Abraham LincolnAbraham LincolnHis story in his own wordsHis story in his own words

with resources from the Library of Congress and with resources from the Library of Congress and other locationsother locations

by Howard Taylorby Howard TaylorGifted Education Teacher Gifted Education Teacher

Charleston, IllinoisCharleston, Illinois

Abraham Lincoln StoryAbraham Lincoln Story

IntroductionIntroduction

Abraham Lincoln, by George P.A.

Healy, 1869. Credit: White House Historical Association, White House Collection, Bequest of Mrs. Robert Todd

Lincoln, 1939.

         ”Mostly, I learned on my own by stealing any moment I could find, including by the “light of the fire,” at night-time reading all the books I could get my hands on.  I especially liked Aesop’s Fables, Parson Weems’ Life of George Washington, and the Holy Bible.  I know them from cover to cover.” 

I also read Pilgrim’s Progress and the Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.

Lincoln’s upbringing through the Bible and Lincoln’s upbringing through the Bible and his mother’s singing of spiritual hymnshis mother’s singing of spiritual hymns

Eternity and our pilgrimage to Eternity and our pilgrimage to HeavenHeaven

John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress

An old Greek slave teaches great moral principals

Painting by Grant Wood, 1939

Based upon the story of George Washington by Parson Mason Weems. This scene is of a young George Washington cutting the cherry tree down from Parson

Weems Fable the source for almost all of the half-truths about George Washington, "the Father of his Country," including the famous tale of the cherry tree. ("I

cannot tell a lie, I did it with my little hatchet.") The Life of Washington, Weems' most famous work, contained the story.

Parson Weems teaches that honesty is the best policy

Robinson Robinson Crusoe, Lessons Crusoe, Lessons against slaveryagainst slavery

This Old MansionThis Old MansionMid 19Mid 19thth Century White House Century White House

“While living and working in this old White House, I still read and study.  Just this week, I  finished reading about military operations, to better myself, in working with my generals during this Civil War.               I read the newspaper from cover to cover each morning.  I was taught to read “out loud.”          Dennis Hanks, who ended up living in Charleston, was my early tutor in life.  He lived with us in Kentucky and Indiana till he came of age.  I still can't get enough of reading.”

I was born to Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, I was born to Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, February 12, 1809February 12, 1809

Thomas, Nancy, Sarah and infant Abraham

Family bronze sculpture, Hodginville,

Ky

Chapter One: A beginningChapter One: A beginning

Kentucky born

BirthplaceBirthplace

A One Room CabinA One Room Cabin

Replica of Lincoln Birthplace Cabin Interior, at Hodginville Boyhood Home Memorial

My Early Life StoryFrom Lincoln’s Autobiographies and other Sources

 [the selections with bracket “first-person wording” is from

an interview of presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln, by John L. Scripps of the Chicago Press and Tribune]

           My cousin Dennis Hanks, started out my life story when he announced to Nancy and Abe, after seeing me as a babe, that ,”. . .he’ll never come to much fur I’ll tell you he wuz the puniest, cryin’est little youngster I ever saw.”          This was my birth day, February 12, 1809.  I was born in a drafty rough hewn log cabin in Kentucky.  I always kind of wondered if I could ever amount to anything.  I so much wanted to read and write, and get out of hard labor on a farm.”“When living in Kentucky my best friend was Austin Gollaher.  He saved me from drowning in a creek near our farm.” 

                     

“While here I went to A B C schools by littles, kept successively by Andrew Crawford,--Sweeney, and Azel W. Dorsey.”    A. Lincoln--Scripps Interview          “There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course when I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the Rule of Three; but that was all. I have not been to school since. The little advance I now have upon this store of education, I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity.”    A. Lincoln          

Thomas Lincoln family move to Thomas Lincoln family move to IndianaIndiana

We would move to Indiana in 1817.  “We reached our new home in Indiana about the time the State came into the Union .It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals, still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools, so called; but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond "readin, writ'n, and cipherin" to the Rule of Three. If a straggler supposed to understand latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizzard.”   A. Lincoln         

Indiana was a wild country full of animals and big trees.  In order for a family to make a farm in Spencer County, a lot of wood cuttin’ had to be done.  Good straight hardwood logs would be made into logs for cabin building, and rails for fences.  To clear the fields for corn and other crops, many trees were burned out.  Whatever I could earn outside of his own father’s farm would be given to his father until age twenty-one.              At age nine, I was very tall and strong.  I could weal an axe as any man could.  To survive in the wilderness of Indianny, the whole family had their duties and chores.  I knew the arts of log building, fence building, and making a crop.  I did not like any of them.  My father tried to prevent his me from becoming an “eddicated” person, and leaving the profession.             

