CHAPTER III.

EARLY MANHOOD.

In the preceding chapters we have briefly noted the childhood and boyhood days of Abraham Lincoln, and delineated to some extent the affectionate teachings and wise counsels of a devoted Christian mother, and the events and influences which moulded his character and the reception of those lasting and salutary impressions which had prepared him for a noble and useful maturity.

And now, at the age of twenty-one, as he stands upon his father's threshold and looks out upon the world on which he is about to enter and take upon himself the duties and burdens of life, are his prospects brilliant, and is the imagination buoyant and hopeful in anticipations for the future? We think otherwise. No influential friends now stood by his side to give him aid or counsel; he was without money or income; he was alone in poverty and in obscurity, and yet he was not despondent. Hope stood by his side. He was ambitious, and felt and determined that by his own earnest efforts and industry he could and would succeed.

Guided by the precepts implanted and the noble impulses which glowed in his heart, and by the love of that which was good and true, he was led by a generous nature, and the lessons of self-reliance to the acqusition of a practical education and to the unfolding of all those kind and beneficent principles that were maturing within him.

During the Summer, after leaving home, he was employed by the farmers in the neighborhood, and in the following Winter he was engaged in splitting rails. Those rails afterward obtained a National reputation, of which mention will be made in a succeeding chapter. While thus engaged Abraham was striving to obtain more lucrative and constant employment. This soon came from a direction not anticipated.

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Early in the Spring of 1831, Denton Offutt, a trader from Kentucky; came to Sangamon county for the purpose of purchasing produce for shipment to New Orleans. For the transportation of the same he engaged in the building of two flat boats on the Sangamon river, near Springfield. Abraham, hearing of the enterprise, thought there was an opportunity for employment, and he at once resolved to embrace this timely offering and leave Macon county. He made his way forty miles to the place where the boats were being built, and presenting himself to Mr. Offutt, he said: "My name is Lincoln. I am seeking employment. I have had some experience in boating and boat building, and if you are in want of hands I think I can give you satisfaction." The appearance of Lincoln, his hands and face bronzed by the sun and labor on the farm, and his genial and manly address, were to Mr. Offutt sufficient recommendations, and he was employed without delay. During the building of the boats, Mr. Offutt formed so favorable an opinion of Abraham's qualifications, his ability, industry and integrity that he gave him charge of the two boats and the supervision of the men employed during the voyage down the Sangamon, Illinois and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans. Mr. Offutt, while traveling over the country for the purpose of purchasing produce for the loading of his boats, selected a location for business and trade at New Salem, on the Sangamon river, eighteen miles north of Springfield, and made his arrangements, on the sale of his produce, to return to that place with a stock of general merchandise. In due time the boats were finished and loaded, and Lincoln (as he was called) as captain in charge, cast off their fastenings and they floated away on their voyage to New Orleans, where in due time they arrived in safety, Mr. Offutt having preceded them by steamer.

This voyage of Lincoln to New Orleans, in connection with a similar one made three years previous from Indiana, gave thought and reflection, and laid the superstructure of those principles of anti-slavery and free labor which in later years became the ruling policy and aim of his political life. It was during those voyages, which gave daily opportunities for observation and consideration, that Lincoln saw slavery in all it phases and effects at the different plantations at which they stopped to trade and barter, at the numerous towns and villages on the river, and in New Orleans at the auction marts, where daily human beings were offered for sale to the highest bidder, where the tender relations of husband and wife, parents and child were severed never to be reunited. He saw the lordly planter, the pompous overseer, as well as the poor white man and his family, ostracized by caste under that regime, bound in fetters by the condition of society as strong in many phases as the enslaved around them.

This system of African slavery, so repulsive to his feelings and inconsistent with his principles and early teachings, he considered in all its different aspects and influences on the community and society, and his observations stimulated thought and reflection which gave birth to those principles of free soil and free labor and dedicated a life to freedom and to the immutable principles of justice and humanity. That Providence which seems "to shape our ends, rough hew them as we may," thus brought Lincoln into connection with slavery, and here was the inception, the initial point, in his political life. The culture and early teachings which he had received produced simplicity and charity, and with him the cry of oppression and suffering found a place in his heart and made lasting and salutary impressions which will be more plainly and prominently seen and noted, as his life became more conspicuous and his labors more effectual in the conflict for the right in later years.

Soon after the arrival of the boats at New Orleans the cargoes and boats were sold and a stock of general merchandise was purchased, with which Offutt and Lincoln returned to New Salem. A storehouse built of hewn logs, 16 by 36 feet, with cellar, was rented and the goods displayed for sale, and Lincoln was retained in Offutt's employ as chief clerk, at a salary of $25 per month and board; and the writer of these memoirs, who lived near the village and who had not attained his majority, was employed as assistant at a salary of $15 per month.

Here the writer first met Lincoln and here during a period of fifteen months daily intercourse and business relations an intimate friendship and attachment was formed which remained constant and unbroken during Mr. Lincoln's life.

Mr. Offutt, in connection with his store, rented a saw and flouring mill located on the Sangamon river, in the immediate vicinity of the store. These mills, being the only ones within an area of twenty miles, brought much custom and trade to the store, and being under the supervision of the clerks they added much to their labors and duties.

