In the spring of 1830, the Lincoln family removed from Indiana to Illinois, and settled near Decatur, in Macon County. The family and their personal effects were transported by an ox-team, consisting of four yoke of oxen, which were driven by the future President.
Young Lincoln helped to build a cabin for his father, and to break up, fence, and plant a portion of the farm--splitting the rails for the enclosure himself. He was now in his twenty-second year, and living in the land of the Illinii, which signifies the land of full grown men; as an example of such in size, strength, and capacity, one might search the country through and not find his equal. Up to this time all his earnings, with the exception of his own very frugal support, had gone to the maintenance of his father and family. Ambitious to make his way in the world, he now asked permission to strike out for himself, and to seek his own fortune.
His father, after several changes, finally settled near "Goosenest Prairie," in Coles County. There he made his home, until his death, in 1851, at the age of seventy-three. He lived to see his son one of the most prominent lawyers, and one of the most distinguished men of the state. During his life this son was continually performing for him acts of kindness and generosity. He shared in the prosperity, and his pride was gratified in the rising fortunes of his son, who often sent money and other presents to his father and mother, bought land for them, and always treated them with the kindest consideration.
When, in 1830, Lincoln became a citizen of Illinois, this great commonwealth, now the third or fourth state in the Union, and treading fast upon the heels of Ohio and Pennsylvania, was on the frontier, with a population a little exceeding one hundred and fifty thousand. In 1860, when Lincoln was elected President, it had nearly two millions, and was rapidly becoming the center of the republic.
Perhaps he was fortunate in selecting Illinois as his home. Touching on the northeast the vast chain of lakes through which passes to the Hudson and to the St. Lawrence the commerce of the valley of the Mississippi, and having that river along its entire western boundary, more than five hundred miles in length; on the south the Ohio, reaching eastward to the mountains of Pennsylvania and Virginia; while from the west comes to its shores the Missouri, bringing for three thousand miles the waters of the springs of the Rocky Mountains; this was the Illinois in which he settled; then a wilderness, but destined to become in the near future the keystone of the Federal arch. Being thus situated, the National Union was to this state an obvious necessity, and Lincoln, as we shall see, early and always recognized this fact. He realized that his own state, with its vast products, must seek the markets of the world by the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico, as well as by the Great Lakes and the Hudson, but never through foreign territory. He early declared that no foreign flag or custom house must ever intervene between Illinois and salt water. To these lakes and rivers encircling her with their mighty arms, is Illinois indebted for her prosperity. Her rich soil, her emerald prairies, her streams fringed with stately forests, have made her the emigrant's paradise. And this land so attractive and beautiful, lacked not the charm of early historic association. Before Penn had pitched his tent on the banks of the Delaware, LaSalle had found his way around the chain of lakes to Chicago, and erected Fort St. Louis on the banks of the Illinois. The settlement of Kaskaskia and Cahokia was contemporaneous with the founding of Philadelphia.
Young Lincoln, although a thoughtful, dreamy youth, would, when brooding over the future, have been almost as unlikely to anticipate the marvelous growth of the state, as to foresee his own still more wonderful elevation. When the sturdy blows of his axe resounded through the primeval forests, or while he lay on the grass at his nooning, with his ear to the earth, one would like to know whether he heard
"The sound of that advancing multitude, Which soon should fill these deserts; from the ground Come up the laugh of children, the soft voice Of maidens, and the sweet and solemn hymn Of Sabbath worshippers."
Did he hear this? If so, he was soon awakened to the stern necessities of the hour. Day dreams would bring neither food nor clothing.