From the WNIN Public Media Center in Downtown Evansville.

I'm David James and this is Two Main Street.

So what was life like in the wilderness of Southern Indiana?

In one word, hard.

In the early 1800s, settlers cleared the land with axes to plant crops and build log cabins.

They survived the bitter cold, sweltering heat, floods and droughts, and the threat of wild animals and few families escaped deaths from injuries, childbirth, and disease.

This was the boyhood landscape of Abraham Lincoln.

My guests are here to share the Lincoln legacy in our own backyard.

Nancy Kaiser is the Director of the Rockport Lincoln Pioneer Village and Museum, which is celebrating its 90th anniversary.... And Joshua Claybourn is an Evansville attorney who has lectured and written books and written articles on Lincoln's coming of age on the Indiana frontier.

So, guys, welcome to Two Main Street.

It's always fun to talk about Abraham Lincoln.

Now, Abraham Lincoln spent 14 years of his life in what is now Spencer County, Indiana, from 1816 to 1830 and Nancy, the Pioneer Village, of course, is a snapshot of frontier living.

What will visitors experience when they walk through the gates?

Once you walk into the museum and see all the artifacts and walk out the back door, to see the cabins that we have, we have 13 replica cabins, throughout the village.

And, you step back in time, you just feel like you're living back then, as you go through the cabins and witness what they had to go through back then.

And especially when you have the re-enactors there, right?

Right.

So what will they see when the folks are dressed in costume?

When they're dressed in, when we're dressed in costume?

We have interpreters.

We have demonstrations, period demonstrations of things, that were done back then.

Sheep shearing in the spring.

The gal comes back in the fall and spends a war that she shares.

We have a rope maker, blacksmith that comes from Illinois.

He'll be showing and demonstrating and selling his wares.

Sometimes we have a, potter that actually, pots.

Yes, I think that's what they do.

Yeah.

So, anyway, we've got a whole variety of things.

Kids activities the kids can make candles to take home.

And that's during our events.

But every day, visits, you get a tour or you can do self-guided, and we give them an experience when they come.

Okay.

Now, Joshua Thomas Lincoln, Abe's father, moved his family from Kentucky to Indiana.

So where did they settle?

And what were those first years like?

Well, in a word, hard.

It was, untamed forest.

Really a wilderness area.

They crossed the river with what they could carry.

And made their way to northern what is now northern Spencer County.

And, it, it was very challenging at first.

In fact, the first winter that they were here, as you noted, they came and, December 1816, Indiana just become a state.

And, they had to live in a three sided lane to effectively, all sorts of wildlife.

It was it was grueling.

It was, difficult to survive, frankly.

Of course, over time, things got better, but it was touch and go at first, no doubt about it.

What was their life like in Kentucky?

You know, it was, it certainly wasn't like today's life obviously it was difficult, but it was arguably a little easier than when they first arrived in Indiana, because it had been more settled.

It was you didn't necessarily have to clear as much.

On the other hand, the soil wasn't as good for farming.

There were quite a bit of, land disputes, given the way that they, delineated land title.

And so that led to legal disputes.

Again, the farming wasn't as good.

And frankly, the Lincoln family was opposed to slavery.

So all of those things helped contribute to the family ultimately deciding opportunity looked better in Indiana.

Of course.

An axe is a very important tool, for these, early settlers.

Young Abe Lincoln could swing an axe, they say, better than most young men his age.

I think he was six foot four at age 19, strapping lad, and clearing the land of trees and roots.

And, I had another author on talking about the roots of being a forest under the ground.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was very difficult.

You know, one of the ways they would take care of trees is you cut a ring around it and prevent the nutrients from getting up to the tree, up to the leaves.

And so that would kill the tree, but unfortunately, that would allow the sunlight to get through.

The leaves weren't blocking it, but you still had to deal with the roots and the trunk itself.

And so it took a lot of work.

And then of course, you needed it for firewood.

So he was, in his words, always, you know, he always had the axe with him.

Now, Thomas Lincoln, of course, a farmer.

What did they plant?

Well, the corn was a big one.

Certainly.

But there were, you know, other typical vegetables as you could get by and plant them.

There were hogs that were obviously, cows for milk as well.

All of those things were things that Thomas had to have at his disposal for farming.

Thomas was also quite a carpenter.

Very, very good with that.

Someone that many people in the town, in the village, in the region would go to for carpentry work.

We're also very blessed here in Evansville to have a piece in our Evansville Museum.

