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[Illustration:
THE EARLIEST PORTRAIT OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.—HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED.
From a carbon enlargement, by Sherman and McHugh, New York, of a
daguerreotype in the possession of the Hon. Robert T. Lincoln, and
first published in the MCCLURE’S Life of Lincoln. It is generally
believed that Lincoln was not over thirty-five years old when this
daguerreotype was taken, and it is certainly true that it shows the
face of Lincoln as a young man. It is probably earlier by six or
seven years, at least, than any other existing portrait of Lincoln.
]
THE EARLY LIFE
OF
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
CONTAINING MANY UNPUBLISHED DOCUMENTS AND UNPUBLISHED REMINISCENCES OF
LINCOLN’S EARLY FRIENDS
BY
IDA M. TARBELL
ASSISTED BY
J. McCAN DAVIS
WITH 160 ILLUSTRATIONS, INCLUDING
20 PORTRAITS OF LINCOLN
NEW YORK
S. S. McCLURE, LIMITED
LONDON
1896
[_All rights reserved_]
COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY
S. S. MCCLURE, LIMITED
COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY
S. S. MCCLURE, LIMITED
Press of J. J. Little & Co.
Astor Place, New York
------------------------------------------------------------------------
INTRODUCTION.
It has been only within the last ten years that the descent of Abraham
Lincoln from the Lincolns of Hingham, Massachusetts, has been
established with any degree of certainty. The satisfactory proof of his
lineage is a matter of great importance. In a way it explains Lincoln.
It shows that he came of a family endowed with the spirit of adventure,
of daring, of patriotism, and of thrift; that his ancestors were men who
for nearly two hundred years before he was born were active and
well-to-do citizens of Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, or
Virginia, men who everywhere played their parts well. Abraham Lincoln
was but the flowering of generations of upright, honorable men.
The first we learn of the Lincolns in this country is between the years
1635 and 1645, when there came to the town of Hingham, Massachusetts,
from the west of England, eight men of that name. Three of these,
Samuel, Daniel, and Thomas, were brothers. Their relationship, if any,
to the other Lincolns who came over from the same part of the country at
about the same time is not clear. Two of these men, Daniel and Thomas,
died without heirs; but Samuel left a large family, including four sons.
Among the descendants of Samuel Lincoln’s sons were many good citizens
and prominent public officers. One was a member of the Boston Tea Party,
and served as a captain of artillery in the War of the Revolution.
Others were privates in that war. Three served on the brig “Hazard”
during the Revolution. Levi Lincoln, a great-great-grandson of Samuel,
born in Hingham in 1749, and graduated from Harvard, was one of the
minute-men at Cambridge immediately after the battle of Lexington, a
delegate to the convention in Cambridge for framing a State
Constitution, and in 1781 was elected to the Continental Congress, but
declined to serve. He was a member of the House of Representatives and
of the Senate of Massachusetts, and was appointed Attorney-General of
the United States by Jefferson; for a few months preceding the arrival
of Madison he was Secretary of State, and in 1807 he was elected
Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts. In 1811 he was appointed Associate
Justice of the United States Supreme Court by President Madison, an
office which he declined. From the close of the Revolutionary War he was
considered the head of the Massachusetts bar.
His eldest son, Levi Lincoln, born in 1782, had also an honorable public
career. He was a Harvard graduate, became Governor of the State of
Massachusetts, and held other important public offices. He received the
degree of LL.D. in 1824 from Williams College, and from Harvard in 1826.
Another son of Levi Lincoln, Enoch Lincoln, served in Congress from 1818
to 1826. He became Governor of Maine in 1827, holding the position until
his death in 1829. Enoch Lincoln was a writer of more than ordinary
ability.
The fourth son of Samuel Lincoln was called Mordecai (President Lincoln
descended from him, being his great-great-great-grandson). Mordecai
Lincoln was a rich “blacksmith,” as an iron-worker was called in those
days, and the proprietor of numerous iron-works, saw-mills, and
grist-mills, which with a goodly amount of money he distributed at his
death among his children and grandchildren. Two of his children,
Mordecai and Abraham, did not remain in Massachusetts, but removed to
New Jersey, and thence to Pennsylvania, where both became rich, and
dying, left fine estates to their children. Their descendants in
Pennsylvania have continued to this day to be well-to-do people, some of
them having taken prominent positions in public affairs. Abraham
Lincoln, of Berks County, who was born in 1736 and died in 1806, filled
many public offices, being a member of the General Assembly of
Pennsylvania, of the State Convention of 1787, and of the State
Constitutional Convention in 1790.
One of the sons of this second Mordecai, John (the great-grandfather of
President Lincoln), received from his father “three hundred acres of
land, lying in the Jerseys.” But evidently he did not care to cultivate
his inheritance, for about 1758 he removed to Virginia. “Virginia” John,
as this member of the family was called, had five sons, all of whom he
established well. One of these sons, Jacob, entered the Revolutionary
Army and served as a lieutenant at Yorktown.
The settlers of western Virginia were all in those days more or less
under the fascination of the adventurous spirit which was opening up the
West, and three of “Virginia” John’s sons decided to try their fortunes
in the new country. One went to Tennessee, two to Kentucky. The first to
go to Kentucky was Abraham (the grandfather of the President). He was
already a well-to-do man when he decided to leave Virginia, for he sold
his estate for some seventeen thousand dollars. A portion of this money
he invested in land-office treasury warrants.
