THE BIRTH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.—HIS EARLY EDUCATION AND FRIENDS.
It was at Elizabethtown that the first child of the Lincolns was born, a
daughter. Soon after this event Thomas Lincoln decided to combine
farming with his trade, and moved to the farm he had bought in 1803 on
the Big South Fork of Nolin Creek, in Hardin County, now La Rue County,
three miles from Hodgensville, and about fourteen miles from
Elizabethtown. Here he was living when, on February 12, 1809, his second
child, a boy, was born. The little new-comer was called Abraham, after
his grandfather—a name which had persisted through many preceding
generations of the Lincolns.
The home into which the child came was the ordinary one of the poorer
Western pioneer—a one-roomed cabin with a huge outside chimney, no
windows, and only a rude door. The descriptions of its squalor and
wretchedness, which are so familiar, have been overdrawn. Dr. Graham,
than whom there is no better authority on the life of that day, and who
knew Thomas Lincoln well, declares:
“It is all stuff about Tom Lincoln keeping his wife in an open shed in a
winter when the wild animals left the woods and stood in the corners
next the stick-and-clay chimneys, so as not to freeze to death; or, if
climbers, got on the roof. The Lincolns had a cow and calf, milk and
butter, a good feather bed,—for I have slept in it, while they took the
buffalo-robes on the floor, because I was a doctor. They had home-woven
‘kiverlids,’ big and little pots, a loom and wheel; and William
Hardesty, who was there too, can say with me that Tom Lincoln was a man,
and took care of his wife.”
[Illustration:
DEED OF SALE SIGNED BY THOMAS LINCOLN AND WIFE.—HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED.
The Book of Deeds in Hardin County, Kentucky, shows that in 1803,
three years before his marriage, Thomas Lincoln bought a farm in
Hardin County. The same records contain a deed of the sale in 1814
of this same farm, it is supposed, signed by Thomas Lincoln. The
deed is evidently written and signed by one person. Nancy Lincoln
affixes her mark. This is not proof that she could not write; it not
infrequently happens that people in remote country districts make a
mark rather than labor with a pen, to which they are unaccustomed.
All accounts of Nancy Lincoln agree that she was well educated for
her day.
]
The Lincoln home was undoubtedly rude, and in many ways uncomfortable,
but it sheltered a happy family, and its poverty affected the new child
but little. He was robust and active; and life is full of interest to
the child fortunate enough to be born in the country. He had several
companions. There was his sister Nancy, or Sarah—both names are given
her—two years his senior; there was a cousin of his mother’s, ten years
older, Dennis Hanks, an active and ingenious leader in sports and
mischief; and there were the neighbors’ boys. One of the latter, Austin
Gollaher, still tells with pleasure of how he played with young Lincoln
in the shavings of his father’s carpenter shop, of how he hunted coons
and ran the woods with him, and once even saved his life.
[Illustration:
A KENTUCKY HAND-MILL.
From a photograph of the original, owned by R. T. Durrett, LL.D., of
Louisville, Kentucky. This mill was formerly the property of Joseph
Brooks, a prominent pioneer of Kentucky. Similar ones were used by
all Western pioneers.
]
“Yes,” said Mr. Gollaher, “the story that I once saved Abraham Lincoln’s
life is true, but it is not correct as generally related.
“Abraham Lincoln and I had been going to school together for a year or
more, and had become greatly attached to each other. Then school
disbanded on account of there being so few scholars, and we did not see
each other much for a long while. One Sunday my mother visited the
Lincolns, and I was taken along. Abe and I played around all day.
Finally, we concluded to cross the creek to hunt for some partridges
young Lincoln had seen the day before. The creek was swollen by a recent
rain, and, in crossing on the narrow footlog, Abe fell in. Neither of us
could swim. I got a long pole and held it out to Abe, who grabbed it.
Then I pulled him ashore. He was almost dead, and I was badly scared. I
rolled and pounded him in good earnest. Then I got him by the arms and
shook him, the water meanwhile pouring out of his mouth. By this means I
succeeded in bringing him to, and he was soon all right.
[Illustration:
MAP SHOWING POINTS OF INTEREST IN LINCOLN’S LIFE.—MADE SPECIALLY FOR
THIS BIOGRAPHY.
The above map shows where Abraham Lincoln’s grandfather first took
land in Kentucky, where his father and mother were married, where
they first lived, where he was born, and where he lived from 1809 to
1816. It shows the Rolling Fork, Salt River, and the Ohio, which
Thomas Lincoln followed in going into Indiana in 1816; the new home
in Indiana; the point where Lincoln kept the ferry about 1826;
Boonville, where he went to hear trials; the grave of his mother;
the route by which it is supposed he went to Illinois in 1830 (see
page 87 for note correcting this route); the location of both of
Thomas Lincoln’s farms in Illinois, and his grave, near Farmington,
Coles County. Sangamon, New Salem, Vandalia, Springfield, and the
chief places where Mr. Lincoln practised law are shown, as well as
the points where the Lincoln and Douglas debates and the important
political events of the campaign of 1860 took place.
]
“Then a new difficulty confronted us. If our mothers discovered our wet
clothes they would whip us. This we dreaded from experience, and
determined to avoid. It was June, the sun was very warm, and we soon
dried our clothing by spreading it on the rocks about us. We promised
never to tell the story, and I never did until after Lincoln’s tragic
end.