New Salem at this time was considered a town of considerable importance. Two stores, a hotel, a saloon, a blacksmith shop, a saw and flouring mill, with some fifteen residences, all log cabins, with as many families, constituted the town then in its hight of prosperity, in being the second town in the county in population and importance, and the focus of a large trade. The business in the store being mostly with country traders, was transacted between the hours of 9 A. M. and 3 P. M., giving several hours in the day in which one of the clerks could perform all the duties required in the store. It was on those occasions that Lincoln frequently would, for an hour at the close of the day, engage in athletic sports, such as wrestling, jumping, pitching quoits or

heavy weights and similar exercises, diversions peculiar to and common to that day and age. The store was usually closed at 7 P. M., when occasionally an evening would be spent with some family or young people in the village, and those occasional visits or calls were seasons of mutual pleasure and gratification. Lincoln's humorous fund of anecdotes and stories made him a welcome visitor at all times. The most of the evenings, however, after closing the store, were, from 8 to 11 o'clock, employed by Lincoln in reading and study; a short time then was spent in reviewing the reading of the evening, and then blankets were spread upon the counter and the inmates retired to rest on their hard couch, which prepared them for the labors and duties of the coming day.

Lincoln at this time and thus early had his thoughts and purposes fixed on the study of law, and his course of reading and study tended in that direction. Soon after he entered the store he procured Murray's Grammar, and from a Justice of the place he borrowed Blackstone's Commentaries. He devoted his leisure time to the study of those two books, occasionally reading the histories of the United States, England, Rome and Greece. In his small collection of books he had secured the poetical works of Cowper, Gray and Burns.

The writer has pleasant memories of the days and nights spent with Lincoln in the log store. Our relations at that time were in some respects similar. Both at that time had recently left our parental homes to enter upon the duties and responsibilities of life, both had mourned the loss of mothers in our earlier years, and both had been in a measure reared in the new and sparsely populated Western States. Those relations, and Lincoln's studious habits, which made the store his abiding place, drew closer the ties of friendship and attachment from those considerations. Many were the evenings in which our thoughts and conversation turned to our boyhood days, and to a recital of the incidents and experience of our childhood. Those reminiscences of Lincoln, the recital of his youthful experience, his pleasures mingled with his hardships, the filial devotion exhibited, and his love and tenderness for the memory of his mother and sister, are treasured up as pleasant memories.

The pleasant companionship of Lincoln, his affable, genial, social bearing towards and with all persons of whatever condition of life at this period of his early history, found a generous return in confidence and respect which was manifested towards him by his neighbors and fellow-citizens on every fitting occasion. Lincoln made his home with the family of John Cameron, the owner of the mills rented by Offutt. He was a minister of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. The family, father, mother, son and two daughters, who had arrived at adult years, were exemplary Christians. Mrs. Cameron was an

excellent woman whose hallowed influences reached out beyond the family circle, and her motherly kindness and counsels to Lincoln reminded him of the advice and instructions of a dear departed mother, which were guiding him in the battle of life and leading him on and upward to a noble, useful life.

The facilities and sources of obtaining information and mental improvement at that period, in the new and sparsely populated settlements of the then far West, were few and limited. Libraries, lyceums and public reading rooms were even in the largest towns not yet established, but few newspapers and periodicals were then published, and book stores were rare and limited in their quantity and variety. The St. Louis " "Republican" and Louisville "Journal," weeklies, were then the leading newspapers published in the West, and their weekly visit to Lincoln were of special interest. The latter was his favorite, as he was in accord with its politics and had a special relish for its sparkling wit and humor.

During the Winter that Lincoln was employed in the store, debating clubs were occasionally held in an unoccupied store-room in the village, which he frequently attended, and in which he made his first essay in speech making. These discussions, primitive and simple in their character, in which Lincoln participated, exhibited the germ of those logical and argumentative powers of reasoning for which he was distinguished in his subsequent life. His conversational and mental powers already indicated that peculiarity of mind and thought which was in after life so beautifully illustrated in his genial good nature and kind words, which are the precursor of good and noble deeds. His courteous, pleasant deportment, his ready wit and humorous stories, made him a favorite with all, and it was a pleasure which he enjoyed, to observe the respect and esteem in which he was held by those with whom he was daily forming acquaintance. He had already desires for public recognition, and aspirations for political distinction, and he also realized that he had difficulties and obstacles to overcome in that direction. With a limited education, without means and influential friends to assist him, he was impressed with the reality that, in his case, the eminence of popularity and fame must be reached by his own efforts, industry and perseverence; and with a laudable ambition he had the confidence in his resources and abilities that if properly directed he would succeed. Lincoln's studious habits and his close attention to his books and to all the appliances within his reach, for advancement, tended to bring him into notice and attraction, and many were the favorable comments relative to his present efforts and future success. Mr. Offutt, the proprietor of the store, in the fervor of his admiration for Lincoln's advancement and progress, said: "That for Lincoln's opportunities he has no superior in the United States." The Governor of Indiana, after