On emigrating to Kentucky he bought one thousand seven hundred acres of
land. But almost at the beginning of his life in the new country, while
still a comparatively young man, he was slain by the Indians. His estate
seems to have been inherited by his eldest son, Mordecai, who afterward
became prominent in the State; was a great Indian fighter, a famous
story-teller, and, according to the traditions of his descendants, a
member of the Kentucky legislature. This last item we have not, however,
been able to verify. We have had the fullest collection of journals of
the Kentucky legislature which exists, that of Dr. R. T. Durrett of
Louisville, Kentucky, carefully searched, but no mention has been found
in them of Mordecai Lincoln.
It is with the brother of Mordecai, the youngest son of the pioneer
Abraham, we have to do, a boy who was left an orphan at ten years of
age, and who in that rude time had to depend upon his own exertions. We
find from newly discovered documents that he was the owner of a farm at
twenty-five years of age, and from the contemporary evidence that he was
a very good carpenter; from a document we have discovered in Kentucky we
learn that he was even appointed a road surveyor, in 1816. We have found
his Bible, a very expensive book at that time; we have also found that
he had credit, and was able to purchase on credit a pair of suspenders
costing one dollar and fifty cents, and we have learned from the
recollections of Christopher Columbus Graham that in marrying the niece
of his employer he secured a very good wife. The second child of Thomas
Lincoln was Abraham Lincoln, who became the sixteenth President of the
United States and the foremost man of his age.
The career of Abraham Lincoln is more easily understood in view of his
ancestry. The story of his life, which is here told more fully and
consecutively, and in many points, both minor and important, we believe
more exactly than ever before, bears out our belief that Abraham Lincoln
inherited from his ancestry traits and qualities of mind which made him
a remarkable child and a young man of unusual promise and power. So far
from his later career being unaccounted for in his origin and early
history, it is as fully accounted for as in the case of any man.
So far as possible, the statements in this work are based on original
documents. This explains why in several cases the dates differ from
those commonly accepted. Thus the year of the death of the grandfather
of Abraham Lincoln is made 1788, instead of 1784, because of the
recently discovered inventory of his estate. The impression given of
Thomas Lincoln is different from that of other biographies, because we
believe the new documents we have found and the new contemporary
evidence we have unearthed, justify us in it. We have not made it a sign
of shiftlessness that Thomas Lincoln dwelt in a log cabin at a date when
there was scarcely anything else in the State.
An effort has been made, too, to give what we believe to be a truer
color to the fourteen years the Lincolns spent in southern Indiana. The
poverty and the wretchedness of their life has been insisted upon until
it is popularly supposed that Abraham Lincoln came from a home similar
to those of the “poor white trash” of the South. There is no attempt
made here to deny the poverty of the Lincoln household, but it is
insisted that this poverty was a temporary condition incident to pioneer
life and the unfortunate death of Thomas Lincoln’s father when he was
but a boy. Thomas Lincoln’s restless efforts to better his condition by
leaving Kentucky for Indiana in 1816, and afterwards, when he had
discovered that his farm in Spencer County was barren, by trying his
fortunes in Illinois, are sufficient proof that he had none of the
indolent acceptance of fate which characterizes the “poor whites.”
In telling the story of the six years of Lincoln’s life in New Salem, we
have attempted to give a consecutive narrative and to show the exact
sequence of events, which has never been done before. We have shown,
what seems to us very suggestive, the persistency and courage with which
he seized every opportunity and carried on simultaneously his business
as storekeeper and postmaster and surveyor and at the same time studied
law. To establish the order of events in this New Salem period, the
records of the county have been carefully examined, and many new
documents concerning Lincoln have been found in this search, including
his first vote, his first official document (an election return), and
several new surveying plats. The latter show Lincoln to have been much
more active as a surveyor than has commonly been supposed. We have also
brought to light the grammar Lincoln studied, with a sentence written on
the title page in Lincoln’s own hand.
For the first time, too, we publish documents signed by Lincoln as a
postmaster. These two letters are also earlier than any other published
letters of Lincoln. Many minor errors have been corrected, such as the
real number of votes which he received on his first election to the
legislature, and the times and places of his mustering out and into
service in the Black Hawk War.
The number of illustrations in the work is many times greater than ever
has before appeared in connection with the early life of Lincoln. The
scenes of his life in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois have been
photographed especially for us, and we have collected from various
sources numbers of pictures illustrating the primitive surroundings of
his boyhood and young manhood, together with portraits of many of his
companions in those days. Our object in giving such a profusion of
homely scenes and faces has been to make a history of Lincoln’s early
life _in pictures_. We believe that one examining these prints
independently of the text would have a good idea of Lincoln’s condition
from 1809 to 1836.
By far the most important of the illustrations of the work is the
collection of portraits. This is the first systematic effort to make a
complete collection of portraits of the great President. Our success so
far encourages us in believing that before we end our work on Lincoln we
shall have such a collection. Already we have some seventy-five
different portraits. Of these, the great majority are photographs,
ambrotypes, and daguerreotypes. It was Mr. Lincoln’s custom, after the
introduction of photography into Illinois, to sit for his picture
whenever he visited a town to make a speech. This picture he usually
gave to his host; the result was that there now remain, scattered among
his old friends, a large number of interesting portraits, of which
nobody but the owners knew until we undertook this work. Thus of the
twenty portraits which appear in this volume, twelve have never before
been published anywhere, so far as we know.
