The early life of Abraham Lincoln: / containing many unpublished documents and unpublished reminiscences of Lincoln's early friends

by Ida M. Tarbell

ABRAHAM BECOMES A LABORER.

Abraham was ten years old when his new mother came from Kentucky, and he was already an important member of the family. He was remarkably strong for his years, and the work he could do in a day was a decided advantage to Thomas Lincoln. The axe which had been put into his hand to help in making the first clearing, he had never been allowed to drop; indeed, as he says himself, “from that till within his twenty-third year he was almost constantly handling that most useful instrument.” Besides, he drove the team, cut the elm and linn brush with which the stock was often fed, learned to handle the old shovel-plough, to wield the sickle, to thresh the wheat with a flail, to fan and clean it with a sheet, to go to mill and turn the hard-earned grist into flour. In short, he learned all the trades the settler’s boy must know, and so well that when his father did not need him he could hire him to the neighbors. Thomas Lincoln also taught him the rudiments of carpentry and cabinet-making, and kept him busy much of the time as his assistant in his trade. There are houses still standing, in and near Gentryville, on which it is said he worked. The families of Lamar, Jones, Crawford, Gentry, Turnham, and Richardson, all claim the honor of having employed him upon their cabins.

A MISSISSIPPI “BROAD-HORN.”
From a model in the exhibit of the United States National Museum at the Atlanta Exposition of 1895. The flatboat which Abraham Lincoln piloted to New Orleans was not, probably, as well built a boat as the above model represents; but it was built on the same general plan. The hold was enclosed to protect the produce, and on the deck was a cabin in which the boatmen lived. In going down the river, rough sails were sometimes rigged up on these broad-horns, though they floated usually, directed by huge paddles. If the boat was brought back, it was warped and poled by hand up the river. More often, however, the boatmen sold both boat and cargo at New Orleans, and came back by the steamers as deck passengers. Boats like the two models on this page are still seen in great numbers on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.

A RIVER PRODUCE BOAT.
From a model in the exhibit of the United States National Museum at the Atlanta Exposition of 1895. The photograph of this model, and of the one above, we owe to the courtesy of the director of the Museum, Mr. G. Brown Goode.

As he grew older he became one of the strongest and most popular “hands” in the vicinity, and much of his time was spent as a “hired boy” on some neighbor’s farm. For twenty-five cents a day—paid to his father—he was hostler, ploughman, wood-chopper, and carpenter, besides helping the women with the “chores.” For them he was ready to carry water, make the fire, even tend the baby. No wonder that a laborer who never refused to do anything asked of him, who could “strike with a mall heavier blows” and “sink an axe deeper into the wood” than anybody else in the community, and who at the same time was general help for the women, never lacked a job in Gentryville.

JOSEPH GENTRY.
One of the few companions of Lincoln’s youth in Indiana, now living, is Joseph Gentry. He resides on a farm one-fourth mile west from the Lincoln farm, where he has lived about sixty years. When a boy he lived in Gentryville—a town founded by the Gentrys. He was present at the funeral of Nancy Hanks Lincoln, and remembers hearing the minister say it was through the efforts of the little son of the dead woman that his services had been secured.

Of all the tasks his rude life brought him, none seems to have suited him better than going to the mill. It was, perhaps, as much the leisure enforced by this trip as anything else that attracted him. The machinery was primitive, and each man waited his turn, which sometimes was long in coming. A story is told by one of the pioneers of Illinois of going many miles with a grist, and waiting so long for his turn that, when it came, he and his horse had eaten all the corn, and he had none to grind. This waiting with other men and boys on like errands gave an opportunity for talk, story-telling, and games, which were Lincoln’s delight.