Backyard Adventures

BACKYARD ADVENTURES 2018 PIKE PUBLISHING 1E Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky in 1809 and lived in Illinois when he was elected as the nation's 16th president in 1860, but most people are unaware that Lincoln spent 14 formative years – from age seven to age 21 – in Indiana. The Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, located off U.S. 231 on State Highway 162 in Spencer County, pre- serves the site about which Lincoln said simply, "There, I grew up." "Many people are surprised to learn that he was ever here in Indiana," said Mike Capps, Chief of Interpreta- tion and Resource Management at the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial. "It tends to be the kind of unknown chapter in his life. Most people know that he was born in Kentucky, but then the assumption has always been that he went from Kentucky straight to Illinois. Of course, that's not the case." "The first reaction, often times, from people is, 'Oh, I had no idea Lincoln ever lived in Indiana,'" Capps contin- ued. "That gives us the opportunity to tell the story, and to fill in that missing chapter." Lincoln's family – father, Thomas; mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln; sister, Sarah; and himself – completed the journey to their new home in December 1816, the same month that Indiana was admitted as the nation's 19th state. Having previously staked out a claim in the heavily wooded and mostly unoccupied wilderness – they had to cut their own road over the last few miles to make a trail wide enough for their wagon – Thomas Lincoln put an axe in the hands of seven-year-old Abraham, who helped his father clear their land and build their cabin and, of course, split-rail fences. Less than two years later, when Abraham was nine years old, Nancy Hanks Lincoln died after contract- ing a deadly fever called "milk sickness," a fatal illness caused by drinking milk from a cow that had grazed on white snakeroot, and was buried on a wooded knoll – in a rough wooden coffin that Abraham helped his father make – one-quarter mile south of their cabin. Thomas Lincoln then headed back to Kentucky in 1819, where he married Sarah Bush Johnston, a longtime friend who had lost her husband a couple of years earlier. Sarah brought her three children – Elizabeth, Matilda and John – into the household, along with a wagonload of furniture and other household items. Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln had always encour- aged their children to acquire knowledge, and Sarah Bush Lincoln continued to foster that quest, giving Abraham the three books she had brought with her from Kentucky – a veritable treasure trove at that time, when only just one book was a rarity. Abraham's skill with an axe enabled him to find gainful employment at age 16, chopping firewood for steamboats that traveled along the nearby Ohio River. While helping to load the firewood on board the boats, he talked with the captains and their crew, giving him a broader view of the world outside Indiana and Kentucky. Then, in 1828, Abraham's older sister, Sarah Lincoln Grigsby, died while giving birth to her first child. Both mother and child were subsequently buried together in a small cemetery next to the Little Pigeon Church. Shortly thereafter, Abraham accompanied his friend, Allen Gentry, on a flatboat trip down the Ohio and Mis- sissippi rivers to New Orleans, where he came face-to- face with the realities of slavery. From a young age, Abraham had been exposed to the anti-slavery sentiments of his parents, and it was while in New Orleans that he witnessed, for the first time, a slave auction. The 21-year-old Abraham and his family left Indiana in 1830 for the richer soil of Illinois – and to escape another outbreak of milk sickness. In a 15 -minute orientation film that is shown at the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial's Memorial Visitor Center – entitled Forging Greatness: Lincoln in Indiana – narrator Leonard Nimoy states, "It was in Indiana that much of Abraham's personality and many of his ideals were formed. He arrived a young boy and left a young man. As he later said, 'There, I grew up.' What he learned in Indiana, he built upon in Illinois, and put to good use in Washington, D.C., where he led our country through its most difficult time." Located just north of the Memorial Visitor Center – which was built by the state of Indiana during the 1940s – is Nancy Hanks Lincoln's grave site. "There's a walking trail that goes up past her grave site, and then goes on over the hill to the Cabin Site Memorial, which was also made during the state park time period to mark the location of what we think was probably the location of the third Lincoln cabin they had over the course of the time they lived here," Capps said. The Memorial Visitor Center features a small mu- seum, two memorial halls – one named for Abraham Lincoln and one named to Nancy Hanks Lincoln – as well as five sculptured panels on the outside of the building depicting various periods of Abraham Lincoln's life. The Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial also has a Living Historical Farm, a re-created 1830s homestead lo- cated on four of the original 160 acres owned by Thomas Lincoln to the north of the Cabin Site Memorial. "It's not a strict reconstruction of the Lincoln farm, be- cause we don't really have enough information to do that accurately," Capps said. "But what we've got is what we think is fairly representative of the time period. We have a barn, we have various outbuildings, that sort of thing." "For about six months out of the year, we staff the farm with people in period clothing, to work in and around the cabin, doing various pioneer-type activities and chores STORY BY ED CAHILL PHOTOS BY ED CAHILL, FRAN PETIT AND CONTRIBUTED BOYHOOD HOME Lincoln's LINCOLN BOYHOOD NATIONAL MEMORIAL The Memorial Visitor Center at the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial features a small museum, two memorial halls – one named for Abraham Lincoln, the other for his mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln – as well as five sculptured panels on the outside of the building depicting various periods of Abraham Lincoln's life. CONTINUED ON THE PAGE 3E > A statue of Abraham Lincoln is on display in a small museum located in the Memorial Visitor Center at the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial.

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