MOVING TO ILLINOIS
"FOLLOWING THE RIVER"
Thomas Lincoln had become restless again. Fourteen years was a long time
for him to live in one place. Abe was seven years old when they came
over from Kentucky, and he was now nearly twenty-one. During that time
Thomas had lost his wife, Nancy, and his only daughter, who bore her
mother's name. While the land he had chosen was fertile enough, the want
of water had always been a sad drawback. The desire to try his fortunes
in a newer country had taken possession of him.
John Hanks had gone to Illinois, and had written back that everything
was more favorable there for making a living. Thomas Lincoln had not
been successful in Indiana. His children's prospects seemed to be
against them. After working as a hired hand on the surrounding farms,
Abe had served for a time as a ferryman, and, working by the river, had
learned to build the boat with which he had earned his first dollar.
As George Washington longed to go to sea, Abraham Lincoln seems to have
yearned to "follow the river." He tried to hire out as deck hand, but
his age was against him. He soon had a chance to go "down river" to New
Orleans, with his friend, Allen Gentry, the son of the man for whom
Gentryville was named. Allen afterward married Kate Roby. A flatboat
belonging to Allen's father was loaded with bacon and other farm
merchandise for the southern market. Allen went in charge of the
expedition, and young Lincoln was engaged as "bow hand." They started in
April, 1828. There was nothing to do but steer the unwieldy craft with
the current. The flatboat was made to float down stream only. It was to
be broken up at New Orleans and sold for lumber.
The two young men from Indiana made the trip without incident until they
came to the plantation of Madame Duchesne, six miles from Baton Rouge,
where they moored their raft for the night. There they heard the
stealthy footsteps of midnight marauders on board.
Young Gentry was first aroused. He sprang up and found a gang of
lawless negroes on deck, evidently looking for plunder, and thinking so
many of them could easily cow or handle the two white men.
"Bring the guns, Abe!" shouted Allen. "Shoot them!" Abraham Lincoln was
among them, brandishing a club--they had no guns. The negroes were
frightened not only by the fierce, commanding form of their tall
adversary, but also by his giant strength. The two white men routed the
whole black crew, but Abraham Lincoln received a wound in the encounter,
and bore the scar of it to his dying day.
The trip required about three months, going and returning, and the two
adventurers from Gentryville came back in June, with good stories of
their experiences to tell in Jones' store.
Not long after this Thomas Lincoln, in response to an urgent invitation
from John Hanks, decided to move to Illinois. It took a long time, after
gathering in the fall crops, for Thomas Lincoln to have a "vandoo" and
sell his corn and hogs. As for selling his farm, it had never really
belonged to him. He simply turned it over to Mr. Gentry, who held a
mortgage on it. It was February, 1830, before the pioneer wagon got
under way. The emigrant family consisted of Thomas Lincoln and Sarah,
his wife, Abraham, and John Johnston; Sarah and Matilda Johnston were
both married, and, with their husbands, a young man named Hall and
Dennis Hanks, formed the rest of the party. The women rode with their
household goods in a great covered cart drawn by two yoke of oxen.
A TRAVELING PEDDLER
Merchant Jones, for whom Abe had worked that fall and winter, after his
return from New Orleans, sold the young man a pack of "notions" to
peddle along the road to Illinois. "A set of knives and forks," related
Mr. Jones' son afterward, "was the largest item on the bill. The other
items were needles, pins, thread, buttons, and other little domestic
necessities. When the Lincolns reached their new home, Abraham wrote
back to my father stating that he had doubled his money on his purchases
by selling them along the road. Unfortunately we did not keep that
letter, not thinking how highly we would prize it afterward."
In the early days of his presidency, an international problem came
before the cabinet which reminded Mr. Lincoln of an experience he had on
this journey, so he told the several secretaries this story:
"The situation just now reminds me of a fix I got into some thirty years
ago when I was peddling 'notions' on the way from Indiana to Illinois. I
didn't have a large stock, but I charged large prices and I made money.
