinson, 28. 3. Ibid. 
 
 4. Robert Owen's "Essay on Common Wealth", published in 1822 by the New York 
 Society for Promoting Communities. 
 
 5. "A Discourse on a New System of Society; As Delivered in the Hall of Repre- 
 sentatives of the United States" by Robert Owen, February 25, and March 7, 1825. 
 First and Second Discourses printed for Robert Owen by Gales & Seaton, Washington, 
 1825. 
 
 6. New Harmony Gazette, Oct. 1, 1825, reprinting Robert Owen's April 27th 
 speech in the Hall of New Harmony. 
 
 7. For details of Owen's experiments see The New Harmony Movement by 
 George B. Lockwood, Appleton and Company, New York, 1905; also A Visit to the 
 Colony of Harmony in Indiana by William Herbert, printed for George Mann, London, 
 1825. 
 
 8. New Harmony Gazette, Oct. 1, 1825. 9. Atkinson, 28. 
 
 10. Vincennes Credit F. 2566 (under) General Land Office, Department of the 
 Interior, Washington, D.C. 
 
 11. Goodspeed, History of Posey, 408. 
 
NOTES 207 
 
 12. Posey County Marriage Record Book No. 1, p. 48, County Clerk's Office, 
 Mount Vernon; Goodspeed: History of Posey, 288. 
 
 13. Posey County Probate Court Order Book "A", p. 213, County Clerk's Office, 
 Mount Vernon. 
 
 14. Ibid., 291. 
 
 15. Posey County Old Records Box No. 4088: James McCrary's original bond, as 
 guardian, executed Aug. 30, 1826, for $400. Guardians of estates, at that time, 
 generally were bonded for twice the value of the estate, which in this case would be 
 $200. Since Thomas Lincoln bought only one-half of the farm, the "valuable con- 
 sideration" he paid undoubtedly was not more than $100 cash. 
 
 16. The Posey County Lincoln farm is owned by James Garris, Fredonia Strauss 
 Joest, Jane Scherer, zt al. It is about two and a half miles northeast of Wadesville, 
 Indiana. For description of the 1806 survey of this land see Plat Book, Township and 
 Range Book No. 1, page 2, Posey County Recorder's Office, Mount Vernon. 
 
 17. New Harmony Gazette, April 4, 1827. 
 
 18. Lockwood, 172. 19. Western Sun, April 5, 1828. 
 20. Lockwood, 132; Lindley, 415. 21. Lockwood, 251. 
 
 22. See Note 10, above. 
 
 23. Deed Record Book No. 81, p. 197, Spencer County Recorder's Office, Rockport. 
 At the time the United States Government described the land as being in Perry 
 County, not yet having officially recognized the new Spencer County unit. 
 
 24. Lindley, 414-415. 
 
 CHAPTER TEN 
 
 1. Whipple, 50. 
 
 2. A. K. McClure, 219; Lamon, 34-35; Stoddard, 42-45; Indiana Magazine of 
 History, XIV, 70; Misses Anna, Hannah and Rose Gentry, granddaughters of Anna 
 Caroline Roby Gentry, to author. 
 
 3. Charles Todd Enghof, grandson of Betsy Ray Grigsby, to author at Grandview. 
 (Mrs. Charles Todd Enghof had known Mrs. Grigsby, and heard her repeat this 
 episode.) 
 
 4. Ibid. 
 
 5. S. Grant Johnson in Dale Reporter, Feb. 8, 1945. Mrs. Samuel Pate lived to see 
 Lincoln become President: S. Grant Johnson, March 3, 1945, letter to author. Barton, 
 Women (148-156) , claims the girl's name was Caroline Meeker. 
 
 6. Charles Todd Enghof to author. 
 
 7. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 29, John M. Lockwood, Jan. 4, 1896, letter. 
 
 8. Mrs. Elizabeth Tuley Hesson statement in Rockport Journal, Feb. 12, 1897; 
 John Walker McCoy to author. 
 
 9. Ibid. 
 
 10. Ibid.; S.W.I.H.S. T. H. Masterson interview with Mrs. Elizabeth Tuley 
 Hesson (manuscript) . 
 
 CHAPTER ELEVEN 
 
 1. Western Sun, Dec. 14, 1816. 2. Rockport Democrat, Sept. 29, 1860. 
 
 3. Western Sun, Oct. 17, 1818. 4. Armstrong, Notes. 
 
208 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 5. Tax receipt for "1 black" in Dr. Claude C. Lomax Collection, Indianapolis, 
 signed by A. Newland, deputy for William Taylor, Spencer County clerk. 
 
 6. Knox County, Indiana, First Book of Court of Common Pleas, Robert Buntin, 
 Clerk, 1805, Vincennes; Dunn, 434-435. 
 
 7. Western Sun, Feb. 9, 1817. 
 
 8. Peter Jones' Estate, Sept. 1819, Knox County Clerk's Office, Box 7, Vincennes. 
 
 9. Western Sun, Nov. 28, 1818; Oct. 9, 1819. 10. Dunn, 223-224. 
 11. Ibid., 246-248. 12. Ibid., 224, Lindley, 257-258. 
 
 13. Cockrum, 572. 14. Ibid., 571. 
 
 15. Western Sun, Oct. 11, 1823. 
 
 16. "The Life, Travel, and Opinions of Benjamin Lundy" published by his 
 children, Philadelphia, 1847, 223. 
 
 17. "The African Slave Trade," by George C. Mason in American Historical Record, 
 Vol. I, 1872. 
 
 18. Spencer County Marriage Book No. 1, shows that Reverend Adam Shoemaker 
 performed marriage ceremonies for Lincoln's neighbors, 1822 to 1827. 
 
 19. Deed Record Book "A", page 71, Spencer County Recorder's Office, Rockport. 
 
 20. Armstrong, Notes, 1870; Joseph D. Armstrong in Oakland City Enterprise, Nov. 
 16, 1899. 
 
 21. Western Sun, July 19, 1824. 
 
 22. Angle, 190; reprint from Carlinville (Illinois) Democrat, Sept. 2, 1858. 
 
 23. "Influence of Riley's Narrative upon Abraham Lincoln" by R. Gerald Mc- 
 Murtry, Indiana Magazine of History, XXX, No. 2, pp. 133-138, June, 1934; New 
 York Herald, Oct. 20, 1860; Scripps, 14. 
 
 24. Cockrum, 570. 25. Ibid. 
 
 26. Nicolay & Hay, History, I, 252. 27. Goodspeed, 668-672. 
 
 28. Telescope, June 24, 1826. 
 
 29. Indiana Magazine of History, XXXV, No. 2, 151; Gilbert, 24. 
 
 30. Telescope, July 28, 1827. 31. Dewey, 181. 
 32. Western Sun, June 22, 1822. 33. Goddell, 30. 
 34. Cobb, 3. 35. Ibid., 96. 
 
 36. Georgia Historical Quarterly, XIV, 39, Savannah, Georgia. 
 
 37. See Note No. 14, Chapter VI, above. 
 
 38. Georgia Historical Quarterly, XIV, 36-39. Savannah, Georgia. 
 
 39. "The Crisis or Essays on the Usurpations of the Federal Government" Oct. 27, 
 1827, p. 124, by Brutus (Robert James Turnbull) , Charleston, S.C., printed for A. 
 E. Miller, 1827. 
 
