he Journey to Indiana-Pigeon Creek Settlement-Indiana Schools-Sally Bush Lincoln-Gentryvill

rated from England to Massachusetts in 1638. Following the prevailing drift of American settlement, these descendants had, during a century and a half, successively moved from Massachusetts to New Jersey, from New Jersey to Pennsylvania, from

for which he received a warrant, directed to the "Principal Surveyor of any County within the commonwealth of Virginia," to lay off in one or more surveys for Abr

shot and killed him. Josiah, the second son, ran to a neighboring fort for assistance; Mordecai, the eldest, hurried to the cabin for his gun, leaving Thomas, youngest of the family, a child of six years, by his father. Mordecai had just taken down his rifle from its convenient resting-place over the door

probably under the stress of poverty, as well as by the marriage of the older children, that the home was gradually broken up, and Thomas Lincoln became "even in childhood ... a wandering laboring boy, and grew up literally without educati

rginia, and so far superior to her husband in education that she could read and write, and taught him how to sign his name. Neither one of the young couple had any money or property; but in those days liv

he disadvantage, however, that farms to be had on these terms were usually of a very poor quality, on which energetic or forehanded men did not care to waste their labor. It was a kind of land generally known in the West as "barrens"-rolling upland, with very thin, unproductive soil. Its momentary usefulness was that it was partly cleared and cultivated, that an indifferent cabin stood on it ready to be occupied, and that it had one specially attractive as well as useful feature-a fine spring of water, prettily situated amid a graceful clump of foliage, because

n on credit, for the promise to pay one hundred and eighteen pounds. A year later he conveyed two hundred acres of it by deed to a new purchaser. In this new home the family spent four years more, and

wer settlements in Indiana, he had neither valuable possessions nor cheerful associations to restrain the natural impulse of every frontiersman to "move." In this determination his carpenter's skill served him a good purpose, and made the enterprise not only feasible but reasonably cheap. In the fall of 1816 he built himself a small flatboat, which he launched at the mouth of Knob Creek, half a mile from his cabin, on the waters of the Rolling Fork. This stream would float him to Salt River, and Sal

g his wife and the two children-Sarah, nine years old, and Abraham, seven. Another son had been born to them some years before, but had died when only three days old. This time the trip to Indiana was made with the aid of two horses, us

fourteen feet square. This structure differed from a cabin in that it was closed on only three sides, and open to the weather on the fourth. It was usual to build the fire in front of the open side, and the necessity of providing a chimney was thus avoided. He doubtless intended it for a mere temporary shelter, and as such it would have sufficed for good weather in the summer season. But it was a rude provision for the winds and snows of an Indiana winter. It illustrates Thomas Lincoln's want of energy, that the family remained housed in this prim

horseback, seven miles, with a bag of corn to be ground on a hand grist-mill. In the course of two or three years a road from Corydon to Evansville was laid out, running past the Lincoln farm; and perhaps two or three years afterward another from Rockport to Bloomington crossing the former. This gave rise to Gentryville. James Gentry entered the land at the cross-roads. Gideon Romine opened a

ng autumn much sickness prevailed in the Pigeon Creek settlement. It was thirty miles to the nearest doctor, and several persons died, among them Nancy Hanks Linc

ush. Johnston, to whom she was married about the time Lincoln married Nancy Hanks, had died, leaving her with three children. She came of a better station in life than Thomas, and is represented as a woman of uncommon energy and thrift, possessing excellent qualities both of head and heart. The household goods which she brought to the Lincoln home in Indiana filled a four-horse wagon. Not only were her own three children well clothed and cared for, but she was able

fond of him, and in every way encouraged his marked inclination to study and improve himself. The oppo

ualification was ever required of a teacher beyond readin', writin', and cipherin' to the Rule of Three. If a straggler supposed to understand

s a low cabin of round logs, a mile and a half from the Lincoln home, with split logs or "puncheons" for a floor, split logs roughly leveled with an ax and set up on legs for benches, and a log cut out of one end and the space filled in with squares of greased paper for window panes. The main light in such primitive halls of learning was admitted by the open door. It was a type of school building common in the early West, in which many a statesman gained the first rudiments of knowledge. Very often Webster's "Elementary Spelling Book" was the only text-book. Abraham's first Indiana school was probably held five years before Ge

h pen, ink, and a copy-book, and probably a very limited supply of writing-paper, for facsimiles have been printed of several scraps and fragments upon which he had carefully copied tables, rules, and sums from his arithmetic, such as those of long measure, land measure, and dry measure, and examples in multiplication and

