Boys' and Girls' Biography of Abraham Lincoln Part 1

Boys' and Girls' Biography of Abraham Lincoln.

by James H. Shaw.

CHAPTER I.

A great English writer[1] in a lecture on America and the Americans said that when an American gets to heaven he will not be satisfied unless he can move farther west.

[Footnote 1: Charles d.i.c.kens.]

He said this because it has been so much the custom of our people to "move West." It is not so common now as it was a few years ago because the great public lands, free to those who would settle on them or plant trees, are mostly occupied.

The Lincoln family a couple of hundred years ago first "moved west" from England to Ma.s.sachusetts; then they moved west again to Pennsylvania; then west and south to Virginia; then west again to Kentucky.

Way back in the last century a man was digging in the rich soil of Kentucky. He turned up clods, planted seed and G.o.d sent the rain-drops and sun-beams and the grain sprang up and became gold. The surest gold mine in the world is our fertile soil and the surest miner is our farmer.

"Whoever plants a seed beneath the sod And waits to see it push away the clod He trusts in G.o.d."

A little boy watched his father work and learned the lesson that man lives best by the sweat of his own brow, not by the sweat of other men's brows. While they toiled, through the shadows of the surrounding forest a savage stole secretly toward them on his soft moccasins. He paused, aimed his gun and fired. The man fell over dead; then the Indian came rapidly, caught up the boy and ran off toward the woods with him. But his older brother, Mordecai, ran to the log hut and catching up the ever ready gun shot the Indian through the heart and sent him to the "happy hunting ground," and saved little Thomas Lincoln, who grew up to be a man and became the father of our beloved martyr president, Abraham Lincoln.

You have no doubt read of the adventures of Daniel Boone and the pioneers of Kentucky. A little boy thought these pioneers were so grand he said he wanted to be a "pioneer" when he went to heaven. But these pioneers had many hards.h.i.+ps we do not have. They were constantly fighting the Indians and did not have the pleasant homes we have, but lived in rough log cabins, without plaster on the walls and with only the earth for floors. The snow drifted through the cracks of the logs and sometimes the children would wake up in the morning and find a little drift of snow on top of the bed quilt.

Though these Kentucky pioneers had hard times, they must have had a good place to live in after all, for some of the most honored men of our history, such as Andrew Jackson, Daniel Boone, David Crockett, Senator Benton, Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln came from this pioneer country.

The little boy, Thomas Lincoln, who was saved by his brother Mordecai, was born in Jefferson county, Kentucky in 1778. He grew to be a man in these wild surroundings. It was common to have a fight with the Indians and many and many a time he shot deer and bears. The people did not have much beef then but the meat was mostly wild turkeys, geese, prairie chickens, quail, venison and bears' meat. Every boy learned to shoot well and nearly always carried his gun with him even when he was working in the field, for an Indian might steal up on him or some wild game pa.s.s by. A large part of the clothing was made out of the skins of wild animals.

September 2d, 1806, Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks were married; he was twenty-eight years old and she was twenty-three. A Methodist minister, Rev. Jesse Head, performed the ceremony.

The preachers were called circuit riders then because they preached at so many places and all the places were united into what was called a circuit.

This often included hundreds of miles and the preacher would only be at one of the points once in several months. He rode on horseback and carried his things in saddle bags hung across the horse's back.

Thomas and Nancy settled on Rock

Creek farm in Hardin county. Thomas built a new log cabin and fixed things up. In this log cabin on the 12th of February, 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born. He had a sister two years older and one young brother who died while a little baby. Thomas Lincoln was a slow-moving man and fond of jokes. He could not read until after he was married. This is not so very strange for you must remember that at that time, in Kentucky, there were very few schools. His wife taught him to read by spelling out the words in the Bible.

Nancy, Abraham's mother, was a very pretty woman. She was naturally refined and was considered well educated and had a cultivated and strong mind. Her son is supposed to have inherited his strong intellect from his mother and his fondness for stories and jokes from his father.

The mother taught her children to read and write and made them fond of books so that her son Abraham became a hard student and thus laid the foundation for his greatness. She was also a religious woman and trained the children to love G.o.d and keep his commandments.