 40. Rockport Journal, Feb. 11, 1898, "Lincoln the Fatalist, Heard Phantom Voices 
 and Believed in Destiny," by Henry C. Whitney. 
 
 41. Register of Debates in Congress, 1st Session, 1827-1828, Vol. 41, Jan. 4, 1828, 
 pp. 899-975. 
 
 42. Gentry affidavit; Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, John R. Dougherty, Sept. 17, 
 1865, statement; Lamon, 71; Nicolay & Hay, History, I, 640; Rice, 462; Selby, 59- 
 60; Stoddard, 63. 
 
 43. Gentry affidavit. 
 
 44. Ibid.; also John Gentry, son of Joseph Gentry (Lincoln's boyhood companion) 
 to author at Lincoln City. 
 
 45. Where Lincoln and Gentry roomed in New Orleans, 819 Saint Ann Street 
 (traditional) . 
 
NOTES 209 
 
 46. New Orleans Louisiana Courier, Feb. 16, 1829. 
 
 47. Olmsted, 680-681. 48. New Orleans Louisiana Courier, Feb. 19, 1829. 
 49. Gentry affidavit. 50. Moore, 117. 
 
 51. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, John Komine, Sept. 14, 1865, statement. 
 
 52. Weik, 25-26. 
 
 53. Lafayette Johnson affidavit in author's collection. Abraham Lincoln told this 
 tobacco warehouse episode to his close friend and political crony, Colonel Richard 
 W. Thompson of Terre Haute, Indiana. Following the Civil War Thompson and 
 Lafayette Johnson served together in the Indiana Legislature. Thompson told 
 Johnson the story. 
 
 54. Tracy, 128. 
 
 CHAPTER TWELVE 
 
 1. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 15, D. F. Hanks March 7, 1866, letter; Lamon, 74. 
 
 2. The Enlow mill was at the present city of Jasper. The wild cherry lift-top 
 desk made by Thomas Lincoln is owned by Louis P. Joseph, President of the Jasper 
 Desk Company. 
 
 3. Spencer County Deed Record Book "B", pp. 63-64, Rockport, Indiana. 
 
 4. Hobson, 80-81. 
 
 5. Lincoln-Douglas, 75, a broadside issued by M. W. Delahay, Leavenworth, 
 Kansas, about 1870, and republished by Daniel E. Newhall, New York, 1939, quotes 
 Lincoln as saying to Delahay near Edwardsville, Illinois, 1858, that while living in 
 Indiana he (Lincoln) "tended a 'short worm' distillery, at eighteen dollars per month." 
 The site of this distillery is on the Henry Steineker farm four miles south of Hunting- 
 burg. 
 
 6. Ibid. 7. Nicolay & Hay, History I, 59. 
 
 8. Warrick County Brief, 24 — Captain William Jones, son of Storekeeper William 
 Jones, affidavit; A. K. McClure, 342-343; Hobson, 28-30. 
 
 9. Warrick County Brief, 38 — Jacob Clark and Bartley Inco affidavits; Murray XIV, 
 47-48. 
 
 10. William Jones in Rockport Planter, Sept. 20, 1860; Lamon, 57. 
 
 11. Lamon, Life, 9. Some old people in Southern Indiana and members of the 
 Indiana Lincoln family still pronounce Lincoln as Linkern. 
 
 12. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, Jos. C. Richardson Sept. 14, 1865, statement. 
 
 13. Western Sun, Feb. 20 and 27, 1830. 
 
 14. Warrick County Brief, 41— Francis M. Carlisle affidavit. 
 
 15. Ibid., 27— Allen Gentry affidavit; Gentry, 269. 
 
 16. James Grigsby to Professor Andrew M. Sweeney; Ehrmann, 93-94 (Dr. Murr 
 interview with Wesley Hall and other Lincoln neighbors) . 
 
 17. Original in Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. 
 
 18. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 15, D. F. Hanks, April, 1866, letter; Nicolay & Hay, 
 History, I, 640; Lincoln Lore No. 480. 
 
 19. Warrick County Brief, 27— Allen Gentry affidavit; 37— Bartley Inco affidavit; 
 38— Jacob Clark affidavit; 22-25— William Jones affidavit. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, 
 David Turnham, Sept. 15, 1865, statement. 
 
 20. Ibid., 25— Captain William Jones, Jr. affidavit; 27— Allen Gentry affidavit; 51 
 — Cordie Hagan Thompson affidavit; Rockport Planter, Sept. 20, 1860; Armstrong, 
 
210 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 Notes; James Gentry, Jr., statement to Judge Ralph E. Roberts, Rockport; Herndon- 
 Weik MSS, Vol. 15, David Turnham, Feb. 21, 1866, letter. 
 
 21. Warrick County Brief, 25 — Captain William Jones, Jr., affidavit. 
 
 22. Ibid., 29— Robert M. Gentry affidavit; 37— Bartley Inco affidavit. 
 
 23. Ibid., 27-28— Allen Gentry affidavit; 37— Bartley Inco affidavit. 
 
 24. Ibid., 39— L. B. Baker affidavit; 44^Tames W. Phillips affidavit; 53— W. H. 
 Scales affidavit; 30 — Robert M. Gentry affidavit; 51 — Cordie Thompson affidavit; 
 W. E. Williams statement, Boonville Standard, May 14, 1915. 
 
 25. Grigsby affidavit. After Lincoln was assassinated Redmond Grigsby said to his 
 grandson, Eli L. Grigsby, Gentryville, "I am going to destroy it," meaning the diary. 
 Eli Grigsby stated to author at Gentryville, June 4, 1939: Redmond Grigsby "burnt 
 up a lot of old papers" and the diary probably was among them. 
 
 26. Boonville-Vincennes U.S. mail schedule, by stage coach, Western Sun, Sept. 27, 
 1828. 
 
 27. Warrick County Brief, 36 — Mary E. Floyd affidavit (Mrs. Floyd, daughter of 
 Joseph Langford) ; 34 — Elizabeth A. Goad affidavit. 
 
 28. A. K. McClure, 342. 
 
 29. Warrick County Brief, 48 — Louella Ashley affidavit (Mrs. Ashley helped tear 
 down the Turpen log house after the Civil War, when the Lincoln pocket-book was 
 found) ; 34 — Elizabeth A. Goad affidavit. The Indiana Lincoln Memorial Highway 
 Commission reported, "The Commission is very frank to admit that it does not have 
 and is thoroughly convinced that there is not now available proof as to the route 
 traveled by the Lincolns during either of the migrations." The author feels that 
 the affidavits of reliable citizens of Spencer and Warrick counties, Indiana, which he 
 cites in Notes 18 to 27 and 29 of Chapter Twelve do prove now beyond a reasonable 
 doubt that the Lincoln 1830 migration followed the then busy, well-supervised Gentry- 
 ville-Boonville-Vincennes highways. For additional comment of the Commission see 
 Lincoln Lore No. 161. 
 
