so poorly supplied with wood and water as Illinois, such sites would naturally be the first to be taken up, and, with a prairie addition, suited the tastes even of those to whom the level open country was forbidding in appearance.

"Mr. Lincoln pushed forward to the central part of the State where such locations were still abundant. A more beautiful country than that of the Sangamon valley could not easily have been anywhere discovered by an explorer. It was not strange that the report of such lands, if he heard it in his southern Indiana home, should have attracted even so far one who was bred to pioneer life and inherited a migratory disposition. He first settled on the Sangamon 'bottom, in Macon county.

"Passing over the Illinois Central railroad, as you approach Decatur, the county-seat of Macon, from the south, a slightly-broken country is reached two or three miles from that place, and presently the North Fork of the Sangamon, over which you pass, a mile from the town. This stream flows westwardly, uniting with the South Fork, near Jamestown, ten miles from Springfield. Following down this North Fork for a distance of about ten miles from Decatur, you come to the immediate vicinity of the first residence of Abraham Lincoln (with his father's family) in Illinois."

During the first season of their abode in the new State Abraham continued to help his father in the farm work; and one of the first duties which presented itself was the necessity of fencing a field on the rich bottom-lands which had been selected for cultivation. For this purpose, with the help of one laborer, Abraham Lincoln at

this time split THREE THOUSAND RAILS-a task indicative of his energy and perseverance no less than of his great physical strength and endurance. The hand who assisted him in the exploit, named John Hanks, a distant relative of his mother, is yet living, and bears unqualified testimony to the earnest strength with which the maul and the wedge were wielded by the future President. These rails afterward became the theme of joke, song and story. During the Presidential campaign of 1860, Mr. Lincoln was accidentally present at the sitting of the Republican State Convention at Decaturnear his old Sangamon home-and was received with the greatest enthusiasm. He had scarcely taken his seat when Mr. Oglesby, of Decatur, announced to the delegates that an old Democrat of Macon county, who had grown gray in the service of that party, desired to make a contribution to the convention, and the offer being accepted, forthwith two old-time fence-rails, decorated with flags and streamers, were borne through the crowd into the Convention, bearing the inscription:

ABRAHAM LINCOLN,

THE RAIL CANDIDATE

FOR PRESIDENT IN 1860.

Two Rails from a lot of three thousand made in 1830 by John Hanks and Abe. Lincoln-whose Father was the first pioneer of Macon County.

The effect was electrical. One spontaneous burst of applause went up from all parts of the "wigwam," which grew more and more deafening as it was prolonged, and which did not wholly subside for ten or

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fifteen minutes after. The cheers upon cheers which rent the air could have been heard all over the adjacent country. Of course "Old Abe" was called out, and made an explanation of the matter. He stated that, some thirty years ago, then just emigrating to the State, he stopped with his mother's family, for one season, in what is now Macon county; that he built a cabin, split rails, and cultivated a small farm down on the Sangamon river, some six or eight miles from Decatur. These rails, he was informed, were taken from that fence; but, whether they were or not, he had mauled many and much better ones since he had grown to manhood. His remarks were received with applause, and "the rails" were thenceforth in demand in every State of the Union in which industry is honored, where they were borne in processions of the people, and hailed by hundreds of thousands as a symbol of triumph, and as a glorious vindication of freedom and of the rights and dignity of free labor.

To return, however, to the settlers on the Sangamon. Having built their cabin and fenced their farm, they broke the ground, and raised a crop of sod-corn on it the first year, the sons-in-law, meantime, having settled at other places in the country. A hard siege of fever and ague afflicted the new settlers before the close of the first autumn, which so greatly discouraged them that they determined to seek a more congenial location. They remained, however, through the succeeding winter, which was the season of the "deep snow" of Illinois. For three weeks, or more, the snow was three feet deep upon a level, and the weather intensely cold. There was great consequent suffering entailed upon beasts as