A KENTUCKY HAND-MILL.
From a photograph of the original, owned by R. T. Durrett, LL.D., of Louisville, Kentucky. This mill was formerly the property of Joseph Brooks, a prominent pioneer of Kentucky. Similar ones were used by all Western pioneers.

“Yes,” said Mr. Gollaher, “the story that I once saved Abraham Lincoln’s life is true, but it is not correct as generally related.

“Abraham Lincoln and I had been going to school together for a year or more, and had become greatly attached to each other. Then school disbanded on account of there being so few scholars, and we did not see each other much for a long while. One Sunday my mother visited the Lincolns, and I was taken along. Abe and I played around all day. Finally, we concluded to cross the creek to hunt for some partridges young Lincoln had seen the day before. The creek was swollen by a recent rain, and, in crossing on the narrow footlog, Abe fell in. Neither of us could swim. I got a long pole and held it out to Abe, who grabbed it. Then I pulled him ashore. He was almost dead, and I was badly scared. I rolled and pounded him in good earnest. Then I got him by the arms and shook him, the water meanwhile pouring out of his mouth. By this means I succeeded in bringing him to, and he was soon all right.

MAP SHOWING POINTS OF INTEREST IN LINCOLN’S LIFE.—MADE SPECIALLY FOR THIS BIOGRAPHY.
The above map shows where Abraham Lincoln’s grandfather first took land in Kentucky, where his father and mother were married, where they first lived, where he was born, and where he lived from 1809 to 1816. It shows the Rolling Fork, Salt River, and the Ohio, which Thomas Lincoln followed in going into Indiana in 1816; the new home in Indiana; the point where Lincoln kept the ferry about 1826; Boonville, where he went to hear trials; the grave of his mother; the route by which it is supposed he went to Illinois in 1830 (see page [87] for note correcting this route); the location of both of Thomas Lincoln’s farms in Illinois, and his grave, near Farmington, Coles County. Sangamon, New Salem, Vandalia, Springfield, and the chief places where Mr. Lincoln practised law are shown, as well as the points where the Lincoln and Douglas debates and the important political events of the campaign of 1860 took place.

“Then a new difficulty confronted us. If our mothers discovered our wet clothes they would whip us. This we dreaded from experience, and determined to avoid. It was June, the sun was very warm, and we soon dried our clothing by spreading it on the rocks about us. We promised never to tell the story, and I never did until after Lincoln’s tragic end.

“Abraham Lincoln had a sister. Her name was Sallie, and she was a very pretty girl. Sallie Lincoln was about my age; she was my sweetheart. I loved her and claimed her, as boys do. I suppose that was one reason for my warm regard for Abe. When the Lincoln family moved to Indiana, I was prevented by circumstances from bidding good-by to either of the children, and I never saw them again.”[[4]]

ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S INDIANA HOME.
After an old photograph showing the cabin as it appeared in 1869. Thomas Lincoln built this house in 1817, and moved into it about a year after he reached his farm. At first it had neither windows, door, nor floor; but after the advent of Sally Bush Lincoln it was greatly improved. When he decided to leave Indiana he was preparing the lumber for a better house.

All the young people went to school. At that day the schools in the West were usually accidental, depending upon the coming of some poor and ambitious young man who was willing to teach a few terms while he looked for an opening to something better. The terms were irregular, their length being decided by the time the settlers felt able to board the master and pay his small salary. The chief qualification for a school-master seems to have been enough strength to keep the “big boys” in order, though one high authority affirms that pluck went “for a heap sight more’n sinnoo with boys.”