 30. Ibid., 34 — Elizabeth A. Goad affidavit; 21 — statement of Reverend Jefferson W. 
 Richardson. In Lynnville cemetery on slate tombstone: Nancy S. Hanks Died Oct. 
 1st 1842 Aged 32 years 6 m. & 12 d. 
 
 31. Vincennes Commercial, Centennial Edition of the Lincoln Migration, March 6, 
 1930, under Winslow; John Ashby, grandson of Benjamin Ashby, to author. 
 
 32. Petersburg Press, Oct. 7 and 10, 1930. 33. A. K McClure, 343. 
 
 34. Henry W. Slawson, descendant of Jesse Slawson, to author at Bruceville. 
 Henry W. is fourth generation of blacksmiths in Slawson family. 
 
 35. See Note 27, Chapter Two, above: Tarbell, Early Life, 87. 
 
 36. The Adam Ramage hand printing press in use in the Vincennes Western Sun 
 Office, March, 1830, was sold in 1842 to John R. Jones, who took it to Perryville, 
 Indiana, 125 miles up the Wabash River. Jones published the Perryville Eagle on it. 
 Various people owned it until in 1861 when George Sellers bought it and took it to 
 Tuscola, Illinois. For further details on this press see "History of Iroquois County, 
 Illinois" by C. F. McNeill, p. 35. Albert T. Reid, artist, commemorated Lincoln's visit 
 to Western Sun office with a pen-and-ink sketch, calling it "First Meeting of the Two 
 Great Emancipators," National Republic cover, Feb. 12, 1921. Since then Mr. Reid 
 has done an oil painting, historically correct in detail, of this meeting: National 
 Republic, Dec, 1947, p. 13, article by author. The March 6, 1830, issue of the 
 Vincennes Western Sun is known as the Lincoln Number. 
 
 37. Oldroyd, Mystic, 7. 38. Western Sun, Aug. 29, 1829. 
 
NOTES 211 
 
 39. Lindley, 297-298 (William Faux journal) . 
 
 40. Nov. 11, 1826 Vincennes Western Sun called Saint Xavier's church a cathedral. 
 Bishop Brute was first Bishop. Late as 1870 ruins of old fort still lay 150 yards 
 from cathedral (Charles Vachet interview, Vincennes Sun Commercial, March 10, 
 1935) . 
 
 41. Letter: Peter Smith, Petty's P.O., Lawrence County, Illinois, July 17, 1860, to J. 
 Warren Keifer, Springfield, Ohio, reprinted in Lincoln Lore No. 480; same dog story, 
 slightly altered, in Hertz Hidden Lincoln, 227. In times of high water the Wabash 
 River at Vincennes still floods the Illinois prairies. 
 
 42. Nicolay, 364. 43. Nicolay & Hay, History, I, 597. 
 
 CHAPTER THIRTEEN 
 
 1. Nicolay & Hay, History, I, 646. For a survey of the theory that during a human 
 being's early years much of the basic personality is formed see: Child Behavior and 
 Development, edited by Roger G. Barker, Jacob S. Kounin, and Herbert F. Wright 
 (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1943) ; Conceptions of Modern Psychiatry by Harry Stack 
 Sullivan (William Alanson White Psychiatric Foundation, Washington, D.C., 1947) ; 
 A Study of Interpersonal Relations edited by Patrick Mullahy (Hermitage Press, New 
 York, 1949) ; Physiological Psychology by Clifford T. Morgan (McGraw-Hill, New 
 York, 1943). 
 
 2. Nicolay, Personal Traits, 282. 
 
 3. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, Doct. Houghland, Sept. 17, 1865, statement, 
 quoting William Jones; Murr, XIV, 48. 
 
 4. Oldroyd, 82. 5. Nicolay & Hay, History, I, 673. 
 
 6. Rockport Journal, July 13, 1928, a statement of George Burton Cunningham, 
 son of James H. Cunningham. 
 
 7. Coggeshall, 30. 8. Ibid. 
 
 9. A. L. S. Irregular T-82 L.R., S.W. autographed letter received by Secretary of 
 War, Washington, D.C. 
 
 10. Original in Mitten Collection, Indiana Historical Library, Indianapolis: re- 
 printed in Indiana Historical Publications Vol. 8, No. 8, pp. 145-146. 
 
 11. A.G.O. records pertaining to Lieut. Col. William Jones, 53rd Indiana Infantry 
 Volunteers. 
 
 12. Carpenter, 247. 13. Hill, 271. 14. Oldroyd, 94. 
 15. Atlantic Monthly, April, 1887, 437. 16. Johnson, 138-139. 
 
 17. Rockport Journal, Feb. 11, 1898, "Lincoln the Fatalist, Heard Phantom Voices 
 and Believed in Destiny" by Henry C. Whitney. 
 
 18. Chapman, 380. 19. Roe, 240. 
 
 20. Quoted in sermon by Reverend John Falkner Blake, Rector of Christ Church, 
 Bridgeport, Conn.,April 19, 1865. 
 
 21. Arnold, 81. 22. Johnson, 156. 
 
 23. A. K. McClure, 304; Selby, 224. 24. Rice, 240. 
 
 25. See Notes 9, 10, 11 of Chapter VI above. 
 
 26. Nicolay & Hay, History, I, 258, 533. 
 
 27. Herndon, 386. His appetite whetted by what he had read in the Vincennes 
 Western Sun, Lincoln later read the whole speech at New Salem, Illinois. 
 
 28. A. K. McClure, 340. 
 
212 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 29. Ehrmann, 75; William Fortune's interview with Nathaniel Grigsby; Fortune's 
 manuscript in author's collection. 
 
 30. General Egbert L. Veile in New York Independent, April 4, 1895. 
 81. Buckley, 95-96. 
 
 32. Herndon-Weik MSS, Vol. 14, N. Grigsby, Sept. 12, 1865, statement. 
 32a. Nicolay & Hay, History, I, 4; Western Sun, May 8, 1819. 
 
 33. W. R. Thayer, I, 199-200. 34. J. B. McClure, 475. 
 
 35. Murr, XIV, 39; Tracy, 163. 
 
 36. New York Herald, Oct. 20, 1860. 
 
 37. Papers of Abraham Lincoln, Library of Congress: G. W. Rathbone to Lincoln, 
 June 1, 1860. 
 
 38. Whitney, 280. 39. Hertz, II, 800-801. 
 
 40. Rhodes, 5; Davis, 60; Channing, 443. 41. Carpenter, 217. 
 
 42. Atlantic Monthly, April, 1887, 437. 43. Mallory, 429; Prentice, 256-259. 
 
 44. Nicolay & Hay, History, I, 174. 
 
 45. Detailed account of President Lincoln's troubles with foreign powers: Diplomat 
 in Carpet Slippers by Jay Monaghan. 
 
 46. A. K. McClure, 343. 47. Nicolay & Hay, History, VHI, 3-9. 
 48. Ibid., Vm, 13. 49. Hendrick, 369-374. 
 
 50. A. K. McClure, 25. 51. Channing, 496; Stanwood, 301-306. 
 
 52. Coulter, Vn, 194-195. 53. Monaghan, 398-399. 
 
 54. Lamon, Recollections, 243-244. 
 
 55. Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography (1888) , Vol. IV, 616. 
 