It has been through the generosity and courtesy of collectors and of our
correspondents and readers that it has been possible for us to gather so
great a number of portraits and documents. On all sides collections have
been put freely at our service, and numbers of our readers have sent us
unpublished ambrotypes, daguerreotypes, and photographs, glad, as they
have written us, to aid in completing a Lincoln portrait gallery. It is
not possible to mention here the names of all those to whom we are
indebted, not only for portraits but for documents and manuscripts, but
credit is given in inserting the material furnished.
Our effort has been to give in both text and notes as exact and full
statements as the information we have been able to gather permitted us
to do. If any reader of this volume discovers errors we shall be glad to
receive corrections.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Origin of the Lincoln Family.—Possessions of Lincoln’s
Grandfather.—Lincoln’s Story-telling Uncle.—Account of Lincoln’s
Father, Thomas Lincoln.—Marriage of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy 21
Hanks.—Character of Nancy Hanks.—Thomas Lincoln’s Manner of Life
and Standing among his Neighbors
CHAPTER II.
The Birth of Abraham Lincoln.—Lincoln’s Childhood
Home.—Reminiscences of Austin Gollaher, a Boyhood Comrade of 42
Lincoln’s.—Saves Lincoln’s Life.—Lincoln’s Early
School-teachers.—Lincoln’s Fondness for Study
CHAPTER III.
The Lincolns leave Kentucky.—Hewing a Way through the Forests of
Indiana.—A Cabin erected near Gentryville, Spencer County,
Indiana.—Description of Lincoln’s New Home.—Domestic Economy of 51
the Lincoln Household.—Pioneer Fare and Apparel.—Death of
Lincoln’s Mother.—Lincoln’s Strength and Skill as a
Laborer.—Lincoln earns a Dollar as a Ferryman
CHAPTER IV.
Lincoln’s Struggle for an Education.—The Books he Read.—Lincoln as
the Oracle of Jones’s Store.—Slavery in Indiana.—Lincoln 69
Develops into an Orator and Writer.—Life on the Ohio and
Mississippi Rivers and its Effect on Lincoln
CHAPTER V.
Lincoln’s Literary Fame among his Neighbors.—The Champion of the
Spelling-bee.—His Retort to a Boasting Jockey.—His Affection for 80
his Step-mother
CHAPTER VI.
Amusements of Lincoln’s Life in Indiana.—Lincoln as a 88
Sportsman.—Lincoln’s Earliest Romance.—Early Bereavements
CHAPTER VII.
The Lincolns leave Indiana.—Parting from Old Friends in
Indiana.—The Journey to Illinois.—Lincoln as a Peddler.—Begins
Life on his own Account.—Splitting Rails for a Pair of 94
Trousers.—Lincoln’s Great Strength and his Pride in it.—Lincoln
and the Professional Athlete
CHAPTER VIII.
Lincoln’s First Work on his own Account.—Lincoln’s Popularity in
Sangamon County.—Rescues Three Comrades from Drowning.—Ingenuity 103
in getting a Flatboat over a Dam.—A Visit to New Orleans.—New
Orleans in 1831, and Lincoln’s Experiences there
CHAPTER IX.
Lincoln settles in New Salem.—He becomes a Grocery Clerk.—The
Frontier Store.—Lincoln defeats the Champion Wrestler of Clary’s 115
Grove.—His Popularity in New Salem.—His Chivalry and
Honesty.—Masters Kirkham’s Grammar and enters Politics
CHAPTER X.
Lincoln’s First Announcement to the Voters of Sangamon County.—His
Views on the Improvement of the Sangamon.—Views on Usury and 125
Education.—The Modesty of his Circular.—Pilots a Steamboat up
the Sangamon
CHAPTER XI.
The Black Hawk War.—Outbreak of Sacs and Foxes.—Lincoln volunteers
and is elected a Captain.—The Manner of his Election.—An
Inexperienced Captain and a Disorderly Company.—The Course of 134
the War.—Stillman’s Defeat.—Zachary Taylor’s Way of dealing with
Insubordination
CHAPTER XII.
Expiration of Lincoln’s Term and his Reënlistment.—Major Iles’s
Reminiscences of the Campaign.—The Frantic Terror raised by 144
Black Hawk.—Lincoln and his Company enter Michigan
Territory.—End of the War, and Lincoln’s Return to New Salem
CHAPTER XIII.
Electioneering in 1832 in Illinois.—Lincoln defeated of Election
to the Assembly.—Looking for Work.—Berry and Lincoln buy Three 155
Stores on Credit.—New Salem Merchants in Lincoln’s Day.—Lincoln
reads Burns and Shakespeare.—His Familiarity with Shakespeare
CHAPTER XIV.
Lincoln begins to Study Law.—His First Law-book.—A Chance Copy of
Blackstone.—Berry and Lincoln take out a Tavern License and hire 166
a Clerk
CHAPTER XV.
Lincoln appointed Postmaster.—Masters Surveying in Six Weeks, and
becomes Deputy County Surveyor.—Surveying with a Grapevine.—His 175
Work and Earnings as a Surveyor.—Early Illinois Towns laid out
by Lincoln
CHAPTER XVI.
Business Reverses.—The Kindness shown Lincoln in New Salem.—His
Helpfulness to all about him.—Growing Esteem and Influence in
Sangamon County.—Becomes a Second Time a Candidate for Member of 187
the Illinois Assembly.—Lincoln on the Stump.—Lincoln’s
Election.—The Vote
CHAPTER XVII.
