Interpretive Panels

When Abraham Lincoln was born to Thomas and Nancy Lincoln in 1809, Kentucky, only seventeen years a state, remained largely unsettled, marked by dense forests, deep valleys, and steep, cone-shaped hills. Thomas, a carpenter and farmer, had married Nancy Hanks in 1806. The couple settled along Nolin Creek near present-day Hodgenville, where their first child, Sarah, was born in 1807. Abraham followed two years later. Though farm work kept him from attending school regularly, Abraham was almost entirely self-taught. He developed an early and lasting love of reading, seizing every opportunity to educate himself.

Opposed to slavery and frustrated by persistent land disputes, Thomas Lincoln left Kentucky in 1816 and moved his family to the free state of Indiana. They settled along Little Pigeon Creek near present-day Lincoln City. Tragedy struck two years later when Nancy Lincoln fell ill with dizziness, nausea, and severe stomach pains. She lapsed into a coma and died on October 5, 1818. Her death was later attributed to milk sickness, caused by drinking milk contaminated by poisonous plants consumed by cows. Unable to endure the loneliness, Thomas remarried in 1819. His new wife, Sarah Bush Johnston, was a widow with three children. Abraham later described her as “a good and kind mother.” She encouraged his education and shared her personal collection of books, helping to nurture his intellectual growth. By 1822, the Little Pigeon Creek community had grown substantially, supporting two general stores, a mill, a tavern, and a Baptist church. In 1826, Abraham’s sister Sarah married and moved with her husband to a cabin two miles south. She became pregnant the following year, but complications during childbirth claimed both her life and that of her child in 1827.

In 1830, the family moved to Illinois, settling along the Sangamon River in Mason County, near present-day Decatur. Ready to make his own way, twenty-two-year-old Abraham struck out for the village of New Salem, about sixty miles northwest of Decatur. Founded in 1828, New Salem stood on a bluff overlooking the Sangamon River, surrounded largely by dense woodland. It was a small, close-knit community whose population never exceeded one hundred. Abraham found work as a clerk in a general store. With his quick wit and gift for storytelling, he drew customers in and, within eight months, had come to know most of the residents. Impressed by his character and intelligence, friends encouraged him to run for the Illinois General Assembly in March 1832. Speaking in a plain, folksy manner, he campaigned on practical improvements, better roads and canals, and proposed dredging the Sangamon River to make it navigable for steamboats.

In April, however, his campaign was abruptly interrupted when Mahkatêwe-meshi-kêhkêhkwa (Black Hawk), a Sauk leader, crossed the Mississippi River with several hundred followers. Although his band sought to resettle peacefully, Illinois militia forces mobilized, and volunteers were called up. Abraham enlisted and marched with his company, though he saw no combat. When he returned to New Salem in July, he attempted to revive his campaign, but the momentum had faded. In the August election, he finished eighth out of thirteen candidates. Still, he took pride in winning 177 of the 300 votes cast in the New Salem precinct. After the election, Abraham resumed life as a frontier merchant, supplementing his income by splitting rails and later serving as postmaster and assistant surveyor, roles that further strengthened his ties to the community and broadened his experience.

Between 1834 and 1840, Abraham Lincoln served as a Whig in the Illinois General Assembly. Legislators earned only three dollars a day while the Assembly was in session, so Lincoln needed another profession to support himself. That opportunity came when fellow representative John Todd Stuart encouraged him to study law. In those days, aspiring lawyers did not attend law school; instead, they “read law” in the office of a practicing attorney until they were prepared to pass the bar examination. In 1836, Lincoln was licensed to practice law, and in 1837 he became a junior partner in Stuart’s law office in the new state capital of Springfield.

Springfield in the late 1830s was still very much a frontier town. Its streets were unpaved, livestock wandered freely, and many buildings were simple wooden structures. Yet it was the most sophisticated community Lincoln had ever lived in, and he would consider it his home for the rest of his life. Beginning in 1837, Lincoln rode the Eighth Judicial Circuit, traveling twice a year to bring court proceedings to communities across central Illinois. The circuit included counties such as Champaign, DeWitt, Macon, Mason, McLean, Menard, Sangamon, and Tazewell; Christian, Logan, Shelby, and Woodford were added in 1840. Covering nearly five hundred miles, the journey typically lasted about eleven weeks. Lincoln continued riding the circuit until his nomination for the presidency in 1860, building his legal reputation, sharpening his skills, and becoming widely known throughout the region. Near the end of 1839, Lincoln met Mary Todd at a dance in Springfield. After a sometimes turbulent courtship, they married in November 1842. The couple had four sons, Robert (1843), Edward “Eddie” (1846), William “Willie” (1850), and Thomas “Tad” (1853), though only Robert lived to adulthood.

In 1847, when Abraham arrived in Washington to take his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, the nation had already been at war with Mexico for more than a year. President James K. Polk had asserted that Mexico had shed American blood on American soil in a disputed region along the Texas border and asked Congress to declare war. Polk, determined to expand the nation’s territory, received that authorization. Abraham strongly opposed the conflict. In December 1847, he introduced his “Spot Resolutions,” calling on President Polk to identify the precise “spot” where American blood had been spilled. Polk never provided the clarification. Abraham’s stance drew sharp criticism from Democrats and even members of his own Whig Party. He later defended his position, arguing that to accept the President’s word without question was to allow him to “make war at pleasure”—to invade another nation whenever he deemed it necessary.

The war ended on February 2nd, 1848, with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ceded vast western territories to the United States. Yet Abraham’s constitutional concerns were soon overshadowed by the fierce national debate that followed: whether the newly acquired lands would permit slavery or remain free. Choosing not to seek a second term, he returned to Springfield and resumed his law practice. Just a few years later, in March 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin, after first serializing it in an antislavery newspaper. The novel brought the human reality of slavery into homes across the North, particularly for readers who had not previously confronted the issue directly. Within a year, it had sold hundreds of thousands of copies in the United States and more than a million worldwide, helping to galvanize Northern opposition to slavery and deepen the sectional divide.