Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/495

 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 489 bnt in 1834 it was broken up and recast. "Within a few years the cathedral has under- gone extensive repairs and alterations. Other conspicuous buildings are the post office, the Lincoln Cathedral. corn exchange, and the county hospital. There is a school of art, a mechanics' institute and museum, a public library, and numerous schools and benevolent institutions. The principal in- dustry is the manufacture of agricultural im- plements ; there are also large breweries, tan- neries, iron founderies, grist mills, boat yards, and ropewalks. In the vicinity are numerous nurseries, lime kilns, and brick yards. LINCOLN, Abraham, sixteenth president of the United States, born in Hardin (now La- rue) co., Ky., Feb. 12, 1809, died in Washing- ton, D. C., April 15, 1865. His ancestors were among the early settlers of Rockingham co., Va., whither they had come from Bucks co., Pa., and whence his grandparents removed to Kentucky about 1781. His father, Thomas Lincoln, born in Virginia, married Nancy Hanks, also a Virginian, in 1806. In 1816 they removed to what is now Spencer co., Ind., set- tling in the forest near the present village of Gentry ville. Here, in October, 1818, Mrs. Lincoln died, and a year and a half later Mr. Lincoln married a widow Johnston, an old neighbor in Kentucky. With this stepmother Abraham always maintained the kindest rela- tions. He worked with his father in clearing up the new farm, being unusually large and strong for his age. Here he received about one year of schooling, which was all that he ever had. But he became ex- pert at figures, and the few books within his reach were diligently read. Among them were "JEsop's Fables," " Rob- inson Crusoe," " Pilgrim's Progress," a history of the United States, Weems's " Life of Washington," and the " Re- vised Statutes of Indiana." He kept a scrap book, into which he copied the striking passa- ges of whatever he read. In 1825 he was employed at $6 a month to manage a ferry across the Ohio at the mouth of An- derson's creek. He was fa- mous for telling stories and making stump speeches on the farms where he worked at va- rious times, and wrote doggerel satires on the ludicrous char- acters with whom he came in contact. He was noted also for his immense strength and agil- ity, and his skill as a wrestler. He was six feet four inches high. In 1828 he went to New Orleans as "bow hand" on a flatboat with a cargo of pro- duce. In March, 1830, the family moved to Illinois, set- tling 10 m. west of Decatur, where they built a log house on the north fork of the San- gamon, and cleared 15 acres of land, for the fencing of which Abraham split the rails. After becoming of age he spent a year or two in working at odd jobs for the farmers of the neighborhood, and about this time he made his first public speech; it was on the navigation of the Sangamon river, and was delivered extemporaneously in reply to one by a candidate for the legislature named Posey. In 1831, with his half brother and brother-in-law, he built a flatboat and naviga- ted it to New Orleans, with a merchant's car- go, their wages being 50 cents a day and $60 to be divided among them for the round trip. Just below New Salem, on the Sangamon, the boat stuck on a dam and was in danger of go- ing to pieces, but was saved by the ingenuity of Lincoln, who invented a novel apparatus for getting it over and saving the cargo. This seems to have turned his mind to the subject of overcoming such difficulties of navigation, and in 1849 he obtained a patent for "an im- proved method of lifting vessels over shoals." The design is a bellows attached to each side of the hull, below the water line, to be pumped full of air when it is desired to lift the craft over a shoal. The rude model, apparently