Lincoln decides finally on a Legal Career.—His Methods of
Study.—First Session in the General Assembly.—Distrust of
Yankees in Early Illinois.—Description of the Early Frontier 197
Legislator.—Questions before the Assembly.—Internal
Improvements.—The State Bank
CHAPTER XVIII.
Lincoln’s Romance with Ann Rutledge.—Ann’s First Lover, John
McNeill, or McNamar.—McNeill’s Departure from New 208
Salem.—Lincoln’s Engagement.—Ann Rutledge’s Death, and Lincoln’s
Deep Grief
CHAPTER XIX.
Abraham Lincoln at Twenty-six Years of Age.—A Review of his Career 218
thus far.—His Excellent Preparation for what was to come
APPENDIX.
I. Memoranda for Lincoln’s Genealogy. By the Hon. L. E. 223
Chittenden
II. Christopher Columbus Graham and his Reminiscences of 227
Lincoln’s Parents
III. A Leaf from Lincoln’s Exercise-Book 236
IV. The Oldroyd Lincoln Collection 237
[Illustration:
LINCOLN IN 1854.—HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED.
From a photograph owned by Mr. George Schneider of Chicago, Illinois,
former editor of the “Staats Zeitung,” the most influential
anti-slavery German newspaper of the West. Mr. Schneider first met
Mr. Lincoln in 1853, in Springfield. “He was already a man necessary
to know,” says Mr. Schneider. In 1854 Mr. Lincoln was in Chicago,
and Mr. Isaac N. Arnold, a prominent lawyer and politician of
Illinois, invited Mr. Schneider to dine with Mr. Lincoln. After
dinner, as the gentlemen were going down town, they stopped at an
itinerant photograph gallery, and Mr. Lincoln had the above picture
taken for Mr. Schneider. The newspaper he holds in his hands is the
“Press and Tribune.”
]
[Illustration:
LINCOLN IN 1863.
From a photograph by Brady, taken in Washington.
]
THE EARLY LIFE
OF
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
CHAPTER I.
THE ORIGIN OF THE LINCOLN FAMILY.—THE LINCOLNS IN KENTUCKY.
The family from which Abraham Lincoln descended came to America from
Norfolk, England, in 1637. A brief table[1] will show at a glance the
line of descent:
_Samuel Lincoln_, born in 1620. Emigrated from Norfolk County,
England, to Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1637. His fourth
son was
_Mordecai Lincoln_, born in 1667. His eldest son was
_Mordecai Lincoln_, born in 1686. Emigrated to New Jersey and
Pennsylvania, 1714. His eldest son was
_John Lincoln_, born before 1725. In 1758 went to Virginia. His
third son was
_Abraham Lincoln_, date of birth uncertain. In 1780, or
thereabouts, emigrated to Kentucky. His third son was
_Thomas Lincoln_, born in 1778, whose first son was
ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
Sixteenth President of the United States.
Footnote 1:
This table was prepared especially for this work by the Hon. L. E.
Chittenden of New York, Register of the Treasury under Mr. Lincoln. In
the Appendix will be found a full memorandum of Lincoln’s genealogy,
also prepared by Mr. Chittenden.
[Illustration:
LAND WARRANT ISSUED TO ABRAHAM LINCOLN, GRANDFATHER OF PRESIDENT
LINCOLN.
From the original, owned by R. T. Durrett, LL.D., of Louisville,
Kentucky. The land records of Kentucky show that Abraham Lincoln
entered two tracts of land when in Kentucky in the spring and summer
of 1780. These entries, furnished us by Dr. Durrett, are as follows:
MAY 29, 1780.—“Abraham Linkhorn enters four hundred acres of land on
Treasury Warrant, laying on Floyd’s Fork, about two miles above
Tice’s Fork, beginning at a Sugar Tree S. B., thence east three
hundred poles, then north, to include a small improvement.”—_Land
Register_, page 107.
JUNE 7, 1780.—“Abraham Linkhorn enters eight hundred acres upon
Treasury Warrant, about six miles below Green River Lick, including
an improvement made by Jacob Gum and Owen Diver.”—Page 126.
The first tract of land was surveyed May 7, 1785 (see page 23), and
the second on October 12, 1784. In 1782 he entered a third tract of
land, a record of which is found in Daniel Boone’s field-book. This
entry reads: “Abraham Lincoln enters five hundred acres of land on a
Treasury Warrant, No. 5994, beginning opposite Charles Yancey’s
upper line, on the south side of the river, running south two
hundred poles, then up the river for quantity; December 11, 1782.”
This is supposed by some authorities to be a tract of five hundred
acres of land in Campbell County, surveyed and patented in Abraham
Lincoln’s name, but after his death. The spelling of the name
Linkhorn instead of Lincoln, as it is invariably in other records of
the family, has caused some to doubt that the Treasury warrant above
was really issued to the grandfather of the President. The family
traditions, however, all say that the elder Abraham owned a tract on
Floyd’s Fork. The misspelling and mispronunciation of the name
Lincoln is common in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois. The writer of
this note has frequently heard persons in Illinois speak of “Abe
Linkhorn” and “Abe Linkern.”
]
[Illustration:
FIELD NOTES OF SURVEY OF FOUR HUNDRED ACRES OF LAND OWNED BY ABRAHAM
LINCOLN, GRANDFATHER OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.
From the record of surveys in the surveyor’s office of Jefferson
County, Kentucky, Book B., page 60.