Though Abraham grew up in very rough surroundings he did not learn to think that his words were made more emphatic or his expressions stronger by oaths. Abraham Lincoln never swore; he did not think it manly to take G.o.d's name in vain. One time when he was clerking, a rowdy swore in the store and in the presence of ladies. When they were gone Lincoln asked the man to step outside. He then threw him down and rubbed smart-weed in his eyes to punish him for his swearing, but as he was also kind-hearted he got some water afterwards and helped wash the smart out.

Kentucky has always been a great tobacco raising state and though little Abe grew up to be quite a good-sized boy in that state he did not think, as many boys foolishly do, that it is manly to use tobacco, for Abraham Lincoln never used tobacco in any form.

His mother taught him these good things and he learned to do what his mother taught him and many years after she was dead and he had become a great man he said, "All I am or hope to be I owe to my angel mother."

These incidents seem all the more wonderful because there were but few Sunday-schools then to teach such lessons and churches were so few Abraham did not see one until he was twenty-one years old.

CHAPTER II.

The year Indiana was admitted into the Union, 1816, Thomas Lincoln moved his family to Spencer county in the southern part of that state. Little Abe was nearly eight years old at this time. It was a long, hard trip.

They said good bye to their old home and friends and with their goods on a wagon drawn by oxen, slowly moved along. There were no such roads as we have; often there was only a path through the woods and at other times they had to cut down trees and tear away underbrush to get through. They also had to ford some uncertain streams because there were no bridges. They were ferried over the Ohio river.

They settled in southern Indiana, near the town of Gentryville and built a log cabin house which was called a half-faced camp because it was enclosed on all sides but one. There was no floor other than the ground and no door or window. Part of the land around it was cultivated, and on this they raised corn and vegetables; but the most of it was woods.

Their neighbors were few and so far away even the smoke from their chimneys could not be seen. At this time there were no steamers going up the Ohio river to bring them news from Was.h.i.+ngton, to say nothing of news from Europe, and as for railroads, there were none at all in this western country, so that you can see it was very lonesome. They had no such opportunities as we have. Abraham learned to use the ax and wedge because with them most of the home was built. They did not even have saws. For their clothing, they cut the wool from the sheep's back, and mother would card, spin and weave it. They used needles from the pine trees and b.u.t.tons were made by sewing a bit of cloth on a piece of bone.

The one table they had in the one room, was made by cutting a rough slab of wood, boring holes in the corners and making rough legs. The chairs were made much the same way. They did not have any bed-steads; but made a frame by putting holes in the logs of the house and fastening side pieces to a pole driven down into the ground, then they covered it with skin, dry leaves and some rough cloth. Little Abraham slept in the loft.

He had a corner there filled with dry leaves, to which he had to climb by means of pegs driven into the logs. Their food was of the plainest kind as far as bread went, corn dodger being the most common. Wheat bread, which they called cake, they sometimes had for Sunday. Once in a while they would have potatoes for a meal; but most of the time they had fish and game, such as deer, bear, wild turkeys, ducks, etc., for all of these were plentiful there. They did not have stoves as we have; but used a large fireplace built of brick or stone in the side of the log house. They had what was called a Dutch oven to do the baking. They did not have the many cooking vessels we have now and hence did not have the variety of food. They raised their own indigo with which they colored the cloth they made. They also used sumac berries and white walnut bark to color. They raised some cotton, which they would put near the fireplace, to keep warm and make it sweat, and then card it, spin it and finally color it. This would make what they called a pretty linsey dress or suit. They had to make their own soap by taking the fat of hogs and boiling it in a kettle with lye. Abraham's clothes were often made of deerskin, and he wore a c.o.o.nskin for a cap.

