The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1903-01-06

reading any book he could get hold of
or writing poetry.
Until few years ago there was in
Gentryville an old wooden IRE shovel.
on which Lincoln had traced these
verses:
..Time-wllat an empty vapor tbs.
And days, how swift they are;
Swift as an arrow speed our lives,
Swift as a shooting star,
The present moment.
The stanza was not finished. but II
was kept for many years until the old
1 fire shovel disappeared. and its where
| abOuts Is unknown to this day.
There used to be a character around
Gentryville in its early days known as
4 ~Old Holmes" who was often intoXl-
Gated.
, One winter night ''OId Holmes would
have been frozen but for Lincoln, who
found him and carried him home. sit
I ting up all night 20 resuscitate him.
/ This incident started a temperance
/ wave over Spencer county. and the de-
Z bates were startling ami interesting.
/ Halfway up the long. winding street
! for many years stood an old black
| smith shop. In front of it was a wide
/ spreading tree. that still waves its
/ boUghs, but every sign of the old shop
/ is gone.
/ The ground on which stood the
I snithy for years was owned by Rev
/ F. A Heuring. past commander of the
/ Indiana Grand Army of the Republic,
/ but is now the property of Jacob Den
! dinger, the town marshal.
/ This old blacksmith shop was IA
nous place in the life of Gentryville,
/ and was favorite resort for the people
/ Of Spencer county.
| The old blacksmith, whose name eV-
] cry. one seems to have forgotten, was a
natural storyteller, and he had around
! him a crowd of as good stoTytellers as
/ himself
\ Abraham Lincoln was at this shop
/ a great deal, and It was a common re-
! sort for his father Thomas Lincoln,
and Abraham's uncles, John and Den
/ mis- Hanks. The shop was the county
news stand and the lecture platform
and it was there that Abraham Lincoln
! learned many of the stories that he
told in after life.
1t was here that Dennis Hanks told
/ the story of Sykes dog. a story that
Lincoln told to General Grant after the
! fall of Vicksburg. and which was one
. of the most famous of Lincoln's sto-
ries.
I Sykes had a dog that was a nuisance
I and some one fed him a large car
fridge that exploded, and the animal
never amounted TO much after that as
dog.
Lincoln's application of the story
was that those who were complaining
| of Grant for paroling so many of Penn
berton's army did not realize that after
the fall of Vicksburg it did not amount
to much as an army.
The Crawford school, which Abra-
/ ham Lincoln attended, was situated
about three miles from here. 1t was
built of round logs and was not more
than six feet high.
Some of the older persons in this
country remember their parents telling
of Andrew Crawford, the teacher, ano
his brother. Josiah Crawford, the lat
ter known as Blue Nose" Crawford
a name given him by Abraham Lin
/ coin.
Josiah Crawford once loaned Lincoln
! a copy of a Life of Washington" and
/ Lincoln got the book wet, for which
| Crawford charged him 40 cents, a deb
that Lincoln paid by working for three
days pulling fodder.
The local history is that he never
forgaYe Josiah Crawford, and the namt
I Blue Nose ." that it is said he gave
him, is part of the legends of Spencer
county to this day.
OF the enemies that Lincoln made
none was greater than some members
of the Grigsby family, many of whose
descendants still live in this neighbOr
hood. Sarah Lincoln, sister of Abra
ham, married Aaron Grigsby, and two
years later died.
Abraham, it is said, always declared
that his sister was not properly treated
by the GTigsbys. This brought abou
a social feud.