]
[Illustration:
HUGHES STATION, ON FLOYD’S CREEK, JEFFERSON COUNTY, KENTUCKY, WHERE
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, GRANDFATHER OF THE PRESIDENT, LIVED.—NOW FIRST
PUBLISHED.
From the original, owned by R. T. Durrett, LL.D., of Louisville,
Kentucky. “The first inhabitants of Kentucky,” says Dr. Durrett, “on
account of the hostility of the Indians, lived in what were called
forts. They were simple rows of the conventional log cabins of the
day, built on four sides of a square or parallelogram, which
remained as a court, or open space, between them. This open space
served as a playground, a muster field, a corral for domestic
animals, and a store-house for implements. The cabins which formed
the fort’s walls were dwelling-houses for the people.” At Hughes
Station, on Floyd’s Creek, lived Abraham Lincoln and his family. One
morning in 1788—the date of the death of Abraham Lincoln is placed
in 1784, 1786, and 1788 by different authorities; the inventory of
his estate (page 28) is dated 1788; for this reason we adopt
1788—the pioneer Lincoln and his three sons, Mordecai, Josiah, and
Thomas, were in their clearing, when a shot from an Indian killed
the father. The two elder sons ran for help, the youngest remaining
by the dead body. The Indian ran to the side of his victim, and was
just seizing the son Thomas, when Mordecai, who had reached the
cabin and secured a rifle, shot through a loophole in the logs and
killed the Indian. It was this tragedy, it is said, that made
Mordecai Lincoln one of the most relentless Indian haters in
Kentucky.
]
For our present purpose it is not necessary to examine the lives of
these ancestors farther back than the grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, who
has been supposed to have been born in Virginia in 1760. A consideration
of the few facts we have of his early life shows clearly that this date
is wrong. It is known that in 1773 Abraham Lincoln’s father, John
Lincoln, conveyed to his son a tract of two hundred and ten acres of
land in Virginia, which he hardly would have done if the boy had been
but thirteen years of age. We know, too, that in 1780 Abraham Lincoln
had a wife and five children, the youngest of whom was at least two
years old. Evidently he must have been over twenty years of age, and
have been born before 1760. Probably, too, his birthplace was
Pennsylvania, whence his father moved into Virginia about 1758.
[Illustration:
_Daniel Boone_
]
[Illustration:
RELICS OF DANIEL BOONE.
Photographed for this work from the originals, in the collection of
pioneer relics owned by R. T. Durrett, LL.D., of Louisville,
Kentucky. The articles are a rifle, scalping-knife, powder-horn,
tomahawk, and hunting-shirt. Dr. Durrett has all the documents
needful to establish the authenticity of each of these articles.
They unquestionably were used by Boone through a long period of
hunting and Indian stalking; all of the articles are well preserved,
and even the leather coat is still fit for service. The rifle, says
Dr. Durrett, is as true as it ever was. In this same collection are
a large number of similar relics of other Kentucky pioneers.
]
Abraham Lincoln was a farmer, and, by 1780, a rich one for his time.
This we know from the fact that in 1780 he sold a tract of two hundred
and forty acres of land for “five thousand pounds of current money of
Virginia;” a sum equal to about $17,000 at that date. This sale was
made, presumably, because the owner wished to move to Kentucky. He and
his family had for several generations back been friends of the Boones.
The spell the adventurous spirit of Daniel Boone cast over all his
friends, Abraham Lincoln felt; and in 1780, soon after selling his
Virginia estate, he visited Kentucky, and entered two large tracts of
land. Some months later he moved with his family from Virginia into
Kentucky.
Abraham Lincoln was ambitious to become a landed proprietor in the new
country, and he entered a generous amount of land—four hundred acres on
Long Run, in Jefferson County; eight hundred acres on Green River, near
Green River Lick; five hundred acres in Campbell County. He settled near
the first tract, where he undertook to clear a farm. It was a dangerous
task, for the Indians were still troublesome, and the settlers, for
protection, were forced to live in or near forts or stations. In 1784,
when John Filson published his “History of Kentucky,” though there was a
population of thirty thousand in the territory, there were but eighteen
houses outside of the stations. Of these stations, or stockades, there
were but fifty-two. According to the tradition in the Lincoln family,
Abraham Lincoln lived in one of these stockades.
[Illustration:
LONG RUN BAPTIST MEETING-HOUSE.
From the original drawing, owned by R. T. Durrett, LL.D., of
Louisville, Kentucky. This meeting-house was built on the land
Abraham Lincoln, grandfather of the President, was clearing when
killed by Indians. It was erected about 1797.
]
All went well with him and his family until 1788. Then, one day, while
he and his three sons were at work in their clearing, an unexpected
Indian shot killed the father. His death was a terrible blow to the
family. The large tracts of land which he had entered were still wild,
and his personal property was necessarily small. The difficulty of
reaching the country at that date, as well as its wild condition, made
it impracticable for even a wealthy pioneer to own more stock or
household furniture than was absolutely essential. Abraham Lincoln was
probably as well provided with personal property as most of his
neighbors, and much better than many. He had, for a pioneer, an unusual
amount of stock, of farming implements, and of tools; and his cabin
contained comforts which were rare at that date. The inventory of his
estate, recently found at Bardstown, Kentucky, and here published for
the first time, gives a clearer idea of the life of the pioneer Lincoln,
and of the condition in which his wife and children were left, than any
description could do:
INVENTORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S ESTATE.[2]—NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.
