orld. He found it much easier to gossip with his friends,
or to dream about rich new lands in the West, than to make a thrifty
living in the place where he happened to be. The blood of the pioneer
was in his veins too--the desire to move westward; and hearing glowing
accounts of the new territory of Indiana, he resolved to go and see it
for himself. His skill as a carpenter made this not only possible but
reasonably cheap, and in the fall of 1816 he built himself a little
flatboat, launched it half a mile from his cabin, at the mouth of Knob
Creek on the waters of the Rolling Fork, and floated on it down that
stream to Salt River, down Salt River to the Ohio, and down the Ohio to
a landing called Thompson's Ferry on the Indiana shore.

Sixteen miles out from the river, near a small stream known as Pigeon
Creek, he found a spot in the forest that suited him; and as his boat
could not be made to float upstream, he sold it, stored his goods with
an obliging settler, and trudged back to Kentucky, all the way on foot,
to fetch his wife and children--Sarah, who was now nine years old, and
Abraham, seven. This time the journey to Indiana was made with two
horses, used by the mother and children for riding, and to carry their
little camping outfit for the night. The distance from their old home
was, in a straight line, little more than fifty miles, but they had to
go double that distance because of the very few roads it was possible to
follow.

Reaching the Ohio River and crossing to the Indiana shore, Thomas
Lincoln hired a wagon which carried his family and their belongings the
remaining sixteen miles through the forest to the spot he had chosen--a
piece of heavily wooded land, one and a half miles east of what has
since become the village of Gentryville in Spencer County. The lateness
of the autumn made it necessary to put up a shelter as quickly as
possible, and he built what was known on the frontier as a half-faced
camp, about fourteen feet square. This differed from a cabin in that it
was closed on only three sides, being quite open to the weather on the
fourth. A fire was usually made in front of the open side, and thus the
necessity for having a chimney was done away with. Thomas Lincoln
doubtless intended this only for a temporary shelter, and as such it
would have done well enough in pleasant summer weather; but it was a
rude provision against the storms and winds of an Indiana winter. It
shows his want of energy th