Lincoln In Indiana
Abraham Lincoln lived in southern Indiana, today's Spencer county, from 1816 to 1830, during his formative years between seven and 21. These years in Indiana are the stuff of legend and obscurity. Lincoln's mother Nancy died when he was nine. Lincoln was then raised by his father and stepmother, Sarah Bush Lincoln, who treated him as her own child and is a hero of the Lincoln story. Lincoln revered her. Lincoln's sister Sarah died in childbirth when Lincoln was 19. Lincoln had a brief, sporadic education in Indiana which in sum totaled about one year. But he developed his lifelong love of reading. With book to hand, he engaged in backbreaking manual labor on farms and in the field. The money he earned, by law and custom, belonged to his father until Lincoln reached the age of 21. In Indiana, Lincoln formed the ambition to make something of his life. He rejected what he saw as the dead-end life of his father, Thomas.
In "Indiana's Lincolnland" (2008), Mike Capps and Jane Ammeson offer a photographic history of the Indiana in which Lincoln grew up. Capps is the chief of interpretation and resource management at the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, the National Park Service site which commemorates Lincoln's Indiana years. Ammeson is the author of several earlier books about southern Indiana. The book is part of the "Images of America" series of local photographic histories published by Arcadia Publishing. This short history of Lincoln's Indiana has both regional and national interest.
Because little contemporaneous physical evidence survives of the harsh and undeveloped character of southern Indiana in Lincoln's time, this book captures Lincoln's Indiana in two ways.. The first part of the book shows southern Indiana subsequent to the years of Lincoln's residence. Much of the material in this part of the book is interesting and valuable, but in places it wanders off-track. Thus, the book offers photographs of the types of roads, fields, mills, and small general stores that were found in southern Indiana for many years and that Lincoln would have known. The book includes a section of photographs of Civil War veterans from Southern Indiana. It includes photographs of the towns that grew in the area where the Lincolns lived, including Lincoln City, Dale, and Gentryville. In addition, many of the families that Lincoln knew when he resided in southern Indiana have descendants that still live in the area. The book includes pictures and reminisces of many of these descendants.
The second part of the book describes the efforts to commemorate Lincoln's residence in southern Indiana. These efforts began shortly after Lincoln's assassination in 1865 with efforts to locate and mark the burial site of Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks. Capps and Ammeson offer an excellent history of the development of the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. The book emphasizes the important roles that the local community, the State of Indiana, the Civilian Conservation, Corps and the Federal government all played in developing this memorial to Lincoln. The book explains the marking of Nancy Hanks's grave and the Lincoln family cabin. It tells the history of important landmarks in the National Memorial such as Memorial Hall, with its sculptured panels carved by Indiana sculptor Richard Daniels, the trail of 12 stones which connects the Lincoln cabin to the Nancy Hanks grave site, and the working 1820's-style farm, added to the site in 1968. This part of the book constitutes a moving and thorough treatment of the commemoration of Lincoln's years in Indiana. A bit more explicit attention to the adjacent Lincoln State Park, which also includes sites important to Lincoln's life, would have been welcome.
Lincoln was always reticent about his early life in Indiana. He returned to the area only once, in 1844, to speak on behalf of his political hero, Henry Clay. In revisiting the area at that time, he wrote the following poem which gives something of his equivocal feelings about the home of his youth. (quoted in David Donald's "Lincoln" at 27)
"My childhood's home I see again,
And sadden with the view:
And still, as mem'ries crowd my brain,
There's pleasure in it too.
I range the fields with pensive tread,
And pace the hollow rooms,
And feel (companion of the dead)
I'm living in the tombs."
Capps's and Ammeson's short photographic history is not intended as a substitute for a Lincoln biography. But it offers the reader the opportunity to explore Lincoln's early life and to reflect upon its significance.