“At the meeting of the Nelson County Court, October 10, 1788, present
Benjamin Pope, James Rogers, Gabriel Cox, and James Baird, on the motion
of John Coldwell, he was appointed administrator of the goods and
chattels of Abraham Lincoln, and gave bond in one thousand pounds, with
Richard Parker security.
Footnote 2:
We owe this interesting document to the courtesy of R. T. Durrett,
LL.D., of Louisville, Kentucky, a gentleman who for many years has
made a specialty of the pioneer history of his State, and through
whose energetic and intelligent researches most of the documents
concerning the pioneer Abraham Lincoln have been unearthed.
“At the same time John Alvary, Peter Syburt, Christopher Boston, and
William [John (?)] Stuck, or any three of them, were appointed
appraisers.
“March 10, 1789, the appraisers made the following return:
£. _s._ _d._
1 Sorrel horse 8
1 Black horse 9 10
1 Red cow and calf 4 10
1 Brindle cow and calf 4 10
1 Red cow and calf 5
1 Brindle bull yearling 1
1 Brindle heifer yearling 1
Bar spear-plough and tackling 2 5
3 Weeding hoes 7 6
Flax wheel 6
Pair smoothing-irons 15
1 Dozen pewter plates 1 10
2 Pewter dishes 17 6
Dutch oven and cule, weighing 15 pounds 15
Small iron kettle and cule, weighing 12 pounds 12
Tool adds 10
Handsaw 5
One-inch auger 6
Three-quarter auger 4 6
Half-inch auger 3
Drawing-knife 3
Currying-knife 10
Currier’s knife and barking-iron 6
Old smooth-bar gun 10
Rifle gun 55
Rifle gun 3 10
2 Pott trammels 14
1 Feather bed and furniture 5 10
Ditto 8 5
1 Bed and turkey feathers and furniture 1 10
Steeking-iron 1 6
Candle-stick 1 6
One axe 9
——— —————— —————
£68 16_s._ 6_d._
PETER SYBURT,
CHRISTOPHER BOSTON,
JOHN STUCK.”
[Illustration:
THE REV. JESSE HEAD.
From an original drawing in the possession of R. T. Durrett, LL.D., of
Louisville, Kentucky. The Rev. Jesse Head was a Methodist preacher
of Washington County, Kentucky, who married Thomas Lincoln and Nancy
Hanks. Christopher Columbus Graham, who was at the wedding, and who
knew Mr. Head well, says: “Jesse Head, the good Methodist preacher
who married them, was also a carpenter or cabinet-maker by trade,
and, as he was then a neighbor, they were good friends. He had a
quarrel with the bishops, and was an itinerant for several years,
but an editor and county judge afterwards in Harrodsburg.... The
preacher, Jesse Head, often talked to me on religion and politics,
for I always liked the Methodists. I have thought it might have been
as much from his free-spoken opinions as from Henry Clay’s
American-African colonization scheme, in 1817, that I lost a likely
negro man, who was leader of my musicians.... But Jesse Head never
encouraged any runaway, nor had any ‘underground railroad.’ He only
talked freely and boldly, and had plenty of true Southern men with
him, such as Clay.”—See Appendix.
]
Soon after the death of Abraham Lincoln, his widow moved from Jefferson
County to Washington County. The eldest son, Mordecai, who inherited
nearly all of the large estate, became a well-to-do and popular citizen.
The deed-book of Washington County still contains a number of records of
lands bought and sold by him. At one time he was sheriff of his county,
and, again, its representative in the legislature of the State. Mordecai
Lincoln is remembered especially for his sporting tastes and his bitter
hatred of the Indians. General U. F. Linder of Illinois, who, as a boy,
lived near Mordecai Lincoln in Kentucky, says: “I knew him from my
boyhood, and he was naturally a man of considerable genius; he was a man
of great drollery, and it would almost make you laugh to look at him. I
never saw but one other man whose quiet, droll laugh excited in me the
same disposition to laugh, and that was Artemus Ward. He was quite a
story-teller. He was an honest man, as tender-hearted as a woman, and,
to the last degree, charitable and benevolent.
“Lincoln had a very high opinion of his uncle, and on one occasion said
to me: ‘Linder, I have often said that Uncle Mord had run off with all
the talents of the family.’
“Old Mord, as we sometimes called him, had been in his younger days a
very stout man, and was quite fond of playing a game of fisticuffs with
any one who was noted as a champion. His sons and daughters were not
talented like the old man, but were very sensible people, noted for
their honesty and kindness of heart.” Mordecai remained in Kentucky
until late in life, when he removed to Hancock County, Illinois.
[Illustration:
MARRIAGE BOND OF THOMAS LINCOLN.
From a tracing of the original, made by Henry Whitney Cleveland.
]
Of Josiah, the second son, we know very little more than that the
records show that he owned and sold land. He left Kentucky when a young
man, to settle on the Blue River, in Harrison County, Indiana, and there
he died. The two daughters married into well-known Kentucky families:
the elder, Mary, marrying Ralph Crume; the younger, Nancy, William
Brumfield.
[Illustration:
MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE OF THOMAS LINCOLN AND NANCY HANKS.—HITHERTO
UNPUBLISHED.
From the original, in the possession of Henry Whitney Cleveland of
Louisville, Kentucky. This interesting document, discovered by Mr.
