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CHAPTER III,

THOMAS LINCOLN had raised his little family; and the children of his wife were also grown to woman's and man's estate. There had indeed been three weddings in the family. Sarah Lincoln, the daughter, was married to Aaron Grigsby, a young man living in the vicinity, and two of Mrs. Lincoln's daughters had left the Lincoln cabin for new homes. The sister of Abraham had been married but a year, however, when she died, and thus a new grief was inflicted upon the sensitive heart of her brother. Her marriage occurred in 1822; and as she was born in 1808, she could have been only fourteen years old when she became a wife. It is not remarkable that the child found an early grave.

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During the last two years of their residence in Indiana, a general discontent had seized upon the family concerning their location. The region at that day was an unhealthy one, and there could be no progress in agricultural pursuits without a great outlay of labor in clearing away the heavy timber which burdened all the fertile soil. At the same time, reports were rife of the superior qualities of the prairie lands of Illinois. There, by the sides of the water-courses, and in the edges of the timber, were almost illimitable farms that called for nothing but the plough and hoe to make them immediately productive. Dennis Hanks, a relative of the first Mrs. Lincoln, was sent to the new region to reconnoiter, and returned with a glowing account of the new country. It is probable that if Thomas Lincoln had been alone he would have remained at the old

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