Lincoln Boyhood Memorial Home—Thoughts About His early life

Lincoln Boyhood Memorial Home—Thoughts About His early life

After three trip cancellations this year at the last minute, via my typical aging spirit of ‘the hell with it’, I managed to plan and actually carry out a trip. It was only a day trip, and not one which many others would spend the money to go on. Of all the people I have admired and studied to death, Abraham Lincoln is the one whose interest on my part never wanes. His understanding of human nature, his analytical skills, and his background all have attracted more books about him than any other figure in history outside of Jesus. 

I have been to the reconstructed New Salem village where he spent several years of his early twenties, have been to Springfield to see his home there, his law office there, his burial site under 35 feet of concrete (twice thieves tried to steal the body), the Lincoln Monument in Washington, D.C., and the Lincoln Museum in Springfield. That, plus having read hundreds of books about Lincoln myself, hardly makes me a Lincoln scholar, albeit probably pegs me not too far behind.

I have always wanted to visit the place where he grew up from age 7 to age 18. His formative years took place at the southern tip of Indiana in a one room cabin with 8 other inhabitants. His father owned a 100 acres there in southern Indiana, not rich fertile acreage, but rocky poor soil, surrounded by wilderness and inclement weather. Owning that much land was hardly a sign of wealth back then. Hell, the government would give you a 160 acres if you would just go live on it. 

On paper this forlorn wilderness would seem a terrible place for anyone’s formative years. Once on the site, where his 1 room cabin has been reconstructed and his mother’s gravestone located, one cannot wander far from this confined area or one will lose the physical reality of it all. Except for the small area for the cabin, a couple of small sheds for chickens, tools, and small pastures for the cows everything else is pure woods. Still, Lincoln had fond memories of his childhood—a Childhood which had not a single material thing of substance. His bed was some leaves up in a loft. His clothes were homemade from animal skins although he may have had a single weaved shirt. No electricity, no running water, no means of transportation except walking and on horse, and he never owned a horse until considerable time after he left home as soon as his dad had resettled in Illinois. Even then, when he needed a horse to ride the judicial circuit as a lawyer, he couldn’t keep up the payments and a kind gentlemen bought the horse and gave it to Lincoln. He left home with nothing but the clothes on his back. What a miserable existence his formative years must have been. Except it wasn’t. Those who have read much of anything I write are well aware of my postulation that The Golden Rule brings contentment, and only the Golden Rule can bring a contentment which is not of a momentary significance. Lincoln saw and felt the pain of others, animals or people, and always made the effort to help them with their needs. He was deeply in debt most of his life, mostly because he did things for others who could not afford to pay. On the other hand, he was welcomed anywhere, might stay with one family for days, and even if not, they always fed him. He was, I guess, like a lovable stray dog. I guess we might say he was the ultimate nice guy, and a brilliant nice guy, an eminently trustworthy nice guy.

The average lifespan of Americans back in Lincoln’s youth was less than 40 years of age. Death was not mostly confined to the elderly, but happened all the time to younger people. The first son of Lincoln’s mother (Nancy Lincoln) died in infancy. Lincoln was but nine years old when his mother died. She died from ‘milk sickness’—a toxin gotten from cow milk or meat. Today the toxin is easily neutralized. His grandfather was killed by Indians. His sister Sarah died when Lincoln was 17 years of age. His Dad returned to Kentucky and a year later arrived back with a new wife, now Lincoln’s stepmother (Sarah Bush Lincoln), plus a stepbrother, and two step sisters. and a cousin of his mother (Dennis Hanks). This made a total of 7 people living in a one room cabin.  A main trail for settlers moving west went by near their cabin, and Lincoln was often ‘rented out’ to do chores for others in the neighborhood.

It is hard to say what motivated Lincoln to learn to read and search out books, books being something hard to find in his environment. He had less than a year of formal schooling. Aside from reading books, Lincoln liked to tell stories, and seemed intrigued by the thoughts and feelings of others. Early on Lincoln seemed to have adopted the Golden Rule as his ethical bent. His family was active in church yet Lincoln never joined a church, but often practiced repeating sermons he heard to others, if they would listen. Lincoln was well versed in the Bible, and when asked later in life why he never joined a church he replied: “When any church will inscribe over its alter, as its sole qualification for membership, the Savior’s condensed statement of the substance of both law and Gospel, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and thy neighbor as thyself,’ that church will I join with all my heart and all my soul.”  Past that Lincoln was turned off by sectarianism. Somewhere in the mix of his childhood Lincoln became the person who would rise to eminence in one of the most difficult periods of American History. 