 56. Carpenter, 99-101. 
 
 57. Salmon P. Chase Papers, Library of Congress, Cyrus Pitt Grosvenor letter 
 to Chase, July 28, 1862. 
 
 58. Nicolay & Hay, History, I, 172-173. 
 
 59. Herndon-Weik, MSS, Vol. 14, William Wood statement, Sept. 15, 1865; A. K. 
 McClure, 370. 
 
 60. Oldroyd, 133 (1864). 61. Nicolay & Hay, History, I, 581. 
 62. Ibid., 129; 274. 63. Nicolay, 349. 
 
 64. Nicolay & Hay, History, n, 296; letter to General J. A. McClerand. 
 
 65. Tracy, 128. 66. Nicolay & Hay, History, I, 147. 
 67. Oldroyd, 80. 68. Helm, 213. 
 
 69. Lincoln's Peoria speech, Oct. 16, 1854. 
 
 70. Daily Alta Californian, San Francisco, March 8, 1888. 
 
 71. Nicolay & Hay, History II, 121; Rice, 583. 
 
 72. Nicolay & Hay, History, I, 216. 
 
 73. Roe, 226 (March 17, 1865 address to an Indian regiment). 
 
 74. Nicolay & Hay, History, I, 557. 75. Lamon, Recollections, 182-183. 
 76. Pillsbury, 14; Channing, 444. 77. Nicolay & Hay, History, I, 581. 
 78. Rhodes, 5. 79. E. Grant Gentry affidavit. 
 
 80. Nicolay & Hay, History, I, 641; Herndon & Weik, I, 76. 
 
 81. See Note 18, Chapter Three above. 
 
 82. Brooks, Washington in Lincoln's Time, 57-58. 
 
 83. Nicolay, Personal Traits, 225; Evans, 338-339; Lincoln Lore No. 220. 
 
 84. Nicolay & Hay, History, I, 87-88; Gentry, 269. 
 
 85. James Grigsby to Professor Andrew W. Sweeney. 
 
 86. Hill, 286. 87. Oldroyd, 123. 
 
NOTES 213 
 
 88. Nicolay & Hay, History, II, 409. 
 
 89. Atlantic Monthly, April, 1887. 90. A. K. McClure, 283. 
 91. Rhodes, 312. 92. Carpenter, 30; 76. 
 
 93. Nicolay & Hay, Complete Works, X, 129. 
 
 94. McClure, Abraham Lincoln's Stories and Speeches, 475. 
 
 95. A.G.O. records pertaining to Lieut. Col. William Jones, 53rd Indiana Infantry 
 Volunteers; War of the Rebellion Official Records, Series 1, Vol. 38, part 3, p. 588. 
 
 96. A.G.O.records pertaining to 1st Lieut. John W. Lamar, Company "C", 53rd 
 Indiana Infantry Volunteers. 
 
 97. A.G.O. records pertaining to 2nd Lieut. Nathaniel Grigsby and Private Henry 
 Clay Grigsby, both of Company "G", 10th Regiment Indiana Cavalry. 
 
 98. Hendrick, 289. 99. Stephenson, 355. 
 
 100. Hendrick, 372-373. 101. Lincoln-Douglas, 78. 
 
 102. Lamon, Recollections, 113-114. 
 
 103. Ibid.; Carpenter, 292. These two accounts differ slightly. 
 
 104. Crook, 65-66. 105. Lamon, Recollections, 113-116. 
 
 106. Dr. E. V. Wilcox. President of Shakespeare Society of Washington, D.C. letter 
 to author, Nov. 5, 1950, in which Dr. Wilcox tells of his conversation with Charles 
 Hanford, a veteran actor in Edwin Booth's Shakespeare Company which played in 
 Washington during 1864. Booth said President Lincoln recited from memory the 
 great soliloquies from Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet, Henry V and Richard III. Booth 
 told Hanford he had "never heard them recited so well on any stage." 
 
 107. Nicolay & Hay, History, II, 393. 108. Carpenter, 51-52. 
 
 109. New Orleans Louisiana Courier, Feb. 19, 1829. 
 
 110. Pitman, 81-82: Testimony of Dr. Robert King Stone, May 16, 1865. Dr. 
 Stone examined President Lincoln shortly after Booth shot him. 
 
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216 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
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 Collection LN 2408, Vol. I of manuscripts in the Henry E. Huntington Library and 
 Art Gallery, San Marino, California. All references in Notes are of manuscripts in 
 Vol. I, LN 2408. This material was collected by William H. Herndon and sold 
 to Ward H. Lamon prior to 1872. All items herein are reproduced by special per- 
 mission of the Director of Research, Henry E. Huntington Library. 
 
 Jackson: Lincoln's Use of the Bible. By S. Trevena Jackson. New York: Eaton 
 & Mains. 1909. 
 
 James: The Life of George Rogers Clark. By James Alton James. Chicago: 
 Chicago University Press. 1928. 
 
 Johnson: Abraham Lincoln the Christian. By William J. Johnson. New York: 
 Eaton & Mains. 1913. Cincinnati: Jennings & Graham. 1913. (Revised edition: 
 Abraham Lincoln the Christian. By William J. Johnstone. New York: Abingdon 
 Press. 1928) . 
 
 Johnson Affidavit: Lafayette Johnson affidavit in author's collection. 
 
 Kidson: Traditional Tunes, A Collection of Ballad Airs, Chiefly obtained in York- 
 shire and the south of Scotland. By Frank Kidson. Oxford: Charles Taphouse 
 & Son. 1891. 
 
SOURCES 217 
 
 Lamon: Life of Abraham Lincoln. By Ward H. Lamon. Boston: Osgood and Co. 
 
 1872. 
 Lamon: Recollections of Abraham Lincoln 1847-1865. By Ward Hill Lamon. 
 
 Edited by Dorothy Lamon. Chicago: McClurg. 1895. 
 Lincoln-Douglas: Political Debates Between Hon. Abraham Lincoln and Hon. 
 
 Stephen A. Douglas. (These speeches were edited by Lincoln) Columbus, Ohio: 
 
 Follett, Foster, and Co. 1860. 
 Lincoln Lore: Edited by Dr. Louis A. Warren and published each week by the 
 
 Lincoln National Life Foundation, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 1929 to date. 
 Lindley: Indiana as Seen by Early Travelers Prior to 1830. Edited by Harlow 
 
 Lindley. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Commission. 1916. 
 Lockwood: The New Harmony Movement. By George B. Lockwood. New York: 
 
 Appleton. 1905. 
 Lossing: Eminent Americans. By Benson J. Lossing. New York. Hurst & Co. 
 
 1886. 
 Lowry: A Complete History of the Marquis de Lafayette. By Robert Lowry. New 
 
 York: Printed for and published by Robert Lowry. 1826. 
 McClure, A. K.: Lincoln's Yarns and Stories. Collected by Col. Alexander K. 
 
 McClure. Chicago and Philadelphia: John C. Winston Company. (No date of 
 
 publication indicated. According to Ward Hill Lamon, Col. McClure was "a 
 
 friend, confidant, and adviser" of President Lincoln.) 
 McClure, J. B.: Abraham Lincoln's Stories and Speeches. Edited by J. B. McClure. 
 
