e was absolutely
nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course when I came of
age I did not 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.

I was raised to farm work, which I continued till I was twenty-two.
At twenty-one I came to Illinois, and passed the first year in
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.

In addition to the foregoing I may add that among my acquaintance in
central Pennsylvania were several sisters whose maiden name was Winters.
Two of these sisters were wives of Judges of the Supreme Court of
Pennsylvania. Another sister was the wife of William Potter, a member of
Congress of some note from that State and son of General Potter of the
Revolution. These sisters were the great aunts of President Lincoln, and
I subjoin an obituary notice of the younger sister, Mrs. Potter, who
died in 1875, at the advanced age of eighty-four. There are some
incidents not immediately connected with the subject that might be
omitted, but I think it best to present the obituary in full:

Died, in Bellefonte, at the residence of Edward C. Humes, on Sunday
morning, the 30th of May A. D. 1875, Mrs. Lucy Potter, relict of
Hon. William W. Potter, deceased, aged eighty-four years, nine
months, and two days.

Mrs. Potter was a member of a large and rather remarkable family;
her father having been born in 1728, married in 1747, died in 1794;
children to the number of nineteen being born to him, the eldest in
1748, the youngest in 1790--their birth extending over a period of
forty-two years. William Winters, the father of the deceased, came
from Berks county to Northumberland, now Lycoming county, in the
year 1778, having purchased the farm lately known as the Judge
Grier farm, near what was called Newberry, but now within the
corporate limits of the city of Williamsport. Mr. Winters was twice
married. His first wife was Ann Boone, a sister of Colonel Daniel
Boone, famous in the early annals of Kentucky. His marriage took
place in the year 1747 in the then province of Virginia. B