That, Thomas and Abe worked on together, that you can you can go visit and see, the same thing in Spencer County.

There is, some additional artifacts that that you can look at that Thomas had a hand in making.

Nancy, tell us about that hutch that you had made for Josiah and Elizabeth Crawford.

They were neighbors of the Lincolns.

Real close neighbors.

And, it's believed that the hutch was made by Abe with the help of his father.

It was made during the time that his father was kind of losing his eyesight, maybe.

And, it's not as fine tuned as what his father would have done.

There's a J on one side of the door, and an E on the other side of the door.

For Josiah and Elizabeth.

And it's our treasured piece in the in the museum.

Oh, I bet.

Now, the, pioneer Village in Rockport making its, marking its 90th anniversary.

What's the history behind the village?

How it started.

There was a gentleman in in Rockport, a local, resident in Rockport named George Honig, and he was an artist, a sculptor, and a Lincoln enthusiast.

In fact, he has a lot of work around Evansville.

Henderson.

His greatest pieces were down at the Coliseum.

The two large statues down at the Coliseum.

He did those and, his artwork.

We've got a nice display of his original artwork in the museum.

Also in a special room honoring him.

But he had the vision of having the village there as an attraction, an educational attraction and a tourist attraction.

to, depict the time that Lincoln was in Spencer County, for the 14 years he was there.

And the WPA was involved?

Yes.

The WPA.

He reached out to the WPA when, Franklin D Roosevelt was president and, Roosevelt had the New Deal, program going on that hired millions of men, during the Great Depression all over the country.

And so that's what he went for.

Now, in the 1950s, understand, the village was used as a set for a Hollywood movie.

Yes.

It was, the movie ‘the Kentuckian’.

Spencer County is, Rockport.

Spencer County part is known for the Spencer County Fair.

Everybody went to the Spencer County Fair years ago.

And, at the time, Burt Lancaster was a trapeze artist.

And he came there to perform.

And during his off time, because it's in City Park, the village is in City Park.

He would come over to the village and piddle around in there, and he said, if I ever make it Hollywood, I'm going to come back and make a movie.

Which he did, and I think Walter Matthau, that was his screen debut.

It was it was a bad guy.

I think.

Yes, he was ‘the Kentuckian’.

Okay.

And of course, Rockford has a long history along the banks of the Ohio River.

And I think the Lincoln family crossed near Rockford, didn't they, Joshua?

Yep.

They made their way over and then made their way north, but.

Yeah.

Now, did they bring any livestock with them?

Well, there's some discussion about that.

They certainly had the horses and they did have some livestock.

They unfortunately lost quite a bit of stuff in the river when some things overturned as well on their way up, but so a flatboat.

Yeah.

Yeah.

An experience.

Yeah.

You know, at times, depending on when you cross the river, could actually get quite low.

It's not like it is today, thanks to the lock and dams where we keep it quite high, as is low, but it still required, you know, getting across and it wasn't easy by any means.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, I'm sure there were a lot of, a lot of accidents.

Oh, yeah.

Definitely.

So let's find out how my guests got involved with all this Lincoln lore.

Joshua, what got you hooked on Lincoln history?

Well, my gateway really was the Civil War.

My family was very involved in it.

Fought in and on the front lines.

But look, we live right down the road from where I think our greatest leader was born and raised, arguably one of the greatest leaders in human history.

And so we shouldn't overlook that.

Plus, he was a lawyer like myself.

So there was just a lot of things to like, admire and find an interest in with him.

Tell me about Civil War history.

Well, I had several of my direct ancestors and Claybourns were, you know, signed up right away for the union, very big union men.

And so I just spent quite a few years, younger days, studying it and eventually sunk my teeth into Abraham Lincoln.

So I've been doing that for almost nearly two decades now.

What about you, Nancy?

What got you hooked on Abe Lincoln?

Oh my goodness.

When I was growing up, my parents and my sister and I would go on vacation.

We'd always go to a historical places, so, I kind of got my fill of history stuff.

Back then, when I moved to Rockport, I knew the village was there because in fourth grade, which was quite a few years ago, I went there on a field trip when Indiana, when we learned Indiana history and, I knew the village was there.

So when I moved to Rockport area, I live out in the county.

When I moved there, I knew the place was there, and I just wanted to get my hands on it and make it, what it should be.

It's been on a roller coaster for years.

And ups and downs with volunteers and, maintenance and that kind of a thing.

And so, I dug in deep with it.

