The Papers and Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Complete

by Abraham Lincoln

"The people in the first settling of this country were very sociable, kind, and accommodating; but there was more drunkenness and stealing on a small scale, more immorality, less religion, less well-placed confidence."

The steps taken by Lincoln to complete his title to the land upon which he settled are thus recited by the Commissioner of the General Land Office:—

"In reply to the letter of Mr. W. H. Herndon, who is writing the biography of the late President, dated June 19, 1865, herewith returned, I have the honor to state, pursuant to the Secretary's reference, that on the 15th of October, 1817, Mr. Thomas Lincoln, then of Perry County, Indiana, entered under the old credit system,—

"1. The South-West Quarter of Section 82, in Township 4, South of Range 5 West, lying in Spencer County, Indiana.

"2. Afterwards the said Thomas Lincoln relinquished to the United States the East half of said South-West Quarter; and the amount paid thereon was passed to his credit to complete payment of the West half of said South-West Quarter of Section 32, in Township 4, South of Range 5 West; and accordingly a patent was issued to said Thomas Lincoln for the latter tract. The patent was dated June 6, 1827, and was signed by John Quincy Adams, then President of the United States, and countersigned by George Graham, then Commissioner of the General Land Office." 1

1 The patent was issued to Thomas Lincoln alias Linckhern the other half he never paid, and finally lost the whole of the land.

It will be observed, that, although Lincoln squatted upon the land in the fall of 1816, he did not enter it until October of the next year; and that the patent was not issued to him until June, 1827, but a little more than a year before he left it altogether. Beginning by entering a full quarter section, he was afterwards content with eighty acres, and took eleven years to make the necessary payments upon that. It is very probable that the money which finally secured the patent was furnished by Gentry or Aaron Grigsby, and the title passed out of Lincoln in the course of the transaction. Dennis Hanks says, "He settled on a piece of government land,—eighty acres. This land he afterwards bought under the Two-Dollar Act; was to pay for it in instalments; one-half he paid."

For two years Lincoln continued to live along in the old way. He did not like to farm, and he never got much of his land under cultivation. His principal crop was corn; and this, with the game which a rifleman so expert would easily take from the woods around him, supplied his table. It does not appear that he employed any of his mechanical skill in completing and furnishing his own cabin. It has already been stated that the latter had no window, door, or floor. But the furniture—if it may be called furniture—was even worse than the house. Three-legged stools served for chairs. A bedstead was made of poles stuck in the cracks of the logs in one corner of the cabin, while the other end rested in the crotch of a forked stick sunk in the earthen floor. On these were laid some boards, and on the boards a "shake-down" of leaves covered with skins and old petticoats. The table was a hewed puncheon, supported by four legs. They had a few pewter and tin dishes to eat from, but the most minute inventory of their effects makes no mention of knives or forks. Their cooking utensils were a Dutch oven and a skillet. Abraham slept in the loft, to which he ascended by means of pins driven into holes in the wall.

In the summer of 1818, the Pigeon-Creek settlements were visited by a fearful disease, called, in common parlance, "the milk-sickness." It swept off the cattle which gave the milk, as well as the human beings who drank it. It seems to have prevailed in the neighborhood from 1818 to 1829; for it is given as one of the reasons for Thomas Lincoln's removal to Illinois at the latter date. But in the year first mentioned its ravages were especially awful. Its most immediate effects were severe retchings and vomitings; and, while the deaths from it were not necessarily sudden, the proportion of those who finally died was uncommonly large.1 Among the number who were attacked by it, and lingered on for some time in the midst of great sufferings, were Thomas and Betsy Sparrow and Mrs. Nancy Lincoln.

1 The peculiar disease which carried off so many of Abraham's family, and induced the removal of the remainder to Illinois, deserves more than a passing allusion. The following, regarding its nature and treatment, is from the pen of an eminent physician of Danville, Illinois:— Ward H. Lamon, Esq. Dear Sir,—Your favor of the 17th inst. has been received. You request me to present you with my theory in relation to the origin of the disease called "milk-sickness," and also a "general statement of the best treatment of the disease," and the proportion of fatal cases. I have quite a number of cases of the so-called disease in Danville, Ill., and its vicinity; but perhaps you are not aware, that, between the great majority of the medical faculty in this region of country and myself, there is quite a discrepancy of opinion. They believe in the existence of the disease in Vermilion County; while, on the contrary, I am firmly of opinion, that, instead of genuine milk- sickness, it is only a modified form of malarial fever with which we here have to contend. Though sceptical of its existence in this part of the country, we have too much evidence from different intelligent sources to doubt, for a moment, that, in many parts of the West and South-west, there is a distinct malady, witnessed more than fifty years ago, and different from every other heretofore recognized in any system of Nosology. In the opinion of medical men, as well as in that of the people in general, where milk-sickness prevails, cattle, sheep, and horses contract the disease by feeding on wild pasture-lands; and, when those pastures have been enclosed and cultivated, the cause entirely disappears. This has also been the observation of the farmers and physicians of Vermilion County, Illinois. From this it might be inferred that the disease had a vegetable origin. But it appears that it prevails as early in the season as March and April in some localities; and I am informed that, in an early day, say thirty-five or forty years ago, it showed itself in the winter-time in this county. This seems to argue that it may be produced by water holding some mineral substance in solution. Even in this case, however, some vegetable producing the disease may have been gathered and preserved with the hay on which the cattle were fed at the time; for in that early day the farmers were in the habit of cutting wild grass for their stock. On the whole, I am inclined to attribute the cause to a vegetable origin. The symptoms of what is called milk-sickness in this county— and they are similar to those described by authors who have written on the disease in other sections of the Western country—are a whitish coat on the tongue, burning sensation of the stomach severe vomiting, obstinate constipation of the bowels, coolness of the extremities, great restlessness and jactitation, pulse rather small, somewhat more frequent than natural, and slightly corded. In the course of the disease, the coat on the tongue becomes brownish and dark, the countenance dejected, and the prostration of the patient is great. A fatal termination may take place in sixty hours, or life may be prolonged for a period of fourteen days. These are the symptoms of the acute form of the disease. Sometimes it runs into the chronic form, or it may assume that form from the commencement; and, after months or years, the patient may finally die, or recover only a partial degree of health. The treatment which I have found most successful is pills composed of calomel and opium, given at intervals of two, three, or four hours, so as to bring the patient pretty strongly under the influence of opium by the time the second or third dose had been administered; some effervescing mixture, pro re nata; injections; castor oil, when the stomach will retain it; blisters to the stomach; brandy or good whiskey freely administered throughout the disease; and quinine after the bowels have been moved. Under the above treatment, modified according to the circumstances, I would not expect to lose more than one case in eight or ten, as the disease manifests itself in this county.... As ever, Theo. Lemon.