CHAPTER ONE FROM HUMBLE ORIGINS The small town of Hodgenville Kentucky was part of the American western frontier in the early nineteenth century Thomas and Nancy Lincoln and their young daughter Sarah lived nearby on a small farm Their home was a one-room log cabin with a dirt floor that Thomas had built There on February 12 1809 Abraham Lincoln was born Abraham’s parents were about the same age as the United States in 1783 which had won its independence from Great Britain only twenty-six years earlier Thomas was a hardworking farmer and carpenter Like many people on the frontier Thomas was illiterate but he was also a gifted storyteller as Abraham would be too Thomas Lincoln Abraham’s father opposed slavery 10
Thomas Lincoln built the family’s log cabin in Hodgenville Kentucky like this reproduction above Abraham was born there on February 12 1809 Nancy and Thomas opposed slavery which was legal in Kentucky at the time They attended a Baptist church where they heard antislavery sermons When Abraham was three a second son was born He lived only a few days In 1816 the family moved west into Indiana Abraham helped his father clear plow and harvest farm fields cut down trees and split logs into rails for fences He also took care of the farm animals but hunting and shooting animals disgusted him Two years after they arrived tragedy struck the Lincoln family and their community The milk of some local cows became deadly after the animals ate the poisonous plant white snakeroot People who drank the milk became ill with a disease called milk sickness Thirty-four-year-old Nancy Lincoln was one of several who died Her nine-year-old son Abraham helped his father build her coffin 11
Frontier Life The year after his mother’s death was bitterly sad for Abraham His sister Sarah took care of him and did the household chores A year later his father remarried His new wife was a loving woman Sarah Sally Bush Johnston Lincoln Sally was a widow with three children With books among her possessions a rare luxury then she brought some sophistication to the frontier cabin She became a kind and good mother to Abraham and his sister and the boy always called his stepmother Mama With few schools and teachers on the frontier education was hard to come by Farming and chores took up nearly every day of every season Altogether Abraham attended one year of school off and on between the ages of eleven and fifteen His education was uninspiring but Somehow I could read write and solve basic math problems Lincoln later said Learning to read opened Sarah Sally Bush Johnston married Thomas Lincoln on December 2 1819 She was a kind stepmother to Abraham 12
Farmwork and chores kept Abraham from attending school for a formal education He taught himself mostly by reading books up a world of self-education for Abraham An avid reader he was deeply curious and developed his natural skill for language and he loved to tell stories and jokes Sally encouraged Abraham in his love of learning though his father was not supportive Later Abraham would say that no son could love a mother more than he loved Sally When Abraham was seventeen he lost another person he loved when his sister Sarah died during pregnancy Entering Politics In 1830 the Lincolns moved from Indiana to Illinois enticed by reports of good soil Illinois residents had voted to outlaw slavery eight years earlier Some people objected to slavery on the grounds that it was morally wrong to enslave other human beings Others objected that slavery created unfair competition for work Slaveholders received the benefit of unpaid slave labor for example while free laborers had to be self-sufficient 13
