Work’n the Land for his Father
Number Four
From Lincoln’s Autobiographies and other Sources
[the selections with bracket “first-person wording” is from
an interview of presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln, by John L. Scripps of the Chicago Press and Tribune]
“I was raised to farm work, which I continued till I was twenty-two.” A. Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was raised as a “sustenance” farm helper in Kentucky and later Indiana. At his age of 18, Illinois had just been made a state. None of this mattered much to him, as he had to work very hard in the heat of summer to get crops in the ground so that food would be ready in the fall. News of the country was received by passers-by, at Sunday church meetings, and when in town to a store.
“I, though very young, was large for my age, and had an ax put into my hands at once; and from that till within my twenty-third year I was almost constantly handling that most useful instrument--less, of course, in plowing and harvesting seasons.” A. Lincoln--Scripps Interview
He was expected to work as a man.
My father was not
interested in raising a crop to sell, so new fancy equipment was not
even thought of. A good plow and sharp axes were required to do
the hard work of clearing and constructing.
John Deere was selling his new self-scouring plows. My father decided to purchase one. Our old horse was the means of power. I can remember moving along the rows reading a good book and perhaps “read out-loud,” to my old work horse.
By the sweat of the brow was the theme of Abraham Lincoln's life while living with
his father. “Eddication” was not a productive thing in running a
pioneer sustenance farm.
His father would grow
to dislike surveyors and lawyers. He had title problems with his
land in Kentucky. He was a land purchaser and seller even into
Illinois.
I don't know what he
thought of his son would becoming a self-educated surveyor and lawyer,
and NOT a farmer.