 Chicago: Rhodes & McClure. 1897. 
 McDonald: History of Freemasonry in Indiana from 1806 to 1898. By Daniel 
 
 McDonald. Indianapolis: Published by the Authority of the Grand Lodge. 1898. 
 McMurtry: The Lincolns in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. By Gerald McMurtry. 
 
 Fort Wayne, Indiana: Lincolniana Publishers. 1932. 
 Mallory: The Life and Speeches of the Hon. Henry Clay. Compiled and Edited by 
 
 Daniel Mallory. Two Volumes. New York: Van Amringe and Bixby. 1844. 
 Martin: A Defense of the Mother Conversion and Creed of Abraham Lincoln. By 
 
 James M. Martin. Minneapolis. 1921. 
 Monaghan: Diplomat in Carpet Slippers. By Jay Monaghan. Indianapolis: Bobbs- 
 
 Merrill. 1945. 
 Moore: The Civil War in Song and Story. Collected and Arranged by Frank Moore. 
 
 New York: Collier. 1889. 
 Mudge: The Forest Boy: The Sketch of the Life of Abraham Lincoln. By Z. A. 
 
 Mudge. New York: Carlton & Porter. 1867. 
 Murr: Lincoln in Indiana. By Dr. J. Edward Murr. Bloomington, Indiana: 
 
 Indiana Magazine of History, XIII, No. 4; XIV, No. 1 and No. 2; (December, 1917; 
 
 March, 1918; June, 1918.) 
 Newcomb: In the Lincoln Country. By Rexford Newcomb. Philadelphia: Lippin- 
 
 cott. 1928. 
 Nicolay: Personal Traits of Abraham Lincoln. By Helen Nicolay. New York: 
 
 Century Co. 1919. 
 Nicolay & Hay: Abraham Lincoln, Complete Works. Edited by John G. Nicolay 
 
 and John Hay. Two Volumes. New York: Century Co. 1894. 
 Nicolay & Hay: Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln. Edited by John G. Nicolay 
 
 and John Hay. Ten Volumes. New York: Tandy Co. 1894. 
 Nicolay & Hay: Abraham Lincoln: A History. By John G. Nicolay and John Hay. 
 
 Ten Volumes. New York: Century Co. 1890. 
 
218 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 Norfolk: Gleanings in Graveyards — A Collection of Curious Epitaphs. Collated, 
 
 compiled, and edited by Horatio Edward Norfolk. (Third Edition) London: 
 
 John Russell Smith. Soho Square. 1866. 
 Oldroyd: Words of Lincoln. Compiled by Osborn H. Oldroyd. "Washington, D.C.: 
 
 0. H. Oldroyd. 1895. 
 Oldroyd: Lincoln Memorial: Album — Immorteles. By Osborn H. Oldroyd. New 
 
 York: G. W. Carleton & Co. 1882. 
 Oldroyd Mystic 7: The Mystic Number 7 In the Life of Abraham Lincoln: By 
 
 Osborn H. Oldroyd. Washington, D.C., 1930. 
 Olmsted: Our Slave States. By Frederick Law Olmsted. New York: Dix & 
 
 Edwards. 1856. 
 Pike: A New and Complete System of Arithmetic. By Nicolas Pike. Worcester, 
 
 Massachusetts: The Press of Isaiah Thomas. 1797. 
 Pitman: The Assassination of President Lincoln and the Trial of the Conspirators. 
 
 Compiled by Benn Pitman. New York: Moore, Wilstach & Baldwin. 1865. 
 Prentice: Biography of Henry Clay. By George D. Prentice. New York: John 
 
 Jay Phelps. 1831. 
 Rhodes: History of the Civil War 1861-1865. By James Ford Rhodes. New York: 
 
 Macmillan. 1917. 
 Rice: Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln. Collected and Edited by Allen Thorndike 
 
 Rice. New York: North American Publishing Company. 1886. 
 Roberts: Lincoln in Illinois. By Octavia Roberts. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1918. 
 Roe: Speeches and Letters of Abraham Lincoln, 1832-1865. Edited by Merwin 
 
 Roe. New York: E. P. Dutton. 1912. 
 Scripps: Life of Abraham Lincoln. By John Locke Scripps. Chicago: Tribune 
 
 Tracts — No. 6; also The Chicago Press and Co. 1860. (This 32-page pamphlet was 
 
 authorized and revised by Abraham Lincoln. For convenience, references made to 
 
 Scripps will be found in the reprinted copy by Edward J. Jacob and M. L. Houser, 
 
 Peoria, Illinois, 1931.) 
 Selby: Anecdotal Lincoln. By Paul Selby. Chicago: Thompson & Thomas. 1900. 
 Sharp: English Songs from the Southern Appalachians. Collected by Cecil J. 
 
 Sharp. Two Volumes. London: Oxford University Press. 1932. 
 Stanwood: A History of the Presidency From 1788 to 1897. By Edward Stanwood. 
 
 Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1928. 
 Stephenson: An Autobiography of Abraham Lincoln. By Nathaniel Wright Stephen- 
 son. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. 1926. 
 Stoddard: Abraham Lincoln: The Man and the War President. By William O. 
 
 Stoddard. New York: Fords, Howard & Hulbert. 1888. 
 S.W.I.H.S.: Southwestern Indiana Historical Society file of papers and manuscripts. 
 
 Rockport and Evansville, Indiana. 
 Tarbell: The Life of Abraham Lincoln. By Ida M. Tarbell. Two Volumes. New 
 
 York: Doubleday, 1909. 
 Tarbell: The Early Life of Abraham Lincoln. By Ida M. Tarbell. New York: 
 
 McClure. 1896. 
 Telescope: The Telescope, published each week by W. Beach, Editor and Proprietor. 
 
 New York. 1824-1829. 
 Thayer: From Pioneer Home to the White House. By William M. Thayer. New 
 
 York: Hurst. 1882. 
 Thayer, W. R.: The Life and Letters of John Hay. By William Roscoe Thayer. 
 
 Two Volumes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1915. 
 
SOURCES 219 
 
 Townsend: Lincoln the Litigant. By William H. Townsend. Boston: Houghton 
 
 Mifflin. 1925. 
 Tracy: Uncollected Letters of Abraham Lincoln. Now First Brought Together by 
 
 Gilbert A. Tracy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1917. 
 Warren: Lincoln's Parentage & Childhood. By Louis Austin Warren. New York: 
 
 Century, 1926. 
 Warrick County Brief: Brief Prepared by the Warrick County Lincoln Route 
 
 Association of Indiana. Affidavits and papers collected by William L. Barker, 
 
 Philip Lutz, Jr., and Union W. Youngblood. Boonville, Indiana: Press of the Boon- 
 
 ville Standard. 1931. 
 Weems: Life of General Francis Marion. By M. L. Weems. Philadelphia: Carey. 
 
