West to Indiana
Following that same migratory and pioneering spirit of his ancestors and thousands of others, Thomas Lincoln moved his family again in 1816. Unclear title to the Knob Creek farm and an apparent growing repugnance to slavery were two of Lincoln's primary motives. With this move, the family left Kentucky, crossing the Ohio River to southern Indiana where they settled on a farm near present Dale. It was there, in 1818, that Abraham Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, died. In 1830, when Lincoln was twenty-one years old, the family moved farther west to Illinois, in search yet again of a better life. Thus, the Lincolns serve as an excellent example of the frequency of mortality and movement so prevalent in frontier Kentucky as well as America.
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 Replica buildings at the Lincoln Boyhood Farm National Historic Site near Dale. |
How much of this family and personal experience shaped the future President can be debated. Lincoln himself believed those early years in Kentucky were important in making him who he was. So much so, that many years later, on the eve of becoming President, he reminded the citizens of his native state that "I, too, am a Kentuckian."