The Lincoln boyhood home is really in the middle of nowhere, even today. If one was going to do or see anything besides his home cabin and his mother’s graveyard, it is hard to imagine what would be of any interest for many miles around. There is a visitor’s center staffed at this time of year by one state trooper. The cabin and sheds are all locked up. In the summer they are staffed by ‘period’ people dressed in clothes of that era. But the time of year was perfect for me. I simply enjoyed being the only  person wandering around, sitting on a tree stump lost in thoughts about how this environment could generate someone like Lincoln. I thought about how many times a parent has showered their kids with every material thing imaginable so that their children could have a better childhood then they did. There is, I guess, good reason for the term ‘brat’. Of course how much environment or genetics plays in creating a ‘brat’ is still hard to decipher. Parenting is a real challenge.

I encountered only one person while there. He came from a family whose ancestors lived there when Lincoln did and so he had a lot of stories passed down from them. They were interesting stories, but I was on a limited time schedule since I had to get back to Kentucky for the late flight back to Chicago.  He mentioned that Lincoln suffered times of deep depression with no drugs to treat it. This is a common notion about Lincoln. So I gave the gentleman my condensed explanation of depression. There is normal depression—-depression by situations which normally do make a person depressed, and abnormal depression—depression caused not by external events, but by abnormal brain chemistry. Abnormal depression requires drugs to relieve it. Normal depression does not. All of Lincoln’s depressive states were of the normal variety: After all, he lost his mother, his sister, 3 of his 4 sons, an early love, a wife drove mentally ill by the pressures of the War and the death of a son, and throughout his life was face to face with those less fortunate, not to mention being President during the most devastating war our country ever waged. So of course he had endless occasions to be depressed. And yet, never, not once, was he unable to function, to make sound daily decisions that required the keenest intellect to make. Why would anyone expect a person facing all the tragedies that he faced in life, to be a happy-go-lucky warrior in life and not be worn down by the depth of all the problems? 

Actually, Lincoln was one of the most contented figures in history. He had learned, in his formative years, to “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to our duty as we understand it” (His words). Right, to Lincoln, was not some sort of inherited religious beliefs, selectively followed, as a trip to Heaven. Lincoln’s ‘right’ was based on keen insight into human nature, and a need for justice to prevail for all concerned. His mind could switch from obliviousness to others around him, to melancholy, to mirth and laughter, to bawdry jokes, to sadness, to reflective anecdotes, but never unkindness to others. If he could not help, he at least would not be unkind. To do, what in his mind was the right thing, generated his underlying contentment. Personal contentment does not make anyone immune from sadness, from bad luck, from failures or any other external events in life. 

I found his mother’s grave and the one room cabin and the recreated pastures. Lincoln himself went back to his boyhood home twenty years after having left for Illinois and wrote a poem about his visit:

My childhood's home I see again,
And sadden with the view;
And still, as memory crowds my brain,
There's pleasure in it too.

O Memory! thou midway world
'Twixt earth and paradise,
Where things decayed and loved ones lost
In dreamy shadows rise,

And, freed from all that's earthly vile,
Seem hallowed, pure, and bright,
Like scenes in some enchanted isle
All bathed in liquid light.

As dusky mountains please the eye
When twilight chases day;
As bugle-tones that, passing by,
In distance die away;

As leaving some grand waterfall,
We, lingering, list its roar--
So memory will hallow all
We've known, but know no more.

Near twenty years have passed away
Since here I bid farewell
To woods and fields, and scenes of play,
And playmates loved so well.

Where many were, but few remain
Of old familiar things;
But seeing them, to mind again
The lost and absent brings.

The friends I left that parting day,
How changed, as time has sped!
Young childhood grown, strong manhood gray,
And half of all are dead.

I hear the loved survivors tell
How nought from death could save,
Till every sound appears a knell,
And every spot a grave.

I range the fields with pensive tread,
And pace the hollow rooms,
And feel (companion of the dead)
I'm living in the tombs.

At any rate, from his formative years Lincoln grew to be the person, so intriguing to so many people, that all these books have been written about him. I thought to myself, wandering out there in a nondescript wilderness, “so this is the environment which molded the mind of Lincoln.” When he left to be on his own at age 21, with nothing to show for his formative years, this is clearly misleading: for Lincoln’s mindset was uniquely prepared for the challenges he would soon enough face. 