So.

So how long you've been director?

I've been director for eight years, and then I volunteered for 12, so I've been up there for 20 years now.

So how is the village, grown in those past few years?

A lot, a lot.

It was in 2010.

They did hire a full time director.

That allowed it to be open, seven days a week and, regular hours May through October.

And so then, I had another job at the same at that time, and I thought, well, I was ready to take it on when the position became available.

And, that's where my ears so far has been.

You know, it's the 90th anniversary already.

Looking ahead to the centennial.

Yes, yes.

Okay.

So any plans you can announce?

For the centennial?

Not yet.

Not yet.

I'm working on the 90th as we speak.

I want to get through this one first.

Yes.

Okay.

And, Okay.

That's pretty good.

So tell me about the Lincoln household.

When the family arrived in Indiana, who was who?

Joshua.

Well, it was, it was basically Thomas, his wife, young Abe and young Abe sister.

And it was the four of them that made their way there.

You reference a pretty devastating, event that occurred a couple years after they arrived.

The loss of Lincoln's, mother, very devastating to milk sickness, but in the beginning, it was the four of them.

And really only the four of them that had to stick together pretty closely to survive.

Did they have any relatives at all in that area?

They did.

They had relatives and friends.

I mean, that's typically how people from Kentucky would, move up to Indiana, you know, usually some somebody would be the first to make their way up, and then you would eventually hear about how great it was or the opportunity, and you'd follow people.

And even if you weren't related to them by blood, given the nature of the hardships you had to face, the communities came together pretty quick.

Right?

And so you banded together.

Somebody gave birth.

Everybody from the area would come and help.

If you were building a house.

Everybody came to pitch in.

We talked about the roots earlier that were a problem in the ground.

Well, very often the entire village would come together to help clear a field.

And it became, not only a necessity, but also a way to build social ties and come together as a community.

Now, at the village, there's a replica of a pioneer schoolhouse, the, young Abe Lincoln, knew the Rule of Three.

I understand, but he had little formal education.

Tell me about that pioneer schoolhouse you have, for my understanding.

And you can correct me if I'm wrong.

Abe only went to school less than six months his whole life, which he was self-taught for, which is.

Yeah.

Yeah, which is amazing.

But the little schoolhouse that we have is a one room schoolhouse.

We call it a blab school, where the teacher would teach by reciting and repeating the lessons over and over and in blab school.

Okay.

And, they only went to school till they were in about eighth grade.

So yeah, the teacher would say something and the students would repeat it back or blab it back.

And that's why they called them blab schools.

They were subscription schools.

So, you know, you'd go if your parents were willing, if there was enough parents that could pitch in money to hire a teacher.

Obviously, the qualification at that time weren't great.

To be a teacher?

To be a teacher.

Some were better than others.

And they all had different approaches to it.

But, as Nancy mentioned, by Lincoln's own account, his formal education was, was less than a year.

But he had a tremendous drive to learn on his own.

Once he could read, he would just get his hands on any book he could find in the area, and he would just read it over and over and at times rewrite things that he had heard or read as well, and then memorize it and just turn his mind into a sponge for the knowledge that he could absorb and get ahold of.

I understand his stepmother was very instrumental in pushing him to his mother.

His biological mother was quite-- Nancy?

Nancy, Nancy Hanks Lincoln was quite, you know, she was quite encouraging as well.

But obviously he was still quite young when she passed away.

And so, yeah, his stepmother, who had some books of her own, helped encourage his reading and, and his learning.

And it was a big boom to him, too.

What were some of those early books that he read?

Well, certainly the Bible was one of them.

There were some fables, like Aesop’s fables.

When he was older, he would read Shakespeare, you know, from a legal political standpoint.

He got his hands on the revised laws of Indiana.

And, in that book included the United States Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, obviously, state laws, and those certainly influenced him being the type of person who would read and reread, he really took to heart the principles, the values, and the legal philosophy that was embedded, there in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

I understand there's one story where he borrowed a book and it was damaged?

Yes.

He well, he the famous image of Lincoln, of course, is reading by firelight because he'd have to work all day.

It was a necessity by survival so often.

The only time he had to read would be at night after everybody is asleep.

You've got the fire going.

You take the book there.

Well, he'd been reading pretty late, got tired, decided to take the book and stuck it in the crevice of the cabin.

And it rained that evening.

And so water had seeped through the crevice.

Ruined the book.

And so he went back to the person he borrowed it from sheepishly and said, I'm sorry, and was able to work to pay it off.