Indiana, in short sessions of attendance scattered over a period of nine years-made up in all less than a twelvemonth. He said of it in 1860, "Abraham now thinks that the aggregate of all his schooling did not amount to one year." This distribution of the tuition he received was doubtless an advantage. Had it all been given him at his first school in Indiana, it would probabl

. Then he would rewrite it, look at it, repeat it. He had a copy-book, a kind of scrap-book, in which he put down all things, and thus preserved them." There is no mention that either he or other pupils had slates and slate-pencils to use at school or at home, but he found a ready substitute in pieces of board. It is stated that he occupied his long evenings at home doing

edients, Abraham Lincoln worked his way to so much of an education as placed him far ahead of his schoolmates, and quickly abreast of the acquirements of his various teachers. The field from which he could glean knowledge was very limited, though he diligently borrowed every book in the neighborhood. The list is a short one-"Ro

teady, unflinching perseverance in a line of conduct that brings into strong relief a high aim and the consciousness of abundant intellectual power. He was not permitted to forget that he was on an uphill path, a stern

ry young, was large of his age, and had an ax put into his hands at once; and from that till within his twenty-third

sometimes on his father's place, sometimes as a hired hand for other pioneers. In this very useful but commonplace occupation he had, however, one advantage. He was not only very early in his life a tall, strong country boy, but as he grew up he soon became a tall, strong, sinewy man. He early attained the unusual height of six feet four inches, with ar

ived at the mouth of Anderson's Creek, it was part of his duty to manage a ferry-boat which transported passengers across the

ance, made the trip. The nature of part of the 'cargo load,' as it was called, made it necessary for them to linger and trade along the sugar-coast, and one night they were attacked by

ed an enviable standing in the village as a man of honesty, skill, and judgment-one who could be depended on to meet such emerg

le of assisting his son Allen in the trading expedition to New Orleans. For Abraham, on the other hand, it was an event which must have opened up wide vistas of future hope and ambition. Allen Gentry probably was nominal supercargo and steersman, but we may easily

fortunate on this point. There was in the neighborhood of the Lincoln home what was known in the West as a deer-lick-that is, there existed a feeble salt-spring, which impregnated the soil in its vicinity or created little pools of brackish water-and various kinds of animals, particularly deer, resorted there to satisfy their natural craving for salt by drinking from these or licking the moist earth. Hunters took advantage of this habit, and one o

wild turkeys approached the new log cabin, and Abraham, with a rifle gun, standing inside, shot

calculating ambition. It was a native intellectual thirst, the significance of which he did not himself yet understand. Such exceptional characteristics manifested themselves only in a few matters.

ther at a house-raising or corn-husking, or when mere chance brought them at the same time to the post-office or the country store. On these occasions, however, Abraham was, according to his age, always able to contribute his full share or more. Most of his natural aptitudes equipped him especially to play his part well. He had quick intelligence, ready sympathy, a cheerful temperament, a kindling humor, a generous and helpful spirit. He was both a ready talker a

sition for him from remembering the jingle of a commonplace rhyme to the constructing of a doggerel verse, and he did not neglect the opportunity of practising his penmanship in such impromptus. Tradition also relates that he added to his list of stories and jokes humorous im

the national flag, Illinois was admitted as a State to the Union. The Star of Empire was moving westward at an accelerating speed. Alabama was admitted in 1819, Maine in 1820, Missouri in 1821. Little by little the line of frontier settlement was pushing itself toward the Mississippi. No sooner had the pioneer built him a cabin and opened his little farm, than during ever

month of March. His father and family settled a new place on the north side of the Sangamon River, at the junction of the timber land and prairie, about ten miles westerly from Decatur. Here they built a log cabin, into which they removed, and made sufficient of rails to fence ten acres of ground, fenced and broke the ground, and raised a crop of sown corn upon it the same year.... The