We took a vacation (yes, fulltimers can take vacations) to Minnesota to visit Norm's oldest son's family. We had planned to visit them by motorhome in September but our plans got changed. Troy is a doctor in St. Cloud and he and his wife Sandy have two beautiful and intelligent boys, Luke (7) and Logan (5). We had four enjoyable days with them and wish we could see them more often. 

Flying commercial airlines is much more stressful than traveling by motorhome. With flying everything is hurry and wait, hurry and wait again. Everything is done by another persons' schedule and the traveler has no input. Traveling by motorhome is relaxing and we are in charge.

We spent Thanksgiving with Darren (Norm's son) and Martha Payne in eastern Kentucky and with Norm's son Nathan and a total of nineteen hungry people. We were thankful to be with family and have all that good food to eat.
 

Following Abraham Lincoln through Kentucky and Indiana

Most people think of Abraham Lincoln as a lawyer and political from Illinois and the 16th president of the United States. He ruled our country during the Civil War and was known for holding the country together and ending slavery. Many people don't know he was born in the wilderness of Kentucky and grew up in wilderness Indiana. The twenty-one years he spent in those two states is what molded Abraham Lincoln into a caring and passionate leader.

In 1782, Abraham Lincoln (the future president's grandfather) entered the Kentucky wilderness through the Cumberland Gap on a trail blazed by Daniel Boone only seven years earlier. In 1786 while planting fields near present-day Louisville he was killed by Indians. Ten year old Thomas Lincoln (the president's father) became the man of his family including his mother and four siblings. Thomas settled in Hardin County and earned enough money to purchase a 230-acre farm. In 1806 he married Nancy Hanks and in 1808 they bought Sinking Springs farm, paying $200 for 340-acres of stony land on Nolin Creek. The Lincolns had a daughter, Sarah, in 1807 and little Abe was born in 1809. The Lincolns lived in a one room log cabin, about 18 by 16 feet, with a dirt floor and a small fireplace for heating and cooking.

In 1894 A.W. Dennett purchased the Lincoln farm and cabin. In 1905 Robert Collier purchased the farm and along with Mark Twain, William Jennings Bryan, Samuel Gompers and others formed the Lincoln Farm Association. The group raised more than $350,000 to build a memorial to house the cabin and the cornerstone was laid by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1909. Two years later the marble and granite memorial was dedicated by President William Howard Taft. Today the National Park Service runs Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site three miles south of Hodgenville, Kentucky. The site includes a visitors center with displays, photos and a film about Lincoln's early life in Kentucky. Fifty-six steps (one for each year of Lincoln's life) lead to the memorial building that houses the old Lincoln cabin. At the bottom of the steps is Sinking Spring where young Lincoln got his first drink of water. The grounds also include hiking trails and a combination souvenir store / museum.

When Abe was two years old the Thomas Lincoln family bought a fertile 228-acre farm ten miles northeast called the Knob Hill Farm. While living there Abe had a brother die and he was buried on the farm. Abe almost drown in rain swollen Knob Creek and was saved by a neighbor boy. Abe and his sister Sarah walked two miles to a one room school where schoolmaster Caleb Hazel taught them reading, writing and arithmetic. It was called the "blab school" since everything was recited due to having no books. In 1816 the County Sheriff evicted the Lincolns and nine neighboring families from their land due to a flaw in a land title. That fall the Lincoln family moved to Indiana.

Today the Knob Creek Farm is owned and operated by the National Park Service. The original Lincoln cabin was torn down in 1870 and a similar neighboring cabin was erected on the farm in 1931. A man who helped tear down the cabin supervised setting up the identical cabin. The cabin is presently being stabilized.

From the exterior the Lincoln Museum in Hodgenville looks like any other small town museum, but once inside we realized it is a world class museum. Twenty-one wax figures in twelve scenes depict the life of Abraham Lincoln from boyhood until death. Throughout the museum's evolution museum creators consulted history books and historians to assist in the search for authentic furniture, carpet, wallpaper and virtually everything in the scenes. The museum also contains artwork and paintings, various memorabilia and traveling collections. A bronze statue of Lincoln sits in a square in front of the museum.