 1818. 
 Weik: The Real Lincoln: A Portrait. By Jesse W. Weik. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 
 
 1922. 
 Western Sun: Western Sun & General Advertiser, a newspaper published each 
 
 Saturday at Vincennes, Indiana. Founded in 1804 by Elihu Stout and edited by him 
 
 from 1804 to 1843. 
 Whipple: The Story-Life of Lincoln. By Wayne Whipple. Memorial edition. 1908. 
 Whitney: Life On The Circuit With Lincoln. By Henry C. Whitney. Boston: 
 
 Estes and Lauriat. 1892. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Adam and Eve's Wedding Song, 44, 45, 
 
 59 
 Adams, John, 89, 114 
 Adams, John Quincy, 107, 109, 111-115, 
 
 119, 123 
 Aesop's Fables, 10, 43, 57, 88, 175, 188 
 Anderson River, 3, 42, 43, 46, 48, 94, 95, 
 
 103, 149, 185 
 Applejack, 6, 7, 130 
 Arabian Nights, 57 
 Arkansas Gazette, 138 
 Arnold, Isaac, 74, 81, 84 
 Atheists, 71, 74, 123 
 Audubon, John James, 104 
 
 Baldwin, John, 29 
 
 Baptists, Primitive, 7, 12, 53, 64-68, 74, 
 
 75, 84, 113, 134, 167 
 Battle of Tippecanoe, 73, 79, 156 
 Beach, W., 88, 89, 137-139 
 Bears, 3, 4, 25, 78 
 
 Bible, 12, 64, 65, 74, 159, 165, 171, 191 
 Biblical Day's Journey, 154 
 Blab-School, 78, 122, 125, 170 
 Blackstone's Commentaries, 99, 100, 102, 
 
 159, 167 
 Blue Creek, 84, 85, 162 
 Bluenose, see Crawford, Josiah 
 Blue River, 75, 80 
 Bolen, William, 61, 62 
 Bolivar, Simon, 176 
 Boon, Ratcliff, 103-106, 109, 111, 112, 
 
 115, 117, 133, 164, 172, 173 
 Boone, Daniel, 104 
 Boonville, 94, 99, 102, 153, 154, 168 
 Booth, Edwin, 192 
 Booth, John Wilkes, 146, 191-193 
 Booth, Junius Brutus, 146, 192 
 Breckenridge, John A., 93, 94, 168, 172 
 Brooner, Henry, 14, 50, 93, 150, 153 
 Brooner, Peter and Mrs., 13, 14, 66 
 Brush College, 91-93, 102, 123, 166, 167, 
 
 187 
 
 Buck Horn Creek, 4, 18, 34, 48, 61, 66, 
 67, 69, 70, 76, 77, 98, 111, 127, 134, 
 138, 149, 174, 185 
 
 Burns, Robert, 84, 143 
 
 Bush, Isaac, 83 
 
 Calhoun, John C, 110, 111, 113, 115 
 
 Campbell, Rev. A., 74 
 
 Chin-fly, 30, 177 
 
 Church trial, 75 
 
 Chronicles of Reuben, 59, 60, 62, 76, 171, 
 
 174 
 Cissna, Mrs., see McFarland, Margaret 
 Clark, George Rogers, see Long Knives 
 Clay, Henry, 107-113, 116, 135, 136, 141, 
 
 147, 148, 160, 176, 184 
 Clay, Thomas, 134, 135, 182 
 Clog-dancing, 43, 48, 50, 57, 137, 140, 
 
 160 
 Colonization Society, 141 
 Columbian Class Book by A. T. Lowe, 
 
 88 
 Commonwealth of Kentucky vs. Lin- 
 coln, 96 
 Confederate States of America, 174-176, 
 
 178, 181 
 Constitution of the U.S., 98, 100, 142, 
 
 180, 181, 184, 189 
 Corydon - Gentryville - Boonville Road, 
 
 153, 172 
 Corydon, 3, 26, 98, 106 
 Cotton boats, 144 
 
 Crawford, Andrew, 77-79, 106, 111, 125 
 Crawford, Elizabeth, 34, 36, 37, 44, 52, 
 
 167 
 Crawford, Josiah, 34, 37, 77, 82, 85, 86, 
 
 89, 167, 169, 174 
 Crawford, William H., 107, 109, 110 
 Cut-money, 105 
 
 Davis, Jefferson, 174, 175 
 Declaration of Independence, 89, 98, 169, 
 178, 184 
 
 220 
 
INDEX 
 
 221 
 
 Deists, 71 
 
 Dill, John T. and Lin, 95-97, 127, 180 
 Dilworth's Speller, 9, 12, 13, 92 
 Dorsey, Azel W., 79-82, 164, 187 
 Dreams, 16, 17, 65, 68, 189, 191, 192 
 
 Elkin, Rev. David, 66, 67 
 
 Emacoal, Moss, 43, 48 
 
 Emancipation, Proclamation, 166, 178- 
 
 186 
 English Reader, 72 
 Enlow, Thomas, 149 
 Etymological Dictionary, 82 
 Evans, Julia, 128, 129 
 Evansville, 26, 47, 56, 174 
 Evansville Inquirer, 173 
 Evansville Journal, 173 
 
 Farmer's Almanac, 91, 92 
 
 Ferguson, William D., 48, 57, 138, 140, 
 183, 186 
 
 Fink, Mike, 16, 47 
 
 Firey furnace, 79 
 
 Fist-fighting, 50, 61, 62 
 
 Flatboat, 42, 43, 46, 47, 54, 56, 88, 94, 
 95, 97, 138, 143, 178, 183, 191, 192 
 
 Flatboatmen 47, 48, 56, 67, 75 
 
 Forest College, 91. See also Brush Col- 
 lege. 
 
 Gentry, Agnes, 34 
 
 Gentry, Allen, 54-58, 143-146, 186, 189, 
 192. Re Mrs. Gentry see Robey, Anna 
 C. 
 
 Gentry, Hannah, 78 
 
 Gentry, James, Sr., 21, 28, 29, 34, 54, 56, 
 60, 61, 67, 152, 153, 183, 189 
 
 Gentry, Joseph, 14, 21, 24, 26, 30-31, 61, 
 
 107-111, 153, 154 
 
 Gentry-Romine Store, 62 
 
 Gentryville, 29-31, 48, 49, 62, 82, 94, 108, 
 117, 118, 122, 126, 129, 132, 135, 137- 
 139, 146, 161, 163, 165, 167, 168, 171, 
 173, 174, 181, 185, 187, 189, 190 
 
 Glenn, Samuel, 75, 167 
 
 Gordon, Nathaniel, 183 
 
 Gordon, Noah, 22, 67, 149 
 
 Grant, Ulysses S., 164, 170, 185-189, 191 
 
 Grass, Daniel, 55, 88, 103, 104, 164 
 
 Gray Goose trial, 101, 102, 159, 168 
 
 Gray's Elegy, 83 
 
 Grigsby, Aaron, 7, 20, 36, 44, 45, 52, 53, 
 
 61, 164 
 Grigsby, double wedding, 58 
 Grigsby, Charles, 20, 58, 59, 61, 149-151, 
 
 174 
 Grigsby, Henry Clay, 190 
 Grigsby, James, 20, 53, 70, 82, 91-94, 
 
 152, 153, 187 
 Grigsby, Nathaniel, 14, 20, 21, 51, 53, 
 
 61, 73, 77, 79, 80, 91, 107-111, 115, 
 127, 128, 153, 154, 170, 171, 174, 190 
 
 Grigsby, Redmond, 20, 53, 61, 153, 154 
 Grigsby Reuben Jr., 20, 58, 61 
 Grigsby, Mrs. Reuben, Jr., 58, 59, 61, 
 
