Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln and their little girl, Sarah, had just moved into their new log-cabin home in Kentucky when Abraham was born. It was February 12, 1809.
Thomas Jefferson was president, and America was growing. The frontier kept moving west, and so did the Lincolns.
When Abe was only seven, he and his father cut down trees and built a new log cabin in a wild Indiana forest. The work was hard, but it made Abe strong. He grew tall, too. By his teens, he stood six feet, four inches—his adult height.
There wasn’t much time for school. Abe later said that his schoolhouse learning “did not amount to one year.” Yet he read everything he could find. Among his favorites were the Bible, Aesop’s Fables, Robinson Crusoe, and The Arabian Nights. He also loved books on U.S. history, especially a biography of George Washington with details about the Revolutionary War.
Abe’s path from humble country boy to president of the United States was a long and winding one. Along the way he had nearly as many failures as successes. Either way, he learned from them.