In the fall of 1816 Thomas and Nancy Lincoln with Sarah (age 9) and Abraham (age 7) packed all their possessions in a cart and headed to Indiana where land could be bought from the federal government with no title disputes. Thomas Lincoln bought 160-acres in the wilderness.

(This next paragraph will not be found in history books because few people know details of the Lincolns venture to Indiana. Several years ago I discovered the Lincoln family traveled through a farm later owned by my great-great-grandfather Robert Payne. They spent one night at a stagecoach stop adjacent to my ancestor's farm and I interviewed people from both families and was told stories that have been passed down through generations. - Norm)

The Lincolns traveled through Hodgenville, Elizabethtown, Big Spring (they spent several days there resting), Custer and to a stagecoach stop near present-day Garfield. They spent one night at Prince of Wales, a combination stage stop, store and school. Thomas Lincoln had no money and he agreed to split wood and do other work for a nights stay and meals. At the evening meal Abe and Sarah were told to eat with the slaves in the kitchen since children were not allowed in the dining room, but the slaves did not want them so the children ate alone. The next day they traveled with their cart drawn by two large oxen to Hardinsburg and sought a cabin since Nancy was very ill. A good Samaritan let them use an old empty log cabin on the outskirts of town. They stayed there up to two weeks while Nancy regained her strength. Moving on to Joesville (now Cloverport) they crossed the Ohio River by ferry and entered Indiana.

Through Kentucky the Lincolns traveled dirt roads with communities a day's travel apart, but once in Indiana there were no roads. They had to make their own road by cutting brush and trees. Their journey took two months while today it can easily be driven in three hours. Upon arriving at their new farm on Little Pigeon Creek (near present-day Lincoln City) in December they immediately constructed a small one room log cabin similar to their cabins in Kentucky. When spring arrived they planted six acres of corn with beans planted between stalks so they could wrap around the corn. Less than two years later Nancy Hanks Lincoln died of milk sickness, a disease caused by cows eating white snakeroot. She was buried on a knoll near the cabin. By that time the Lincolns had taken in a cousin boy.

Less than a year later Thomas returned to Kentucky and married a widow he knew and took her back to Indiana. She had three children ages 12, 8 and 5. So in the small one room cabin lived Thomas, his new wife Sarah (Bush) Johnson, Abe, sister Sarah, a cousin and three new half- siblings - eight people in one small room with a dirt floor.

As Abe grew older he increased his skills with a plow and axe. He earned money by taking passengers to meet steamboats in the middle of the Ohio River and once worked on a flat boat to New Orleans where he witnessed a slave auction - an experience that affected him the rest of his life. Abe received only one year of formal education but his step-mother had many books which he read and he often joined political discussions at Gentry's store. In 1830, at age 21, Abe Lincoln moved with his family to Illinois, but that is another story for another time.

The Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial is located off interstate 64, exit 57, and near the present-day town of Lincoln City. It has a visitors center with a brief film about Lincoln's life in Indiana, museum exhibits, paintings and a book store. The outside walls are sculptured Indiana limestone depicting places where Lincoln lived with quotations of Lincoln's speeches carved in stone. A walking trail took us by a flagpole, to the cemetery where Nancy (Hanks) Lincoln is buried, to the cabin site and a working living historical farm. Our return trip was The Trail of Twelve Stones. Twelve of the places most important to Lincoln's life donated stones for the trail and each has a plaque explaining the event.

We took our eight year old granddaughter Emily with us and she had not heard about Abraham Lincoln's boyhood when we arrived. She enjoyed the movie and that stirred her interest so she read every sign in the museum and studied everything on the trails. She stood on a rock from Gettysburg where Lincoln stood to deliver the Gettysburg Address and stood on a stone from the building where Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. Later she used a computer to write a story on the history of the 16th president of the United States. The best way to learn history is to experience it firsthand and we're sure Emily will never forget Abraham Lincoln.