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9/07.25 Lincoln’s Youth 7/15/2008
9/07.25 Lincoln’s YouthSpencer CountyLocation: Lincoln State Park, Lincoln CityResearcher: S. Chandler Lighty
RESEARCH SUMMARY
Of all the Abraham Lincoln iconography,1 two images have come to dominate the
popular understandings of the years Lincoln lived in Indiana between 1816 and 1830.
One image is Eastman Johnson’s 1868 painting, Boyhood Days of Lincoln (An Evening in
the Log Hut),2 which canonized the scene of Lincoln reading by firelight. The second
image can be found in any number of lithographs and statues that depict a sinewy, axe-
wielding Lincoln.3 The images of “Lincoln the reader” and “Lincoln the woodcutter” are
sometimes combined into a single work of art, such as Norman Rockwell’s Lincoln the
Railsplitter (1965),4 where Lincoln steps into the foreground with an axe in one hand and
a giant tome in the other, appearing like a young frontier Moses. Using these popular
images alone, one could conclude that Indiana imbued Abraham Lincoln with an
education and a strong work ethic. To these qualities, one could cite stories that would
locate the origins of Lincoln’s fabled honesty,5 kindness,6 and melancholy7 in Indiana.
Historically quantifying how living in Indiana influenced Abraham Lincoln,
however, is a difficult matter. Historians know very little about Lincoln’s adolescence
with certainty. Lincoln wrote two autobiographical sketches,8 in which he devoted about
thirty-six sentences total to his life in the Hoosier state. Lincoln’s three poems about his
“childhood-home”9 can be added to this meager corps of documentary evidence, as well
as a few scattered allusions to events of his youth in his speeches and letters. It seems
apparent from these sources that Lincoln did not think positively about his early life.
When John L. Scripps, one of Lincoln’s 1860 presidential campaign biographers,10
pressed the candidate for incidents from his youth, he described Lincoln as “painfully
impressed with the extreme poverty of his early surroundings – the utter absence of all
romantic and heroic elements.” Scripps recalled that Lincoln told him, “It is a great piece
of folly to attempt to make anything out of my early life. It can all be condensed into a
single sentence . . . ‘The short and simple annals of the poor.’ That’s my life, and that’s
all you or any one else can make of it.”11
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09/07.25 Lincoln’s Youth 7/15/2008
Despite Lincoln’s statement, many have tried to make sense out of his formative
years. Lincoln’s former law partner, William H. Herndon, was the first to investigate
Lincoln’s origins. Herndon had long harbored intentions to write a Lincoln biography;
soon after Lincoln’s assassination, he began interviewing and corresponding with Lincoln
family, friends, neighbors, and acquaintances to fill in the missing chapters of Lincoln’s
life. Herndon’s research constitutes the bulk of what historians can claim to know about
Lincoln’s youth.12
Yet Lincoln’s challenge to biographers and historians to interpret and understand
his early life stands. What are historians supposed to make of Lincoln’s own seemingly
random reminiscences, where his account of killing a turkey is juxtaposed next to the
death of his mother?13 Or, try giving biographical context to the bizarre anecdote that “he
12
? Unfortunately there are inherent challenges with this source material. Historians must be ever mindful of the reliability of the informants, and consider how the elapse of time and Lincoln’s assassination affected the interviewees’ memories. Perhaps Herndon’s most notorious informant was Lincoln’s second cousin, Dennis Friend Hanks. Herndon first interviewed Hanks in June 1865, two months after Lincoln’s assassination, while Hanks exhibited the Lincoln log cabin from Macon County, Illinois at the Sanitary Fair in Chicago. Subsequent letters from Hanks to Herndon comprise the bulk of Lincoln’s early-life source material. However, Herndon had reservations about Hanks’ testimony; it is clear from Herndon’s marginalia that he thought Hanks was a braggart and drunkard; see Herndon’s Informants, 103, 177, 199 (B070913). Pulitzer-prize winning Lincoln biographer, David H. Donald assessed, “Most of [Hanks’] claims were fabricated or highly exaggerated, though certainly the two [Hanks and Lincoln] worked together on the farm and hunted rabbits together,” “We Are Lincoln Men”: Abraham Lincoln and His Friends (New York, 2003), 7 (B070911). However, Douglas Wilson and Rodney Davis, the editors of Herndon’s Informants, acknowledged, “Hanks had closer sustained personal contact with A[braham]L[incoln] during his formative years than any other informant,” 752 (B070913). While Hanks might not be the best source, in some cases he is the only source. In this Research Summary, an attempt has been made to quote Hanks when other informants or other evidence corroborates his testimony, but sometimes quoting him without corroboration is unavoidable. Hanks’ testimony exemplifies one of the major challenges concerning Herndon’s source material.
Other challenges in using the Herndon materials are methodological. Herndon often recorded his informants’ testimony in note form, rather than verbatim, which could have intentionally or unintentionally altered meaning or content. Another difficulty is that the written record does not preserve the questions Herndon asked in these interviews. If Herndon asked specific questions, rather than open questions, an interviewee might be inclined to give a certain answer. For an example of this see endnote 159.
Despite these challenges, Lincoln students and scholars still must rely on Herndon’s information if they want to know anything about Lincoln’s youth.
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09/07.25 Lincoln’s Youth 7/15/2008
was kicked by a horse, and apparantly [sic] killed for a time.”14 Even with the evidence
Herndon gathered, the historian is left with mainly disparate yarns about Lincoln’s
adolescence.
Lincoln biographers have struggled to give a narrative form to Lincoln’s Indiana
youth that links with his Illinois adulthood. Nineteenth-century co-biographers William
Herndon and Jesse Weik, Ward Hill Lamon and Chauncey Black, and to a lesser extent
Josiah Holland,15 all championed what Lincoln scholars have described as the “dunghill”
13
? “Autobiography Written for John L. Scripps,” in Collected Works, 4:62 (B0701064).2
? Eastman Johnson, Boyhood Days of Lincoln (An Evening in the Log Hut), http://images.indianahistory.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/P0406&CISOPTR=212&CISOBOX=1&REC=1 (accessed April 10, 2008).3
? For examples see Avard Fairbanks’ Lincoln the Fontiersman, http://www.avardfairbanks.com/secular_works/lincoln/lincoln_frontiersman.html (accessed April 10, 2008); [Lincoln with Ax], Indiana Historical Society Digital Image Library, http://images.indianahistory.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/P0406 &CISOPTR=581&CISOBOX=1&REC=8 (accessed April 10, 2008); Lincoln the Railsplitter, http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/lincoln/aa_lincoln_youth_2_e.html (accessed April 10, 2008).
An unsigned oil painting titled “The Railsplitter” is another example, which can be viewed among the illustrations in David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York, 1995), following page 224 (B070926).4
? Rockwell’s painting can be viewed at https://www.rudinec.com/butler/ (accessed April 10, 2008). Technically, Rockwell’s depiction of Lincoln is set in Illinois.
Other attempts to combine the two Lincoln motifs of “reader” and “woodcutter” are Youth of Abraham Lincoln, engraved by Ernest F. Hubbard after a painting by Morgan J. Rhees, image is viewable at http://images.indianahistory.org/cdm4/ item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/P0406 &CISOPTR=145&CISOBOX=1&REC=13 (accessed April 10, 2008), and Paul Manship’s statue Abraham Lincoln: The Hoosier Youth, image viewable at http://www.lfg.com/lfg/lfgclient/img/timeline/tl_hoosier_lg.jpg (accessed April 25, 2008).
Avard Fairbanks' statue Lincoln at the Crossroads of Decision http://www.avardfairbanks.com/secular_works/lincoln/lincoln_crossroads.html (accessed April 25, 2008), depicts Lincoln putting down his axe and picking up a book. An image of this statue appears on the reverse of the 2003 U.S. quarter that commemorates Illinois.1 For further reading, or viewing, on images of Abraham Lincoln see Harold Holzer, Gabor S. Boritt, and Mark Neely, Jr., The Lincoln Image: Abraham Lincoln and the Popular Print (New York, 1984), and Harold Holzer, ed., Abraham Lincoln: Portrayed in the Collections of the Indiana Historical Society (Indianapolis, 2006).5
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09/07.25 Lincoln’s Youth 7/15/2008
thesis. Black explained to Lamon, “It is our duty to show the world the Majesty and
beauty of his [Lincoln’s] character, as it grew by itself and unassisted, out of this
unpromising soil . . . We must point mankind to the diamond glowing on the dunghill.”16
Herndon stated, “Lincoln rose from a lower depth than any [great man] . . . from a
stagnant, putrid pool, like the gas which, set on fire by its own energy and self-
combustible nature, rises in jets, blazing, clear, and bright.”17 The biographers who
employed the “dunghill” thesis used it as a device to exalt Lincoln’s self-made greatness
in triumph over poor socio-economic environments in Kentucky, Indiana, and rural ? For two examples see Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, eds., Herndon’s Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln (Urbana, 1998), 110, 660-661 (B070913). Hereafter cited as Herndon’s Informants. Book is accessible online at http://durer.press.uiuc.edu/wilson/.
The first example cited refers to an injury that Lincoln’s step-sister, Matilda, sustained while doing something her mother forbade. Lincoln insisted that Matilda tell her mother “the whole truth” about how the injury occurred.
The second example cited concerns the often recited story about Lincoln’s negligence which allowed a borrowed book to be damaged. Many oral testimonies attest to the veracity of this incident. The citation given is to a particular version where the storyteller, Spencer County attorney J. W. Wartmann, assessed, “True to the promptings of his inborn honesty,” Lincoln returned the book to its owner, admitted how it became damaged, and offered to pay for the loss. Wartmann’s commentary exemplifies the character worship so often directed at Lincoln.6
? For two examples see Herndon’s Informants, 109, 122 (B070913).The first citation refers to Lincoln’s kindness to animals. The second citation tells
of Lincoln helping a drunken man.7
? Lincoln’s mother and sister both died in Indiana. For Lincoln’s own words on his losses, see “My Childhood-Home I See Again,” in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 8 vols., ed. Roy P. Basler (New Brunswick, NJ, 1953), 1:367-370 (B071067). Hereafter cited as Collected Works. Collected Works are accessible online at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/ (accessed April 30, 2008).
For a psychoanalytic analysis of how Lincoln’s mother’s death may have affected him, see Charles B. Strozier, Lincoln’s Quest for Union: Public and Private Meanings (New York, 1982), 24-30 (B071017). Strozier applied Freud’s Oedipus complex to form his interpretation.
For a socio-historical interpretation of Lincoln’s bereavement, see Kenneth J. Winkle, The Young Eagle: The Rise of Abraham Lincoln (Dallas, 2001), 14-15 (B071012).8
? “Autobiography Written for John L. Scripps,” in Collected Works, 4:60-67 (B0701064); “To Jesse W. Fell, Enclosing Autobiography,” in Collected Works, 3:511-512 (B071065).9
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09/07.25 Lincoln’s Youth 7/15/2008
Illinois. These biographers thereby rejected any relationship between Lincoln’s youth
and adulthood in favor of illustrating to their readers “what marvelous contrast one phase
of his life presents to another.”18
Early twentieth-century Lincoln biographers countered the “dunghill” thesis with
the so-called “chin fly” thesis. Derived from Ida Tarbell’s statement, “The horse, the
dog, the ox, the chin fly, the plow, the hog, these companions of his [Lincoln’s] youth
became interpreters of his meaning, solvers of his problems in his great necessity, of
? “My Childhood-Home I See Again,” in Collected Works, 1:367-370 (B071067); Revised cantos from “My Childhood-Home I See Again” are in Lincoln’s letter “To Andrew Johnston,” in Collected Works, 1:378-379 (B071068); Untitled poem in “To Andrew Johnston,” in Collected Works, 1:384-386 (B071069); “The Bear Hunt,” in Collected Works, 1:386-389 (B071070).
Lincoln drew inspiration for these poems during his first return to Indiana in 1844. Lincoln mailed all three of these poems to Andrew Johnston a Quincy, Illinois attorney in 1846.
In the untitled poem, Lincoln remembered Matthew Gentry, an Indiana friend who became mentally ill while Lincoln still lived in Indiana. Seeing Gentry again for the first time in fourteen years, Lincoln found him in the same condition. Lincoln wrote to Johnston, “In my poetizing mood I could not forget the impressions his case made upon me,” ibid., 1:385. Many of the stanzas from the poem about Matthew Gentry also appeared in the long version of “My Childhood-Home I See Again.”10
? John Locke Scripps, Life of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler and Lloyd A. Dunlap (Bloomington, IN, 1961), 7 (B071019).