But that that underscores, several things about him.

Number one, how much he loved to read, how much he absorb it, but also, how honest, how industrious he was, you know, and how willing he was to make amends when something like that went wrong.

Now, let's go back to the hard times in the wilderness.

Which, people can experience at the Pioneer Village.

And now there was no threat from Native Americans, but, there was some fresh memories of threats from Native Americans, right?

Yes.

I mean, when the Lincoln family, Abraham's father, Thomas, lived as a boy in Kentucky.

Thomas, his father, whose name was Abraham, was Abe's grandfather, Abraham Lincoln.

The president's grandfather, named Abraham, was attacked and killed by Native Americans.

And his sons, including Thomas, all witnessed this.

Oh, really?

And in fact, one of the Native Americans had, grabbed Thomas and either was taking him away to abduct him or kill him.

Not sure.

And one of the other brothers took aim at that Native American’s chest fired and killed him.

At least saved Thomas life.

But, obviously it shook the family.

It devastated them at that time.

You know, the patriarch of the family is gone.

Bad, bad things can happen, right?

I mean, you can.

It's harder to farm to earn a living.

You're all on your own.

And so this event, was violent.

It was catastrophic for the family.

And so it loomed large in the psyche of the family.

And Abraham, by his own admission, said that, you know, it was the story that was talked about more than any other, in the family, when you're sitting around the fire and telling, you know, family history type things.

And so even though there weren't Native Americans in the area as a quote unquote threat, it was certainly something that influenced Lincoln in a big way.

But there were bears and wolves?

Oh, yes.

Oh my.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was, it was, it was truly wilderness.

And so they had to brave the elements and brave wild animals as well.

Was Abe a good hunter?

Well, there are certainly stories of him going hunting, but there's also stories that, he did not like, you know, to kill.

He didn't like to fire a gun.

And so, there are some competing, you know, descriptions of him on that front, but I think it's clear that he'd rather avoid it if he could.

Right.

He was somebody who certainly cared about animals.

I wouldn't say-- he certainly was not a vegetarian.

I don't want to give that impression.

But he wasn't necessarily, eager to take the gun and go killing things.

He was far more likely to be seen with an axe chopping wood.

Now, Nancy, when the young people visit the village who have these tours, what are the children want to know about Abe Lincoln’s?

boyhood years?

We like I said, we really try and give everyone an experience.

When they come in, we greet them, we ask where they where they're from, how they heard about us.

And then we offer either a guided tour or a self-guided tour, which a lot of places don't offer guided tours anymore.

So when the kids, go out, we take them out back first to do the village and go through the cabins and talk about that.

We do have a scavenger hunt outside of maybe 4 or 5 things that they have to find throughout the village to keep their interest going.

And then when they come into the museum, we give them an actual scavenger hunt of, our artifacts to find that keep their attention.

But a lot of kids just, there's some kids that know more than I know about Lincoln.

So, it's impressive the people that do come through.

And their interest for Lincoln itself.

Now we talk about death.

That was kind of a constant companion in the Southern Indiana wilderness.

An injury could, of course, lead to an infection, medical care was almost non-existent, women and children died in childbirth, and there was the scourge of milk sickness.

The snake crude plant, is that right?

Yeah.

They didn't know at the time really what caused it.

But we know now.

There was a snake root plant, which is still plentiful today.

You can see it at the right time of year along the highways around this area, but cows would eat it, and then a certain element of poison would come through the milk.

And so people would drink it and become ill and die.

And that unfortunately happened to Nancy.

There were many others in the village and in the area that died around the same time.

And, yeah, she succumbed to it.

And of course, Thomas Lincoln, we talked about him being a carpenter.

He built many of the coffins.

That's correct.

Yeah.

And including his own, his own wife's and, the, you know, go back to childbirth.

You mentioned that, Lincoln's sister, also died in childbirth.

And so, like you say, I mean, these there was there was no guarantee, tomorrow would be there to greet you.

Now, Nancy Hanks, her gravesite is at Lincoln State Park.

And, tell me about Lincoln State Park.

I know you've done a lot of work there.

Yeah, it's wonderful to, you know, I love Rockport because you can really see how day to day life was in terms of having all of the neat cabins, the interpretations, the guided tours.

