by his side, his long, keen knife always in his belt, and his faithful hunting-dog his constant companion, of greater endurance and of far superior intellect, the Kentucky hunter could outrun his Indian enemy, or whip him in a man to man fight. This man, who has driven away or killed the Indian, who has cleared the forests, broken up and reclaimed the wilderness, and whose type still survives in the pioneer, is one of the most picturesque figures in American history. From this sort of ancestry have sprung Andrew Jackson and David Crockett, Benton and Clay, Grant and Lincoln.

Thomas Lincoln was married on the 2d of September, 1806, to Nancy Hanks, she being twenty-three and he twenty-eight years of age. They were married by the Rev. Jesse Head, a Methodist clergyman, near Springfield, Kentucky. She has been described as a brunette, with dark hair, regular features, and soft, sparkling hazel eyes. Her ancestors were of English descent, and they, like the Lincolns, had emigrated from Virginia to Kentucky. Thomas and his wife settled on Rock Creek farm, in Hardin County; and here, on the 12th of February, 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born. He was the second child, having an older sister, named Sarah. He had, besides, a younger brother, named Thomas, who died in infancy.

The ancestors of President Lincoln for several generations were farmers, and, as has already been stated, his grandfather purchased from the United States five hundred acres of land. His father, Thomas, on the 18th of October, 1817, entered a quarter-section of government land; and President Lincoln left, as a part of his estate, a quarter-section which he had received by patent from the United States for services rendered as a volunteer in the Black Hawk war. So that this humble pioneer family for three generations owned land, by direct grant from the government, and in that sense may be said to have belonged to "the landed gentry."

It is curious to note in this race of Lincolns many of the same strong and hardy traits of character which have marked the founders of influential historic families in older nations,

and especially among the English. Had Abraham Lincoln been born in England or in Normandy, or on the Rhine, some centuries ago, he might have been the founder of a baronial family, perhaps of a royal dynasty. He could have wielded with ease the battle-axe of "Richard of the Lion Heart," or the two-handed sword of Guy, the first Earl of Warwick, some of whose characteristics were his also. Indeed, the difference between such men as Boone, and Kenton, and Abraham Lincoln, the grandfather of the President, on the one hand, and the early Warwicks, the Douglases and the Percys on the other, is that the Kentucky heroes were far better men and of a more advanced civilization.

In 1816, the year in which Indiana was admitted into the Union, the family of Lincoln removed from Kentucky to Spencer County, in the former state. It was a long, hard, weary journey. Many streams were to be forded, and a part of the way was through the primeval forest, where they were often compelled to cut their path with the axe. At the time of this removal the lad Abraham was in his eighth year, but tall, large and strong of his age. The first things he had learned to use were the axe and the rifle, and with these he was already able to render important assistance to his parents on the journey, and in building up their new home. The family settled near Gentryville, and built their log-cabin on the top of an eminence which sloped gently away on every side. The landscape was beautiful, the soil rich, and in a short time some land was cleared and a crop of corn and vegetables raised. The struggle for life and its few comforts was in this wilderness a very hard one, and none but those of the most vigorous constitution could succeed. The trials, privations, and hardships incident to clearing, breaking up, and subduing the soil and establishing a home, so far away from all the necessaries of life, taxed the strength and endurance of all to the utmost. Bears, deer and other sorts of wild game were abundant, and contributed largely to the support of the family.

Mrs. Lincoln, the mother of the President, is said to have been in her youth a woman of beauty. She was by nature refined, and of far more than ordinary intellect. Her friends spoke of her as being a person of marked and decided character. She was unusually intelligent, reading all the books she could obtain. She taught her husband, as well as her son Abraham, to read and write.' She was a woman of deep religious feeling, of the most exemplary character, and most tenderly and affectionately devoted to her family. Her home indicated a degree of taste and a love of beauty exceptional in the wild settlement in which she lived, and, judging from her early death, it is probable that she was of a physique less hardy than that of most of those by whom she was surrounded. But in spite of this she had been reared where the very means of existence were to be obtained but by a constant struggle, and she had learned to use the rifle and the tools of the backwoods farmer, as well as the distaff, the cards, and the spinning wheel. She could not only kill the wild game of the woods, but she could also dress it, make of the skins, clothes for her family and prepare the flesh for food. Hers was a strong, self-reliant spirit, which commanded the respect as well as the love of the rugged people among whom she lived. She died on the 5th of October, 1818, aged thirty-five years. Two children, Abraham, and his sister, Sarah, alone survived her.