Roy Basler, in the introduction to this edition, wrote, “Thirteen separate campaign biographies of Abraham Lincoln in the English language, three in the German language, and two in Welsh were issued during the campaign of 1860.” Basler described Scripps’ Lincoln biography as the “most authoritative and influential of the lot,” ibid., 7.11
? Herndon’s Informants, 57 (B070913).14
? Ibid., 4:62 (B0701064).15
? For an excellent assessment of Lincoln biographers through the mid-twentieth century see Benjamin P. Thomas, Portrait for Posterity: Lincoln and His Biographers (New Brunswick, 1947) (B071136). More concise evaluations can be found in Mark E. Neely, Jr., The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia (New York, 1982) (B071002).16
? Thomas, Portrait for Posterity, 36-37 (B071136).17
? William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik, Herndon’s Lincoln: The True Story f a Great Life (Chicago, 1890), 1:ix (B071008).18
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making men understand and follow him.”19 Tarbell’s presentation of Lincoln’s youth
echoed Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis. Turner argued, “The advance of the
frontier has meant a steady movement away from the influence of Europe, a steady
growth of independence on American lines. And to study this advance, the men who
grew up under these conditions, and the political, economic, and social results of it, is to
study the really American part of our history.”20 He continued, “[It is] to the frontier the
American intellect owes its striking characteristics. That coarseness and strength
combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness; . . . that masterful grasp of material
things . . . powerful to effect great ends; that restless, nervous energy; . . . these are [some
of] the traits of the frontier.”21 Turner argued that the frontier gave America its defining
qualities; Tarbell believed that the defining qualities of the frontier were important in
defining Lincoln’s character.22 Tarbell’s work in turn inspired Carl Sandburg, arguably
the most popular Lincoln biographer of the twentieth century.23
One other Lincoln biography must be discussed. Some reviewers described Louis
Warren’s Lincoln’s Youth (1959) as “the full story of Lincoln’s time in Indiana” and “an
accessible and useful history of . . . Lincoln’s early life.”24 In terms of Lincoln
biographies devoted exclusively to his time in Indiana, Lincoln’s Youth is far superior to
either Charles Garrett Vannest’s Lincoln the Hoosier (1928) or Francis Marion Van
Natter’s Lincoln’s Boyhood: A Chronicle of His Indiana Years (1963). The two strengths
of Lincoln’s Youth are the author’s heavy reliance upon primary source documentation,
? Herndon, Herndon’s Lincoln, 1:ix-x (B071008).19
? Tarbell, In the Footsteps of the Lincolns (New York, 1924), 137 (B071014).20
? Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History (New York, 1921), 4 (B071137). Accessible online at http://books.google.com/books?id=NjsOAAAAYAAJ (accessed April 28, 2008).21
? Ibid., 37 (B071137).22
? Neely, Lincoln Encyclopedia, 303 (B071002).23
? Ibid., 267 (B071002). Sandburg wrote of Tarbell, “Her investigations . . . put fresh color into the early
life of Lincoln, theretofore pictured as drab and miserable beyond the fact,” Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years (New York, 1926), viii (B071138).
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09/07.25 Lincoln’s Youth 7/15/2008
and the corrections made to some elements of the Lincoln in Indiana story, especially
rehabilitating the characterization of Thomas Lincoln.25 Lincoln scholar Mark Neely,
however, remarked that Lincoln’s Youth “paints too rosy a picture of the Indiana years.”26
Another Lincoln scholar, Paul Angle, leveled harsher criticism and called the book
“disappointing.” Angle criticized Warren’s “long excerpts or summaries of books which
Warren, sometimes on doubtful authority, credits Lincoln with having read.” Warren
compounded the problem when he speculated on Lincoln’s reader-response to these
books. Angle derided Warren for making “far too many suppositious statements,” and he
cited examples of such. Angle concluded his review, “The general picture established by
William H. Herndon [and Jesse Weik, Herndon’s Lincoln: The True Story of a Great
Life] and redrawn on better authority by Albert J. Beveridge [Abraham Lincoln, 1809-
1858] remains unchanged [by Lincoln’s Youth]. One must conclude that there is simply
no basis in existing historical sources for a different interpretation.”27 Angle’s negative
review seems to echo Lincoln’s challenge to Scripps, “‘The short and simple annals of
the poor’ . . . that’s all you or any one else can make of it.”
Lincoln also had advised, “If any thing be made out of [my life], I wish it to be
modest, and not to go beyond the material.”28 Whether Lincoln wormed his way out of
the dunghill, or whether frontier horizons beckoned him to future greatness is not to be
argued here. The Indiana Historical Bureau’s interest in creating a state historical marker
on Lincoln’s youth is not to consider the standard theses that Lincoln learned honesty,
hard work, and reading in Indiana. Instead, the Indiana Historical Bureau has explored
the question, how did Lincoln’s life in Indiana affect his future public and professional
life? In 1832, two years after leaving Indiana, Lincoln ran for the General Assembly in
Illinois;29 voters elected him to that body in 1834;30 and he received his license to practice
law in 1836.31 Lincoln established his vocations in a relatively short period after leaving
Indiana, and the available oral and written testimony strongly suggests that Lincoln’s
Indiana experiences sowed the seeds for his future vocations of politics and law.32
In Lincoln’s first published political address to the people of Sangamon County,33
Illinois, the twenty-three year old, independent34 candidate for the Illinois General
Assembly, chose to focus on three issues: high interest rate loans, internal improvements,
and education. In speaking about high interest rates, Lincoln addressed a problem he
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09/07.25 Lincoln’s Youth 7/15/2008
personally encountered in Illinois,35 but his challenge of practices, in general, that are “for
the benefit of a few individuals only”36 had a basis in his family’s past as well. Lincoln
later explained to campaign biographer John Scripps the reason for the family’s move
from Kentucky to Indiana: “This removal was partly on account of slavery, but chiefly on
account of the difficulty in land titles in K[entuck]y.”37
Some attention needs to be given to the phrase “on account of slavery.” At least
two critics implied that Lincoln gave this phrase to his campaign biographers for political
36
? “Communication to the People of Sangamo County,” in Collected Works, 1:7 (B071142).37
? “Autobiography Written for John L. Scripps,” in Collected Works, 4:61-62 (B071064).24
? Larry T. Balsamo, review of Lincoln’s Youth: Indiana Years, Seven to Twenty-one, 1816-1830, by Louis A. Warren, History of Education Quarterly 32 (1992): 132-34 (B071139); Sarah McNair Vosmeier, review of Lincoln’s Youth: Indiana Years, Seven to Twenty-one, 1816-1830, by Louis A. Warren, Indiana Magazine of History 87 (1991): 369 (B071140).25
? Neely, Lincoln Encyclopedia, 20, 25, 147, 303 (B071002).Heretofore, biographers like Herndon, and Albert J. Beveridge “considerably
underestimate[d] Thomas Lincoln’s character and station in life,” ibid., 147. In the early twentieth century, popular biographers Ida Tarbell and William Barton began restoring Thomas Lincoln’s reputation as a “responsible middling citizen and property owner,” ibid., 303. Louis Warren’s gravity as a professional Lincoln scholar helped complete Thomas Lincoln’s historical rehabilitation.26
? Ibid., 160 (B071002).27
? Paul M. Angle, reviews of Lincoln’s Youth: Indiana Years, Seven to Twenty-one, 1816-1830, by Louis A. Warren and The Philosophy of Abraham Lincoln: In his own Words, by William E. Baringer, Indiana Magazine of History 56 (1960): 179-80 (B071141).28
? “To Jesse W. Fell, Enclosing Autobiography,” in Collected Works, 3:511 (B071065).29
? “Communication to the People of Sangamo County,” in Collected Works, 1:7 (B071142).30
? Theodore Calvin Pease, ed., Illinois Election Returns 1818-1848 (Springfield, IL, 1923), 275 (B071143).31
? Harry E. Pratt, Lincoln 1809-1839: Being the Day-by-Day Activities of Abraham Lincoln from February 12, 1809 to December 21, 1839 (Springfield, 1941), 56
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reasons.38 While this interpretation is a possibility, the Indiana Historical Bureau has
taken Abraham Lincoln at his word, even though it is unclear exactly how slavery
influenced his father’s migration. It is possible that economic reasons related to slavery
also motivated Thomas Lincoln’s move. As a free laborer in Kentucky, it is likely he
occasionally competed against slave labor for jobs.39 Assigning an ideological reason for
opposing slavery to Thomas Lincoln, however, is more difficult. Although Abraham
Lincoln’s 1864 statement, “I am naturally anti-slavery. . . . I can not remember when I
(B071013). Lincoln received his license to practice law on September 9, 1836.32
? Mark E. Neely, Escape from the Frontier: Lincoln’s Peculiar Relationship with Indiana (Fort Wayne, 1983) (B071144). Neely’s pamphlet provided initial inspiration for this essay’s approach.33
? “Communication to the People of Sangamo County,” in Collected Works, 1:5-9 (B071142); John A. Lupton, e-mail message to IHB, April 25, 2008 (B071145).
The Sangamo Journal published Lincoln’s political address as “Communication to the People of Sangamo County.” John Lupton, Associate Director and Associate Editor of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln, in his email message, explained that the Illinois legislature created Sangamon County in 1821. Sangamo (without an ‘n’) referred to the region. Lupton reasoned that Sangamon County residents in the nineteenth century “would sometimes conflate the name of the county with the name of the region and vice versa,” which would explain why the newspaper issued Lincoln’s address with the name Sangamo even though the county’s proper name was Sangamon.34
? In this address, Lincoln said, “My case is thrown exclusively upon the independent voters of this county” (italics added), “Communication to the People of Sangamo County,” in Collected Works, 1:7 (B071142). Lincoln eventually identified politically with the Whigs, and later Republicans, but it is inappropriate to describe him as affiliated with either political party in 1832. “Well into the 1830s,” Kenneth Winkle explained, “Illinois, like other new states, boasted temporary, personal cliques rather than real [political] parties,” Young Eagle, 82 (B071012). Winkle quoted historian Edward Pease, who wrote, “Till 1832 national issues in general did not take a strong hold on the people or influence seriously the alignment of factions,” ibid., 83. The 1832 presidential election pitted Henry Clay’s strong centralized economic policies against Andrew Jackson’s decentralized economic strategies. Winkle added, “Still, in central Illinois national parties and issues mattered less than a candidate’s personal popularity and his view on local affairs,” ibid., 83. In Lincoln’s case, he “targeted a local constituency in the northwest corner of Sangamon County that hoped for commercial development and pinned those hopes on improvement of the Sangamon [River],” ibid., 85. Of course, while Lincoln could not be officially called a Whig at this moment in his life, his address clearly advocated issues that would become staples of Whig economic policy.35
? Winkle, Young Eagle, 85 (B071012).
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did not so think, and feel,”40 may lend credence to the existence of an anti-slavery
sentiment in Thomas Lincoln’s household, the evidence is not so definite. Louis
Warren wrote that Thomas Lincoln joined the Little Mount Baptist Church while in
Kentucky. Warren declared the church members “were antislavery in sentiment,” but the
sources he cited referred not to the Little Mount Church, but the nearby South Fork
Baptist Church that reportedly divided on account of slavery, and eventually established
itself against slavery.41 Although Warren failed to establish that Thomas Lincoln heard
anti-slavery arguments in the religious assembly to which he belonged, Warren did
uncover documentation that made it possible, even likely, that Thomas Lincoln heard
anti-slavery arguments in the community where he lived. However, Dennis Hanks,
Nancy Lincoln’s first cousin, who lived most of his life near Thomas Lincoln, doubted
that slavery influenced the Lincolns’ move to Indiana.42 It should also be noted that the
Lincolns’ move to Indiana did not entirely remove the family from a slave state. Article
VI of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and Article XI, Section 7 of the Indiana State
Constitution of 1816 prohibited slavery in Indiana as a territory and a state, respectively.43
Some Indiana residents owned slaves despite these laws. The 1820 U.S. Census recorded
190 slaves in Indiana, including three slaves in the Lincolns’ home county of Spencer.44
There is more evidence to substantiate that the Lincolns’ relocation was “chiefly
on account of the difficulty in land titles in K[entuck]y.” For many Kentucky settlers,
their land troubles stemmed from the absence of a comprehensive and accurate land
survey of the state. Without this data, Kentucky land offices often and mistakenly
“issued multiple patents on a single tract to different people.”45 However, the root of
Thomas Lincoln’s land difficulties varied from case to case, and the competing land
claims so prevalent in Kentucky was not the sole cause for his land problems.
