Our site offers guided tours of the Lincoln Home, giving visitors a look into the Lincoln family during the seventeen years they lived in the house on the corner of Eighth and Jackson Streets. As Lincoln put it, “Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than any other one thing.From top to bottom: Front parlor, sitting room, Mary Lincoln's room, Boys' room Every American is mighty enough to rise high. It was a powerful lesson that remains true to this day. I am a living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father’s child has.” In other words, If Abraham Lincoln could begin life in a one-room log cabin and eventually go on call the White House his home, every American, regardless of the circumstances they were born into, also had the power to rise to greatness. Among his remarks to these faithful fighters, President Lincoln said, “I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House. After doing their part in the Civil War to help their commander in chief save the nation forged in 1776 and win it “a new birth of freedom” by abolishing slavery, these Ohioans were destined for home. Awaiting him there were the soldiers of the 166th Ohio Infantry Regiment. On a sizzling summer day in August 1864, the man who carried the weight of a bloody, broken nation on his shoulders left his office on the second floor of the White House and marched down to the lawn outside the Executive Mansion. Thirty-three years after arriving in New Salem to begin life as his own man, Abraham Lincoln had risen to the highest office in all the land as the 16th president of the United States. Lincoln would become very familiar with judges, courts, and the legal system over the course of his life, going on to become one of the most successful and respected lawyers in Illinois. The charges, however, were ultimately dismissed by a judge, who ruled that because Lincoln only carried his passengers to their steamboats and did not take them all the way across the river, the law had not been violated. Because of his service, Lincoln was charged with encroaching on the territory of the two brothers who owned the ferry rights across the Ohio River between Kentucky and Indiana. “I could scarcely credit,” recalled Lincoln, “that I, a poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day.” Lincoln’s ferryboat enterprise also provided him with an early personal introduction to the legal system. In one memorable encounter from this time, Lincoln was surprised when two businessmen each gave him a silver half-dollar for his work. With his industrious spirit, the teenage Abraham Lincoln built a scow in his free time and operated a ferryboat service in which he took passengers out to steamers on the Ohio River. After arriving at his cousin’s house, Lincoln ensured the man’s salvation even further by building him a fire. Lincoln proceeded to pick up the “nearly frozen” man and carried him to safety. He was walking home with a friend one winter night when they stumbled upon a drunk man lying in a mud hole. It is no surprise that he once wrote a short essay in school against “cruelty to animals.” Lincoln also could not ignore the plight of his fellow man. Haunted by the thought of the suffering creature, he turned around and went all the way back to rescue the pig. After going half a mile, though, Lincoln stopped. Initially, the group continued on their way. When he found a dog with a broken leg, he made a splint for the animal, took care of the canine, and even named the pooch, “Honey.” This compassion continually revealed itself, such as when Lincoln was walking with a group of friends as they passed a pig caught in a stretch of boggy ground. Lincoln might have been brought up in a harsh world, but he navigated it with a heart of gold. Coupled with his big heart and his other golden qualities, Lincoln exhibited an iron resolution that would one day propel him to greatness. Despite the tough hand he was dealt in life, Lincoln was determined to prove to his fellow men that he was "worthy of their esteem," and he never stopped striving to improve himself. On another occasion, Lincoln said that the story of his youth on the frontier in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois could be “condensed into a single sentence: The short and simple annals of the poor.” Those impoverished years were filled with hard work, hardship, and heartbreak. The future 16th President of the United States truly came from the most humble origins. That line of prose from what was Lincoln’s first published piece of writing was no mere understatement. “I was born and have ever remained in the most humble walks of life.” So wrote 23-year-old Abraham Lincoln as he announced himself a candidate for the Illinois state legislature in the Maissue of Springfield’s Sangamo Journal.
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