tealth, when he was laboring 10
to open a farm in the forest. His ancestors, who were
Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks County, Pennsylvania.
An effort to identify them with the New England
family of the same name ended in nothing more definite
than a similarity of Christian names in both families, such 15
as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Solomon, Abraham, and the like.

My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of
age, and he grew up literally without education. He removed
from Kentucky to what is now Spencer County,
Indiana, in my eighth year. We reached our new home
about the time the state came into the Union. It was a
wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still
in the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools,
so called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher 5
beyond "readin', writin', and cipherin'" to the rule of three.
If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to
sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a
wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition
for education. Of course, when I came of age I did not 10
know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and
cipher to the rule of three, but that was all. I have not
been to school since. The little advance I now have upon
this store of education I have picked up from time to time
under the pressure of necessity. 15

I was raised to farm work, which I continued till I was
twenty-two. At twenty-one I came to Illinois, Macon
County. Then I got to New Salem, at that time in Sangamon,
now in Menard County, where I remained a year as a
sort of clerk in a store. 20

Then came the Black Hawk war, and I was elected a captain
of volunteers, a success which gave me more pleasure
than any I have had since. I went the campaign, was
elated, ran for the legislature the same year (1832), and was
beaten--the only time I have ever been beaten by the 25
people. The next and three succeeding biennial elections
I was elected to the legislature. I was not a candidate
afterward. During this legislative period I had studied
law, and removed to Springfield to practice it. In 1846 I
was once elected to the lower house of Congress. Was 30
not a candidate for reelection. From 1849 to 1854, bot