Thomas Lincoln purchased his first farm, known as the Mill Creek farm, on
September 2, 1803 for ₤118. The farm, located in Hardin County near Elizabethtown,
Kentucky, consisted of 238 acres. There is much that is unknown and curious about this
property, and the particulars beyond the scope of this summary. In 1814, Lincoln sold
200 acres of the Mill Creek farm, and apparently abandoned the remaining thirty-eight
acres of his original purchase. Kent Masterson Brown, author of a National Park Service
report on Thomas Lincoln’s Kentucky land dealings, reasoned that, in this case,
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competing land claims probably caused Lincoln to abandon the thirty-eight acres, and
prompted the sale of the remaining acres to recoup some of his original purchase price
before someone challenged his title to that acreage as well.46
In early June 1806, Thomas Lincoln married Nancy Hanks in Washington
County, Kentucky.47 Whether the couple lived on the Mill Creek farm after their
marriage is not known, but in 1808 Thomas Lincoln leased two lots in Elizabethtown.48
In late 1808, Thomas and Nancy Lincoln moved from Elizabethtown49 with their toddler
daughter, Sarah,50 to a farm on Nolin Creek near Hodgenville, Kentucky, which Thomas
purchased despite still owning the Mill Creek farm. While living on the Nolin Creek
farm, Nancy Lincoln bore Abraham on February 12, 1809.51 It is possible that “a brother,
younger than [Abraham], who died in infancy,” was born at this farm as well.52 Abraham
Lincoln wrote, “I was born on Nolin [Creek]. . . . My earliest recollection, however, is of
the Knob Creek place [in Kentucky],”53 where his family re-settled a few years later.54
The reason for the move from Nolin Creek to Knob Creek illustrates another
chapter of Thomas Lincoln’s difficulty with land titles in Kentucky. Thomas Lincoln
purchased the Sinking Spring farm on Nolin Creek from Isaac Bush on December 12,
1808.55 What Lincoln may or may not have been aware of was that Richard Mather, a
previous owner of the farm held a lien on the property. On September 1, 1813, Richard
Mather sued David Vance, to whom he sold the farm in 1805, on account of an unpaid
promissory note of fifteen pounds, twelve shillings, and four pence, which was the
outstanding balance due on the farm’s purchase price. Mather’s suit also named Isaac
Bush and Thomas Lincoln, respectively previous and current owners of the farm, as
defendants. Mather charged that both men possessed full knowledge of the unpaid debt
when they bought the farm. Thomas Lincoln contested the suit and indicated that he
previously had offered to pay off the balance. Mather denied Lincoln’s attempt at
compensation and persisted with the civil action. The court eventually decided the
lawsuit in favor of Mather on September 12, 1816. In the decision, the court ordered
Bush to return to Lincoln the farm’s purchase price with interest and that Vance do
likewise for Bush. The court also ordered that the farm be sold at public auction. The
farm sold for $87.74 on December 19, 1816, around the same time that the Lincolns
moved to Indiana.56
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During or before Mather’s lawsuit, the Lincolns moved to the Knob Creek farm,57
also in Hardin County, Kentucky.58 Unlike the Mill Creek or Nolin Creek farms, Thomas
Lincoln only leased, and never purchased, the thirty acres on which he and his family
lived at Knob Creek. However, leasing a farm granted Thomas Lincoln no further peace
of mind than his attempted land purchases. On December 27, 1815, Thomas Lincoln
received an ejectment notice ordering him to appear as a defendant, along with his
landlord and nine of Lincoln’s fellow tenants, in a lawsuit initiated by the heirs of
Thomas Middleton of Philadelphia on account of a 10,000 acre claim.59 Exactly why the
Middleton heirs wanted the land is unclear based upon the secondary source evidence,
although it is possible that the thirty-eight percent population growth in Kentucky
between 1810 and 1820, including a similar increase in the Lincolns’ home county of
Hardin, precipitated the eastern heirs interest in the acreage.60 A jury eventually found in
favor of Thomas Lincoln on June 9, 1818. 61 Before the jury could render this verdict,
Thomas Lincoln had relocated to Indiana in an opportunity to “better his condition.”62
“My father,” Abraham Lincoln remembered, “removed from Kentucky to what is
now Spencer county, Indiana . . . about the time the State came into the Union [on
December 11, 1816].”63 The family built a shelter64 and settled in for their first winter in
Indiana. Many years later, Abraham Lincoln remembered Indiana at the time of his
family’s move as “a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the
woods.”65 Lincoln added, that during that first winter in Indiana “the clearing away of
surplus wood was the great task a head.”66
A winter move made some practical sense. It would be unlikely for a subsistence
farmer, like Thomas Lincoln, to move from a home before he harvested his crops.
Furthermore, moving in winter would allow Thomas and his family time to clear land for
spring planting. This labor is consistent with Abraham Lincoln’s and Dennis Hanks’
early reminiscences of Indiana.67 Thomas Lincoln could also work at his principal trade
of carpentry during the winter months.68 According to Hanks, the family immigrated to
Indiana without “hogs – cows – chickens or such like domestic animals,” so they did not
have to worry themselves about winter forage for livestock. The family mainly relied
upon hunting for sustenance. Abraham Lincoln remembered that he “took an early start
as a hunter” a few days before his eighth birthday when he shot a wild turkey, and many
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years later he commemorated in verse one of his early Indiana memories about a bear
hunt.69
In the fall of 1817, Nancy Lincoln’s foster parents (who were also her uncle and
aunt), Thomas and Elizabeth Sparrow,70 and their ward, Dennis Hanks,71 joined the
Lincolns in Indiana.72 The Sparrows lived in Indiana for about a year before they
succumbed to an illness that frequently affected pioneers, the milk sickness. Pioneers
also described the illness according to the symptoms it produced: “the trembles,” “sick
stomach,” “puking illness,” and the “slows.” As the name “milk sickness” implies, 69
? “Autobiography Written for John L. Scripps,” in Collected Works, 4:62 (B071064); “The Bear Hunt,” in Collected Works, 1:386-389 (B071070).
Hanks added, “We all hunted pretty much all the time. . . . We did not have to go more than 4 or 5 hundred yards to kill deer – turkeys & other wild game,” Herndon’s Informants, 39 (B070913).38
? Ward Hill Lamon, The Life of Abraham Lincoln; from His Birth to His Inauguration as President (Boston, 1872), 16-17 (B070915). T. Andrew Levy, Lincoln the Politician (Boston, 1918), 18-19 (B071146).39
? Donald, Lincoln, 24 (B070926).40
? “To Albert G. Hodges,” in Collected Works 7:281 (B071147).41
? Warren, Lincoln’s Youth, 13 (B070999); Louis Warren, The Slavery Atmosphere of Lincoln’s Youth (Fort Wayne, 1933) (B071148).
As mentioned in the text above, while Warren provided good social context, he made far too many suppositions. For example, in The Slavery Atmosphere of Lincoln’s Youth, he wrote that Jesse Friend, an uncle of Nancy Lincoln, “went out from the [South Fork] church on account of slavery,” n.p. Since primary source evidence shows that the South Fork Church was anti-slavery, Warren concluded that Friend was anti-slavery. What does not follow is that if Jesse Friend shared the same views on slavery as the South Fork Church, then why did he leave and join the Little Mount Church? Granted people leave churches for various reasons, sometimes when divisive issues become agitated and sometimes because of petty matters. However, Warren could not properly determine, based upon the evidence that he cited, what slavery position Friend exactly held.
Warren also concluded that David Elkins, a preacher in the Lincolns’ home church, “was without question an anti-slavery man,” ibid., n.p. However, Warren’s adamant claim is entirely unsupported by the cited source; J. H. Spencer’s A History of Kentucky Baptists (Cincinnati, 1886) (B071149), a typical nineteenth-century history, made no statement as to Elkins’ slavery position.42
? Herndon’s Informants, 36 (B070913).
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human’s acquired the illness through cow’s milk, which had been contaminated through
the cow’s ingestion of white snake root, a poisonous plant containing tremetol.
Unfortunately, nineteenth-century Hoosiers knew neither the cause nor treatment of the
sickness. Most often the affliction was fatal.73 Within a month, the milk sickness
claimed Lincoln neighbor, Nancy Brooner,74 Thomas and Elizabeth Sparrow, 75 and
finally Nancy Lincoln on October 5, 1818.76
Erastus R. Burba, county clerk of LaRue County, Kentucky where Lincoln was born and from whom Herndon gathered information about the Lincolns’ time in that state, also doubted that slavery influenced the move, Ibid., 240, 257.43
? Northwest Ordinance of 1787, http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc =8# (accessed January 14, 2008) (B070725); Constitution of 1816, http://www.in.gov/ history/5951.htm (accessed January 23, 2008) (B070726). Once this URL is accessed, Article XI can be found by clicking the corresponding link near the bottom of the page.44
? Historical Census Browser, http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/ (accessed May 5, 2008) (B071154). Search 1820 county level results for Indiana, and select total slave population as the variable.45
? John E. Kleber, ed., The Kentucky Encyclopedia (Lexington, KY, 1992), 535 (B071150).46
? Kent Masterson Brown, Report on the Title of Thomas Lincoln to, and the History of the Lincoln Boyhood Home along Knob Creek in LaRue County, Kentucky (n.p. [U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service], n.d. [1997]), 5-11 (B071195). ₤ is the symbol of the pound, a British measurement of money.47
? “Family Record Written by Abraham Lincoln,” in Collected Works, 2:94 (B071151); “Search Kentucky Marriages, 1802-1850,” http://www.ancestrylibrary.com/search/ db.aspx?dbid=2089 (accessed May 12, 2008) (B071165). According to Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Lincoln married Nancy Hanks on June 12, 1806. According to the Kentucky Marriages database, they wed on June 10, 1806 in Washington County, Kentucky.48
? Brown, Report on the Title of Thomas Lincoln, 17 (B071195).49
? Albert J. Beveridge, Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1858 (Boston, 1928), 1:28 (B071010).The migrations of the Lincolns in 1808 are not clear. Among Lincoln biographers, Albert Beveridge did the best job of researching this period, but there is a gap for which he cannot account between May 1808 when the Lincolns left Elizabethtown, Kentucky and December 1808 when Thomas Lincoln purchased the Sinking Spring farm.50
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09/07.25 Lincoln’s Youth 7/15/2008
John Scripps wrote, “Abraham, in the loss of his mother, experienced the first
great sorrow of his life.”77 Some writers on Lincoln have made much of this incident and
the effect it played on Lincoln’s psychological development. However, documentation as
to how this loss affected Lincoln is extremely limited. Lincoln’s only specific words on
the matter, “In the autumn of 1818 his mother died,”78 seem particularly detached when
written in the third person. Historian Kenneth Winkle cautioned against over-interpreting
the effect of Nancy Lincoln’s death on her son. Winkle offered his explanation based
? “Family Record Written by Abraham Lincoln,” in Collected Works 2:94 (B071151). Sarah Lincoln born on February 10, 1807.51
? “To Jesse W. Fell, Enclosing Autobiography,” in Collected Works, 3:511 (B071065); “Autobiography Written for John L. Scripps,” in Collected Works, 4:60 (B071064).52
? “Autobiography Written for John L. Scripps,” in Collected Works, 4:61 (B071064).No located source, primary or otherwise, precisely establishes when this child was
born. Abraham Lincoln gave neither name nor birth date for his brother, either in his autobiography for Scripps or in the genealogical record in the family Bible, “Family Record Written by Abraham Lincoln,” in Collected Works, 2:94-95 (B071151). Dennis Hanks assigned the name “Thomas” to the child, and he insisted “Thomas” preceded Abraham in birth order. He also told Herndon the child lived for three days, Herndon’s Informants, 27 (B070913). Hanks’ son-in-law, A. H. Chapman repeated these details to Herndon, and added that all of the Lincoln children, including Sarah, were born at the Knob Creek farm, where the Lincolns moved after leaving the Nolin Creek farm, ibid., 97. Hanks’ and Chapman’s statements regarding the Lincoln children’s birth order, and the latter’s information on the birth places of Sarah and Abraham are contradicted by other sources, including Abraham Lincoln.
In his chronology, Henry Pratt wrote, “It is believed that Thomas [the son] . . . was born in this year [1812],” Lincoln 1809-1839, 2 (B071013). However, Pratt’s support for that belief included a mis-citation to Collected Works and Lincoln Kinsman, the accuracy of which is questionable. 53 “To Samuel Haycraft,” in Collected Works, 4:70 (B071152).54
? The matter is confusing on when or why the Lincolns left. Thomas Lincoln faced a legal challenge to the Nolin Creek farm, filed in the courts on September 1, 1813. The next paragraph in the body of this Research Summary addresses this matter. However, Kent Masterson Brown cited some evidence which indicates that Thomas Lincoln moved to the Knob Creek farm as early as 1811, Report on the Title of Thomas Lincoln, 31 (B071195). Why Thomas Lincoln would move to yet another farm while still owning two others (at Mill Creek and Nolin Creek) has yet to be explained.55
? Brown, Report on the Title of Thomas Lincoln, 20 (B071195).56
? Ibid., 22-30 (B071195).
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09/07.25 Lincoln’s Youth 7/15/2008
upon the social reality of antebellum America. He wrote, “His mother’s death was
painful . . . but did little, if anything, to set him apart from his contemporaries.” Winkle
explained that early bereavement, including losses of parents, spouses and children, was a
very common occurrence throughout, but especially in the first half of, the nineteenth
century.79
The Lincoln household now consisted of Thomas, his two children, and Dennis
Hanks. However, Nancy’s death “put the family enterprise at risk.” Historian Richard
The Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives has a microfilm reel entitled Lincoln farm papers, which consists of the collected legal documents of the Sinking Spring farm. However, the microfilm is a non-circulating item and cannot be obtained via interlibrary loan. In lieu of these sources, IHB has relied upon Kent Masterson Brown’s Report on the Title of Thomas Lincoln.57
? See note 54.58
? “To Samuel Haycraft,” in Collected Works, 4:70 (B071152); John E. Kleber, ed., The Kentucky Encyclopedia (Lexington, KY, 1992), 536 (B071150).
Although Lincoln was born and spent his earliest years in what was Hardin County, Kentucky, lawmakers formed LaRue County, which included Lincoln’s birthplace, out of Hardin County in 1843.59
? Brown, Report on the Title of Thomas Lincoln, 31, 40-47 (B071195).60
? Historical Census Browser, http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/ (accessed May 5, 2008) (B071154). Search 1810 and 1820 county level results for Kentucky, and select total population and total slave population as the variables.
Kentucky’s population in 1810 was 406,511, which included 7,531 in Hardin County, 940 of whom were slaves. By 1820, the state population grew to 564,317, with 10,498 in Hardin County, including 1,466 slaves.61
? Brown, Report on the Title of Thomas Lincoln, 41 (B071195).62
? Herndon’s Informants, 36 (B070913).63
? “To Jesse W. Fell, Enclosing Autobiography,” in Collected Works 3:511 (B071065); George Pence and Nellie C. Armstrong, Indiana Boundaries: Territory, State, and County (Indianapolis, 1933), 742 (B071155).
