Ο

CHAPTER IV

THE LINCOLNS IN ILLINOIS

NCE more the Lincoln family " pulled up stakes" and moved westward. This time it was to Illinois, which, in the Indian vernacular, signifies "the land of the full-grown men." Thomas Hanks, one of the most steady and well-balanced of this somewhat wandering group of people, had gone to Macon County, Illinois, in the autumn of 1829. He had been so favorably impressed with what he saw and heard that he had written to Thomas Lincoln to come on and bring the family. It does not appear to have required much persuasion ever to induce Thomas Lincoln to change his place. He had made no progress in Indiana beyond providing for their actual wants. He could do no worse in Illinois, accounts of which as a land literally flowing with milk and honey were already spreading over the older States. So, in the spring of 1830, as soon as the frost was out of the ground, Lincoln, having sold crops, hogs, and farm improvements to Mr. Gentry, packed all his remaining earthly possessions into a wagon and set his face westward.

Two weeks of tiresome travel were consumed in reaching the place selected for them on the public lands near the village of Decatur, Macon County. The entire "outfit," consisting of one wagon drawn by four yoke

of oxen, driven by Abraham Lincoln, came to anchor as it were, on a patch of bottom-land hitherto untouched by the hand of man. Young Lincoln lent a hand in raising the cabin that was to be the home of the family. And when this work was done and the immigrants were securely under cover, he and Thomas Hanks ploughed fifteen acres of virgin soil, cut down and split into rails sundry walnut logs of the adjacent forest, worked out rails, and fenced his father's first Illinois farm.

Now it was time for young Abraham to strike out for himself. He had thought of doing that before, but had been reminded that he was a servant to his father until he was twenty-one years old. He was now in his twenty-second year, able and anxious to make his own living. During the summer of 1830, he worked at odd jobs in the neighborhood, always alert and cheerful, ready to turn his hand to any honest bit of work, and soon growing in favor with the rude and simple pioneers.

"The winter of the deep snow was that of 1830-1, unto this day a memorable period of time in central Illinois. The snowfall began on Christmas day. It continued until the snow was three feet deep on a level. Then came a drizzling rain that froze as it fell, the thermometer sinking to twelve degrees below zero. The intense cold and the difficulty of getting about made that winter famous forever after in the annals of the country. Herds of deer were easily caught and killed, imprisoned as they were in the icy crust that broke beneath their sharp feet. Game of all kinds was slaughtered by the hungry settlers, as they came out of their scattered villages in search of food, and from that day large game never again was so plenty in the

State. Roads were finally broken from cabin to cabin and from hamlet to hamlet by "wallowing," the entire population, men, women, children, dogs, oxen, and horses, turning out and trampling down and kicking out the snow. Long after ploughing had begun, next spring, the muddy-white foundations of these rural roads remained, unmelted, to stretch across the black soil of the prairies.

During the winter of the deep snow, young Lincoln made the acquaintance of Denton Offutt, a small trader of the region. Hearing that Lincoln and Hanks were "likely young fellows," Offutt proposed that they take a boat-load of provisions to New Orleans for him. The boys were right glad to take such an offer, especially as Offutt agreed to "find" them - that is to say, to furnish their food-and to pay them fifty cents a day, and, if the venture were successful, to give them a further reward of twenty dollars each. This was great prospective riches to the youngsters, neither of whom had ever had so much money at one time. John Johnston, Abraham's foster-brother, was added to the crew, and, having built their flatboat, the party, Offutt, Abraham Lincoln, John Hanks, and John Johnston, embarked on the roaring Sangamon at Springfield.

Although the river was booming with the spring freshets, the frail craft, not far below the point of departure, stuck on a mill-dam, and there it stuck and hung. The population of New Salem came down to the river's margin, commented on the disaster, chaffed and hectored the shipwrecked mariners, and generally made merry over the affair, to the annoyance of the owner. But "the bow oar" rolled up his trousers, waded into the stream, unloaded the barge, whose nose

was well out of water while her stern was well under it, bored holes to let out the flood, and rigged up a contrivance to hoist the boat over the dam. This done, the craft was again loaded, the holes were plugged, and, amidst the cheers of the critical population, the voyagers shot down-stream on their rejoicing way.

Years afterwards, when Lincoln was a practising lawyer, he whittled out a model of his invention for hoisting vessels over shoals and had it patented in Washington. The curious visitor to the Patent Office in the national capitol is shown to-day a little wooden boat and an odd combination of strips and bars by which, as Mr. Lincoln afterwards said, a man might lift himself over a rail fence by the waistband of his breeches.

The adventurers had a swift and prosperous voyage down the river to New Orleans. This was Lincoln's

He saw more of the
He saw men and

second visit to the land of slavery. 'peculiar institution" than before. women whipped, bought, and sold, families separated, children torn from their parents and wives from their husbands. "Lincoln saw it; his heart bled; said nothing much, was silent, looked bad. I can say it, knowing him, that it was on this trip that he formed his opinions of slavery. It run its iron into him then and there, May, 1831," said John Hanks, in later years.

On his return from New Orleans Lincoln was engaged by Offutt to take charge of a small country store which he had opened at New Salem. So the little community that had witnessed the struggle and triumph on Rutledge's dam now made the acquaintance of the hero of that exploit at closer range. He at once

established himself as a favorite with the people, who, rude and rough though they were, readily appreciated the good qualities of any stranger that came among them.

In managing the country store, as in everything that he undertook for others, Lincoln did his best. On one occasion, finding, late at night, when he counted over his cash, that he had taken a few cents from a customer more than was due, he closed the store and walked a long distance to make good the deficiency. At another time, discovering on the scales in the morning a weight with which he had weighed out a package of tea for a woman, the night before, he saw that he had given her too little for her money; he weighed out what was due and carried it to her, much to the surprise of the woman, who had not known that she was short in the amount of her purchase. We have not space to tell of his efforts to protect women from insult, or children from tyranny; for, in the rude community in which he lived, the rights of the defenceless were not always respected as they should have been.

Not far from New Salem was a group of farms known as Clary's Grove. The Clary's Grove boys," as the overgrown young men of the settlement were called, were rude, boisterous, swaggering, and tremendous fighters. They cast their eyes on the young stranger at Offutt's store, so well liked by the women, and resolved that they would take him down a peg." Jack Armstrong, the bully of the band, was to do the deed. The crowd gathered around to see the sport, but the stalwart young Kentuckian soon showed that he was more than a match for the champion of Clary's Grove. Jack Armstrong was slowly sinking under the vigorous wrestling of the long