The state park offers, its own interesting, landmarks to see to, the they've got the church site that the Lincolns attended, the at the gravesite of Lincoln Sister and then on the National memorial side, you have the grave of Nancy herself, as well as a replica, cabin, and some livestock, which is pretty neat as well, because you can really get a sense of, what the interior of the cabin looked like and sort of what the grounds may have looked like when the Lincolns lived there.

Now, when, when Nancy died, Thomas went back to Kentucky to bring home a new wife.

That's right.

Yeah, I, I think the evidence is pretty strong that that he knew of her beforehand.

And it wasn't like he went to Kentucky just-- She was a widow wasn’t she?

That's correct.

She was a widow.

And, you know, I think there was more than one trip back and forth, but ultimately she decided to come, back to Indiana and make a new life with Thomas.

And as we've touched on already, she was a tremendous influence to Abe.

She’s Sarah?

Yeah, yeah.

And she had children.

Yes.

She had some children of her own.

And fortunately, the family seemed to mesh well with the Lincoln family.

So.

Okay, let's go back to the Rockport Village and Museum.

At the museum, we talked about the hutch that you have built by the Lincolns.

There's also a rocker beater loom, which is also called the buttermilk paint loom.

Tell me about that Nancy.

That was actually donated to us, from a local Evansville native, Ruth Sims, who was a weaver.

And she acquired it at an auction.

It doesn't work like a regular loom that most people will see.

It's on rockers and, Ruth Sims was actually the inventor of stove top stuffing.

Which is a neat story to add to it.

Yeah.

So.

So how many of these looms are there?

There was a thesis done many, many years ago, and I think there were only 60 at the time.

And I'm sure because of the size of them, there aren't that many, left.

It's massive.

It's more like a barn size loom, if anybody's familiar with that.

But it's big.

So you have loom enthusiasts coming to visit-- Every now and then!

Yes!

Every now and then we have more Lincoln enthusiasts who I can't even for Lincoln.

Oh, that's so that's why they come.

Okay, now, there's been a lot of research about young Abe's views on religion.

The Lincolns helped build a church in 1819, that the pigeon church, this little Pigeon Creek church.

Okay.

It was a Baptist church.

Yeah.

But, I understand that Abe never became a member of the church.

No, on the other hand, that wasn't necessarily unusual for younger people to wait until they were older to become a member.

So I don't know how much we should read into the membership issue, on the other hand, but Lincoln's approach to religion was always one of contradictions and paradoxes, you know?

I mean, he would, as you say, he didn't become an official member.

Even later on, as he got older, there were some questions about his membership.

But on the other hand, you look at his speeches, particularly his a second inaugural speech at some of the some of the most religious overtones you'll see in a presidential speech.

And so, in one respect, he wasn't religious.

And yet, on the other hand, he was as religious as any president we've had.

So it's quite interesting.

He certainly read the Bible a lot.

He loved to listen to preachers preach.

And then, almost in a humorous way, re-give that sermon to people in the, in the neighborhood.

And as some of it was no doubt interest in religious ideas, but some of it too was these are people with ideas that are presenting it in a persuasive way, and that kind of thing really captivated him and interested him.

So he loved still to go to church and hear and see the preachers and, and see the theater of it.

Also understand he was also a janitor at the church, too.

That was good.

You know, at the Pioneer Village, there's a replica of the Little Pigeon Baptist Church.

Tell me about that, Nancy.

Yes.

It's actually a two story.

And, when I give a tour, I tell them that.

travelers coming through the community, would stay in the upstairs, that, usually men would stay there, and the women and children would stay throughout the community.

I tell them that Abe helped build the church similar to that.

And like Josh said, it's the actual church is at the Lincoln State Park.

Another treasure at the museum.

This is that intrigues me.

Of course.

It came from England, you know, 1590.

It had to be, published in print.

It there.

Do you know anything about that, Joshua?

Well, Nancy's going to know more about the particular Bible that's there at the at the village.

I mean, what I can say about the Bible generally, for Abraham is he read it a lot and studied it a lot, memorized it a lot.

And the language and the cadence of the Bible, the King James Version just infused his own writing and his own speeches throughout the rest of his life.

Of course.

Now let's go back to the artisans.

The re-enactors.

They helped bring the Pioneer Village alive.

You heard about the blacksmiths, candle makers, animal handlers, a sheep shearing, costume interpreters.

Are these you said some of them were local, and some of them people come from other states?

Right.

Right.

Well, I've.

I've got a fellow from-- the blacksmith is from Illinois.

He's faithful at coming.

There's a gentleman from Brazil, Indiana.

