Starting life in a log cabin

Abraham Lincoln was born to Thomas and Nancy Lincoln on February 12, 1809, in a log
cabin on a farm in Hardin County, Kentucky. Two years later the family moved to a
farm on Knob Creek. There, when there was no immediate work to be done, Abraham
walked two miles to the schoolhouse, where he learned the basics of reading,
writing, and arithmetic.

When Abraham was seven, his father sold his lands and moved the family into the
rugged wilderness of Indiana across the Ohio River. After spending a winter in a
crude shack, the Lincolns began building a better home and clearing the land for
planting. They were making progress when, in the summer of 1818, a terrible disease
known as milk sickness struck the region. First it took the lives of Mrs. Lincoln's
uncle and aunt, and then Nancy Hanks Lincoln herself died. Without Mrs. Lincoln the
household began to fall apart, and much of the workload fell to Abraham and his
sister.

The next winter Abraham's father returned to Kentucky and brought back a second
wife, Sarah Bush Johnson, a widow with three children. As time passed, the region
where the Lincolns lived grew in population. Lincoln himself grew tall and strong,
and his father often hired him out to work for neighbors. Meanwhile, Lincoln's
father had again moved his family to a new home in Illinois, where he built a cabin
on the Sangamon River. At the end of the first summer in Illinois, disease swept
through the region and put the Lincolns on the move once again. This time it was to
Coles County. Abraham, who was now a grown man, did not go along. Instead he moved
to the growing town of New Salem, where he was placed in charge of a mill and
store.

Entering public life

Life in New Salem was a turning point for Lincoln, and the great man of history
began to emerge. To the store came people of all kinds to talk and trade and to
enjoy the stories told by this unique and popular man. The members of the New Salem
Debating Society welcomed him, and Lincoln began to develop his skills as a
passionate and persuasive speaker. When the Black Hawk War (1832) erupted between
the United States and hostile Native Americans, the volunteers of the region
quickly elected Lincoln to be their captain.

After the war he announced himself as a candidate for the Illinois legislature. He
was not elected, but he did receive 277 of the 300 votes cast in the New Salem
precinct. In 1834, after another attempt, Lincoln was finally elected to the state
legislature. Lincoln's campaign skills greatly impressed John Todd Stuart
(18071885), a leader of the Whigs, one of two major political parties in the
country at the time. Stuart was also an

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