“Abraham Lincoln had a sister. Her name was Sallie, and she was a very
pretty girl. Sallie Lincoln was about my age; she was my sweetheart. I
loved her and claimed her, as boys do. I suppose that was one reason for
my warm regard for Abe. When the Lincoln family moved to Indiana, I was
prevented by circumstances from bidding good-by to either of the
children, and I never saw them again.”[4]
Footnote 4:
Unpublished MS. of an interview with Austin Gollaher, by D. J. Thomas.
[Illustration:
ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S INDIANA HOME.
After an old photograph showing the cabin as it appeared in 1869.
Thomas Lincoln built this house in 1817, and moved into it about a
year after he reached his farm. At first it had neither windows,
door, nor floor; but after the advent of Sally Bush Lincoln it was
greatly improved. When he decided to leave Indiana he was preparing
the lumber for a better house.
]
All the young people went to school. At that day the schools in the West
were usually accidental, depending upon the coming of some poor and
ambitious young man who was willing to teach a few terms while he looked
for an opening to something better. The terms were irregular, their
length being decided by the time the settlers felt able to board the
master and pay his small salary. The chief qualification for a
school-master seems to have been enough strength to keep the “big boys”
in order, though one high authority affirms that pluck went “for a heap
sight more’n sinnoo with boys.”
[Illustration:
LINCOLN FARM IN INDIANA.
From a photograph taken for this biography. Present appearance of the
quarter section of government land in Spencer County, Indiana,
entered by Thomas Lincoln, October 15, 1817, view looking east.
Thomas Lincoln selected this tract in 1816, and, to identify it, he
blazed the trees, and piled up brush at the corners to establish
boundary lines. When he returned with his family he was obliged to
cut his way to the spot chosen for his cabin, and to fell trees to
find space for the “half-face camp” in which he first lived. This
land was entered under the old credit system. Later Mr. Lincoln gave
up to the United States the east half, and the amount paid on it was
passed to his credit to complete paying for the west half. The
patent issued for the latter tract was dated June 6, 1827.
]
Many of the itinerant masters were Catholics—strolling Irishmen from the
colony in Tennessee, or French priests from Kaskaskia. Lincoln’s first
teacher, Zachariah Riney, was a Catholic. Of his second teacher, Caleb
Hazel, we know even less than of Riney. Mr. Gollaher says that Abraham
Lincoln, in those days when he was his schoolmate, was “an unusually
bright boy at school, and made splendid progress in his studies. Indeed,
he learned faster than any of his schoolmates. Though so young, he
studied very hard. He would get spice-wood brushes, hack them up on a
log, and burn them two or three together, for the purpose of giving
light by which he might pursue his studies.”
Probably the boy’s mother had something to do with the spice-wood
illuminations. Tradition has it that Mrs. Lincoln took great pains to
teach her children what she knew, and that at her knee they heard all
the Bible lore, fairy tales, and country legends that she had been able
to gather in her poor life.
Besides the “A B C schools,” as Lincoln called them, the only other
medium of education in the country districts of Kentucky in those days
was “preaching.” Itinerants like the schoolmasters, the preachers, of
whatever denomination, were generally uncouth and illiterate; the code
of morals they taught was mainly a healthy one, and they, no doubt, did
much to keep the consciences of the pioneers awake. It is difficult to
believe that they ever did much for the moral training of young Lincoln,
though he certainly got his first notion of public speaking from them;
and for years in his boyhood one of his chief delights was to get his
playmates about him, and preach and thump until he had his auditors
frightened or in tears.
[Illustration:
GRAVE OF NANCY HANKS LINCOLN.
From a photograph loaned by W. W. Admire. The grave of Abraham
Lincoln’s mother is on a wooded knoll about half a mile southeast of
the site of her Indiana home. Near her are buried Thomas and Betsey
Sparrow, who followed the Lincolns to Indiana, and who died a few
days before Mrs. Lincoln, and of the same disease; and also Levi
Hall and his wife, who died several years later. There are two or
three other graves in the vicinity. Until 1879 the only mark about
the grave of Nancy Lincoln was the names of visitors to the spot,
cut in the bark of the trees which shaded it; then Mr. P. E.
Studebaker of South Bend, Indiana, erected the stone, and soon after
a fence was purchased by a few of the leading citizens of Rockport,
Indiana. The inscription on the stone runs: “Nancy Hanks Lincoln,
Mother of President Lincoln, died October 5, A.D., 1818. Aged
thirty-five years. Erected by a friend of her martyred son.”
]
[Illustration:
LINCOLN IN 1857.
From a photograph loaned by H. W. Fay of De Kalb, Illinois. The
original was taken early in 1857 by Alexander Hesler of Chicago. Mr.
Fay writes of the picture: “I have a letter from Mr. Hesler stating
that one of the lawyers came in and made arrangements for the
sitting, so that the members of the bar could get prints. Lincoln
said at the time that he did not know why the boys wanted such a
homely face.” Mr. Joseph Medill of Chicago went with Mr. Lincoln to
have the picture taken. He says that the photographer insisted on
smoothing down Lincoln’s hair, but Lincoln did not like the result,
and ran his fingers through it before sitting. The original negative
was burned in the Chicago fire.
]
[Illustration:
MARRIAGE LICENSE OF THOMAS LINCOLN AND SARAH JOHNSTON.—NOW FIRST
PUBLISHED.
From a tracing made by Henry Whitney Cleveland.
]