“In my tenth year I was kicked by a horse, and apparently killed for a time. When I was nineteen, still residing in Indiana, I made my first trip upon a flatboat to New Orleans. I was a hired hand merely, and a son of the owner and myself, without other assistance, made the trip. The nature of part of the "cargo-load," as it was called, made it necessary for us to linger and trade along the sugar-coast; and one night we were attacked by seven negroes with intent to kill and rob us. We were hurt some in the mêlée, but succeeded in driving the negroes from the boat, and then "cut cable," "weighed anchor," and left.”   A. Lincoln--Scripps Interview

“While here I went to A B C schools by littles, kept successively by Andrew Crawford,--Sweeney, and Azel W. Dorsey.”    A. Lincoln--Scripps Interview          “There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course when I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the Rule of Three; but that was all. I have not been to school since. The little advance I now have upon this store of education, I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity.”    A. Lincoln

“I was raised to farm work, which I continued till I was twenty-two.”   A. Lincoln                 Abraham Lincoln  was raised as a “sustenance” farm helper in Kentucky and later Indiana.  At his age of 18, Illinois had just been made a state.  None of this mattered much to him, as he had to work very hard in the heat of summer to get crops in the ground so that food would be ready in the fall.  News of the country was received by passers-by, at Sunday church meetings, and when in town to a store.            “I, though very young, was large for my age, and had an ax put into my hands at once; and from that till within my twenty-third year I was almost constantly handling that most useful instrument--less, of course, in plowing and harvesting seasons.”  A. Lincoln--Scripps Interview          “I was expected to work as a man.           

My father was not interested in raising a crop to sell, so new fancy equipment was not even thought of.  A good plow and sharp axes were required to do the hard work of clearing and constructing.          John Deere was selling his new self-scouring plows.  My father decided to purchase one.  Our old horse was the means of power.  I can remember moving along the rows reading a good book and perhaps “read out-loud,” to my old work horse.            By the sweat of the brow was the theme of Abraham Lincoln's life while living with his father.  “Eddication” was not a productive thing in running a pioneer sustenance farm.            His father would grow to dislike surveyors and lawyers.  He had title problems with his land in Kentucky.  He was a land purchaser and seller even into Illinois.            I don't know what he thought of his son would becoming a self-educated surveyor and lawyer, and NOT a farmer.

Knob Creek FarmKnob Creek Farm

From: an interview of presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln, by John L. Scripps of the Chicago Press and Tribune]             Indiana was a wild country full of animals and big trees.  In order for a family to make a farm in Spencer County, a lot of wood cuttin’ had to be done.  Good straight hardwood logs would be made into logs for cabin building, and rails for fences.  To clear the fields for corn and other crops, many trees were burned out.  Whatever I could earn outside of his own father’s farm would be given to his father until age twenty-one.              At age nine, I was very tall and strong.  I could weal an axe as any man could.  To survive in the wilderness of Indianny, the whole family had their duties and chores.  I knew the arts of log building, fence building, and making a crop.  I did not like any of them.  My father tried to prevent his me from becoming an “eddicated” person, and leaving the profession.                         

“In my tenth year I was kicked by a horse, and apparently killed for a time. When I was nineteen, still residing in Indiana, I made my first trip upon a flatboat to New Orleans. I was a hired hand merely, and a son of the owner and myself, without other assistance, made the trip. The nature of part of the "cargo-load," as it was called, made it necessary for us to linger and trade along the sugar-coast; and one night we were attacked by seven negroes with intent to kill and rob us. We were hurt some in the mêlée, but succeeded in driving the negroes from the boat, and then "cut cable," "weighed anchor," and left.”   A. Lincoln--Scripps Interview

My birth parentsMy birth parents

Thomas Lincoln Photo Nancy Hanks Lincoln Painting by Lloyd Ostendorf

in the Boyhood National Memorial Museum

My Father and MotherFrom Lincoln’s Autobiographies and other Sources

 

          “My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families-- second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks, some of whom now reside in Adams, and others in Macon Counties, Illinois.   In the autumn of 1818, my mother died.”            "I loved my mother very much.  All that I am or ever shall hope to be, I owe to my loving angel mother.  God bless her.”     A. Lincoln

Death hits the Lincoln Family, Death hits the Lincoln Family, Abraham and Sarah’s mother Abraham and Sarah’s mother

diesdies

Thomas marries Thomas marries Sarah Bush Johnston of Elizabetown, KySarah Bush Johnston of Elizabetown, Ky

My Step MotherMy Step Mother

Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln,

Step-Mother of Abraham Lincoln, Photo

Dennis Hanks, Cousin of Dennis Hanks, Cousin of AbrahamAbraham

Need the Ostendorf drawing of Dennis looking at the baby Abraham

Three families move to IllinoisThree families move to Illinois

Abraham Lincoln, Railsplitter and Abraham Lincoln, Railsplitter and

Farmer?Farmer?