Cleveland, and published for the first time in this biography,
completes the list of documentary evidence of the marriage of Thomas
Lincoln and Nancy Hanks. The bond given by Thomas Lincoln and the
returns of Jesse Head, the officiating clergyman, were discovered
some years ago, but the marriage certificate was unknown until
recently discovered by Mr. Cleveland.
]
THOMAS LINCOLN’S BOYHOOD AND YOUNG MANHOOD.
The death of Abraham Lincoln was saddest for the youngest of the
children, a lad of ten years at the time, named Thomas, for it turned
him adrift to become a “wandering laboring-boy” before he had learned
even to read. Thomas seems not to have inherited any of the father’s
estate, and from the first to have been obliged to shift for himself.
For several years he supported himself by rough farm work of all kinds,
learning, in the meantime, the trade of carpenter and cabinet-maker.
According to one of his acquaintances, “Tom had the best set of tools in
what was then and now Washington County,” and was “a good carpenter for
those days, when a cabin was built mainly with the axe, and not a nail
or bolt-hinge in it; only leathers and pins to the door, and no glass,
except in watches and spectacles and bottles.”[3] Although a skilful
craftsman for his day, he never became a thrifty or ambitious man. “He
would work energetically enough when a job was brought to him, but he
would never seek a job.” But if Thomas Lincoln plied his trade
spasmodically, he shared the pioneer’s love for land, for when but
twenty-five years old, and still without the responsibility of a family,
he bought a farm in Hardin County, Kentucky. None of his biographers
have ever called attention to this fact, if they knew it. A search made
for this work in the records of Hardin County first revealed it to us,
and we cannot but regard it as of importance, proving as it does that
Thomas Lincoln was not the shiftless man he has hitherto been pictured.
Certainly he must have been above the grade of the ordinary country boy,
to have had the energy and ambition to learn a trade and secure a farm
through his own efforts by the time he was twenty-five. He was
illiterate, never doing more “in the way of writing than to bunglingly
write his own name.” Nevertheless, he had the reputation in the country
of being good-natured and obliging, and possessing what his neighbors
called “good strong horse-sense.” Although he was “a very quiet sort of
man,” he was known to be determined in his opinions, and quite competent
to defend his rights by force if they were too flagrantly violated. He
was a moral man, and, in the crude way of the pioneer, religious.
Footnote 3:
Christopher Columbus Graham, as reported by H. W. Cleveland of
Louisville, Ky., in an interview in 1884, in Mr. Graham’s hundredth
year, and never before published.
[Illustration:
RETURN OF MARRIAGE OF THOMAS LINCOLN AND NANCY HANKS.
From a tracing of the original, made by Henry Whitney Cleveland. This
certificate was discovered about 1885 by W. F. Booker, Esq., Clerk
of Washington County, Kentucky.
]
[Illustration:
LINCOLN IN FEBRUARY, 1860, AT THE TIME OF THE COOPER INSTITUTE SPEECH.
From a photograph by Brady. The debate with Douglas in 1858 gave
Lincoln a national reputation, and the following year he received
many invitations to lecture. One came from a young men’s Republican
club in New York,—which was offering a series of lectures designed
for an audience of men and women of the class apt to neglect
ordinary political meetings. Lincoln consented, and in February,
1860 (about three months before his nomination for the Presidency),
delivered what is known, from the hall in which it was delivered, as
the “Cooper Institute speech”—a speech which more than confirmed his
reputation. While in New York he was taken by the committee of
entertainment to Brady’s gallery, and sat for the portrait
reproduced above. It was a frequent remark with Lincoln that this
portrait and the Cooper Institute speech made him President.
]
[Illustration:
From a photograph by Klauber of Louisville, Kentucky. Mr. Graham, born
in 1784, lived until 1885, and was the only man of our generation
who could be called a contemporary of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy
Hanks. Long before the documentary evidence of their marriage was
found, Mr. Graham gave his reminiscences of that event. Recent
discoveries made in the public records of Kentucky regarding the
Lincolns, bear out in every particular his recollections. He is, in
fact, the most important witness we have as to the character of the
parents of President Lincoln and their condition in life. The
accuracy of his memory and the trustworthiness of his character are
affirmed by the leading citizens of Louisville, Kentucky, of which
city he was a resident. In the Appendix will be found a full
statement by Mr. Graham of what he knew of Thomas Lincoln and his
life.
]
[Illustration:
FACSIMILE OF A PASSAGE FROM LINCOLN’S EXERCISE-BOOK.
]
[Illustration:
HOUSE IN WHICH ABRAHAM LINCOLN WAS BORN.—HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED.
Thomas Lincoln moved into this cabin on the Big South Fork of Nolin
Creek, three miles from Hodgensville, in La Rue County, Kentucky, in
1808; and here, on February 12, 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born. In
1813 the Lincolns removed to Knob Creek. The Nolin Creek farm has
been known as the “Creal Farm” for many years; recently it was
bought by New York people. The cabin was long ago torn down, but the
logs were saved. The new owners, in August, 1895, rebuilt the old
cabin on the original site. This, the first and only picture which
has been taken of it, was made for this biography.
