River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1911-02-09

chells, ShipIeys and Berrys, Nancy's cousins
relatives and friends from the country round
about. In pit near the house a great fire
was built over which sheep was placed and
barbecued. During the morning it roasted
covered by green boughs, and after the we'd
ding it cut and served for dinner There
were venison, too, and wild turkey and ducks.
The wedding was remembered for years.
There was no hint of future glory in the
wedding bringing home of Nancy Lincoln"
wrote Nicoay and Hay "All accounts repre-
sent her as a handsome young OF
twenty-three, of appearance and intellect SUI
perior to her lowly fortunes She could read
and Write-a remarkable accomplishment in
her circle-and even taught her husband to
form the letters Of his name. He had no such
valuable wedding gift to bestow upon her, he
brought her to little house in Elizabethtown
where he and she and want dwelt together in
fourteen feet square,.
For two happy but needy years the couple
lived in log cabin on the banks of what
then known Mill creek. Picture to your
self that home of the young bride-a single
room, with huge fireplace, where logs burned
in winter; an iron pot suspended from a crane,
rough chairs hewn by the carpenter husband
of logs, a number of crude benches, a bed
made of rough trees from which the bark had
not been removed, spinning wheel by which
the Industrious wife sat and wove the mate
rial for clothing; room lacking in comforts.
typical of the pioneer cabins Of those days,
with an opening above into a loft reached by
a ladder, where things stored.
There one day in 1907, Nancy's first baby
was born. It was little girl, and was called
Nancy, after the mother Later the little girls
name changed to Sarah. That was when
Thomas Lincoln married his second wife, Sa-
rah Bush.
Thomas Lincoln owned a farm near Buffalo.
which he had bought in 1903. During the two
years he lived on Mill creek he cultivated the
farm, improving the ground, and there he
moved the spring following the birth of Sarah.
In their life of Lincoln Nicolay and Hay write:
Thomas Lincoln settled down in this dis
NAL solitude to deeper poverty than any or
his name had ever known; and there, in the
midst Of the most unpromising circumstances
that ever witnessed the advent of a hero into
this world Abraham Lincoln was born on Feb
ruary II, 1909"
The family however, could not have been
extremely destitute, for, are told, they had
a COW and calf milk and butter and feather
bed What wealth! When Abraham was four
the family moved again-this time to a cabin,
situated Muldraughs hill There third
child was born, which died when few months
old.
Of the life of Nancy Lincoln at this time
nothing has been written. OF his boyhood
Lincoln himself seldom spoke. But one can
imagine the patient woman, alone and unas-
sisted performing the work of her household,
tending the cows and milking them, making
butter, cleaning the. meagerly furnished cabin
in which the family lived, cooking and spin
ming cloth of which she made the garments for
her husband little Sarah and Abe.
Nancy Lincoln's beauty faded; the roses
fed from her cheeks. her body became wasted