LINCOLN, ABRAJEAY (ante), the 14th elected president of the United States, serving the 19th term of 4 years; b. in Hardin co., Ky., Feb. 12, 1809; his father being Thomas Lincoln, who married Nancy Hawks. The family was of English descent, and early among the settlers of Virginia. Whether the family was connected with the Lincolns of Massachusetts is not known. The birthplace of the war-president was no paradise. Kentucky was the rendezvous of tories, runaway conscripts, deserters, debtors, and criminals of all kinds. Thomas Lincoln was a restless, thriftless man, living by jobs of carpentry and other work, until finally, deciding to try farming, he settled down in a wretched cabin near a spring of good water, but in a barren region. In that humble cabin Abraham was born. The boy was fond of fishing and hunting, but at an early age he began to grow serious, and of himself to develop the moral training which becanie so conspicuous in after-life. With his sister he traveled to a humble school four miles away. In 1816 Thomas Lincoln had a serious difficulty with a neighbor, the result of which was his emigration to Ohio in the autumn of that year, transporting his house hold goods on a rude flat-boat, and losing almost everything by the capsizing of the craft. Saving a few tools and the greater portion of his whisky,' he brought up in Posey co., Ind., sold his boat, and a location in the wilderness in Perry county. With much difficulty he brought his family there, consisting' of his wife Nancy, a daughter 0 years old, and Abraham, aged seven. Here in Oct., 1818, Abraham's mother dia The widower 13 months afterwards married a widow with whom he had been in love before he married Nancy Hawks. The new wife was a good step-mother to little Abraham and his sister (whose name was changed from Nancy to Sarah), although she brought a son and two daughters of ber own. She found her step-children dirty and poorly clad, for they had been sadly neglected; but, being a woman of energy, a speedy and thorough reformation followed her advent. She took kindly to Abraham, and her love continued to the day of his death. She encouraged hini in his studies, and all was harmonious and happy in the mixed family. It was not to his real mother but to his step-mother that Lincoln, in after years, so often referred as " saintly" and an "angel," who first made him feel like a human being, whose goodness first touched his childish heart, and taught him that blows and taunts and degradation were not always to be his portion in this life. He had but little chance for schooling, but that little was well improved. He grew in height amazingly, and before his 17th birthday was at his maxi
mum of 6 ft. 4 in., wiry and strong, with enormous hands and feet, greatly dispropor tionate length of legs and arms, and over all a rather small head; his skin was yellow and shriveled, and his complexion swarthy. lie wore coarse home-made clothes. and a coon-skin cap; his trousers, owing to his rapid growth, were nearly a foot too short. But this awkward, overgrown boy was always in good humor, and always in good health. While at school he was noted as a good speller, but raore particularly for his abhorrence of cruelty—his earliest composition being a protest against putting coals of fire on the backs of captured terrapins. His last attendance at school was in 1826, when be was 17 years old. He worked at odd jobs, and one of his employers says "Abe was awful lazy; he would laugh and talk and crack jokes and tell stories all the time; he didn't love work." lie-would lie under a tree or in the loft of the house, and at night sit in the firelight to read, cipher, and scribble on the wooden fire-shovel. He read everything readable within his reach, and copied passages or sentences that especially attracted him. His reading, however, included little more than Robinson Orusoe, Pil grim's Progress, Weems's Life of Washington, and a History of the United States. His step mother said that the Bible was one of his favorite books. His first knowledge of the law, iu which he afterwards became eminent, was through reading the statutes of Indiana, borrowed from a constable. He had a strong memory and a taste for speaking in public. In 182,5 he worked 9 months on a ferry over the Ohio river, receivinm a. sal ary of $6 per month. His first venture in the great outside world was as assistanst navi gator of a flat-boat down the Ohio and the Mississippi to New Orleans, returning in June, 1828. In 1830 the Lincolns emigrated to Illinois, Abraham being the driver of a wagon hauled by 4 yoke of oxen. A few days after their arrival at their destination near Decatur, Lincoln became of age, and at once determined to make his own way in the world. The story of his making rails is fixed at this period, but it is apocryphal, and the "Illinois rail-splitter" was a misnomer. In this period Lincoln got a tolerable knowledge. of grammar from a borrowed book, studied by the light of burning shavings in a cooper's shop. In 1832 came the Black Hawk Indian war, and Lincoln enlisted in a company at Sangamon and was chosen captain; but there were no remarkable acts done by him during the campaign.