of Thomas Lincoln, namely, in June, 1816, pursuant to a Congressional "enabling act," a Convention had been held which adopted a State Constitution, preparatory to admission into the Union. Under this Constitution, a little later, in December, 1816, Indiana became, by act of Congress, one of the United States. The population of Indiana was now about 65,000, distributed chiefly south of a straight line drawn from Vincennes, on the Wabash, to Lawrenceburg, on the Ohio. Vincennes was long the territorial capital, and with the surrounding country, had been occupied by French emigrants, many years before the Revolution. In 1800, the whole number of residents in these colonies was less than 5,000. These, like other French set tlements, made little progress of themselves. From 1800 to 1810, there had been a large increase, mostly by emigrations to Southern Indiana from Kentucky, swelling the population to 24,520, at the latter date. In 1811 had occurred serious difficulties with the Indians, terminating in the decisive victory over them at Tippecanoe. So general had become the settlements, eastward from Vincennes and up the Ohio river, that the capital was removed far eastward to Corydon, in 1813, as a central location. This place, the capital of Harrison county, is about twenty-five miles west from Louisville, and more than a hundred south of the present metropolis of the State. But one county intervened between Harrison and Perry, and Gentryville is hardly forty miles, in a direct line, from Corydon. This place continued to be the seat of government for the State until 1824, as it had been for the Territory during the three years next preceding 1816. It was but natural, therefore, that emigration should be prominently directed to this part of the State, at the period under consideration. In 1820, the population had increased to over 147,000, or more than six-fold during ten years, and nearly thirty-fold since 1800. There is little doubt that, in emigrating, Thomas Lincoln had fallen in with a prevalent contagion in his own State, and that he took up his residence in the part of Indiana then deemed most desirable of all that was unoccupied. It is common to attribute these extensive migrations from the border slave holding States into the non-slaveholding North-west, to a preference for institutions based upon free labor to the exclusion of slavery. This was, beyond question, a powerful inducement with many, yet, by no means the only one; and, with some, it did not exist at all. In the earlier days of Kentucky, the proportion of slaves to the free white population was small, and in many places slavery can hardly have been an appreciable element. But in 1816, the number of slaves must have exceeded 100,000, and their ratio of increase was becoming very high. Upon a man in the circumstances of Mr. Lincoln, with a young family to rear, this consideration undoubtedly had its weight, among the others we have suggested as the cause of his removal to Indiana. We have at least the fact, that, though painfully, and with an exile's sadness, he yet turned his back forever on a State that tolerated slavery, to seek a new home where free labor had been sacredly assured exclusive rights and honors. The next thirteen years Abraham Lincoln spent here, in Southern Indiana, near the Ohio, nearly midway between Louisville and Evansville. He was now old enough to begin to take an active part in the farm labors of his father, and he manfully performed his share of hard work. He learned to use the ax and to hold the plough. He became inured to all the duties of seed-time and harvest. On many a day, during every one of those thirteen years, this Kentucky boy might have been seen with a long "gad" in his hand, driving his father's team in the field, or from the woods with a heavy draught, or on the rough path to the mill, the store, or the river landing. He was specially an adept at felling trees, and acquired a muscular strength in which he was equaled by few or none of those about him. In the sports of hunting and fishing, he was less skilled. A vigorous constitution, and a cheerful, unrepining disposition, made all his labors comparatively light. To such a one, this sort of life has in it much of pleasant excitement to compensate for its hardships. He learned to derive enjoyment from the severest lot. The "dignity of labor," which is with have visited the now unmarked grave of this little one, along with his mother, before leaving Kentucky. These were the only children of Thomas Lincoln, either by the present or by a subsequent marriage, hereafter to be noticed. ABRAHAM has thus, for a long time, been the sole immediate representative of this hardy and energetic race.. LaRue county, named from an early settler, John LaRue, was set off and separately organized in 1843, the portion containing Mr. Lincoln's birthplace having been, up to that date, included in Hardin county. It is a rich grazing country in its more rolling and hilly parts, and the level surface produces good crops of corn and tobaccco. In the northern borders of the county, on the Rolling Fork of Salt river, is Muldrough's Hill, a noted eminence. Hodgenville, near which Mr. Lincoln was born, is a pleasantly situated town on Nolin creek, and a place of considerable business. About a mile above this town, on the creek, is a mound, or knoll, thirty feet above the banks of the stream, containing two acres of level ground, at the top of which there is now a house. Some of the early pioneers encamped on this knoll; and but a short distance from it a fort was erected by Philip Phillips, an emigrant from Pennsylvania, about 1780 or 1781, near the time Mr. Lincoln's ancestor arrived from Virginia. John LaRue came from the latter State, with a company of emigrants, and settled, not far from the same date, at Phillips' Fort. Robert Hodgen, LaRue's brother-in-law, purchased and occupied the land on which Hodgenville is built. Both these pioneers were men of sterling integrity, and high moral worth. They were consistent and zealous members of the Baptist church, and one of their associates, Benjamin Lynn, was a minister of the same denomination. Such were the influences under which, more than twenty years before Thomas Lincoln settled there, this little colony had been founded, and which went far to give the community its permanent character. It is needless to rehearse the kind of life in which Abraham Lincoln was here trained. The picture is similar in all such settlements. In his oase, there was indeed the advantage of a generation or two of progress, since his grandfather had |