The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1895-04-12

graphs were in demand, and people
came long distances to shake him by
the hand This sudden elevation to ma
tional prominence found Mr.. Lincoln
unprepared in a great measure for the
unaccustomed demonstration that await
ed him. While he was easy of approach
and equally courteous to all, yet, as he
said to me one evening after long day
of handshaking, he could not under
stand why people should make SO much
over him.
Among the earliest newspaper men to
arrive in Springfield after the Chicago
convention was the late j. l.. Scripps of
the Chicago Tribune, who proposed to
prepare history of his life. Mr.. Lin
coin deprecated the idea of writing
even a campaign biography. why,
Scripps, :" said he, sit is a great piece
of folly to attempt to make anything
out of me or my early life. 1t can all
be condensed into single sentence, and
that sentence you will find in Gray S
'Elegy:'
THE short and simple annals of the poor
''That's my life, and that's all you
or any one else can make out of it. ="
He did, however, communicate some
facts and meager incidents of his early
days, and with the matter thus obtain
ed Mr. Scripps prepared his book. Soon
after the death of Lincoln | received a
letter from Scripps, in which, among
other things, he recalled the meeting
with Lincoln and the view he took of
the biography matter.
Lincoln seemed to be painfully inn
pressed, P" he wrote, with the extreme
poverty of his early surroundings and
the utter absence of all romantic and
heroic elements He communicated
some facts to me concerning his ances-
try, which he did not wish to have pub
lished then, and which | have never
spoken of or alluded to before.
What the facts referred to by Mr..
Scripps were we do not know, for he
died several years ago without, so far
as is known, revealing them to any one.
Lincoln and His Mother.
On the subject of his ancestry and
origin | only remember one time when
Mr. Lincoln ever referred to it. 1t was
about 1850, when he and | were driv-
ing i'll his one horse buggy to the court
in Menard county, Ills. The suit we
were going to try was one in which we
were likely, either directly or collater-
ally, to touch upon the subject of hered-
itary traits. During the ride he spoke
for the first time in my hearing of his
mother, dwelling on her characteristics
and mentioning or enumerating what
qualities he inherited from her. He said,
among other things, that she was the
daughter of Lucy Hanks and we'll bred
but obscure Virginia farmer or planter,
and he argued that from this last source
came his power Of analysis, his logic,
his mental activity, his ambition and
all the qualities that distinguished him
from the other members and descend
ants of the Hanks family.
Abraham Lincoln, the grandfather
of the president, emigrated to jefferson
county, KY, from Virginia, about 1880,
and from that time forward the former
state became an important one in the
history of the family, for in it was des-
tined to be born its most illustrious
member. About five years before this a
handful of Virginians had started across
the mountains for Kentucky, and in the
company, besides their historian, Will
liam Calk, whose diary recently came
to light, was one Abraham Hanks. They
were evidently crowd of jolly young
men beut OH adventure and fun, but
their sport was attended with frequent