 62, 125-127 
 
 Grigsby, Reuben, Sr., 1, 4, 6, 7, 14, 19, 
 
 20, 38, 52, 59, 67, 73, 77 
 Grigsby, Sister, 76, 150 
 Grigsby Spring, 5, 7, 17, 20 
 Grigsby, William, 61, 62, 173 
 Grimshaw's History of the U.S., 82, 175 
 
 Hall, Levi, 82 
 
 Hall, Shadrach and Mrs., 26, 27 
 
 Hall, Squire, 152. Re Mrs. Hall see 
 Johnston, Matilda 
 
 Hall, Wesley, 26, 27, 40, 41 
 
 Hanks, Dennis F., 9, 12, 14, 16, 17, 22, 
 28, 29, 49, 66, 82, 104, 119, 121, 124, 
 149, 152. Re Mrs. Hanks see John- 
 ston, Elizabeth 
 
 Hanks, John, 49, 58, 82, 149, 159, 186 
 
 Harmonie, 21, 26, 118, 119 
 
 Harrison, William Henry, 27, 73, 79, 106, 
 156, 157 
 
 Hart, Rev. Henry, 72 
 
 Headless Hermit, 85 
 
 Hesson, Benjamin, 62, 129, 130. Re Mrs. 
 Hesson see Tuley, Elizabeth. 
 
 Hole, Dr. Matthew, 71, 72, 167 
 
 Hoosiers, 26, 32, 47, 48, 64, 112, 114, 
 132, 133, 143, 145, 161-165, 168, 169, 
 174, 177, 189, 190 
 
 Hoskins, William, 76 
 
 Indian Confederacy, 80, 156 
 Indiana Constitution, 27, 50, 98, 131, 
 133 
 
222 
 
 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 Indiana Gazette, 156. See also Western 
 
 Sun. 
 Indiana laws, 97-98, 102, 167, 169, 180 
 Indiana Pocket Country, 138, 141 
 Indianapolis State Guard, 175 
 Indians, 19, 20, 38, 51, 55, 57, 88, 104 
 Isaacs, Jesse, 48, 49, 153 
 
 Jackson, Andrew, 107-117, 143, 156, 157 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, 8, 87, 89, 108, 114 
 
 Jennings, Jonathan, 105, 106, 133 
 
 Jew's Harp, 34, 43, 57, 127 
 
 John Anderson's Lamentations, 49 
 
 Johnson, William B., 84, 85, 162 
 
 Johnston, Elizabeth, 152 
 
 Johnston, John D., 17, 30, 61, 62, 73, 
 
 129, 149, 152, 177 
 Johnston, Matilda, 17, 25, 26, 73, 82, 
 
 152 
 Jones, Peter, 27, 132, 159, 183 
 Jones, Sarah, 28 
 Jones, Williah, 27-29, 50, 55, 82, 88, 107, 
 
 110, 121, 132, 135 150, 153, 156, 159, 
 
 161, 163-165, 173, 174, 183, 189, 190 
 
 Kentucky laws, 96 
 Kentucky Preceptor, 87 
 Knob Creek, 1-3, 70 
 Kongapod, Johnny, 38, 39 
 
 Lafayette, General, 31-33, 137 
 Lamar, John W., 28, 90, 153, 189, 190 
 Lane, Joseph, 103, 104, 164, 172, 173 
 Laws of Indiana, 97, 102, 167, 169 
 Lee, Robert E., 178, 186-189 
 Lick — deer salt, 9, 21, 24, 42, 50 
 Lincoln, Abraham (grandfather) , 20, 51 
 Lincoln "coat of arms", 173 
 Lincoln-Douglas debates, 170 
 Lincoln, Josiah, 75, 85, 162, 173 
 Lincoln, Mrs. Mary Todd, 182, 183, 186, 
 
 187, 192 
 Lincoln, Mordecai, 20, 82 
 Lincoln, Nancy Hanks, 2-12, 14, 16-18, 
 
 23, 64-66, 77, 104, 125, 149, 152 
 Lincoln, Sarah, 2-7, 14, 16-18, 20, 33, 36, 
 
 37, 44, 45, 51-53, 64, 66, 77, 78, 98, 
 
 152, 164, 171 
 
 Lincoln, Sarah Bush Johnston, 17, 23, 
 24, 33, 40-42, 46, 69, 76, 149, 151-153, 
 191 
 
 Lincoln, Thomas, 1-11, 13-25, 30, 31, 33, 
 36, 40, 41, 46, 48, 52, 58, 66-70, 75-77, 
 84, 85, 89, 98, 99 103-106, 121, 123, 
 125, 131, 134, 135, 149-157, 159, 178 
 
 Lincoln Thomas, Jr., 1-3 
 
 Literary workshop, 171, 172 
 
 Littell's "Statute Laws of Kentucky," 96 
 
 Little Zion Church, 72, 75, 153 
 
 Long Knives, 33, 51, 159 
 
 Louisville, Kentucky, 29, 146 
 
 Louisville-Corydon-Boonville Road, 147 
 
 Louisville-Nashville Turnpike, 1 
 
 Louisville-Vincennes-St. Louis Highway, 
 26, 147 
 
 McFarland, Margaret, 23, 24 
 Madison, James, 3, 114 
 Manumission deed, 135 
 Marion, Francis, 166 
 Mason-Dixon Line, 139, 140, 186 
 Mass funeral, 66, 67 
 Meeker, Ann, 96, 97, 127 
 Militia duty, 50 
 Militiamen, 51, 112, 113, 115 
 Milk-sickness, 11-13, 23, 66, 67, 75, 149 
 Minute book, 67, 69, 75 
 Miracle woman, 51, 153, 174 
 Mississippi River, 36, 46, 47, 57, 138, 
 
 143, 186, 187 
 Monroe Doctrine, 107 
 Monroe, James, 3, 107, 114, 119, 176 
 Moore, Dr., 52 
 Mount Vernon, Indiana, 121 
 Mud-sill theory of labor, 10, 185 
 Muldraugh's Hill, 1-3, 152 
 Murray, Lindley, 72 
 
 Nagle, Richard, 115, 116 
 
 Nashoba, 138. (See Frances Wright) 
 
 Negro slaves, 1-3, 7, 27, 42, 43, 48, 50, 
 97, 98, 106, 109, 113 120, 133-143, 
 145-148, 159, 180-186, 188, 191, 193 
 
