parents, in 1778, removed to Kentucky and settled near Elizabethtown, in
Hardin County. In 1784, when Thomas was but six years old, his father
was killed by the Indians. There were no schools in that neighborhood,
and Thomas Lincoln grew to manhood without receiving an education.
Joseph Hanks, son of John Hanks, removed to Kentucky about the time that
Abraham Lincoln moved there from North Carolina. His daughter, Nancy
Hanks, who was born and educated in Virginia, grew up a playmate of
Thomas Lincoln, and in 1806 became his wife. Thomas Lincoln selected a
farm near Hodgensville, now the county seat of Larue County, Ky., built
a log cabin containing but one room, in which, on February 12, 1809,
Abraham Lincoln, the future president, was born. A poor farmer, with no
education and no capital other than his labor, Thomas Lincoln found
little to encourage his stay in Kentucky. The institution of slavery,
which lived on the toil of the black man, threw a dark shadow across the
path of the "poor white" who could claim no title to property in human
flesh and sinew, and in 1817 he removed from Kentucky to Spencer County,
Ind., and settled in the forest at Pigeon Creek, near the town of
Gentryville. On October 5, 1818, Mrs. Lincoln died and was laid to rest
at the foot of a tree on the farm which her husband had hewed out of the
forest with his axe.

Eighteen months after the death of his wife, Mr. Lincoln married Mrs.
Sarah Bush Johnston, a widow who had been a neighbor of his in
Kentucky. To his stepmother Abraham became very much attached, and he
always entertained the greatest respect and affection for her. His
education was very simple, his school days few, and his books fewer
still. Before leaving Kentucky he learned to read while listening to his
mother as she gave lessons to his father. In 1814, a Catholic priest,
Zachariah Riney, who travelled through the country, opened a school in
an untenanted cabin at Hodgensville, and for a few weeks gave
instructions to the youth of the neighborhood. Abraham attended this
school during its brief existence. In 1822 Azel Dorsey was employed as
teacher at Pigeon Creek, Ind., and during his short stay Abraham Lincoln
was his most attentive pupil. Two years after, Abraham went to school
for several months, and in 1824 his school days came to an end. His time
at school did not exceed twelve months altogether. In the meantime he
had read Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe," Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Prog