e have all heard the story of Abe Lincoln growing up in a log cabin, but the additional details about his childhood make it all the more amazing that this man grew up to become a great orator and a strong and principled leader of our country who guided our nation through its darkest time.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) was born in Kentucky in 1809. He and his sister Sarah (known as Sally) were born to Nancy Hanks and Tom Lincoln. Tom was an uneducated but relatively successful Kentucky farmer but as more people made their way into Kentucky, Lincoln found that the laws did not protect him from people who were out to poach his land. He became angry and frustrated and soon moved his young family to Perry County, Indiana.

The area where they settled was largely unsettled (an average of 3 people per square mile) and the land was terribly overgrown and difficult to farm. Abe Lincoln later described life in this area, known as Little Pigeon Creek, as a fight “with trees and logs and grubs.” While the family worked hard at farming, Tom had to rely on hunting most days in order to feed his family. Tom eventually built a one-room cabin for the family but there was no flooring and little furniture. The family slept on corn husk beds that frequently were inhabited by bugs and visited by rodents.

Their mother, Nancy, was very religious and taught the children about the Bible, and she believed in the importance of education. However, schools were uncommon in these lightly populated areas. When Abe was about seven, a school opened nine miles away, and Nancy insisted to Tom that the children be allowed to attend. (At best, the walk to school would have taken the children 2.5-3 hours each way so it was a major commitment.) The school did not last long, however the importance of education was impressed upon Abe’s mind.

When Abe was nine (1818), Nancy became very ill with “milk sickness.” (This is an illness we don’t hear about anymore but several of their neighbors had already died from it. Today scientists know that if cows ingest a plant known as white snakeroot, it goes through to their milk, and some people become sick and die from it.) Nancy’s death left Sally and Abe in the sole care of their father, who was overwhelmed by the need to hunt daily and still trying to cultivate the land so they could grow food. Historians report that he was a tough man who was known to knock his son down in anger at times; whether he would have been viewed as abusive or whether he was a “man of his day” is debated by experts.