He comes down, and these are all volunteers that come, religiously to our events that are twice a year.

We have one.

The first, they're the second to the second.

Saturday of May.

And then the last Saturday of October, our heritage days, where we do the interpretations of the demonstrations.

Do you have an Abe impersonator?

Abe Lincoln?

We do Dean Darrell, who is a local.

He's out of Washington, Indiana.

He's, very popular up at the state park, at the amphitheater, which, I'm going to give a plug for the amphitheater because the amphitheater does plays, play in June, three days, three nights of a production of ‘the Lincoln Story’ up there.

So now back to young Abe at the homestead.

There's a story, Joshua, about his near-death experience being kicked by a horse.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, just knocked out, was out for quite some time, and then came to, left quite a mark on him, both figuratively and literally.

I just can't underscore enough how even the craziest randomest thing, like a horse kicking you, could take your life away.

So it was, a scary time to relative to where we are.

It would scare quite a bit of us in terms of the hardships they had to face.

I understand there was a mill or something in the behind the horse, but I think it's correct.

Exactly.

Yeah.

They, you know, you lead the horse around the mill and, this particular horse kicked up, kicked him in the head and knocked him out, and he was out cold.

Oh, yeah.

For one day or two.

Yeah.

Yep.

Wow.

Okay.

Now we touch on some of the major events in Lincoln's boyhood years in Southern Indiana, the deaths of his mother and sister, of the positive influences of his stepmother Sarah, and his physical strength to survive in the wilderness.

There's other chapter of the flatboat journey to New Orleans.

In 1828, Abe hired to go along with James Gentry’s son, Allen.

They had to pass by a cave in rock where there are pirates.

He witnessed the slave trade.

And we talked about Thomas Lincoln, Lincoln's dad being an early abolitionist.

So on this flatboat journey, what goods were shipped to New Orleans, Josh?

Well, it was a lot of the, grains.

It was a lot of the, farmer, you know, the stuff that they'd taken from the agricultural to go down sell at, New Orleans.

So it was a surplus?

They had some surplus.

And it was, you know, it was a lot of responsibility.

Right?

Because folks that had spent all summer, all year working to grow this, this is how they're going to make their money.

And as you pointed out, you reference slaves that this was not an easy trip.

You know, I, I'm always shocked when I think about this trip, even in today with cell phones, the technology, the safety we have.

I wouldn't trust a teenager to get on a flatboat and take a trip down to New Orleans.

Now, imagine back then when you didn't have emergency personnel or cell phones.

I mean, the danger was, you know, magnified tremendously.

And then on top of that, you have pirates, literal pirates.

People are sometimes surprised to hear that that occurred while they were there.

Caveman Rock is obviously a famous, spot on the river where that occurred, but it could happen all the way down to New Orleans, where, folks would try and steal it.

In fact, that's what happened.

There were some, freed slaves who attempted to, attack the two boys and take some of their goods.

And then, of course, once they get to New Orleans, they sell all the products that they had.

Then suddenly they've got a tremendous amount of money in their pocket.

And so there's a lot of people who would be happy to take that off of them, on their way back.

So, not an easy trip.

I've heard people refer to this trip as, a bit of a spring break for the kids.

Well, maybe there was some fun, but there was a lot more responsibility than we normally associate with spring breaks.

Now, who was James Gentry?

He's a namesake of Gentryville, right?

Right.

Yeah.

A very famous, the, storekeeper, in town.

Lincoln loved to go there because there was a lot of activity.

Right.

That's where you would have newspapers that were for sale and of course, somebody would like to read could do that.

But also when people are going to buy and exchange goods, they inevitably talk about what's going on in town, but also politics, what's going on and current events.

This just excited the Lincoln tremendously.

And so he could get there and absorb the ideas, the discussion.

It was also a chance for him to really see and witness, politics at its root level, right, where people are debating things and he's seeing how people are convincing other people, how they're interacting about current events.

All of this shaped him tremendously into the type of person he became, and really helped him become what, the successful politician he was as well.

Now, he was kind of like the was a kind of like the muscle on this trip.

He was a big guy.

I would have to think it wouldn't hurt to have somebody that could, you know, handle any physical confrontations that would come along.

But, you know, still, there's only two of them, right?

Right.

And you're and no amount of muscle can handle, I'm sure some of the, some of the even just natural, you know, the, the water and everything else that could, could turn the boat over or make them sink.

Because James Gentry’s son Alan.

Correct.

There's the two of them, right?

Went with.