The statute that created Spencer County from Perry and Warrick counties became effective on February 1, 1818.64
? Dennis Hanks told Herndon the Lincoln’s first shelter was “a half faced camp,” which the editors of Herndon’s Informants described as, “A makeshift shelter closed on three sides but open on the front,” 28 (B070913). Lincoln’s boyhood friend, Nathaniel Grigsby
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Nation explained, “A household could not succeed without two adults to provide their
gender-inscribed types of labor.”80 Dennis Hanks remembered that Sarah, then eleven
years old, cooked for her father, brother, and Hanks, while the males continued hunting,
farming, and carpentry.81 The next fall Thomas returned to Kentucky to find a new wife.
In his old hometown of Elizabethtown, Thomas married the widow Sarah Bush
Johnston82 on December 2, 1819.83 She had three children from her previous marriage:
Elizabeth, John D., and Matilda.84 Abraham Lincoln apparently had little difficulty
described the Lincoln’s first Indiana residence as a “squatters cabin the material was round logs or poles cut from the forist [sic] and clapboards foure [sic] feet long to cover the bilding [sic] with the flore [sic] consisted of what was then caled [sic] punchens [sic] the chimney being made of sticks and clay,” ibid., 93. However, Lincoln in the autobiography sent to Scripps, mentioned that his family lived in a “new log-cabin” at the time of his eighth birthday in February 1816, “Autobiography Written for John L. Scripps,” in Collected Works, 4:62 (B071064). Lincoln’s description suggests a structure more substantial than a half faced camp.65
? “To Jesse W. Fell, Enclosing Autobiography,” in Collected Works, 3:511 (B071065).66
? “Autobiography Written for John L. Scripps,” in Collected Works, 4:62 (B071064).67
? Lincoln, in a frequently quoted passage, wrote “A. though very young, was large of his age, and had an axe put into his hands at once,” “Autobiography Written for John L. Scripps,” in Collected Works, 4:62 (B071064). Hanks added, “We in the winter & spring cut down brush – under wood – trees – cleared ground – made a field of about 6. acres on which we raised our crops,” Herndon’s Informants, 39 (B070913).68
? Herndon’s Informants, 40, 94, 123 (B070913).70
? Herndon’s Informants, 781 (B070913). For an explanation of Nancy Hanks Lincoln’s relationship to the Sparrows see the entry for Elizabeth Hanks on the page cited.71
? According to Hanks, “I went myself with them [the Lincolns] backwards & forwards – to Indiana & back to K[entuck]y & back to K[entuck]y [sic] & back to Indiana,” Herndon’s Informants, 39 (B070913). This helps explain Hanks’ claims to know what the Lincolns did in Indiana a year before he and the Sparrows actually moved to the state. 72
? According to Dennis Hanks, he and the Sparrows did not come to Indiana at the same time as the Lincoln’s “But the Next fall they Did,” Herndon’s Informants, 228 (B070913). Hanks’ son-in-law, A. H. Chapman explained, “In the fall of 1817 Mrs Lincolns Uncle [Thomas Sparrow] with his wife [Elizabeth nee Hanks] & a Nephew Dennis F Hanks Moved out to Ind from Ky & Moved into Lincolns old camp which he had just vacated,” ibid., 98 (B070913). John Hanks, a cousin, added, “Dennis Hanks came out [to Indiana] in about 1818,” ibid., 454 (B070913).
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09/07.25 Lincoln’s Youth 7/15/2008
adjusting to his new mother. In one of his autobiographical statements, he wrote, “She
proved to be a good and kind mother”85 After Lincoln’s assassination, Sarah Bush
Johnston Lincoln remembered her stepson, “Abe never gave me a cross word or look and
never refused . . . to do anything I requested him.”86
Over the next ten years in Indiana, from 1820 to 1830, Thomas Lincoln continued
“to better his condition.” One of his principal means of accomplishing this was through
land acquisition. Historian Richard Nation explained, “Land was necessary to building
the family, the basic unit of the community, as it was the means of access to the resources 73
? Walter J. Daly, “The ‘Slows’ the Torment of Milk Sickness on the Midwest Frontier,” Indiana Magazine of History 102 (March 2006): 29-40 (B071156). This article provides a good explanation of milk sickness’ cause and effects and a history of its diagnosis and treatment.74
? J. T. Hobson, Footprints of Abraham Lincoln (Dayton, OH, 1909), 17-19 (B071157).75
? The testimonies of A. H. Chapman and William Wood place the Sparrows’ death around this time, Herndon’s Informants, 97, 123 (B070913). Harry Pratt cited Thomas Sparrow’s will of September 21, 1818 to approximate the date of his death, Linoln 1809-1839, 4 (B071013). An image of Sparrow’s will is used as an illustration in Bess V. Ehrmann, The Missing Chapter in the Life of Abraham Lincoln (Chicago, 1938), plate 27 (B071009).76
? “Family Record Written by Abraham Lincoln,” in Collected Works 2:95 (B071151); Herndon’s Informants, 40, 93, 123, 124, 660 (B070913).
Abraham Lincoln recorded the specific date of her death in the family Bible. Lincoln’s boyhood friend, Nathaniel Grigsby corroborated the month and year of her death. Herndon informants, Dennis Hanks, Nathaniel Grigsby, A. H. Chapman, William Wood, and J. W. Wartmann all attested to the cause of her death. However, William Wood, who was of the same generation as Thomas and Nancy Lincoln, claimed that Nancy Lincoln was sick most of the time after moving to Indiana, and concluded, “I do not think she absolutely died of the Milk Sickness Entirely. Probably this helped to seal her fate,” ibid., 124 (B070913).77
? Scripps, Life of Abraham Lincoln, 31 (B071019).78
? “Autobiography Written for John L. Scripps,” in Collected Works, 4:62 (B071064)79
? Winkle, Young Eagle, 14-15 (B071012).80
? Richard F. Nation, At Home in the Hoosier Hills: Agriculture, Politics, and Religion in Southern Indiana, 1810-1870 (Bloomington, 2005), 35 (B071159).81
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of production and thus the means of ensuring the reproduction of the family. And land
had political meanings as well as economic. Property, to most early Hoosiers, was the
foundation of independence and thereby of equality; only a man who owned his own
property could be beyond the manipulations of others and thereby control his own
destiny.”87 The process of acquiring title to Indiana lands was more secure than it was in
Kentucky. In accordance with the Land Ordinance of 1785, Congress ordered that public
lands in the Northwest Territory be surveyed into six-mile square townships. The Land
Ordinance required settlers to purchase 640 acres at $1.00 an acre, a total price that was
beyond the means of most Americans.88 The Harrison Land Act of 1800 reduced the
minimum amount of acreage to be purchased to 320, even though a previous legislative
act raised the minimum price per acre to $2.00. The Harrison Land Act also introduced a
system of installment paying, under which many settlers purchased their farms.89 The
Land Act of 1804 further reduced the minimum amount of acreage to be purchased to
160 acres.90 The Lincolns squatted on their parcel of land from the time they arrived in
Indiana in late 1816 until October 15, 1817 when Thomas Lincoln went to the Vincennes
Land Office and paid sixteen dollars as a “deposit on account of [160 acres of] Land for
which he intends to apply.”91 Ten years later, he cleared the debt to eighty acres after
relinquishing the east eighty acres of his original 160 acre claim and exchanging another
tract of land he recently acquired in Posey County for credit.92
? Herndon’s Informants, 40 (B070913). Hanks mistakenly calculated Sarah’s age as fourteen. Her birth year was 1807, so in 1818 when Nancy died, Sarah was eleven soon to be twelve.82
? Warren, Lincoln’s Youth, 61 (B070999). According to Warren, Isaac Bush was Sarah’s brother.83
? “Search Kentucky Marriages, 1802-1850,” http://www.ancestrylibrary.com/search/ db.aspx?dbid=2089 (accessed May 12, 2008) (B071165); “Family Record Written by Abraham Lincoln,” in Collected Works 2:94 (B071151). According to Louis Warren, Isaac Bush was Sarah’s brother, Lincoln’s Youth, 61 (B070999).84 Herndon’s Informants, 41 (B070913).85
? “Autobiography Written for John L. Scripps,” in Collected Works, 4:62 (B071064).86
? Herndon’s Informants, 107 (B070913).
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Thomas Lincoln also improved his condition in other ways. In 1823, Thomas and
Sarah Lincoln joined Little Pigeon Creek Baptist Church, where he established himself as
a lay leader.93 His neighbors respected and admired his carpentry work.94 While he lived
in Indiana, his two step-daughters married,95 and his own daughter, Sarah, married Aaron
Grigsby in August 1826.96 Tragically, in January 1828, his daughter died, reportedly in
childbirth or complications thereof.97
93 Little Pigeon Creek Baptist Church Minute Book June 8, 1816 – February 29, 1840, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, IL. (microfilm, Springfield, IL, 1987) (B071166). The original manuscript volume of the church minute book is in the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library’s vault and is catalogued as a non-request item. The book and microfilm are not paginated. Transcripts of the minute book are available in several libraries throughout the United States, including the Indiana State Library.
Thomas Lincoln joined the Little Pigeon Creek Baptist Church on June 7, 1823 with a letter of membership transfer. His wife, Sarah, also joined the church on the same date with a testament of conversion experience. In April 1824, the church appointed “Bre[thre]n. Gentry[,] Grigsby & linkhorn [sic]” to attend a Baptist church conference. In October 1824, the church appointed Lincoln and two other men to call on a husband and wife who had separated. The next month, the church appointed Lincoln and “Br. Gentry” to talk to Charles Harper regarding his request for a letter of dismissal. The church appointed three trustees, including Lincoln, to “attend to the busyness” of repairing the meetinghouse in June 1825. A search of the minutes did not reveal exactly when Lincoln became a trustee. Lincoln’s daughter joined the church in April 1826. In August 1826, the church selected Lincoln and two other members to “Enquire in to the Sir cumstance” of the separation of another husband and wife. In September 1828, the church accepted resignations of Lincoln and “Br. Grigsby” as church trustees. Thomas and Sally Lincoln requested letters of dismissal in December 1829, likely in preparation for their move to Illinois. In January 1829, the church granted letters of dismissal to the couple, after they satisfied some questions raised by Nancy Grigsby. The nature of the questions is not known, but it is likely that they were doctrinal. Despite having his letter of dismissal, the church called upon Thomas Lincoln one last time in February 1830 to investigate a charge of falsehood made against a church member by Nancy Grigsby.
The Little Pigeon Creek Baptist Church, to which Thomas Lincoln belonged, would be described as a Primitive Baptist congregation. Primitive was not a negative descriptor. Rather, it referred to the sect’s claim to practice an unadulterated, first century or Apostolic Christianity. Primitive Baptists were Calvinists in theology. Richard Nation explained, “Innate human depravity stood at the core of the Primitive Baptist worldview, informing their skepticism about human creations, their distrust of the claims of education, their adherence to a doctrine of limited atonement, their attitudes toward different races, and their understanding of the limitations of human reform,” At Home in the Hoosier Hills, 74 (B071159). As a result they were congregational in polity, generally anti-missionary in practice, and while the Primitive Baptists had no political platform, the Jacksonian ideals of small, locally controlled government appealed to many
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Thomas and Abraham Lincoln were the only survivors of an original family of
five. They had lost an infant son/brother while still in Kentucky, then their wife/mother
and daughter/sister in Indiana. Their mutual bereavement, however, apparently did not
draw father and son together, nor did it drive them apart. Yet, if the extant testimony is
to be believed, something else obviously alienated them from one another.98 The root of
their differences seems to have been over labor, specifically their views on the end
product of work. Historian Kenneth Winkle advanced the interpretation that, “The
apparent breach between father and son reflected a clash of the traditional social system
of the denomination’s members.94 Herndon’s Informants, 94, 123, 560 (B070913). Nathaniel Grigsby wrote to Herndon, “there is yet in this contry [sic] furniture that he maid [sic] also houses standing that he done the carpenters work.”95
? Indiana State Library Genealogy Database: Marriages through 1850, http://208.119.135.17/db/in_marriages_display.asp?ID=119261 (accessed March 4, 2008) (B071167); Indiana State Library Genealogy Database: Marriages through 1850, http://208.119.135.17/db/in_marriages_display.asp?ID=117257 (accessed April 24, 2008) (B071168); Pratt, Lincoln 1809-1839: Being the Day-by-Day Activities, 5 (B071013); Herndon’s Informants, 764, 781, 782 (B070913).
Elizabeth Johnston married Dennis Hanks in June 1821, although the exact date of their marriage differs among the sources. According to the ISL Genealogy Database, Matilda Johnston married Squire Hall, Dennis Hanks’ half-brother, in September 1826.96
? “Family Record Written for Abraham Lincoln,” in Collected Works 2:95; Herndon’s Informants, 102 (B070913); Indiana State Library Genealogy Database: Marriages through 1850, http://208.119.135.17/db/in_marriages_ display.asp?ID=212074 (accessed March 4, 2008) (B071169); Pratt, Lincoln 1809-1839: Being the Day-by-Day Activities, 6 (B071013).