Perhaps you don't see what I am driving at.
"Just before we left Indiana and were crossing into Illinois we came
across a small farmhouse full of children. These ranged in age from
seventeen years to seventeen months, and were all in tears. The mother
of the family was red-headed and red-faced, and the whip she held in her
right hand led to the inference that she had been chastising her brood.
The father of the family, a meek-looking, mild-mannered, tow-headed
chap, was standing at the front door--to all appearances waiting his
turn!
"I thought there wasn't much use in asking the head of that house if she
wanted any 'notions.' She was too busy. It was evident that an
insurrection had been in progress, but it was pretty well quelled when I
got there. She saw me when I came up, and from her look I thought she
surmised that I intended to interfere. Advancing to the doorway--roughly
pushing her husband aside--she demanded my business.
"'Nothing, ma'am,' I answered as gently as possible. 'I merely dropped
in, as I came along, to see how things were going.'
"'Well, you needn't wait,' she said in an irritated way; 'there's
trouble here, and lots of it, too, but I kin manage my own affairs
without the help of outsiders. This is jest a family row, but I'll teach
these brats their places if I hev to lick the hide off every one of
them. I don't do much talking, but I run this house, an' I don't want no
one sneakin' round tryin' to find out how I do it either.'
"That's the case here with us. We must let the other nations know that
we propose to settle our family row in our own way, an' teach these
brats (the seceding States) their places, and, like the old woman, we
don't want any 'sneakin' round' by other countries, that would like to
find out how we are going to do it either."
"WINNING A DOG'S GRATITUDE"
Abe strode along in the mud, driving the four oxen much of the time,
for the houses he could visit with his peddler's pack were few and far
between. A dog belonging to one of the family--an insignificant little
cur--fell behind. After the oxen had floundered through the mud, snow
and ice of a prairie stream, they discovered that the animal was
missing. The other men of the party thought they could now get rid of
the little nuisance, and even the women were anxious, as the hour was
late, to go on and find a place to camp for the night. To turn back with
the clumsy ox-team and lumbering emigrant wagon was out of the question.
Abraham gave the whip to one of the other men and turned back to see if
he could discern the dog anywhere. He discovered it running up and down
on the other bank of the river, in great distress, for the swift current
was filled with floating ice and the poor little creature was afraid to
make the attempt to swim across. After whistling in vain to encourage
the dog to try if it would, the tender-hearted youth went to its rescue.
Referring to the incident himself afterward, he said:
"I could not endure the idea of abandoning even a dog. Pulling off shoes
and socks, I waded across the stream and triumphantly returned with the
shivering animal under my arm. His frantic leaps of joy and other
evidences of a dog's gratitude amply repaid me for all the exposure I
had undergone."
SPLITTING THE HISTORIC RAILS
After two weary weeks of floundering through muddy prairies and jolting
over rough forest roads, now and then fording swollen and dangerous
streams, the Lincolns were met near Decatur, Illinois, by Cousin John
Hanks, and given a hearty welcome. John had chosen a spot not far from
his own home, and had the logs all ready to build a cabin for the
newcomers. Besides young Abe, with the strength of three, there were
five men in the party, so they were able to erect their first home in
Illinois without asking the help of the neighbors, as was customary for
a "raising" of that kind.
Nicolay and Hay, President Lincoln's private secretaries, in their great
life of their chief, gave the following account of the splitting of the
rails which afterward became the talk of the civilized world:
"Without the assistance of John Hanks he plowed fifteen acres, and
split, from the tall walnut trees of the primeval forest, enough rails
to surround them with a fence. Little did either dream, while engaged in
this work, that the day would come when the appearance of John Hanks in
a public meeting with two of these rails on his shoulder, would
electrify a State convention, and kindle throughout the country a
contagious and passionate enthusiasm whose results would reach to
endless generations."