 Neighborhood Broil, 75 
 
 New Harmony Gazette, 122 
 
 New Harmony, 21, 26, 119, 121-124, 137, 
 138, 178, 179, 182 
 
INDEX 
 
 223 
 
 New Harmony-Boonville-Corylon Road, 
 
 28, 29 
 New Orleans, 32, 36, 42, 43, 54, 56-58, 
 
 67, 75, 133, 134, 142-146, 148, 160, 
 
 183, 186, 191, 192 
 "Nigger-ketchers," 28, 131, 132, 133-137, 
 
 184 
 Northwest Territory, 3 
 
 Ohio River, 1-3, 21, 26, 31-33, 36, 42, 43, 
 
 46, 47, 55-58, 77, 80, 93-95, 97, 104, 
 
 114, 120, 126, 127, 131, 135, 138, 140, 
 
 146, 147, 154, 162, 163, 180-182, 184, 
 
 189, 190 
 
 Ordinance of 1787, 3, 27, 50, 98, 131, 133 
 
 Ostervald, Rev. Frederick, 7, 12, 65, 142 
 
 Owen, Robert, 74, 118-120, 121, 123, 124, 
 
 137, 138, 178, 182 
 Owen, Robert Dale, 120, 122, 178, 179, 
 185 
 
 Paine, Thomas, 8, 109 
 
 Pan American Union, 176 
 
 Pate, Samuel, 95-99, 127, 140, 164, 180, 
 183 
 
 "Patter-rollers," 28, 132-136, 147, 183 
 
 Perry County, 132 
 
 Pestalozzian system of education, 120, 
 122 
 
 Philanthropist, The, 120, 121 
 
 Pietism, 118 
 
 Pigeon Creek, 3, 8, 9, 11, 16, 18, 20, 21, 
 24, 25, 28, 34, 44, 48, 49, 51, 52, 54, 
 58, 64-67, 69, 70, 72, 73, 75, 77, 82, 98, 
 99, 102-104, 106, 109, 118, 123, 125, 
 129, 131, 132, 134, 135, 143, 149, 150, 
 152-154, 159, 161-167, 170, 174, 176, 
 180, 181, 184, 187, 191, 192 
 
 Pike's Arithmetic, 80, 81, 96, 187 
 
 Pilgrim's Progress, 84, 85, 162 
 
 Pitcher, John, 99, 100, 102, 164, 167, 168 
 
 Pitcher, Thomas G., 99, 169 
 
 Posey County, 55, 121, 178, 182 
 
 Practical Discourses (Rev. Hole's) , 71- 
 73, 92, 129, 167 
 
 Predestination doctrine, 68, 75 
 
 Proclamation of Amnesty, 179, 188 
 
 Prophet, 80 
 
 Providence, Designs of, 12, 13, 25, 65, 
 67, 89, 131, 134, 141, 165-167, 192 
 
 Rail-splitting, 8, 50, 159 
 
 Ramage Hand Press, 156 
 
 Ramsay's Life of Washington 
 
 Rapp, George, 21, 26, 118, 119 
 
 Rappite Labyrinth, 122 
 
 Ray, Elizabeth, see Grigsby, Mrs. Reu- 
 ben, Jr. 
 
 Ray, Jefferson, 46-48, 97, 138 
 
 Religio-communistic community, (see 
 Harmonie) 
 
 Revolutionary War veterans, 21, 32, 33, 
 86, 115, 176, 184 
 
 Richardson, Mrs. Joseph and Polly, 53, 
 54, 58, 59, 61, 81, 82, 151 
 
 Rifle-gun, 8, 10, 24, 50, 150 
 
 Riley's Authentic Narrative, 136 
 
 Robey, Anna C, 54-56, 78, 79, 125 
 
 Rockport, 21, 23, 47, 52, 55-58, 80, 88, 
 99, 102, 135, 143, 144, 162, 168 
 
 Rockport-Bloomington Highway, 27, 30 
 
 Rockport Planter, 173 
 
 Romine, Benjamin, 29, 34 
 
 Romine, Christopher, 28 
 
 Romine, Gideon, 28, 29 
 
 Romine, John, 28, 146, 153 
 
 Rule of Three, 77, 80, 187, 188 
 
 Saltpeter, 85 
 
 Scott's Lessons, 82-84, 167, 170 
 
 Sinbad the Sailor, 82 
 
 Snake-root, 12, 16 
 
 Sparrow, Tom and Betsy, 9, 12, 13, 21, 
 
 149 
 Spencer County, 48, 55, 80, 94, 103, 104, 
 
 123, 128, 135, 151-153, 161, 162, 173, 
 
 182, 190 
 Spencer Legion, 163, 190 
 Spencer, Spier, 55 
 Spinning wheel, 11, 75, 128 
 Standage, Aaron, 61 
 Stills, whiskey, 5, 9, 19, 38, 59, 150, 164 
 Storm of 1827, 51, 174 
 Stout, Elihu, 89, 108, 112, 113, 115, 116, 
 
 156 
 Subscription school, 77, 167 
 Sumner, Thomas, 62 
 Sun-spots, 9 
 
 Sun worshipping, 20, 38, 73 
 Surveyor, 81 
 
224 
 
 LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD 
 
 Tariff, Protective— Act of 1828, 113 
 Taylor's Ferry, 42, 43, 46, 58, 94, 185, 
 
 189 
 Tecumseh, Chief, 27, 73, 80, 156 
 Telescope, 88, 93, 137-139, 141, 182 
 Ten O'clock Line, 20, 27, 50, 80 
 Ten O'Clock Line Treaty, 27, 156 
 Theists, 74 
 
 Thompson Ferry, 2, 3 
 Troy, 3, 32, 42, 43, 95, 137, 185 
 Troy-Vincennes Trail, 3, 26, 116, 132 
 Tuley, Elizabeth, 78, 129, 130 
 Tuley, John, 24, 71, 129, 153 
 Turnham, David, 22, 24, 49, 67, 69, 82, 
 
 97, 99, 153, 157, 167, 169, 180, 190 
 Turnham, Thomas, 21, 32, 33, 190 
 
 Union, preservation of, 105, 113, 136, 
 142, 143, 148, 160, 161, 163-166, 168, 
 169, 173-175, 177, 180-185, 187-190, 
 193 
 
 Utopian Socialists, 74, 118, 120, 137, 
 179, 182 
 
 Vincennes University, 27, 28, 156, 165 
 
 Wabash River, 9, 21, 47, 50, 80, 118-120, 
 
 132, 134, 141, 147, 154, 156, 159, 163, 
 
 178, 189, 190 
 Warrick County, 55, 72, 93, 94, 103, 104, 
 
 106, 153, 172 
 Washington, George, 32, 33, 81, 85, 86, 
 
 114, 166, 169, 175, 176, 179 
 Webster-Hayne debate, 169 
 Weems' Life of Francis Marion, 86, 87 
 Weems' Life of Washington, 85, 184 
 Western Sun & General Advertiser, 26, 
 
 27, 29, 32, 53, 58, 74, 88, 89, 105-116, 
 
 119, 123, 134-136, 139, 144, 149, 151, 
 
 156, 157, 160, 169, 176, 191 
 Whiskey, see Stills 
 Whitten, William, 61, 62 
 Wood, Elizabeth, 31, 78 
 Wood, William, 13, 31, 48, 50, 58, 88, 
 
 100, 137, 164, 181 
 Wright, Frances, 120, 137, 138, 148, 182 
 Wurtemburg, Germany, 118 
 
 Vincennes, 5, 9-11, 27, 28, 50, 79, 105, 
 106, 116, 118, 132, 133, 154, 156, 165 
 
 Yellow fever, 21, 67, 75 
 
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