The first two sources, derived from Abraham Lincoln and A. H. Chapman give an August 1826 date without specifying the day. The ISL Genealogy Database and Pratt give conflicting dates, the former states August 6, whereas the latter maintains August 2.97
? “Family Record Written for Abraham Lincoln,” in Collected Works 2:95 (B071151).Dennis Hanks and A. H. Chapman gave the strongest statements that Sarah died
in childbirth, Herndon’s Informants, 42, 100 (B070913). However, Nathaniel Grigsby, who was Sarah’s brother-in-law, was vaguer in his statement and said, “After living with [Aaron] Grigsby about two years and being the mother of one son who died wile [sic] an infant She decease this life,” ibid., 94. Grigsby’s testimony is generally more reliable than Hanks’ or Chapman’s, and it raises the possibility that Sarah did not die in childbirth, but from complications, post-pregnancy infection, or subsequent illness.87
? Nation, At Home in the Hoosier Hills, 17 (B071159).88
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with an emerging new one.”99 Winkle explained that Thomas Lincoln operated under the
convention of a landed patrimony, whereby a father would transmit land to his son. In
fact, Thomas had experienced a rough beginning to his own life when his father’s
unexpected death deprived him of any landed inheritance.100 It also seems from Hanks’
testimony that land was central to Thomas’ plans for his progeny.101 Conversely,
Abraham Lincoln, though raised in a subsistence environment, grew aware of the
emerging market economy that gave access to new opportunities beyond the borders of
? “Land Ordinance of 1785,” http://www.in.gov/history/5709.htm (accessed May 15, 2008) (B071181).89
? “Harrison Land Act, 1800,” http://www.in.gov/history/6209.htm (accessed May 2, 2008) (B071182). Section 5 of this law permitted that one-twentieth of the purchase price be deposited at the time the purchaser entered his claim, with a payment schedule as follows: a quarter of the total payment (included the original one-twentieth) due within forty days, and the remaining quarter installments due in two, three, and four years from the purchase date. 90
? “An Act making provision for the disposal of the public lands in the Indiana territory, and for other purposes,” in The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America, ed. Richard Peters, Vol. 2 (Boston, 1846), 2:277-83 (B071184).91
? Vincennes Land Office Receipt Number 8499, photocopy, Francis Marion Van Natter Papers, Byron R. Lewis Historical Library, Vincennes University (B071248).92
? The best secondary source examination of Thomas Lincoln’s land transactions in Indiana is William E. Bartelt, “The Land Dealings of Spencer County, Indiana, Pioneer Thomas Lincoln,” Indiana Magazine of History 87 (1991): 211-223 (B071031).
Thomas Lincoln, like many other settlers, was unable to meet the payment schedule outlined by the Harrison Land Act. To assist settlers like Lincoln, Congress passed “An Act for the relief of the purchasers of public lands prior to the first day of July, eighteen hundred and twenty,” in The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America, ed. Richard Peters, Vol. 3 (Boston, 1846), 612-14 (B071183). This law allowed qualified settlers to apply for extensions to reconcile their debt. In Thomas Lincoln’s case, he applied for relief on September 12, 1821, and the government granted him another eight years to pay off his debt.
He still struggled to meet this new payment schedule, but he benefitted from subsequent legislation that allowed for further relief. On May 4, 1826, Congress approved “An Act making further provision for the extinguishment of the debt due to the United States, by the purchasers of public lands,” in The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America, ed. Richard Peters, Vol. 4 (Boston, 1846), 158-59 (B071244). This legislation allowed purchasers to reconcile their debt through relinquishment of land(s) or payment. On April 30, 1827, Thomas Lincoln journeyed to the Vincennes Land Office and cleared his debt by relinquishing the east half of his 160 acre Spencer
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Spencer County. Winkle noted, “The nature of Lincoln’s ambitions – urban,
entrepreneurial, eventually professional – rendered his family’s rural, landed heritage
little help to him and largely meaningless.”102
An example of Abraham Lincoln’s advocacy of the market economy can be found
in his 1832 communication to the people of Sangamon County, where he wrote, “Time
and experience have verified to a demonstration, the public utility of internal
improvements. That the poorest and most thinly populated countries would be greatly
benefitted by the opening of good roads, and in the clearing of navigable streams within
their limits.”103 Although Illinois’ Sangamon River figured prominently into Lincoln’s
County claim, and another tract of land in Posey County, see Relinquishment No. 1709, photocopy, Francis Marion Van Natter Papers, Byron R. Lewis Historical Library, Vincennes University (B071248).
On June 6, 1827, the United States General Land Office issued a land patent to “Thomas Linkern alias Lincoln” for “the West half of the South-west quarter of Section thirty-two, in Township four, South, of Range five, West, containing eighty acres,” Land Patent Number 2566, June 6, 1827, Thomas Linkern alias Lincoln, (Bureau of Land Management, Easter States Office, Alexandria, Virginia), photocopy provided by William E. Bartelt (B071229).98
? A. H. Chapman wrote, “I beg leave to state that Tho[ma]s Lincoln never showed by his actions that he thought much of his son Abraham when a Boy. he treated him rather unkind than otherwise. always appeared to think much more of his stepson John D Johnston than he did of his own,” Herndon’s Informants, 134 (B070913). Dennis Hanks, in answering one of Herndon’s questions, said “Did Tho[ma]s Lincoln trate [sic] Abe cruly [sic] He loved him I Never Could tell whether Abe Loved his farther [sic] Very well or Not,” ibid., 176.
In addition to these statements, there are secondary sources which analyze the relationship between Thomas and Abraham. This Research Summary follows Winkle’s social and cultural explanation of the rift between Thomas and Abraham Lincoln; Winkle’s notes for the twelfth chapter of Young Eagle, “More Painful Than Pleasant,” can direct the interested reader to other sources that posit psychological explanations for the father’s and son’s estrangement.99 Winkle, Young Eagle, 134 (B071012).100
? “To Jesse W. Fell, Enclosing Autobiography,” in Collected Works, 3:511 (B071065); “Autobiography Written for John L. Scripps,” in Collected Works, 4:61 (B071064); Winkle, Young Eagle, 7, 10 (B071012).101
? Herndon’s Informants, 36 (B070913).102
? Winkle, Young Eagle, 134 (B071012).
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views of internal improvements, he delivered this communication only two years after he
left Indiana, and it raises the question whether the genesis of these ideas came from his
Indiana experiences. Through examination of various events from Lincoln’s youth, a
clear demarcation and transition can be found between the subsistence labor he
performed in his pre and early teens versus the more enterprising work he did as he
neared adulthood. The labor of his later adolescence would particularly benefit from the
presence of internal improvements.
Writing in the third person, Lincoln depicted the labor of his youth in this way:
“A[braham] though very young, was large of his age and had an axe put into his hands at
once; and from that [time in 1816] till within his twentythird year, he was almost
constantly handling that most useful instrument – less, of course, in plowing and
harvesting seasons.”104 The farm chores Herndon’s informants recalled Lincoln
performing included plowing,105 butchering,106 shucking corn,107 milling corn,108 pulling
fodder,109 clearing fields,110 and making fence rails.111 According to some informants,
Lincoln also assisted his father with carpentry.112 Dennis Hanks’ son-in-law, A. H.
Chapman, told Herndon, “Lincoln was not in the habit of Working out from home . . .
only occasionaly [sic] changing work with the Neighbors which was costomary [sic] in
those days.”113 “Changing” or exchange work was a common feature of barter
economies, which Spencer County had at that early date, whereby neighbors would
reciprocate labor on each other’s farms. Historian Kenneth Winkle wrote, “While the
primitive frontier economy required Lincoln to exchange his labor for goods rather than
money, it allowed his first glimpse of the emerging market in manufactured goods that
would soon replace subsistence and transform the American economy forever.”114
Lincoln found other work opportunities beyond the farm, notably on or near the
Ohio River.115 Spencer County residents Joseph C. Richardson and Green B. Taylor
maintained that Lincoln operated a ferry for James Taylor at Troy for approximately six
to nine months circa 1825.116 Lincoln supposedly earned his first dollar while employed
as a ferryman. One source reported that Lincoln described his first dollar as “a most
important incident in my life.”117 Aside from this assessment, Lincoln’s first earned
dollar would also mark the beginning of a transition from the exchange economy, to
which Lincoln had been accustomed, to a wage labor economy.118
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Lincoln continued as a wage laborer in 1828 when James Gentry hired him at
eight dollars a month to accompany his son, Allen, in conducting a flatboat of goods to
New Orleans.119 Concerning this trip, Lincoln told of an encounter with African
Americans who attacked the flat boat “with intent to kill.” Lincoln and Gentry fought off
their attackers, “and then . . . ‘weighed anchor’ and left.”120 The famous quotation
attributed to Lincoln when he encountered slavery in New Orleans, “If ever I get a chance
to hit that thing [meaning slavery], I’ll hit it hard,” supposedly happened during Lincoln’s
second flatboat trip in 1831, after he had moved to Illinois.121
Lincoln’s river work is interesting in light of his future political advocacy of
internal improvements, such as canals and roads. He evidently saw transportation routes
as ways to open the market economy to places like Sangamon County, Illinois or Spencer
County, Indiana.122 Lincoln’s ideas were not original. Four years before he was born,
Indiana territorial legislators authorized canal construction to bypass the dangerous Falls
of the Ohio River, thereby improving river navigation from Pittsburgh to New Orleans.
This initial canal never materialized, and after statehood in 1816, the Indiana General
Assembly again chartered a company to construct a canal around the Falls. The project
failed because of lack of revenue and proper administration. In 1825, Kentucky beat
Indiana to the project and began constructing the Louisville and Portland Canal to
circumnavigate the Falls, which Kentucky completed in 1830.123 Curiously, A. H.
Chapman, though without first hand knowledge or any corroborating evidence, claimed
that Lincoln and his step-brother, John D. Johnston, worked on the Louisville and
Portland Canal.124
As vital as internal improvements were to an emerging market economy, self-
improvement was equally important. “The new world that Lincoln entered,” Winkle
explained, “rewarded individual initiative, competitiveness, commercial enterprise, and
entrepreneurial impulse.”125 In a market economy, Lincoln, as a farmer and carpenter’s
son, would not be limited to those professions, and education was the key to opening
other vocational possibilities like law and politics.
In his 1832 communication to the people of Sangamon County, Lincoln wrote, “I
view [education] as the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in.
That every man may receive at least, a moderate education, and thereby be enabled to
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read the histories of his own and other countries, by which he may duly appreciate the
value of our free institutions, appears to be an object of vital importance . . . I desire to
see the time when education, and by its means, morality, sobriety, enterprise and
industry, shall become much more general than at present.”126 The informal education
Lincoln pursued in Indiana, perhaps more than any other factor, awakened him to the
vocational possibilities that existed beyond his father’s homestead.
In 1858, the compiler of the Dictionary of Congress wrote to Lincoln and asked
him for a brief sketch of his life. Lincoln replied and related his birth date, place of birth,
his profession, his military service in the Black Hawk War, and the political offices he
previously held. Lincoln also described his education in two words, “Education
defective.”127 While still in Kentucky, Lincoln and his sister briefly attended “A.B.C.
schools” taught by Zachariah Riney and Caleb Hazel.128 After moving to Indiana, two
years elapsed before Lincoln attended school again. Although Article IX of the Indiana
Constitution of 1816 called for “a general system of education . . . wherein tuition shall
be gratis, and equally open to all,”129 decades passed before state government
implemented this article. The responsibility for education in the state’s first few decades
fell to local families who would intermittently pool their resources to support a
neighborhood school, whether private, denominational, or public.130 In Spencer County,
Nathaniel Grigsby recalled that he and Lincoln “1st went to school to Andy Crawford in
the year 1818, in the winter.”131 Lincoln’s schooling continued approximately five years
later when “about fourteen or fifteen [years of age]” he attended Azel Dorsey’s school
“about six months.”132 It was probably during these six months at Dorsey’s school that
Lincoln worked the arithmetic that has been preserved from his sum book.133 After
attending school with another schoolmaster, James Swaney, in 1826,134 Lincoln recalled,
“I have not been to school since.”135 He estimated, “That the aggregate of all [my]
schooling did not amount to one year.”136
Lincoln was less than complimentary about the educational opportunities offered
in Indiana. He recalled, “There were some schools, so called; but no qualification was
ever required of a teacher, beyond ‘readin, writin, and cipherin,’ to the Rule of Three.137
If a straggler supposed to understand latin [sic], happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, 126 “Communication to the People of Sangamo County,” in Collected Works, 1:8 (B071142).
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he was looked upon as a wizzard [sic]. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition
for education.”138 This last sentence possibly included his father, who may or may not
have encouraged his son’s education. Dennis Hanks remembered Lincoln’s “constant”
and “stubborn” reading often drew the ire of his father for neglecting his chores.139 Sarah
Lincoln countered that her husband “never made Abe quit reading to do anything if he
could avoid it.” She added that Thomas, “felt the uses & necessities of Education [and
wanted] his boy Abraham to learn & he Encouraged him to do it in all ways he could.”140
However, Abraham Lincoln’s own derisive description of his father as “litterally [sic]
without education,” and never doing “more in the way of writing than to bunglingly sign
his own name,”141 lends credence to Hanks’ recollections that perhaps Thomas Lincoln
was not the educational advocate that his wife portrayed.142
Despite these educational adversities, Abraham Lincoln was not ignorant. “Of
course,” he acknowledged, “when I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I
could read, write, and cipher to the Rule of Three; but that was all . . . The little advance I
now have upon this store of education, I have picked up from time to time under the
pressure of necessity.”143 Lincoln acquired most of his education through reading,
although the strongest evidence suggests it was most often not by firelight as Eastman
Johnson’s painting suggests.144 Family and friends remembered Lincoln’s rapacious
reading habits. “He read all the books he could lay his hands on,” his stepmother
recalled.145 David Turnham remembered Lincoln “always . . . reading, studying, &
thinking.”146 John Hanks described his cousin as “a Constant and voracious reader.”147
The Bible, Aesop’s Fables, Pilgrim’s Progress, Robinson Crusoe, and Parson Weems’
History of the Life and Death, Virtues and Exploits of General George Washington were
among the books friends and family said Lincoln read.148 Lincoln scholar Douglas
Wilson noted, “It has sometimes been argued that there must have been something
strangely propitious about this selection of titles to have constituted the preparation of so
great a man. But the truth of the matter seems to be that these were simply the only
books available.”149
These works notwithstanding, Lincoln biographer Albert J. Beveridge focused on
several other books Lincoln encountered in Indiana, which Beveridge believed had a
determinative influence on Lincoln’s future life.150 Among these titles were William
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Grimshaw’s History of the United States,151 Revised Laws of Indiana (1824), William
Scott’s Lessons in Elocution, or Selections of Pieces in Prose and Verse for the
Improvement of Youth in Reading and Speaking,152 and The Kentucky Preceptor,
Containing a Number of Useful Lessons for Reading and Speaking.153 While it is futile to
speculate on Lincoln’s reader-response to these books, if he did read them as Herndon’s
informants claimed, then it is obvious these books introduced Lincoln to history, law (the
1824 volume of Revised Laws of Indiana included the nation’s founding documents), and
public speaking, all of which would inform his future professional life.
