Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1899-02-13
ANCESTRY OF
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

/ KlS1OTS
The Abraham Lincoln legend is the
distinctively American legend. 1t is
the most popular legend of democracy.
1t tells the story of poor boy, born
in log cabin on the rude frontier,
learning to read and write by the light
of the fire from the open hearth; of his
hard labor on the farm, doing all the
rough work of an American peasant
lad of the pioneer stock; of his cal
loused hands, made hard and coarse
by swinging the axe as rail splitter"
of his struggles to get few books out
of which to educate himself by nights
of difficult study after days of strenu-
Gus toll; of his simple courtship and
unostentatious marriage to home
spun-clad Kentucky girl of the same
pioneer period, and, finally, of his
rise, by the strength of his own merit
and fitness, to. the leadership of
great party and the Presidency of the
Nation in its hour of sorest need and
direct peril
That is the great Lincoln legend,
that will live as long as the Republic
lasts. And the doctrine of democracy
is all included in 1.-THE everlasting
truth sung by Burns, that
"The rank is but the guinea's stamp;
mans a man for a that"
Thomas Lincoln married Nancy
Hanks, i'll Washington County, Ken
lucky, June II, 1906. 1t was an old
time Kentucky wedding, and all the
paio h1,n,g b
cloth. There was "a supper and a
boisterous merry making. The feast
included bear meat. wild turkey and
a sheep barbecued whole in pit.
There was good whisky, too, and the
fun included a race for big whisky
bottle.
And when the wedding was over
Thomas Lincoln took his bride, Nancy
Hanks Lincoln, to little log cabin in
Elizabethtown, Ky. Afew years later
he moved his family to similar log
cabin fourteen miles away on the Big
South Fork of Nolin Creek.
In that home Abraham, afterward
President, was born, on February II,
| 1909. 1t was one-roomed cabin with
a huge outside chimney, no windows
and only n rude, home made door.
Thomas Lincoln worked hard at his
trade-which was carpentering-and
the family-though poor, was happy.
In 1916 Thomas Lincoln migrated
again with his little family, including
the boy who was to be President bv
and by, going this time to Indiana
and settling in dense forest near
Gentryville, in Spencer County.
Arrived here, young Abe and his
father went to work together, both in
shirtsleeves. to clear the land for
farming, and, first of all, to build a
new Lincoln homestead.
This home, which young Abe helped
to build, was the best home that
Thomas Lincoln and his wife ever
lived in. 1t was what was called in
those days a "half-face camp" 1t
consisted of one room, with a loft
above. For long time it was with
out window, door or floor. The furni-
ture was all made by the family.
Skins of animals slain in the forest
served for bedclothes. The bed of
little Abe, the future President of the
United States, was only heap Of dry
leaves in the loft, to which he nightly
mounted by means OF wooden pegs
driven into the wall.
And it was to this same Indiana
forest cabin that. after Nancy Hanks
Lincoln had died, in 1918, old Thomas
Lincoln brought his second wife, Sally
Bush Lincoln, who was a good step
mother to Abraham and lived to see
him President.
On November 4, 1S41, at Spring
field, ILL.,, Abraham, the son of Thomas