Читать книгу Abraham Lincoln: History in an Hour - Kat Smutz, Kat Smutz - Страница 7

Lincoln the Rail Splitter, a painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, portraying Lincoln with an axe, 1909.

During the first half of the nineteenth century, the Ohio River was the edge of the frontier, and the Mississippi River was deep into the wilderness. Both waterways were a safer and easier means of travel and transport than attempting to travel the wagon trails through the forest. At 19 years of age, Lincoln accepted a job building a flatboat to carry cargo down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans. Once in the Crescent City, he sold the goods and the lumber from the flatboat before taking a steamboat back to Indiana. This is a voyage he reportedly made more than once.

A flatboat loaded with goods and manned by only Lincoln and a companion had to deal with swift, deep waters, sandbars, river traffic, and on one occasion, thieves. During one voyage, the flatboat was attacked by a band of runaway slaves in the middle of the night while it was tied to shore. Lincoln and his companion managed to defend themselves, then cut their mooring lines and escaped.

Lincoln was 21 years of age when, in 1830, his father once again pulled up stakes and moved, taking his wife, her two daughters, their husbands and Abe with him. They settled in Macon County, Illinois, on the Sangamon River ten miles west of Decatur. Abe did his part to help build the log cabin they inhabited and his skill with an axe helped split enough rails to encompass a ten-acre field for crops. In spite of his slender appearance due to an uncommon height in his time of six feet four inches, Lincoln was deceptively strong from hard physical labour.

The Sangamon River was part of the water route system used to transport goods to the Mississippi River. One of the hazards of travel on the Mississippi, or any other river, was navigating around sandbars. The Sangamon River was where Lincoln conceived his idea for a means of moving boats across shallow water. The invention, which was never built, is the first and only patent ever held by a president of the United States. A model that Lincoln built himself is housed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.

A drawing of the flotation device patented by Lincoln to move boats across sandbars. Lincoln received a patent for the device in 1849. It was never built. A model sits in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.

Lincoln’s next job was less physical, and more mentally challenging. In March 1831, a business acquaintance of Lincoln’s, Denton Offutt, offered Lincoln a job as clerk in charge of Offutt’s store and mill in New Salem, Illinois. This was one of the significant turning points in Lincoln’s life. Thomas Lincoln would relocate for the last time to Coles County, Illinois, where he would live out the rest of his life. Lincoln chose to step out into the world alone, for the first time without a paternal guardian, and remain in New Salem to work for Offutt.

Within a year, Offutt’s fortunes changed for the worse and Lincoln found himself out of a job. Before he could pursue other employment, the Black Hawk War erupted. In 1832, a treaty dispute led to the formation of a militia company in New Salem. Young Abraham Lincoln was elected their captain and got his first taste of being elected to office. Even though he never saw fighting, Lincoln did experience the hardships of soldier life for three months. However, he had made an important discovery. He enjoyed being a candidate for election, and so returned to New Salem with the intent of entering politics.