One October day, a few of the friends of the Lincolns gathered around an open grave under a large cypress tree, and they buried the mother of Abraham Lincoln. They had lived but two years is that southern Indiana home. When all the others had gone away, and the shades of night were coming on, little Abraham threw himself on the new made grave and wept hours, for the greatest sadness and loss that could come to him was the death of his mother. Mother does more for us than any one else; when we are helpless she cares for us, and waits on us, and teaches us and does more for us than we can ever do for her. When a boy or girl loses his mother, he loses the one who will always do the most for him. It was not strange then that this little ten year old boy should feel so sad, when he knew he never could have the kind care of his own mother again. There were no preachers there who could perform the ceremony at the burial; but Abraham wrote to an old preacher friend down in Kentucky, one of those circuit riders I told you about, and many months later, he came and preached the funeral sermon. The man's name was David Elkin. At this time, all the friends from far and near came to hear the funeral sermon.

Some time after his wife's death, Thomas Lincoln went back to Kentucky, and there married a widow, Mrs. Sallie Johnson, who with her three children, came to the log cabin home near Gentryville, where had been left little Abraham and Sarah. Mrs. Johnson had a nice lot of household furniture, and when she came, she brought it with her. There was a bureau, table, set of chairs, clothes chest, knives and forks and bedding. All of these seemed wonderfully nice to Abraham and Sarah, for they did not have them before. Thomas Lincoln built a new log cabin house that had four sides and a kind of door and window in it. They also put a floor in the cabin made of slabs, and put plastering between the cracks in the logs. A feather bed was made for the children to sleep on.

The step-mother was very good to them and took much interest in Abraham's studies. They did not have many books at that time; but Abraham was a great reader, and borrowed from all the neighbors. The books he was most familiar with, were the Bible, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Weems' Life of Was.h.i.+ngton and the poems of Robert Burns. He did not have many books, and he read the ones he had over and over again, and became very familiar with them. Edward Eggelston, the author of the famous book "The Hoosier Schoolmaster," was one time confined by a storm in a house where the only books they had were the Bible and a dictionary. He said he learned more in those three days than in any other three days of his life. There has been no statesman who quoted the Bible so well as Mr. Lincoln, and the reason is, that he studied the Bible thoroughly when a small boy. Hardly any of his speeches but have many quotations from the Bible. His step-mother urged him all she could to study. In reading the life of Was.h.i.+ngton, he came to think he might make something out of himself. At this time, they were poor, and there were few opportunities, and the chances for becoming a great and prominent man seemed very small; yet young Abraham thought if he would study hard, he might make something out of himself, and so he did. The school was very small, and as he had to work a great deal of the time on the farm, he could not attend it very much; but at night, he would often, after working hard all day, lie in front of the fireplace and figure on a piece of board. When he had used up all the s.p.a.ce he sc.r.a.ped it off, and figured again. He would also read books by this same light.

One night while reading the Life of Was.h.i.+ngton, lying in bed, he placed the book in the crack between the logs and went to sleep. In the night, it snowed, and some snow drifted between the logs on the book and injured it a great deal. It was borrowed from one of the neighbors.

Abraham took it to the owner, and asked him what he could do to pay for it, and the man said he could work three days on the farm, and Abraham asked him if that would pay for the injury or pay for the book. The man said, "Well Abraham, you may have the book, I do not want it." Perhaps not many of us would be willing to work that hard to get the Life of Was.h.i.+ngton; but it was that very hard work and liking to study that made it possible for Mr. Lincoln to rise from such humble surroundings to be the great man he was. If he had not worked hard and studied in that way, he never could have become great. We cannot amount to much of anything if we are not willing, as boys and girls, to study and work.