Perhaps Lincoln’s greatest education in Indiana came through reading
newspapers. According to Lincoln’s step-mother, he became a “Constant reader” of
newspapers beginning circa 1827. David Turnham concurred and believed Lincoln
began reading newspapers as early as 1828. Spencer County resident, William Wood
remembered, “Abe read the news papers of the day . . . I took the Telescope.154 Abe
frequently borrowed it.” Reportedly, Lincoln also had access to newspapers at the
Gentryville general store and post office, located a few miles from his home.155
Nineteenth-century newspapers were highly political. Papers like the Brookville
(Indiana) Democrat, the Cincinnati Daily Whig, or the Springfield (Massachusetts)
Republican proudly proclaimed their partisanship in their titles. Yet even more
innocuous sounding newspaper titles like the Journal, Gazette, Tribune, Times, and News
regularly served as political party mouthpieces. Herndon became convinced that
newspapers played a pivotal role in Lincoln’s political education. Herndon noted,
“About this News Paper business there is much dispute, but [I] think it [is] true . . .
Lincoln[’]s Speeches here [in Illinois] in 1832 Convince me that he was thoroughly
posted in Politics . . . during these 2 y[ear]s [after he left Indiana] he was down the River
– in the Black Hawk war & clerking and Could not have under these Circumstances have
read & learned so much.”156 Douglas Wilson agreed, “It was probably exposure to these
highly political newspapers that helped spark Lincoln’s early interest in politics.”157
What newspapers Lincoln might have read is very uncertain. Wood said he
subscribed to the Telescope, which was a weekly newspaper “devoted to religious and
moral principles.”158 Sarah Bush Lincoln and David Turnham mistakenly believed
Lincoln read the Louisville Journal while in Indiana,159 since that paper did not begin
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publication until after the Lincolns left Indiana for Illinois.160 However, some of
Herndon’s informants from New Salem, Illinois remembered Lincoln reading the
Louisville Journal there,161 which is likely since it became the leading Whig newspaper in
the West.162 Although A. H. Chapman maintained that Lincoln started reading
newspapers in Illinois, he did say Lincoln read the National Intelligencer,163 which
originally was a Jeffersonian paper and later became a leading Whig paper. The widely
circulated and exchanged National Intelligencer was in print during the time the Lincolns
lived in Indiana.164
Identifying Indiana newspapers that might have influenced Lincoln’s political
views is difficult. In Lincoln’s home county of Spencer and the counties immediately
adjacent, the earliest newspaper published, the Rockport Gazette, appeared in 1837, seven
years after Lincoln moved to Illinois.165 Perhaps the most influential and widely
circulated Whig paper in the state, the Madison Republican-Banner, also began
publication three years too late to be of benefit to Lincoln in Indiana.166 Aside from a few
politically independent papers like the Evansville Gazette and Bloomington’s Indiana
Gazette, most Indiana newspapers of the late 1820s were pro-Jackson.167 In Washington
County, approximately 100 miles northeast from Lincoln’s home, the Salem Tocsin’s
short-lived advocacy of John Quincy Adams’ proto-Whig policies came to an abrupt halt
when pro-Jacksonians assumed control of the paper in 1827.168 Anti-Jackson or proto-
Whig newspapers became much more common in Indiana after 1830. Two of the few
viable anti-Jackson newspapers published in Indiana at the time of Lincoln’s residency
were the Centerville Western Times and the Indiana State Journal. The Centerville
Western Emporium and the Richmond Public Ledger, which began as a pro-John Quincy
Adams paper in 1824, merged in August 1828 to form the Centerville Western Times,
which supported Henry Clay and his policies.169 However, Centerville’s remoteness from
Spencer County makes it uncertain if the Western Times circulated so far afield as to be
read by Abraham Lincoln. Indianapolis’ Indiana State Journal began in 1825, and
claimed to be politically independent, but it clearly was an anti-Jackson newspaper and
later fully aligned itself with the Whig Party in the 1830s.170 Since the Indiana State
Journal issued from the state capital, it offers an intriguing possibility for an anti-Jackson
newspaper that could have been available to Lincoln in Spencer County.
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If Lincoln read anti-Jackson newspapers while still in Indiana, it would help
explain what Douglas Wilson described as Lincoln’s “striking political metamorphosis”
from Jacksonian Democrat to Whig.171 Lincoln claimed that he was “always a whig in
politics.”172 However, several of Herndon’s informants, including Dennis Hanks,
Nathaniel Grigsby, and David Turnham, all maintained that Abraham Lincoln was a
Jacksonian Democrat while in Indiana.173 Of course, political designation at this point in
American history is problematic since the major political factions, the Jacksonian
Democrats and the National-Republicans, forerunners of the Whigs, both began in the
mid-1820s, and whether the parties’ influence extended into the American hinterlands to
affect Lincoln in Indiana is not clear.
In 1824, there was only one viable political party in the United States: the
Democratic-Republicans. In 1800, Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson defeated
Federalist John Adams for the presidency. With this defeat, the Federalists, the party of
Alexander Hamilton, never wielded serious power in the legislative or executive branches
again, although Federalist John Marshall continued to preside over the Supreme Court
until 1835. In 1824, four candidates, all avowedly Democratic-Republicans, contended
for the presidency: John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson, and William
Crawford. Although Andrew Jackson earned the most electoral votes with ninety-nine,
the four-way race split the electoral college so that no candidate earned a clear majority
of 131 electoral votes, which the Constitution required for a president to be elected. In an
event such as this, the Constitution allowed the House of Representatives, where
presidential candidate Henry Clay presided as Speaker, to decide the election. While
Clay’s fourth place finish in the presidential election disqualified him from further
consideration for the Executive Office, he could as Speaker of the House influence the
outcome of the election. Clay put his support behind John Quincy Adams who, despite
winning only thirty percent of the popular vote and earning fifteen fewer electoral votes
than Jackson, became the next President of the United States. The decision outraged
Jackson and his supporters. They blasted the decision as a “corrupt bargain,” and the
party of Jefferson fragmented. Jackson’s supporters became known as Democrats or
Jacksonian Democrats, and the supporters of John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay
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became known as National-Republicans from which the Whig Party emerged in the mid-
1830s.174
The party of Adams and Clay had a clearly articulated platform known as the
American System, which advocated protective tariffs, internal improvements, and a
national bank. In order to accomplish these goals, the National-Republicans or Whigs
advocated a strong legislative branch that could facilitate these changes. Conversely,
Jacksonian Democrats have often been defined as “a coalition of people opposed to
various aspects of Whiggery.”175 Unlike the Whigs, Andrew Jackson hoped to reduce
“the General Government to that simple machine which the Constitution created.”176
Antebellum political historian, Harry L. Watson explained that Andrew Jackson
“consistently favored low taxes and low federal expenditures, limitation of federal
authority in favor of states’ rights, and a reluctance to use federal power to stimulate
economic change.”177 Richard Nation added, “The main body of Democratic voters
shared similar convictions about localism, seeing that the best government was that
which was most local and thus most responsive to the will of the people and the peculiar
needs of a given locale.”178
In this respect, the majority of Hoosiers identified with Andrew Jackson’s policies
and overwhelmingly supported him in the 1824 and 1828 presidential elections.
Culturally it would make sense if Lincoln was a Jacksonian as Hanks, Turnham, and
Grigsby attested. However, what these informants probably did not recall is that sixty-
nine percent of Spencer County voted for future Whig leader Henry Clay in 1824.
Despite the differences in policies among Jacksonians and anti-Jacksonians, American
politics in the 1820s often had everything to do with personality rather than party
platform; the newness of these political factions limited the extent of their influence. For
instance, in the 1824 election, Kentuckian Henry Clay often appealed to businessmen and
prosperous farmers, but he also had a strong regional following that attracted many
southern Hoosiers. John Quincy Adams found support among lawyers and other
professionals, and Andrew Jackson, after rising from humble beginnings, was the
champion of the common man.179 William Crawford, the fourth presidential candidate in
1824, apparently did not appeal to many Hoosiers since he was without an electoral ticket
in Indiana. In 1824, Jackson’s electors carried Indiana over Clay by 2,123 popular votes.
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However, Clay won pluralities in Spencer County and several other southwestern Indiana
counties including: Knox, Vanderburgh, Crawford, Perry, Pike, Gibson, and Posey. In
the 1828 presidential election, with only Andrew Jackson and John Q. Adams running,
Spencer County cast seventy percent of its popular vote for Andrew Jackson.180
The assessment of Lincoln’s early politics by Hanks, Turnham, and Grigsby may
stem from the 1828 election. If Lincoln ever was a Jacksonian, it is likely that he turned
against that party around that time, and there are three details that suggest this was
180
? Ibid., 4-13 (B071163).103
? “Communication to the People of Sangamo County,” in Collected Works, 1:5 (B071142).104
? “Autobiography Written for John L. Scripps,” in Collected Works, 4:62 (B071064).105
? Herndon’s Informants, 129, 560 (B070913). See also “Autobiography Written for John L. Scripps,” in Collected Works, 4:62 (B071064).106 Herndon’s Informants, 130, 133, 335 (B070913).
According to Green Taylor, “Abe helped to Kill hogs for – John Woods – Jno Duthan & Stephen McDaniel,” as well as for Taylor’s father, James. John Dougherty added that Lincoln “cut up Pork” for William Jones.107
? Ibid., 42, 154, 169 (B070913).108
? Ibid., 129, 216, 217 (B070913).109
? Ibid., 101, 118, 125 (B070913).110
? Ibid., 94, 335 (B070913).111
? Ibid., 94, 114, 125 (B070913).112
? Ibid., 94, 335 (B070913).113
? Ibid., 101 (B070913).114
? Winkle, Young Eagle, 20 (B071012).115
? Herndon’s Informants, 114 (B070913).116
? Ibid., 119, 129-130 (B070913). Green Taylor was James Taylor’s son, and he was particularly confident of the year of AL’s employment because he remembered AL being sent to bring the doctor when Green’s sister was born in 1825.
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possibly the case. First, Dennis Hanks maintained, “Abe turned whig in 1827-8.”
Second, the testimonies of Lincoln’s step-mother and David Turnham date Lincoln’s
newspaper reading, and hence his political education to the same years Hanks stated.
Lastly, William Jones, an often overlooked character from Lincoln’s past, arrived in
Spencer County in 1828, and if Herndon’s informants are believed, Jones played a crucial
role in Lincoln’s political education.
A. H. Chapman disputed the idea that Lincoln worked at the ferry, ibid., 101. However, Chapman was in no position to know since he did not know Lincoln in Indiana, and although he cited the memories of Dennis Hanks and Sarah Johnston Lincoln, neither of them ever addressed the matter to Herndon. In the end, there is more evidence that Lincoln did work at the ferry than that he did not.117
? F. B. Carpenter, Six Months at the White House, 97 (B071063). Another piece of evidence that Lincoln worked as a ferryman can be found in F.
B. Carpenter’s Six Months at the White House. Carpenter received a commission to paint First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln, and had the opportunity to observe first hand the happenings in the White House. He recorded his observations in a diary, which he later published as a book. Carpenter recorded one conversation between the President and Secretary of State William H. Seward, whin which Lincoln recounted the story of how he earned his first dollar when he ferried two men from the shore to a steamboat.
Inconsistencies between Taylor’s and Richardson’s accounts and Carpenter’s report suggest that Lincoln’s employment for Taylor and the first dollar incident were separate occurrences. In Carpenter’s story, Lincoln was older than Taylor maintained he was when he worked as a ferryman. Furthermore, Carpenter related that Lincoln ferried his customers, not on a ferry, but on a flatboat. It could also be that Carpenter reported the wrong age and vehicle.118
? In 1859, Abraham Lincoln said, “When at an early age, I was myself a hired laborer, at twelve dollars per month,” Lives and Speeches of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin (New York, 1860), 147 (B071170). Although exactly what labor this referred to is unknown. Green Taylor told Herndon that his father paid Lincoln six dollars per month for his labor on the farm and operating the ferry. Taylor added that his father paid Lincoln thirty-one cents a day for butchering hogs, Herndon’s Informants, 130 (B070913).119
? “Autobiography Written for John L. Scripps,” in Collected Works 4:62 (B071064); Herndon’s Informants 114, 118, 131 (B070913).