Yeah, right.

The Talon was older than Abe.

Right?

Right.

Okay.

All right.

But they made it to New Orleans.

That's right.

Yeah.

And he witnessed the slave trade down there?

Yeah.

There are some, I think apocryphal quotations that say Lincoln saw slaves being traded there at that point, decided he was going to dedicate his life to ending slavery.

I don't think that quote is necessarily true, but I do think he saw slavery, and I have to think that had a tremendous influence on him.

The Lincoln family, as we know, was already opposed to slavery.

And, not just as a moral issue of being opposed to that, also as somebody who would work hard with backbreaking labor himself, he felt like he was entitled to the fruits of his labor.

And it offended him, right, that somebody else would have to go through that same sort of hard, backbreaking labor and not be able to enjoy the fruits of that.

And so, seeing that firsthand had to have had a huge influence on him.

Not just slavery, though.

I mean, New Orleans was a huge, huge, bustling town.

I mean, it was major, major city and so very different than he would have seen in, you know, Spencer County, Indiana.

I'm sure his eyes were wide open.

Taking it all in.

Oh, look at let's go back to the Pioneer Village.

There are other items, not related to Lincoln years.

So what else is in the museum?

Well as I said in the first of the interview, we've got a nice display of George Hoenig, who designed the village.

A lot of his artwork.

His original drawings of the village are, displayed, dresses from the 1800s.

In chronological order.

Civil War to World War two memorabilia.

Just, a variety of I kind of say, 1800s to the 1960s of memorabilia.

People still bring in items.

They do, they do.

And, we try to utilize everything we have.

So we don't have a stockpile of things, but it is on display.

Do you have a favorite?

Oh, the Lincoln Hutch has got to be my favorite.

Okay.

That's, the best thing with the initials in there.

That's really cool.

Now, you also have, like, we talked about the several historic cabins on the property, the Daniel Grass home.

Yes, yes, that would have been in Rockport on the bluff.

He was Daniel Grass was the first landowner of Spencer County.

His little story was his parents, were killed by Indians.

His or his father was killed by Indians, in Kentucky.

His mother and his two sisters were held captive.

And then a gentleman from Kentucky raised him.

And he was a prominent political figure, senator, lawyer.

And, like I said, the first landowner of Spencer County.

The Colonel Jones store?

The Jones store is in is was in Gentryville.

And Abe worked in a store like that.

It's a little mercantile store.

And it's set up with, how it would have looked back then.

So they're all.

They're all staged, to the best of our ability to look at life how it was.

A couple other places, the Browns Tavern.

The Browns Tavern was in Rockport.

Right.

But before you go down to the bluff, where the flatboat left, and, it set up on a hill and, Abe, visited it when he was here.

The James Gentry Mansion.

The mansion is the James Gentry Mansion is, James Gentry.

Who son Allen went on the flatboat.

And-- Is it a mansion?

Well, back to back then.

It was back then.

It was.

It was nice.

Well, tell me about it.

It's a little small two story.

And actually, it was three years ago.

I had a visitor come in and they walked in the door, and said ‘Oh we donated a cabin’ and I said, ‘Oh, come back and show me which one it is.’ And it was that one.

Oh, wow.

So we do know that that's an actual cabin that had been moved there.

A lot to see at the village.

Abraham Lincoln, turns 21.

In 1830, the family decides to move to Illinois.

Tell me about that decision, Joshua.

Well, you know, there's always a sense that opportunity lies on the other side, right?

We always think grass is greener on the other side.

And, I think, you know, the Lincolns felt that way as well.

And decided to move on, eventually to the area around what is now Springfield, Illinois.

And, yeah, made their way.

Before we leave Indiana, though, I just have to point out that Bill Martell, who-- you David off line were mentioning you'd read his book.

Bill and I worked together a lot on Lincoln scholarship, and Bill loves to point out, and I think it's such a good point, Lincoln was in Indiana from age 7 to 21.

And think about your own life from age 7 to 21.

How important were those years to shaping who you are, how you view the world, and how you view yourself?

Your philosophy, your politics, your religion.

It's not to say you're the same person you were during those eight years, but few years shaped who we are as people, more than those.

And so that's why I feel so confident in saying Lincoln was a Hoosier.

And it's also why I say, this area in Spencer County was so critical to who Lincoln was and who he became.

And so that's why I think it's important for us to preserve that history, to celebrate it and go to places like Rockport Village and check it out.

Of course, the Lincoln becomes a lawyer.