He was always a good speller in school. They used to stand up in two rows and spell down. When you failed on the word, you sat down and the next one had a chance at it. A girl was trying to spell "definite," she was afraid she would miss it and she became nervous, and was about to spell it with a "y," when Abraham, who was standing across the room, put his finger up to his eye, giving her a sign, and then she knew it was "i" instead of "y." Abraham also made a habit of committing to memory pieces out of the books he was reading, and thus it became possible in after years for him to use fine quotations in his speeches. He was one of the best scholars in school. He was also noted for keeping his clothes clean longer than the others. Sometimes when Abraham was plowing in the field, at the end of a long row, the horse was allowed to rest, and he would then get his book from the corner of the fence and read a little, until it was time to start again. His father did not want him to do so much reading because he thought he was neglecting the necessary work; but his step-mother persuaded his father that Abraham was a good boy and ought to be allowed to read all he could, because it would make a better man of him. A Mr. Jones, who kept a store in Gentryville took about the only paper that was received there, and Abraham used to go into the store regularly to borrow it. He would often read aloud to the men who gathered there, and make comments. He was so bright in this that there would always be a great crowd around to listen to him. Abraham was a great story teller, and would give them many a hearty laugh with the stories he could tell. Special subjects were also much discussed. About this time, a few people began to claim that negro slavery was a bad thing, and there was general discussion over it. Slavery was universally common in the South. One question of debate was, which was the most to be complained of, the Indian or the Negro. Soon Mr. Lincoln's habit of making comments grew into speech making, and he sometimes gave sort of stump speeches to the crowd in which he would recite pa.s.sages that he had committed from the speeches of some of the great orators. He used to get up on the stump of an old tree to deliver these speeches. This is why they were called stump speeches. His father did not like this because it took his attention away from the farm work. Once in a while, Abraham used to go to Booneville, the county seat to hear law suits. He also wrote an essay on temperance, and a preacher thought it was so good, he sent it to Ohio and it was published in a paper. He heard one of the celebrated Breckenridges make a very fine speech in a law suit.

Although he was a rough country boy, when Mr. Breckenridge, after the speech, came by where he sat, Lincoln told him the speech was fine; but the great lawyer thought the young man too cheeky in speaking to him and snubbed him. In after years when Mr. Lincoln was president, Mr.

Breckenridge called on him, and Mr. Lincoln reminded him of this incident. In the spring of 1828 when he was nineteen, Mr. Gentry, proprietor of the store at Gentryville, hired him to take a flat boat loaded with bacon and farm produce to New Orleans. A son of Mr. Gentry's was his companion. The boys had quite a time boating down the Ohio to the Mississippi and then down the Mississippi to New Orleans. One night when they had tied up the boat and were asleep, some negroes attacked them and tried to steal their goods, but they successfully drove the negroes away. At this time, there were a few steamers going up and down the Mississippi and the boys came home by one of them. It was a wonderful trip for these boys, Abraham was at this time, a remarkably strong young man. He grew to be six feet four inches tall, and could lift far more than any ordinary man, and could strike a heavier blow with a maul and sink an ax deeper into the wood than almost any other man. He got eight dollars a month and his board as pay for his hard trip to New Orleans. He became a very good penman in school, and was known in that neighborhood for his good writing. One of the copies in his copy-book that was a favorite was:

"Good boys who to their books apply, will all be great men bye and bye."

His step-mother who was fond of him, said "Abraham was a good boy, and I can say what scarcely a mother can say: Abraham never gave me a cross word or look, and never refused in fact or appearance anything I requested. I never gave him a cross word in all my life. His mind and mine seemed to run together. Abraham was the best boy I ever saw or expect to see."

They used to teach politeness in school those days. One of the scholars would go outside and knock at the door and another would admit him and ask him to be seated, and the boy was to take off his hat and bow and be as careful and polite as he could. Although Abraham was very tall and awkward, he was said to be very gentlemanly in his manners, and the lady for whom he worked, said he always lifted his hat when he bowed to her.

That was not common then. His sister Sarah, who was two years older than himself, was married to Aaron Grigsby in 1828 and only lived a year and a half after her marriage.

After fourteen years of hard labor on the Spencer county soil, Thomas Lincoln had learned what has proved ever since true, that it was very poor farm land. In addition, the milk sickness was a sort of an epidemic disease in those parts. It came about every year. It was from this that Abe's mother died. These things, together with some word that he had received, that Illinois had rich farm land, made him decide to move to that state. A cousin had already moved there and gave splendid reports of it. The company which moved to Illinois included Thomas Lincoln, his wife and her three children, Abraham and some of the other relatives, thirteen in all. They sold their land, cattle and grain in March, 1830 and started on their trip. Their goods were packed in a big wagon, the first one Thomas Lincoln ever owned. It was drawn by four oxen. The people around Gentryville were very sorry to see them go, for the neighbors in those days were almost like relatives, and those of them that still live there, remember the leaving of the Lincoln's as quite an event. The Lincoln family spent the last night with Mr. Gentry, the man for whom Gentryville was named, and he went part of the way with them along the road. One of the boys, James Gentry, planted a cedar tree in memory of Abraham Lincoln on the ground where the Lincoln home had stood. It must have been sad to Abraham to know he was leaving behind him the graves of his mother and sister and the scene of so many struggles to be a better man. As they drove through the country, Abraham, who had some thirty dollars he had saved, purchased some things and sold them as they came to settlements, and in this practical way earned something along the trip.

