Lincoln on Lincoln

1. Surviving the Frontier

1 SURVIVING THE FRONTIER 1809-1830 I was born February 12, 1809 in Hardin County, Kentucky.l My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families-second families, perhaps I should say. My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emigrated from Rockingham County, Virginia, to Kentucky, about 1781 or 2, where, a year or two later, he was killed by indians, not in battle, but by stealth, when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest. The story of his death, and of Uncle Mordecai killing one of the Indians, is the legend more strongly than others imprinted upon my mind and memory.2 Two young sons, Mordecai and younger brother Thomas, who would one day father the president, were with Grandfather Lincoln when he was shot, May 1786, on the 400-acre site he had helped to survey in Jefferson County (Register Kentucky State Historical Society 27 [1929] 408). Robert Todd Lincoln gave legendary details of the killing, telling how fifteen-year-old Mordecai ran to a neighboring cabin, seized his rifle, and shot the culprit carrying off little Thomas. Robert Lincoln then added that, since Grandfather had left no will, his entire estate, consisting 7 LINCOLN ON LINCOLN of two other 400-acre warrants as well, went to an eldest son, leaving Thomas penniless (Angle, Portrait, 59). Thomas, the youngest son, and father of the present subject , by the early death of his father, and very narrow circumstances of his mother, even in childhood was a wandering laboring boy, and grew up litterally without education. He never did more in the way of writing than to bunglingly sign his own name,3 which I suppose is the reason why I know so little of our family history.4 Before he was grown, he passed one year as a hired hand with his uncle Isaac on Wataga, a branch of the Holsteen River.s Getting back into Kentucky, and having reached his 28th year, he married Nancy Hanks-mother of the present subject-in the year 1806. She also was born in Virginia. The present subject has no brother or sister of the whole or half blood. He had a sister, older than himself, who was grown and married, but died many years ago, leaving no child. Also a brother, younger than himself, who died in infancy. Baby Thomas died in 1812. Sister Sarah, or Sally, two years older than Abraham, died in childbirth, January 1828. Before leaving Kentucky he and his sister were sent for short periods, to A.B.C. schools, the first kept by Zacharia Riney, and the second by Caleb Hazel. Riney, a local farmer, and Hazel, the tavern keeper, taught the ABCs; reading was delayed until age 6, writing to age 8. Parents paid per session. Learning was by rote memory and aloud (thus "blab schools") (McVey 64-66; McClure 8 Surviving the Frontier 87,213; E.J. Monaghan, A Common Heritage [Hamden, Conn.: Archon Press, 1983], 32-33). At this time his father resided on Knob-creek, on the road from Bardstown Ky. to Nashville Tenn. at a point three, or three and a half miles South or South-West of Atherton's ferry on the Rolling Fork. (I was born on Nolin, very much nearer Hodgin's-Mill than the Knob Creek place is. Myearliest recollection, however, is of the Knob Creek place.)6 "I remember that old home very well! Our farm was composed of three fields. It lay in the valley surrounded by high hills and deep gorges. Sometimes when there came a big rain in the hills the water would come down through the gorges and spread all over the farm. The last thing that I remember of doing there was one Saturday afternoon. The other boys planted the corn in what we called the big field-it contained seven acres-and I dropped.the pumpkin seeds. I dropped two seeds every other hill and every other row. The next Sunday morning there came a big rain in the hills. It did not rain a drop in the valley, but the water coming down through the gorges washed ground, corn, pumpkin seeds and all clear off the field."7 From this place he removed to what is now Spencer county Indiana, in the Autumn of 1816. This removal was partly on account of slavery; but chiefly on account of the difficulty in land titles in Ky...