He returns to Indiana to campaign for Whig presidential candidate Henry Clay.

Yeah.

The great compromiser.

So he made several campaign stops in Indiana.

Yeah, he did, and he that was really, at least to this area, is his last stop.

Now, he, you know, would take train rides back through Indiana, so to speak.

But the last time he would come to Spencer County and, he made a point to go visit his mother's grave.

That was quite a moving experience as well, but yeah, we can already see when he returns.

He's a political animal already.

Now, Lincoln wrote a poem.

‘My childhood home.

I see again.

My childhood home.

I see you again and sadden with the view.

Still, as memory crowds my brain, there's pleasure in it too.’ Now Lincoln returns to Indiana, on his train trip to Washington for his inauguration in 1861, his final journey through Indiana, of course, the funeral train back to Springfield.

Right.

And several.

Did he make several stops in the Indiana, the train?

The funeral train.

You mean?

Well, Indianapolis is the main stop.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

All right.

And I'm sure there was a large.

Yeah.

It's huge.

Absolutely huge.

Okay.

The Lincoln Museum in Springfield is quite a treasure as well.

It is.

And they are so good at, really doing immersive interpretive type of, exhibits.

And if you haven't been, I highly recommend it to folks to go there.

Are we still learning more about Abe Lincoln?

All the time, yeah.

There's just so much myth, about Abe.

And so sometimes we learn to set aside myths, but we also learn, new things.

We see artifacts that pop up from time to time that we papers come out, new papers that we didn't know about.

And so there's always something more to learn in it.

Tell me about William Herndon, the law partner.

Yeah.

He was Lincoln's law partner in, Illinois.

And after Lincoln passed away Herndon was quite, influential and critical in that, unlike many folks, he returned to Indiana and interviewed people in Indiana who knew either Lincoln himself or the family.

And so we as historians rely a whole lot on Herndon's research and his interviews.

Because most people at the time, they cared about Lincoln, the president, sometimes they took an interest in the Springfield days, but they tended to gloss over or overlook the importance of the Indiana years.

And, Herndon while he didn't necessarily always have nice things to say about Indiana, he at least returned to get source material that was critical for later research and writing.

So what did he have negative to say about Indy?

Well, he, he got my attention.

Well, I think his exact quote was that Lincoln was a diamond glowing on the dunghill or something to that effect, you know?

So it, that I don't think that was Herndon's quote exactly, but sort of that thesis was it was attributed to he just thought that Lincoln overcame what he had to go through in Indiana, rather than it being something as a positive influence for him.

And, you know, I like to push back.

And I think a lot of other folks, do as well and say, certainly there was hardship, but that helped shaped him in positive ways as well.

And he also was exposed to a lot of people, both his mother, his stepmother, but also lawyers and judges, etc.

that helped educate him in very powerful ways.

He learned wonderful things in terms of ethics and character.

He learned about the value of hard work.

So, I could go on and on all day about the positive things he took away from Indiana.

But Herndon tended to focus a lot more on the negatives.

And part of that, too, was a political thing, in that we like political leaders that are able to overcome hardship and so Lincoln himself would lean into that and really play into, you know, sort of the backwoods pioneer and somebody that could overcome that and connect with the common man.

Okay.

Now, Nancy, when you're alone in the Pioneer Village, do you let your imagination run wild?

Do you feel like-- Yes, yes, yes.

Feel like you're following in his footsteps?

I, I do, I think that, you know, he could have walked on the ground that, the village is on.

We know that it was.

He walked on the grounds up at the National Boyhood and, the state park, and, it's just it's all surreal.

Now, Joshua, when we talked to groups about Lincoln, what are some of the questions that you get people?

Well, certainly people have questions about what Lincoln would be doing today.

So there's always the current event angle there.

But I think you've touched on a lot of them, the hardship, the education, you know, and just the mythology of him being the axe wielding youngster.

My guests have been Nancy Kaiser.

She's director of the Lincoln Pioneer Village and Museum in Rockford, Indiana, marking its 90th anniversary.

And Evansville attorney and Lincoln scholar Joshua Clayborne.

And I think that opening stanza from the Lincoln poem: ‘My Childhood Home, I See You Again’ pretty well sums up the Lincoln boyhood experience in Southern Indiana, my childhood home.

I see you again and sadden with the view.

And still, as memory crowds my brain, there's pleasure in it too.

I'm David James, this is Two Main Street.

Thanks, guys.

Thank you.