In Herndon’s interview with Allen Gentry’s widow, Anna Caroline Gentry stated that Lincoln and Gentry left in April 1828 and returned in June 1828, Herndon’s Informants, 131. For a corroborating date from Lincoln himself, see William Dean Howells, Life of Abraham Lincoln (Springfield, IL, 1938), 23 (B071018). This 1938
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William Jones181 was born in Vincennes circa 1803.182 Peter Jones, his father, was
socially prominent in Vincennes as a merchant, tavern keeper, and hotel proprietor.183
Peter Jones also involved himself in politics, serving as auditor of the Indiana Territory,
and as a member of the territory’s House of Representatives in 1810 and 1811. Governor
William Henry Harrison appointed Peter Jones as judge on the Knox County Court of
Common Pleas. Jones also served as Harrison’s secretary at an Indian treaty council in
1809 at Fort Wayne.184 Exactly what political education William Jones may have gained
special edition of Lincoln’s campaign biography contains photo-facsimilies of corrections Lincoln made to an original copy of the book owned by Samuel C. Parks, a Lincoln associate from Illinois. Lincoln corrected Howells’ statement that the family moved to Illinois four years after the flatboat trip; he crossed out “four” and wrote in “two.” As a point of reference, Lincoln stated that his family began the move to Illinois on March 1, 1830, “Autobiography Written for John L. Scripps,” in Collected Works, 4:63 (B071064).
Gilbert A. Tracy, comp., Uncollected Letters of Abraham Lincoln (Boston, 1917), 123-29 (B071178), reproduced a letter from Lincoln to Alexander H. Stephens, dated January 19, 1860. This letter contains a sometimes quoted passage regarding Lincoln’s flatboat journey: “When a boy I went to New Orleans on a flat boat and there I saw slavery and slave markets as I have never seen them in Kentucky, and I heard worse of the Red River plantations.” However, in Collected Works, 8:460 (B071194), Roy Basler identified this letter as a forgery.120
? “Autobiography Written for John L. Scripps,” in Collected Works, 4:62 (B071064); Herndon’s Informants, 131 (B070913).121
? Herndon acknowledged in his book, “This incident was furnished me in 1865, by John Hanks,” and added, “I have also heard Mr. Lincoln refer to it himself,” Herndon and Weik, Herndon’s Lincoln, 1:76 (B071008). However, this quotation is not preserved in the exhaustive edited collection of Herndon’s research published as Herndon’s Informants.
John Hanks, Lincoln’s cousin, told Herndon that he accompanied Lincoln on the flatboat trip from Illinois to New Orleans. He said that in New Orleans, “We saw Negroes Chained – maltreated – whipt [sic] & scourged. Lincoln Saw it – his heart bled – Said nothing much – was silent from feeling – was Sad – looked bad – felt bad – was thoughtful & abstracted –I Can say Knowingly that it was on this trip that he formed his opinions of Slavery: it ran its iron in him then & there,” Herndon’s Informants, 457 (B070913).
The problem with Hanks’ testimony, however, is that Lincoln himself said, “Hanks had not gone to New-Orleans, but having a family, and being likely to be detained from home longer than at first expected, had turned back from St. Louis,” “Autobiography Written for John L. Scripps,” in Collected Works, 4:63-64 (B071064). Elsewhere, Hanks admitted to Herndon that he did not go on the trip, and attributed Lincoln’s step-brother, John D. Johnston, with hearing the “hit it hard” remark, Herndon’s Informants, 615 (B070913). Unfortunately, Johnston could not corroborate
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during his youth is uncertain, but Jones’ subsequent political involvement suggests that
his father’s politics played a defining role in his own political thought. Peter Jones died
in 1818,185 and William moved to Kentucky two years later. By 1828, Jones returned to
Indiana, settled in Spencer County, and found employment as a clerk at the general store
in Gentryville. As a merchant, Jones likely favored many of Henry Clay’s economic
policies, and he served in the Indiana House of Representatives as a Whig from 1838-
1841.186 Jones’ admiration for Henry Clay was so great that he named a son, born around
the time of Clay’s 1844 presidential campaign, after the Whig leader.187
the story since he died before Herndon collected his information.122
? Donald F. Carmony, Indiana, 1816-1850: The Pioneer Era (Indianapolis, 1998), 133-134 (B071171). According to Carmony, Indiana’s revised code of 1824 obligated males between the ages of twenty-one and fifty to labor for three days per year on the state’s roads. While Abraham Lincoln was not old enough to serve in this capacity by the time his family left for Illinois, it is possible he saw his father, Dennis Hanks, and other men he knew perform this service.123
? Ibid., 144-145 (B071171).124
? Herndon’s Informants, 100 (B070913). Chapman’s source, if any, was likely Dennis Hanks. He could possibly have
received his information from John D. Johnston or Thomas and Sarah Lincoln. No documentary evidence has been located that would substantiate Chapman’s claim.
Nathaniel Grigsby somewhat countered Chapman’s statement when he told Herndon, “Lincoln did not work on the Louisvill[e] Can[al], but he may have done it nevertheless,” ibid., 114.125
? Winkle, Young Eagle, 70 (B071012).127
? “Brief Autobiography,” in Collected Works, 2:459 (B071066).128
? “Autobiography Written for John L. Scripps,” in Collected Works, 4:61 (B071064).129
? Constitution of 1816, http://www.in.gov/ history/5951.htm (accessed January 23, 2008) (B070726). Once this URL is accessed, Article IX can be found by clicking the corresponding link near the bottom of the page.130
? Carmony, Indiana, 1816-1850: The Pioneer Era, 363 (B071171).131
? Herndon’s Informants, 112 (B070913). David Turnham in Herndon’s Informants also remembered attending Crawford’s school, but did not recall the date, ibid., 121. 132
? Herndon’s Informants, 112, 94 (B070913).
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By the time Herndon began collecting interviews, William Jones was dead.
Several of Herndon’s informants, however, remembered Jones’ defining influence on
young Lincoln. Spencer County informants, James W. Wartmann, John S. Houghland,188
and John R. Dougherty, all with second-hand knowledge of Lincoln, maintained that
Lincoln clerked for Jones. At least two of these men, Dougherty and Houghland,
apparently knew Jones personally and recounted that Jones told them that Lincoln read
Grigsby gave Dorsey’s first name as “Hazel.” Lincoln reported it as “Azel,” “Autobiography Written for John L. Scripps,” in Collected Works, 4:62 (B071064).
According to Lincoln, his teachers in Indiana were, in order, Crawford, Swaney, and Dorsey, ibid., 4:62. Most secondary sources follow Lincoln’s sequence. Nathaniel Grigsby, however, maintained the order of the teachers was Crawford, Dorsey, and Swaney, Herndon’s Informants, 112. In evaluating the testimony, Grigsby is probably more accurate than Lincoln because David Turnham remembered Crawford and Dorsey, but did not remember Swaney, ibid., 121. Informant testimony strongly suggests that Swaney taught school in 1826; see note 133. Turnham, who was six and eight years older than Lincoln and Grigsby, respectively, would have turned twenty-three in 1826, and it is very unlikely he would still be attending school.133
? “Pages from Lincoln's Sum Book 1824-1826” in Collected Works 1:n.p. (B071172). The second and ninth illustrations, respectively credited as from the collections of
Justin G. Turner and Columbia University Library, are clearly dated 1824 at the top of the pages.134
? John Oskins, a Lincoln classmate, remembered attending this school with Lincoln in 1826, Herndon’s Informants, 128 (B070913). Nathaniel Grigsby was more inexact only remembering Lincoln was about sixteen or seventeen when they attended Swaney’s school, ibid., 112. Lincoln was 17 in 1826.
Oskins is likely very correct as to the year. Several “Pages from Lincoln's Sum Book 1824-1826” in Collected Works 1:n.p. (B071172) show an 1826 date. Specifically the fifteenth and sixteenth photographic plates show this date. The original documents are both owned by the Chicago Historical Society.135
? “To Jesse W. Fell, Enclosing Autobiography,” in Collected Works, 3:511 (B071065).136
? “Autobiography Written for John L. Scripps,” in Collected Works 4:62 (B071064).137
? “To Jesse W. Fell, Enclosing Autobiography,” in Collected Works, 3:511 (B071065).According to Wilson and Davis, editors of Herndon’s Informants, “The rule of
three is a means of determining the fourth term in a proportion when three terms are given; confusingly, the double rule of three refers to calculation of the missing term when more than three are given,” 104 (B070913).138
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all the books he owned. It is also inferred from Herndon’s notes on Houghland’s
interview that Lincoln read the newspapers that Jones either subscribed to or sold.189
A few other informants took the connection between Jones and Lincoln further.
Nathaniel Grigsby told Herndon, “Col[onel] Jones was Lincoln[’s] guide & teacher in
Politics.”190 A. H. Chapman, though without first hand knowledge, had heard that “young
Abe was warmly attached to Jones.”191 Dennis Hanks thought, “Col[onel] Jones made
him a whig [sic].”192 Jones seems as good a candidate as any for indoctrinating Lincoln
? “To Jesse W. Fell, Enclosing Autobiography,” in Collected Works, 3:511 (B071065).139
? Herndon’s Informants, 41 (B070913).140
? Ibid., 107 (B070913).Spencer County neighbor, J.C. Richardson agreed with Mrs. Lincoln’s portrayal
of Thomas Lincoln’s attitudes toward education, ibid., 474.141
? “Autobiography Written for John L. Scripps,” in Collected Works, 4:61 (B071064).142
? Another anecdote often cited in support of this view is derived from William Greene, a longtime Illinois associate of Abraham Lincoln. Greene reported a conversation with Thomas Lincoln in which the latter said, “I suppose that Abe is still fooling hisself [sic] with eddication [sic]. I tried to stop it, but he has got that fool idea in his head, and it can’t be got out,” Henry Clay Whitney, Lincoln the Citizen, vol. 1 of Life of Lincoln, ed. Marion Mills Miller (New York, 1908), 75 (B071173).
Wilson and Davis, editors of Herndon’s Informants, noted that Herndon “suspected Greene of exaggerating his knowledge of A[braham] L[incoln],” Herndon’s Informants, 751 (B070913). This assessment might also call into question the veracity of the words Greene attributed to Thomas Lincoln. 143
? “To Jesse W. Fell, Enclosing Autobiography,” in Collected Works, 3:511 (B071065).144
? Indiana informants Green Taylor and Nathaniel Grigsby commented that Lincoln read at night, Herndon’s Informants, 113, 130, (B070913). However, Sarah Bush Lincoln had the most opportunities to observe Lincoln’s reading habits. She recalled, “He read diligently – studied in the day time – didn[’]t after night much – went to bed Early – got up Early & then read,” ibid., 107. Later in life, he evidently developed late night reading habits, as the testimony of many Illinois informants indicated, ibid., 69, 373, 455, 512.145
? Herndon’s Informants, 107 (B070913).146
? Ibid., 121 (B070913).147
? Ibid., 455 (B070913).148
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in the Whig’s policies. Whether it was Jones’ influence or residual from Spencer
County’s support of Clay in 1824, Lincoln became a great admirer of Clay and described
the Whig leader as “my beau ideal of a statesman, the man for whom I fought all my
humble life.”193 The sum of this evidence suggests that Lincoln’s reading of political and
Whig newspapers and Jones’ mentoring informed Lincoln’s early political views-a clear
legacy of the informal education Lincoln pursued in Indiana.
? Ibid., 41, 109, 112, 121, 125, 455 (B070913). These titles derived from the testimony of Dennis Hanks, Nathaniel Grigsby, David Turnham, John Hanks, Matilda Johnston Moore, and Elizabeth Crawford. These are not the only books people claimed Lincoln read, but they are the few titles on which there is general consensus.149
? Douglas L. Wilson, Honor’s Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln (New York, 1998), 55 (B071160).150
? Beveridge, Abraham Lincoln, 1:73-76 (B071010).151
? Herndon’s Informants, 109 (B070913). This is according to the recollections of Lincoln’s step-sister, Matilda Johnston Moore.152
? Ibid., 104, 129, 138 (B070913). According to David Turnham, Lincoln read both the Revised Laws of Indiana and Scott’s Lessons. Dennis Hanks also told Herndon that Lincoln read “the Rev. Statutes of Indiana dated 1824.”153
? Ibid., 125 (B070913). This is according to Spencer County neighbor, Elizabeth Crawford.154
? Ibid., 124 (B070913). Italics added for clarification. Wilson and Davis identified this newspaper as the New York Telescope published from 1824-1830.155
? Ibid., 130 (B070913); William E. Bartelt, “There I Grew Up”: Remembering Abraham Lincoln’s Indiana Youth (Indianapolis, 2008), 151 (B071000). 156
? Herndon’s Informants, 107, 121, 124, 130-131 (B070913). A. H. Chapman is one of the few informants to maintain, “Lincoln first became a
reader of news papers af[ter] he came to Ills,” (italics added) ibid., 101.157
? Wilson, Honor’s Voice, 55 (B071160).158
? Title Information, American Periodical Series Online, http://proquest.umi.com subscription required (accessed April 2, 2008) (B070089).159
? Herndon’s Informants, 107, 121 (B070913).
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The public generally associates Lincoln with the Republican Party, rather than
with the Whigs. Yet, he affiliated with the Whigs for most of his political life until the
mid-1850s when sectional issues tore the party apart. Many former Whigs, as well as
Free Soilers, Know-Nothings, and even a few Democrats disgruntled over the Kansas-
Nebraska Act, reorganized as the Republican Party,194 and held their first National
Convention in 1856. Four years later, the Republican National Convention nominated
Abraham Lincoln for president.