]
Thomas Lincoln learned his trade as carpenter in Elizabethtown, in the
shop of one Joseph Hanks. There he met a niece of his employer, Nancy
Hanks, whom, when he was twenty-eight years old, he married. Nancy Hanks
was, like her husband, a Virginian. Her experience in life had, too,
been similar to her husband’s, for the Hanks family had been drawn into
Kentucky by the fascination of Boone, as had the Lincolns. But it was
only in her surroundings and her family that Nancy Hanks was like Thomas
Lincoln. In nature, in education, and in ambition she was, if tradition
is to be believed, quite another person. Certainly a fair and delicate
woman, who could read and write, who had ideas of refinement, and a
desire to get more from life than fortune had allotted her, was hardly
enough like Thomas Lincoln to be very happy with him. She was still more
unfit to be his wife because of a sensitive nature which made her brood
over her situation—a situation made the more hopeless by the fact that
she had neither the force of character nor strength of body to do
anything to improve it; if, indeed, she had any clear notion of what it
lacked. Hers was that pitiful condition where one feels with vague
restlessness that life has something better than one has found,
something not seen or understood, but without which life will never be
complete.
[Illustration:
THOMAS LINCOLN’S BIBLE.—NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.
From the original, in the collection of O. H. Oldroyd, Washington, D.
C. It is not known when or how Thomas Lincoln obtained this Bible.
After his death it passed to his step-children, the Johnstons, and
was sold by them to the “Lincoln Log Cabin Company,” to be exhibited
at the World’s Fair. It was purchased from this company for the
Oldroyd collection. The family record, reproduced on pages 58 and
59, belongs to this Bible. It was taken out and sold to Mr. C. F.
Gunther before the Bible was sold to Mr. Oldroyd.
]
[Illustration:
VIEW OF ROCK SPRING FARM, WHERE PRESIDENT LINCOLN WAS BORN.
From a photograph taken in September, 1895, for this biography. The
house in which Lincoln was born is seen to the right, in the
background. Rock Spring is in a hollow, under a clump of trees, in
the left centre of the picture.
]
[Illustration:
ROCK SPRING ON THE FARM WHERE LINCOLN WAS BORN.
From a photograph taken in September, 1895, for this biography. The
spring is in a hollow at the foot of the gentle slope on the top of
which the house stands.
]
Thomas and Nancy Lincoln were married near Beechland, in Washington
County, Kentucky, on June 12, 1806. The wedding was celebrated in the
boisterous style of one hundred years ago, and was followed by an
infare, given by the bride’s guardian. To this celebration came all the
neighbors, and, according to that entertaining Kentucky centenarian, Dr.
Christopher Columbus Graham, even those who happened in the neighborhood
were made welcome. He tells how he heard of the wedding while “out
hunting for roots,” and went “just to get a good supper.” “I saw Nancy
Hanks Lincoln at her wedding,” continues Mr. Graham, “a fresh-looking
girl, I should say over twenty. I was at the infare, too, given by John
H. Parrott, her guardian—and only girls with money had guardians
appointed by the court. We had bear-meat; ... venison; wild turkey and
ducks; eggs, wild and tame, so common that you could buy them at two
bits a bushel; maple sugar, swung on a string, to bite off for coffee or
whiskey; syrup in big gourds; peach-and-honey; a sheep that the two
families barbecued whole over coals of wood burned in a pit, and covered
with green boughs to keep the juices in; and a race for the whiskey
bottle.”
After his marriage Thomas Lincoln settled in Elizabethtown. His home was
a log cabin, but at that date few people in the State had anything else.
Kentucky had been in the Union only fourteen years. When admitted, the
few brick structures within its boundaries were easily counted, and
there were only log schoolhouses and churches. Fourteen years had
brought great improvements, but the majority of the population still
lived in log cabins, so that the home of Thomas Lincoln was as good as
those of most of his neighbors. Little is known of his position in
Elizabethtown, though we have proof that he had credit in the community,
for the descendants of two of the early storekeepers of the place still
remember seeing on their grandfathers’ account books sundry items
charged to T. Lincoln. Tools and groceries were the chief purchases he
made, though on one of the ledgers a pair of “silk suspenders,” worth
one dollar and fifty cents, was entered. He not only enjoyed a certain
credit with the merchants of Elizabethtown; he was sufficiently
respected by the public authorities to be appointed in 1816 a road
surveyor, or, as the office is known in some localities, supervisor. It
was not, to be sure, a position of great importance, but it proves that
he was considered fit to oversee a body of men at a task of considerable
value to the community. Indeed, all of the documents which we have been
able to discover, mentioning Thomas Lincoln, show him to have had a much
better position in Hardin County than he has been credited with.
[Illustration:
LINCOLN IN 1858.—HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED.
After a faded ambrotype of Mr. Lincoln, now in the Lincoln Monument
collection at Springfield, Illinois. All that is known of it is that
it was taken at Beardstown in 1858. Mr. Lincoln wore a linen coat on
the occasion. The picture is regarded as a good likeness of him as
he appeared during the Lincoln Douglas campaign.
]
[Illustration:
APPOINTMENT OF THOMAS LINCOLN AS ROAD SURVEYOR.—HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED.
From a tracing made by Henry Whitney Cleveland. The original of this
document is in the records of Hardin County, at Elizabethtown,
Kentucky. It has hitherto been entirely overlooked by the
biographers of Lincoln, and was discovered in the course of a search
for documents instituted for this work. The appointment was made on
May 13, 1816, only a few months before the Lincolns moved to
Indiana. It shows that Thomas Lincoln had a standing in the
community, which his biographers have always ignored. The
appointment, if modest, would not have been made, we have a right to
believe, if Lincoln had been the “easy-going” and idle fellow he has
been asserted to be.
]