In 1830, at the age of 21, John Hanks and I  would start a new business in Illinois (Macon County), being a “rail enterprise.”  It is said that I once split some 4,000 rails at Decatur to earn enough material for a pair of britches.  I would use my manual labor skills even at New Salem, but did not want to. 

The name “Rail Splitter Candidate,” would carry with Abraham into his Presidential campaigning.  John and Dennis Hanks of Coles County, Illinois would be responsible for this new nick-name.  They gathered up actual old rails from Illinois to carry into the National convention at Chicago and thus the nick-name was put on me.  Rails would be used again on a large float in the parade for me in the 1858 Charleston Lincoln-Douglas Debate.

““Eddication”: one loves, the Eddication”: one loves, the other hates and mistrustsother hates and mistrusts

Abraham and his fatherAbraham and his father

       “I started my life out on a stormy morning on a Sunday.  I was born on a bed of poles covered with corn husks.  I was named after my great grandfather, Abraham.  My father was Thomas and was uneducated.   He could do carpentry work, but preferred working the working the land.  My father did not believe that “eddication” was necessary for success as a farmer. ”          

My Step Mother and the Charleston Relatives

. . . I always addressed my step-mother as "Mother."   I visited her "every year or two," when I lived in

Springfield.  After my father died, I maintained the family's farm in Coles County, Illinois, for her and

supported her after my father's death.  ""

Many of the people in attendance at that feast in Farmington were children.  Those same children have left personal remembrances of being with the future President of the United States. 

The President would visit his father's grave, and then returned to Charleston.  He would give his final farewell from Illinois at Springfield, and would never come back again.

Abraham would communicate to Charleston relatives and constantly did things to help his step-mother.  He and his step-mother had a very loving relationship. 

Harriet Chapman, Sarah Bush Lincoln's grand daughter described her this way: "My grandmother is a very tall woman, straight as an Indian, of fair complexion, and was, when I first remember her, very handsome. sprightly, talkative and proud.  She wore her hair curled till gray; is kind hearted and very charitable, and also very industrious."

In 1830, at the age of 21, John Hanks and I  would start a new business in Illinois (Macon County), being a “rail enterprise.”  It is said that I once split some 4,000 rails at Decatur to earn enough material for a pair of britches.  I would use my manual labor skills even at New Salem, but did not want to.             

Age 22, Emancipated Adult Abraham Lincoln moves to New Salem

“I was appointed postmaster at New Salem--the office being too insignificant to make my politics an objection.  . . . Out of a job, I went to work for general-store-owner Samuel Hill.  Hill sold whiskey and was the town postmaster.       However, the townspeople felt that I could be a better postmaster.  At the time my ambition was growing.   On May 7, 1833, I placed a five-hundred-dollar bond, and became postmaster.           I was not paid much for splitting rails, helping at the mill, and being an assistant surveyor. In fact in the three years as postmaster, I was not paid more than two hundred dollars.           In addition, my mailing route was huge. I helped out people who could not afford to pay their mail bills.  In one instance, I was turned in by a friend and fined ten dollars for delivering unpaid mail.             On May 30, 1836, I resigned as postmaster.”     A. Lincoln---  Scripps Interview

“I went the campaign, was elated, ran for the Legislature the same year (1832) and was beaten--the only time I ever have been beaten by the people.”  A. Lincoln           “The election of 1834 came, and I was then elected to the legislature by the highest vote cast for any candidate. Major John T. Stuart, then in full practice of the law, was also elected. During the canvass, in a private conversation he encouraged me to study law. After the election I borrowed books of Stuart, took them home with me, and went at it in good earnest. I studied with nobody.”  