So what, I pondered, did his formative environment contribute to his successful life? Clearly he was blessed with a loaded genetic hand, all of which was unearned, just the luck of the dice. He was genetically endowed with physical size and strength, important in a rural frontier environment; he had a strong curiosity about everything around him, and he had a mind which was very logical and deliberate in it’s contemplations—-a mind, which once arriving at a conclusion, was a conclusion retained like being riveted in stone. He was not so much a fast thinker, but a logical thinker, with the patience to stick with a search for an answer until he had a solid data base. Lincoln, out there in the wilderness, had no endless means of amusement except that which he could generate with his own thoughts about everything and everyone around him. There were no electronic gadgets so that he could spend all day communicating with others similar to his own comfortable mental state about anything. He was surrounded his entire formative years on a daily basis by people who were very diverse. He didn’t inherit any religious, political, or cultural biases. There were no glittering cathedrals, no fancy schools, no real cultural traditions to follow. There was endless boredom, with his only option to educate himself about life, with Mother Nature as his school. There were no real forces at work in his formative years to indoctrinate him about major matters of life. He saw the power of words to influence others via itinerate preachers, he understood the value of books to provide a basis for sound conclusions about many things in life. Both his stepmother and father were basically illiterate.

Later in life Lincoln showed particular affection for his step-mother Sarah Bush Lincoln. Lincoln’s desire in life was to be somebody of note, and he never pretended otherwise to anyone. It was never centered around personal acquisition of material things, money, or power. He actually saw and felt the   “still sad music” (Wordsworth) of humanity. “The greatest wealth is to live content with little, for there is never want where the mind is satisfied.” (Lucretius)  Lincoln once said that “All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother”. Lincoln kept personal problems and matters to himself, so his personal thoughts about his youth are not available from him in any depth. Sarah Bush Lincoln was quoted in later years as having stated, when first arriving at the Lincoln cabin in Indiana, that the children “needed to be "dressed...up" to look "more human." Sarah Lincoln was illiterate but supported his constant interest in reading against his father’s desire that Lincoln not waste his time so much on books. She later in life said: “Abe never gave me a cross word or look and never refused in fact, or even in appearance, to do anything I requested him. I never gave him a cross word in all my life…his mind and mine—what little I had—seemed to move together—move in the same channel….Abe was the best boy I ever saw or ever expect to see.” 

At 18, Lincoln helped his dad and family move to Illinois, helped him clear land for a cabin, get some crops started, and then simply left home with nothing but the clothes on his back. When his father was dying and asked to see Lincoln, Lincoln demurred, writing to him “that if we could meet now, it is doubtful whether it would not be more painful than pleasant”. He did not go to the funeral. Speculation has abounded as to why Lincoln would refuse to see his father one last time or go to the funeral. Since Lincoln never confided in anyone about personal matters it remains speculative. Many times during his life, Lincoln bailed out his parents with financial aid, even when Lincoln was in debt himself. So Lincoln was not heartless about his dad but seemed to feel they (step brothers, cousins) were reckless, lazy, and irresponsible. Having left the frontier life to go in a different direction on his own, Lincoln seemed determined not to get bogged down in a life he had long ago walked away from. While Lincoln made yearly trips to visit his stepmother and dad, his wife never went with him or ever met any of the Lincoln ‘clan’. There is only speculation as to whether this was more Lincoln’s decision or Mary’s. 

He early on adopted the ‘Golden Rule’ as his ethical mantra in life. He never adopted material wealth as any kind of addiction in life. His mind was so busy absorbing insights about all aspects of life that he never formed any intimate relationships except maybe one person while in his twenties and his wife. His inquisitiveness, his memory, his logic, his endless empathy with the less fortunate, his independence, and his obsession with ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ were all acquired out there in the wilderness of southern Indiana. By the age of 21 the essentials of Lincoln were already in place. His understanding of human nature coupled with his ‘charity’ towards all, would place him center stage in the epic American struggle with human rights and equal justice for all. Interestingly, he understood he would be killed for his zeal in these areas, and related this belief at least a half dozen times during his Presidency. If his assassination shocked so many others, this too was something Lincoln saw as his fate for his efforts. As he did so well himself, he advised all Americans that “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.” Right, to Lincoln, was not any adherence to religious dogma, cultural traditions, self serving advantages, but individual freedom and justice for all. He was never part of a cabal of any sort, but notably apart from such limited perspectives on life. He saw the whole picture, and arrived at end points, not by any rigid criteria of the moment, but he would bend this way and that way en-route to the desired end result. He was, among so many other things, a master of manipulation to achieve fairness and justice for all. When hard line abolitionists pleaded with the President to move faster toward liberating slaves, he responded that he was only going to move so fast as he could bring the people with him, that they should continue to do what they were doing to abolish slavery, that when the time was right he reckoned he would put his foot down hard enough to attain success. It really was the ‘genius’ of Lincoln which finally allowed slavery to be ended. Of course, with time, someone else would have ended slavery—it was doomed for self destruction——but it ended when it did through the manipulative abilities of Abraham Lincoln. 