The things he sold were needles, pins, thread, b.u.t.tons, knives and forks, etc. Abraham wrote back to one of his friends that he doubled his money on the way. This was Abraham's first effort as a merchant. They were about two weeks on their trip. When they pa.s.sed through Vincennes, Indiana, they saw for the first time, a printing press. They landed in Macon county, where John Hanks, their relative had already cut logs for a new cabin. Many years afterward, when Decatur, the county seat, had become a large city and Mr. Lincoln a great man, he walked out a few feet in front of the court house with a friend, stood looking up at the building and said, "Here is the exact spot where I stood by our wagon when we moved from Indiana twenty-six years ago. This is not six feet from the exact spot." The friend asked him if at that time he expected to be a lawyer and practice law in that court house. He replied, "No, I did not know I had sense enough to be a lawyer then."

They fenced in with a rail fence, ten acres of ground, and raised a crop of corn upon it. Mr. Lincoln and Dennis Hanks split the rails for the fence, and many years afterwards, men carried some of them into a state convention at Decatur, where Mr. Lincoln was nominated as the Illinois candidate for president, with a banner, saying they were split by him, and he was the "rail candidate."

CHAPTER III.

Thomas Lincoln was now well fixed to begin life over again, and as Abraham was twenty-one, he wished to do for himself and started out. He never afterwards was a member of his father's household. Thomas Lincoln lived here a number of years; but afterwards moved to Coles county, where he lived on a farm near the village of Farmington, that Abraham bought for him. He died January 17th, 1851. Abraham at the time could not be present on account of sickness in his own family, so he wrote as follows: "I sincerely hope that father may recover his health. Tell him to remember to call upon the great G.o.d and all-wise Maker, who will not turn away from him in any extremity. He notes the fall of the sparrow, He numbers the hairs of our heads, and will not forget the dying man who puts his trust in Him. Say to him that if we could meet now it is doubtful whether it would not be more painful than pleasant; but that if it be His will for him to go now, he will soon have the joyous meeting of the loved ones gone before, where the rest of us with the help of G.o.d will hope ere long to join them." Talking to a friend after the death of his father about his mother, he said "that whatever might be said of his parents, however unpromising the surroundings of his mother may have been, she was highly intellectual by nature and had a strong memory and acute judgment." She had no doubt risen above her surroundings, and had she lived, the stimulus of her nature would have accelerated the son's success.

When Abraham started out for himself, he had almost nothing, not even a nice suit of clothes, and the very first work he did was to split four hundred rails for enough money to buy him a pair of brown jeans pants.

He had no trade or influence; but he was strong and good natured. He could out-lift and out-wrestle and out-work any man he came across. His friends used to boast of his strength a great deal. One time when he was president, a man came to him, who was shy on account of being before the president. After his errand was done, Mr. Lincoln asked him to measure with him, and the man proved to be even taller, and went away seeming to think there was something wrong in his being taller than the president of the United States. While his strength made him popular with the hard working men, his good nature, wit, stories, and ability to make a good speech made him popular with everybody! The people liked to have him around, so he could always get work in the various kinds of labor necessary on the farm about there. He remained in Macon county a year, and made for one man alone, three thousand rails. He continued at this time to read all the books he could get, and also to make stump speeches, often doing it alone in the woods. A man came along making political speeches. John Banks told Abraham that he could do better.

Abraham tried it, and the man after hearing his speech took him aside and asked him how he learned so much and how he could do so well.

Abraham told him that he read a great deal and the man encouraged him to continue.