Herndon recorded the response of Mrs. Lincoln as follows, “The name of the Louisville Journal seems to sound like one.” Herndon quoted Turnham, “It is more than probable he read the Louisville Journal.” Herndon also interviewed Absolom Roby, a Spencer County resident, who said, “Think I remember [Lincoln reading the] Louisville Journal – can[not] say positively,” Ibid., 132.
The quoted responses of these informants possibly resulted from Herndon asking specifically if Lincoln read the Louisville Journal. A more general, open-ended question from Herndon, like “Do you remember what newspapers Lincoln read?,” may or may not have resulted in a reply that mentioned the Louisville Journal.160
? Ibid., 107 (B070913). See footnote three on the cited page.161
? See Herndon’s Informants index, 812 (B070913) for specific mentions.162
? John E. Kleber, ed., The Kentucky Encyclopedia (Lexington, KY, 1992), 582-83 (B071150). 163
? Herndon’s Informants, 101 (B070913).164
? Charles G. Steffen, “Newspapers for Free: The Economies of Newspaper Circulation in the Early Republic,” Journal of the Early Republic, 23 (2003), 381-419 (B070260).
The Post Office Act of 1792 allowed newspaper editors to exchange copies of their papers free of charge with other newspaper editors. Steffen figured that the National Intelligencer office received “exchange papers form forty-three cities, towns, and cross-road settlements, encompassing all twenty-one states; from most of these places came two or more papers, while Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston sent six each – a daily deluge of close to one hundred papers,” Steffen, 409. Editors often clipped articles from the exchanged papers and ran them in their own papers, which would further disseminate ideas, especially from an important paper like the National Intelligencer.
For further reading on the National Intelligencer see William E. Ames, History of the National Intelligencer (Chapel Hill, NC, 1972).165
? John W. Miller, Indiana Newspaper Bibliography (Indianapolis, 1982), 414 (B071161).Bordering Spencer County on the east, Perry County’s earliest newspaper was the
Cannelton Economist, first issued in 1849, ibid., 355. In Dubois County, which borders
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Did Lincoln’s introduction to law occur in his boyhood home as well? From
David Turnham’s testimony, Lincoln evidently became acquainted with an 1824 copy of
Revised Laws of Indiana. According to Dennis Hanks, Lincoln, while in Indiana,
“attended trials – went to Court . . . Heard law Speeches & listened to law trials.”195
Spencer County resident S. T. Johnson asserted that an eighteen or nineteen year-old
Lincoln witnessed a murder trial in Boonville where a local attorney, John Brackenridge,
captivated Lincoln’s attention. Johnson maintained that after Lincoln witnessed
Spencer on the north, the Jasper American Eagle appeared in 1846, ibid., 93. Western neighbor Warrick County premiered the Newburgh Chronicle, a pro-Whig paper, in 1848, ibid., 478.166
? Ibid., 199 (B071161).167
? This statement is based upon a general reading of Miller’s Indiana Newspaper Bibliography. 168
? Miller, Indiana Newspaper Bibliography, 482 (B071161).169
? Ibid., 489, 496 (B071161).170
? Ibid., 273, 274 (B071161).171
? Wilson, Honor’s Voice, 296 (B071160).172
? “To Jesse W. Fell, Enclosing Autobiography,” in Collected Works, 3:512 (B071065).173
? Dennis Hanks said, “Abe . . . was originally a Democrat after the order of Jackson – so was his father – so we all were – Abe turned whig in 1827-8,” Herndon’s Informants, 105 (B070913). Nathaniel Grigsby told Herndon, “Lincoln in Early years – say from 1820 to 25 was tending towards Democracy – He afterwards Changed – Parties at this time ran Jackson – Adams and others. What changed Lincoln I dont [sic] remember – we were all Jackson boys & men at this time in Indiana,” ibid., 114. David Turnham wrote, “I think when the Lincoln’s [sic] left here, they were Jackson men. I think that Jackson’s opposition to the U.S. Bank and the Crisis that followed Caused them to turn,” ibid., 356.174
? Any good United States history survey textbook can relate the facts presented in this paragraph. For instance, see Alan Brinkley, American History: A Survey, 10th ed. (Boston, 1999) (B071199).175
? Nation, At Home in the Hoosier Hills, 130 (B071159).176
? Andrew Jackson, “Fourth Annual Message,” in A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the President, vol. 3 (New York, 1897), 3:1162 (B070463).
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Brackenridge’s performance, Lincoln “formed a fixed determination to study the law and
make that his profession.” According to Johnson, Lincoln told Brackenridge: “It was the
best speech that I, up to that time, Ever heard. If I could, as I then thought make as good
a speech as that, that my Soul would be satisfied.”196 However, the certainty of Lincoln’s
encounter with Brackenridge on this particular occasion is doubtful. The account is
second-hand, and no other corroborating evidence has been located for the encounter.
177
? Harry L. Watson, Liberty and Power: The Politics of Jacksonian America (New York, 1990), 98 (B070685).178
? Nation, At Home in the Hoosier Hills, 130 (B071159).179
? Dorothy Riker and Gayle Thornbrough, comps., Indiana Election Returns, 1816-1850 (Indianapolis, 1960), xvii (B071163).181
? William E. Bartelt, “Colonel William Jones of Spencer County,” unpublished (Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, Lincoln City, IN, 1992) (B071245). Bartelt’s report, although it does not present itself to be a definitive study, is the best secondary source available on the life of William Jones.
A brief biographical sketch of Jones is in Rebecca Shepherd, Charles W. Calhoun, Elizabeth Shanahan-Shoemaker, and Alan F. January, eds., A Biographical Directory of the Indiana General Assembly (Indianapolis, 1980), 1:212 (B071162).182
? U.S. Bureau of the Census, Seventh Census (1850), Schedule 1, Jackson Township, Spencer County, Indiana, p. 13, http://www.ancestrylibrary.com/search/rectype/census/ usfedcen/ (accessed May 16, 2008) (B071179); U.S. Bureau of the Census, Eighth Census (1860), Schedule 1, Jackson Township, Spencer County, Indiana, p. 184, http://www.ancestrylibrary.com/search/rectype/census/usfedcen/ (accessed May 16, 2008) (B071180).
Some secondary sources report Jones’ birth year as early as 1800 and as late as 1805, but the census records give his age as forty-seven in 1850 and fifty-seven in 1860, which would place his birth year around 1803.183
? The fact that Peter Jones was William Jones’ father is alluded to in William Jones, Jr.’s affidavit in the John E. Iglehart Collection, Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis (B71174). Jones, Jr. said, “My grandfather . . . put up the first hotel at Vincennes, Ind.” This biographical detail matches with the biographical sketch of Peter Jones in Gayle Thornbrough and Dorothy Riker, eds., Journals of the General Assembly of Indiana Territory 1805-1815 (Indianapolis, 1950), 991-93 (B071185). Secondary sources also maintain that Peter Jones was William Jones’ father, “Pioneer William Jones,” Evansville Journal, February 4, 1889 (B071177); Bartelt, “Colonel William Jones of Spencer County,” (B071245).
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Furthermore, no evidence has been located that would even confirm a murder trial
occurred in Boonville during the years in question.
Johnson’s testimony is dubious, but Herndon did acquire the testimony of an
actual lawyer who practiced in Spencer County at the time the Lincolns’ lived there.
John Pitcher was ninety-three years old when Herndon located him in 1888. Pitcher’s
amanuensis, Oliver Terry wrote Herndon that Lincoln “would frequently call at
Pitcher[’]s office at Rockport, and was very desirous to read law with Pitcher, but his
184
? Thornbrough and Riker, eds., Journals of the General Assembly of Indiana Territory, 991-93 (B071185).185
? Ibid., 993 (B071185).186
? Shepherd, et al., eds., A Biographical Directory of the Indiana General Assembly, 1:212 (B071162).187
? U.S. Bureau of the Census, Seventh Census (1850), Schedule 1, Jackson Township, Spencer County, Indiana, p. 13, http://www.ancestrylibrary.com/search/rectype/census/ usfedcen/ (accessed May 16, 2008) (B071179).188
? Herndon spelled this informant’s name “Hougland,” however, Wilson and Davis editors of Herndon’s Informants in their appendices spell the name “Houghland.”189
? Herndon’s Informants, 29, 130, 133 (B070913). Herndon’s informants for this information about Jones were some of the most
respectable men in Spencer County and included: merchant John R. Dougherty, physician John S. Houghland, and lawyer James W. Wartmann. Herndon interviewed these men in 1865, a year after Jones died at Atlanta, Georgia during the Civil War. In a sworn affidavit, Jones’ son, also named William, attested, “Lincoln worked for my father in the store at Jonesboro,” John E. Iglehart Collection, Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis (B71174).
William E. Bartelt noted, “Whether Jones actually had a store while Lincoln lived here is not clear,” “There I Grew Up”, 151 (B071000). The best evidence Bartelt has located all comes from secondary accounts. Some of these sources maintain he was only a clerk in Gentryville in the late 1820s, still other accounts maintain that he owned a store during the time in question. There is little question from the sources that Jones did own a store after Lincoln had moved to Illinois. The lack of clarity regarding Jones’ store ownership means that if Lincoln did indeed work at the Gentryville store, then he might have been Jones’ co-worker instead of employee. 190
? Herndon’s Informants, 127 (B070913).191
? Ibid., 100 (B070913).
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family being verry [sic] poor he could not give his time off the farm, but would borrow
books from Judge Pitcher and read at home during leasure [sic] hours.”197 Pitcher did
“not Know just what books it was he lent to Mr[.] Lincoln – but Says they were all
stand[a]rd works of that day, and some may have been law books, as to this he will not be
positive.”198 Pitcher seems to be a reliable witness despite his advanced age,199 there is
some evidence that Lincoln and Pitcher remained in contact over the subsequent years,
including when Lincoln returned to Spencer County in 1844 to campaign for Henry Clay;
Pitcher followed Lincoln’s address with a speech of his own.200
These brief encounters that Lincoln had with legal study while in Indiana,
possibly inspired him to consider the profession. After his defeat for the Illinois General
Assembly in 1832, Lincoln later recalled, “He studied what he should do – thought of
learning the black-smith trade – thought of trying to study law – rather thought he could
not succeed at that without a better education.”201 At that time, Lincoln settled upon
operating a store in New Salem, Illinois. He continued to study and read: newspapers
192 Ibid., 103 (B070913).193
? “First Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Ottawa, Illinois,” in Collected Works, 3:29 (B071164).194
? Emma Lou Thornbrough, Indiana in the Civil War Era, 1850-1880 (Indianapolis, 1965), 61-64, 71 (B071175).195
? Herndon’s Informants, 104 (B070913).196
? Ibid., 115 (B070913).197
? Ibid., 658 (B070913).198
? Ibid., 662 (B070913).199
? Louis Warren tended to be overly and unjustly critical of Pitcher’s testimony. He adamantly declared, “There is no substantial evidence that Pitcher had any . . . direct influence on [Lincoln],” Lincoln’s Youth, 200-01 (B070999). In support of this evaluation, Warren cited some trivial inaccuracies in Pitcher’s statements, none of which justified his haughty declamation. In the end, “substantial evidence” for any purported episode from Lincoln’s early life is seriously limited. 200
? Rockport Herald, November 1, 1844 (B071176).
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and English grammar.202 When the people finally elected him to the General Assembly in
1834, Lincoln began studying law “in good earnest.”203 In 1836, six years after leaving
Indiana, Lincoln began his legal career.
Nathaniel Grigsby told Herndon, “Abe made his mark of manhood Even while in
Indiana.”204 While Lincoln publicly downplayed, or perhaps politically played up, his
humble origins in Indiana with statements like, “I was raised to farm work, which I
continued till I was twenty two,”205 or challenging Scripps that no one could make
anything out of his youth, the evidence is clear that Abraham Lincoln learned more than
hard work and the ability to read while in Indiana. His early life was much more than
‘The short and simple annals of the poor.’ His youth was not a disconnected prelude to
greatness, as many of his early biographers portrayed it. Rather, understanding Lincoln’s
formative years in Indiana is paramount to explaining who and what he became
professionally. Life and work on the Ohio River introduced Lincoln to the market
economy which opened the possibility of physically and vocationally moving beyond the
confines of his father’s land; land which was central to his father’s identity as patriarch,
farmer, and citizen. For Abraham Lincoln, however, education was central to his
professional identity and ambitions. Although he derided the formal education he
received as “defective,” the informal education he pursued in Indiana introduced him to
politics, and probably the law. While Lincoln established his professions in Illinois, the
stories that family, friends, and neighbors told about his time in Indiana indicate that his
vocational origins were in Indiana. In Lincoln’s poem “My Childhood-Home I See
Again,” he concluded with these words:
The very spot where grew the bread
That formed my bones, I see.
201
? “Autobiography Written for John L. Scripps,” in Collected Works, 4:65 (B071064).202
? Ibid., 4:62, 65 (B071064).203
? Ibid., 4:65 (B071064).204
? Herndon’s Informants, 114 (B070913).205
? “To Jesse W. Fell, Enclosing Autobiography,” in Collected Works, 3:511-12 (B071065).
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How strange, old field, on thee to tread,
And feel I’m part of thee!206
206
? “My Childhood-Home I See Again,” in Collected Works, 1:370 (B071067).
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