That forlorn and primitive environment out there in southern Indiana may well have been the perfect environment for Lincoln’s mind to develop as it did. He was in a position to see reality in the absence of preconceived barriers of any sort. His stepmother was illiterate but supportive, his father fully concentrated on physical labor, and his self induced ethical values and perception of others tended to make Lincoln everyone’s friend. 

His law partner said this:

“Mr. Lincoln was a "very sensitive man...a diffident man, somewhat, and a sensitive one and both of these added to his oddity, an awkwardness, etc....Lincoln had confidence, full and complete confidence in himself, self-thoughtful, self-helping, and self-supporting, relying on no man." Herndon wrote “Mr. Lincoln was a kind tender, and sympathetic man, feeling deeply in the presence of suffering, pain, wrong, or oppression in any shape; he was the very essence and substance of truth; and was of unbounded veracity, had unlimited integrity, always telling the exact truth, and always doing the honest thing at all times and under all circumstances. He was just to men, he loved the right, the good, and true, with all his soul. I was with Mr. Lincoln for about twenty-five years, and I can truthfully say I never knew him to do a wrong thing, never knew him to do a mean thing, never knew him to do any little dirty trick. He was always noble. In his nature he felt noble and acted nobly. I never knew so true a man, so good a one, so just a one, so incorrupted and incorruptible a one. He was a patriot and loved his country well, and died for it. Mr. Lincoln expressed his great feelings in this thoughts, and his great thoughts in his feelings; he lived in his thoughts, and thought in his feelings. By these his soul was elevated and purified for his work. His work was the highest and grandest religion, noble duty nobly done. Mr. Lincoln was cool and calm under the most trying circumstances; he had unbounded charity for all men." 

Herndon wrote: "He was the most secretive- reticent - shut-mouthed man that ever lived." Mr. Lincoln did consult with his friends - but he didn't necessarily take their advice, help their clients, or give them the jobs they wanted.

"Notwithstanding Lincoln's geniality he was a lonely man; for there was a remoteness and innate dignity about him that kept acquaintances at arm's length. Most people addressed him as 'Mr. Lincoln' or 'Lincoln,'" wrote historian Benjamin Thomas.

"Mr. Lincoln never had a confidant, and therefore never unbosomed himself to others. He never spoke of his trials to me or, so far as I knew, to any of his friends. It was a great burden to carry, but he bore it sadly enough and without a murmur.”

In his biography of Mr. Lincoln, Herndon wrote: "In general terms his life was cold  at least characterized by what many persons would deem great indifference. He had, however, a strong latent capacity to love: but the object must first come in the guise of a principle, next it must be right and true, then it was lovely in his sight. He loved humanity when it was oppressed as an abstract love as against the concrete love centred in an individual. He rarely used terms of endearment, and yet he was proverbially tender and gentle. He gave the key-note to his own character when he said: 'With malice towards none, with charity for all.' In proportion to his want of deep, intense love he had not hate and bore no malice. His charity for an imperfect man was as broad as his devotion to principle was enduring."

Judge David Davis's frustration in his relationship with the President is reflected in a statement he made in 1866: "Lincoln was a peculiar man," said Davis. He never "asked my advice about anything - never took my advice....he asked no man advice - took, no mans advice." Davis said "He had no faith in any mans judgement. Davis said “Mr. Lincoln was the most "reticent" and "secretive" man that he knew. Davis' close friend, Leonard Swett, seemed chagrined by Mr. Lincoln's lack of reliance on his friends judgment. "From the commencement of his life to its close, I have sometimes doubted whether he ever asked anybody's advice about anything. He would listen to everybody; he would hear everybody, but he never asked for opinions.

It was a long day, and my age showed a bit, but it filled my need to walk the same ground as Lincoln did when he was young. Funny, how with age, it is the simple things that bring the most contentment. Each day I try to learn a little bit more about this thing called life, not for any particular purpose, except understanding leaves one a little more mellow about life, more humbled, more sympathetically attuned to the problems of others, and a lot less irritable about the daily nuances of life and bothersome others. I don’t know how many read this sort of musing, but I do know this is a safer musing to send out than a musing on “Sexual Diversity”. No ruffled feathers with this one.