“I still mixed in the surveying to pay board and clothing bills. When the legislature met, the law books were dropped, but were taken up again at the end of the session. I was reelected in 1836, 1838, and 1840. In the autumn of 1836 I obtained a law license, and on April 15, 1837, removed to Springfield, and commenced the practice—my old friend Stuart taking [me] into partnership.”  A. Lincoln-- Scripps interview

 . . . Hello, I am Billy Herndon, the junior partner of Abraham Lincoln from Springfield.  I know the Lincoln family very well.     “Abraham was in the habit, when at home on Sunday, of bringing his two boys, Willie and Thomas—or Tad---down to the office. . . The boys were absolutely unrestrained in their amusement.  If they pulled down all the books from the shelves, bent the points of all the pens, overturned inkstands, scattered lawpapers over the floor, or threw the pencils into the spittoon, it never disturbed the serenity of their father’s good-nature.”                          

. . . I am Julia Taft.  My brothers and I were playmates of Tad and Willie Lincoln, when they lived in the White House.   I think that Mr. Lincoln was a great father that took time, even when he was very busy with running the country and our terrible war,  to play with his boys.  On one instance I observed the Mr. Lincoln on the floor of the second floor oval room, playing with his boys, Willie and Tad and my brothers.  The boys were joining together in holding down the President.  He was laughing very loud, and the boys were very excited.  Mr. Lincoln was so tall and strong, but these boys were holding him down.  They even invited me to join in, but I thought a teen-aged girl would be out of place with such play.               

. . . Mr. Lincoln would read to the boys and loved to sit in a big chair sharing the family scrapbook with them.  Willie was the most like his father.  He was very kind-hearted and smart.  He could even give a speech if called upon to do so.  Tad was the animal lover of the household.  Many people in the country would give the Lincoln boys animals for pets.  Our nations loves to know that the President is a father and is understanding of the family. 

By studying hard, practicing my public speaking, and making a lot of good friends, Abraham finally took the Illinois Bar Exam and passed it.  He became a lawyer in Springfield.  His father did not like "lawyers," and he always kept in mind that the reason was that many were dishonest.      "I am not an accomplished lawyer. I find quite as much material for a lecture in those points wherein I have failed, as in those wherein I have been moderately successful. The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every other calling, is diligence. Leave nothing for to-morrow which can be done to-day. Never let your correspondence fall behind. Whatever piece of business you have in hand, before stopping, do all the labor pertaining to it which can then be done."  Hard work will make a lawyer successful."  A. Lincoln   

"The matter of fees is important, far beyond the mere question of bread and butter involved. Properly attended to, fuller justice is done to both lawyer and client. An exorbitant fee should never be claimed."  A. Lincoln    ". . . and if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer. Choose some other occupation, rather than one in the choosing of which you do, in advance, consent to be a knave."  A. Lincoln 

    After my duty as captain in the Illinois Volunteers in the Black Hawk War, 1832 ". . . I was elated, ran for the Legislature the same year (1832) and was beaten--the only time I ever have been beaten by the people. The next, and three succeeding biennial elections, I was elected to the Legislature. I was not a candidate afterwards. During this Legislative period I had studied law, and removed to Springfield to practise it. In 1846 I was once elected to the lower House of Congress."  A. Lincoln    "I Was not a candidate for re-election. From 1849 to 1854, both inclusive, practiced law more assiduously than ever before. Always a Whig in politics, and generally on the Whig electoral tickets, making active canvasses--I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again."    A. Lincoln     

"I was reelected in 1836, 1838, and 1840," to the Illinois General Assembly as Representative.  In 1846 I was elected to the lower House of Congress, and served one term only, commencing in December, 1847, and ending with the inauguration of General Taylor, in March 1849.  In 1854 his profession had almost superseded the thought of politics in his mind, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused him as he had never been before."  A. LincolnIn 1858, Abraham brought out the real feelings he had against slavery in a speech in the Illinois State House.

"...A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.

I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided.  It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery, will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as well as South...."  A. Lincoln

. . . On January 31, 1861, President-elect Abraham Lincoln would make a secret journey back to Coles County, Illinois to visit his step-mother, Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln and to go to his father's grave at Shiloh Cemetery.  No written record was recorded as to what was said by the President-Elect at his meeting of his mother and visit to Shiloh. 

The historians leave the story of a "feast," for their Abraham at the home of Matilda "Tildy" Moore in Farmington.  Farmington was very close to the Thomas Lincoln Fourth Farm, and the gravesite of Mr. Lincoln.  Abraham, as his relatives and friends would call him, arrived by train to Charleston.  He would be taken by buggy out to Farmington. 

The whole community prepared a grand farewell.  Mrs. Lincoln is said to have sent a new black dress for her husbands' step-mother.  As far as historical record goes, Sarah never met or saw her step-son's wife or their children.  They never traveled to Charleston.