The country burying-ground where she was laid, half a mile from their log cabin home, had been selected perhaps by herself, and was situated on the top of a forest-covered hill. There, beneath the dark shade of the woods, and under a majestic sycamore, they dug the grave of the mother of Abraham Lincoln. The funeral ceremonies were very plain and simple, but solemn withal, for nowhere does death seem so deeply impressive as in such a solitude. At the time no clergyman could be found in or near the settlement to perform the usual religious rites. But this devoted mother had carefully instructed Abraham to read the Bible,

1. John Hanks.

and to write; and perhaps the first practical use the boy made of the acquisition was to write a letter to David Elkin, a traveling preacher whom the family had known in Kentucky, begging him to come and perform religious services over his mother's grave. The preacher came, but not until some months afterwards, traveling many miles on horseback through the wild forest to reach their residence; and then the family, with a few friends and neighbors, gathered in the open air under the great sycamore beneath which they had laid the mother's remains. A funeral sermon was preached, hymns were sung, and such rude but sincere and impressive services were held as are usual among the pioneers of the frontier.

His mother's death and these sad and solemn rites made an impression on the mind of the son as lasting as life. She had found time amidst her weary toil and the hard struggle of her busy life, not only to teach him to read and to write, but to impress ineffaceably upon him that love of truth and justice, that perfect integrity and reverence for God, for which he was noted all his life. These virtues were ever associated in his mind with the most tender love and respect for his mother. "All that I am, or hope to be," he said, "I owe to my angel mother."

The common free schools which now so closely follow the heels of the pioneer and settler in the western portions of the republic had not then reached Indiana. An itinerant teacher sometimes "straggled" into a settlement, and if he could teach "readin', writin', and cipherin'" to the rule of three, he was deemed qualified to set up a school. With teachers thus qualified, Lincoln attended school at different times; in all about twelve months. An anecdote is told of an incident occurring at one of these schools, which indi cates his kindness and his readiness of invention. A poor, diffident girl, who spelled definite with a y, was threatened and frightened by the rude teacher. Lincoln, with a significant look, putting one of his long fingers to his eye, enabled her to change the letter in time to escape punishment. He

early manifested the most eager desire to learn. He acquired knowledge with great facility. What he learned he learned thoroughly, and everything he had once acquired was always at his command.

There were no libraries, and but few books, in the "back settlements" in which he lived. Among the few volumes which he found in the cabins of the illiterate families by which he was surrounded were the Bible, Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," Weems' "Life of Washington," and the poems of Robert Burns. These he read over and over again, until they became as familiar as the alphabet. The Bible has been at all times the one book in every home and cabin in the republic; yet it was truly said of Lincoln that no man, clergyman or otherwise, could be found so familiar with this book as he. This is apparent, both in his conversation and his writings. There is hardly a speech or state paper of his in which allusions and illustrations taken from the Bible do not appear. Burns he could quote from end to end. Long afterwards he wrote a most able lecture upon this, perhaps next to Shakspeare, his favorite poet.

His father afterwards married Mrs. Sally Johnson, of Kentucky, a widow with three children. She was a noble woman, sensible, affectionate, and tenderly attached to her step-son. She says of him: "He read diligently.

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He read everything he could lay his hands on, and when he came across a passage that struck him, he would write it down on boards, if he had no paper, and keep it until he had got paper. Then he would copy it, look at it, commit it to memory, and repeat it." He kept a scrap-book, into which he copied everything which particularly pleased him. His step-mother adds: "He never gave me a cross word or look, and never refused, in fact or appearance, to do anything I requested of him." He loved to study more than to hunt, although his skill with the rifle was well known, for while yet a boy he had brought down with his father's rifle, a wild turkey at which he had shot through an opening between the logs of the cabin.