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CHAPTER IV.

THE LINCOLNS IN ILLINOIS.

The Land of Full-Grown Men-Lincoln Attains his Majority-Strik ing Out for Himself—Another River Voyage-An Odd Introduction to New Salem-Some Rough and Tumble Discipline-The Backwoodsman Conquers Friends-He Vanquishes English Grammar.

ONCE

NCE more the Lincoln family "pulled up stakes" and moved westward. This time it was to Illinois, which, in the Indian vernacular, signifies "the land of the full-grown men," that the easily-entreated Thomas Lincoln went. Thomas Hanks, one of the most steady and well-balanced of this somewhat erratic group of people, had gone to Macon County, Illinois, in the autumn of 1829. He had been so favorably impressed with what he saw and heard that he had written to Thomas Lincoln to come on and bring the family. It does not appear to have required much persuasion ever to induce Thomas Lincoln to change his place. He had made no progress in Indiana beyond providing for their actual wants. He could do no worse in Illinois, accounts of which as a land literally flowing with milk and honey were already spreading over the older States. So, in the spring of 1830, as soon as the frost was out of the ground, Lincoln, having sold crops, hogs, and farm improvements to Mr. Gentry,

packed all his remaining earthly possessions, and those of his sons-in-law, into a wagon and set his face westward.

The migrating family was as follows: Thomas Lincoln and Sarah, his wife; his only son, Abraham, John Johnston, Mrs. Lincoln's son; Mrs. Hall and Mrs. Hanks, daughters of Mrs. Lincoln, and their husbands. Sarah Lincoln, Abraham's sister, had married Aaron Grigsby, a few years before, and had died recently. These eight people took their weary way across the fat and oozy prairies, black with rich loam, bound for the new land of Canaan. Two weeks of tiresome travel were consumed in reaching the place selected for them on the public lands near the village of Decatur, Macon County, by Thomas Hanks. The entire "outfit," consisting of one wagon drawn by four yoke of oxen, driven by Abraham Lincoln, came to anchor, as it were, on a patch of bottom-land hitherto untouched by the hand of man. Young Lincoln had settled finally in the State that in years to come was to borrow new lustre from his name. Undreaming of future greatness, the stalwart young fellow lent a hand in the raising of the cabin that was to be the home of the family. And when this work was done, and the immigrants were securely under cover, he and Thomas Hanks ploughed fifteen acres of the virgin soil, cut down and split into rails sundry walnut logs of the adjacent forest, worked out rails, and fenced his father's first Illinois farm.

Now it was time for young Abraham to strike out for himself. He had thought of doing that before, but had been reminded that he was a servant to his

father until he was twenty-one years old. He was now in his twenty-second year, able and anxious to make his own living. During the summer of 1830 he worked at odd jobs in the neighborhood, always alert and cheerful, ready to turn his hand to any honest bit of work, and soon growing in favor with the rude and simple pioneers of southern Illinois. They were shrewd at making a bargain, necessarily compelled to be chary with their little hard-earned cash, greatly given to trade and barter, ingenious with every known implement of the rudest sort of labor, free from fear of theft or malicious violence, and fond of roystering and the rough sports of the frontier. As in all new countries, game was abundant, and, although the days when skins were made into garments had passed, hunting still supplied many a family with the staple articles of diet. The flesh of wild beasts and birds was supplemented by the slab-like sides of smoked pork, and the corn that grew thickly in the unctuous fields of the new-comers furnished bread for the eater and seed for the sower.

In scenes like these Abraham Lincoln now grew to man's estate. The tall young fellow speedily made a name for himself as one of the most obliging, ungainly, strong, long-legged, and cheery fellows in the Sangamon country. It was not until the winter of the deep snow that Lincoln undertook any scheme other than the desultory employment that he found among the farmers from day to day. "The winter of the deep snow" was that of 1830-31.

This is unto this day a memorable period of time in central Illinois. It marks an historical epoch as distinct as

the great fire did in London, years before. The snowfall began on Christmas day. It continued until the snow was three feet deep on a level. Then came a drizzling rain that froze as it fell, the thermometer sinking to twelve degrees below zero. The intense cold, the difficulty of getting about, made that winter famous forever after in the annals of the country. Herds of deer were easily caught and killed, imprisoned as they were in the icy crust that broke beneath their sharp feet. Game of all kinds was slaughtered by the thousands of head by the hungry settlers, as they came out of their scattered villages in search of food, and from that day large game never again was so plenty in the State. Roads were finally broken from cabin to cabin and from hamlet to hamlet by "wallowing," as it was calledthe entire population, men, women, children, dogs, oxen, and horses, turning out en masse and trampling down and kicking out the snow. Long after ploughing had begun, next spring, the muddy-white foundations of these rural roads remained, unmelted, to stretch across the black soil of the prairies.

During the winter of the deep snow, young Lincoln made the acquaintance of Denton Offutt, a small trader of the region. Hearing that Lincoln and Hanks were "likely young fellows," Offutt proposed that they should take a boatload of provisions to New Orleans for him. The boys were right glad to take such an offer, especially as Offutt agreed to "find them"-that is to say, to furnish their foodand to pay them fifty cents a day, and, if the venture was successful, to give them a further reward of

twenty dollars each. This was great prospective riches to the youngsters, neither of whom had ever had so much money at one time. John Johnston, Abraham's foster-brother, was added to the crew, and, having built their flatboat, the party, Offutt, Abraham Lincoln, John Hanks, and John Johnston, embarked on the roaring, raging Sangamon at Springfield. Although the river was, to use a current Western expression, booming with the spring freshets, when the frail craft reached New Salem, a mushroom village not far below the point of departure, it stuck on a milldam, and there it stuck and hung, apparently hopeless of ever getting off. The population of New Salem came down to the river's margin, commented on the disaster, chaffed and hectored the shipwrecked mariners, and generally made merry over the affair, to the annoyance of the But "the bow oar," a giant, as the shore people thought him, rolled up his trousers, waded into the stream, unloaded the barge, whose nose was well out of water while her stern was well under it, bored holes to let out the flood, and rigged up a contrivance to hoist the boat over the dam. This done, the craft was again loaded, the holes being plugged, and, amidst the cheers of the critical population, the voyagers shot down stream on their rejoicing way. Years after, when Lincoln was a practising lawyer, he whittled out a model of his invention for hoisting vessels over shoals and had it patented in Washington. The curious visitor to the Patent Office in the national capital is shown to-day a little wooden boat and an odd combination of strips and bars by which,

owner.

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