Excerpt from Abraham Lincoln Before 1860: Indiana Cabins; Excerpts From Newspapers and Other Sources

The Thanksgiving and the Christmas seasons were the terminals of the most fascinating period of the year for the growing boy in America. The amazing stories of the Pilgrims braving the wild and turbulent ocean in their frail wind driven craft; the expressions of gratitude for survival; and eventually, the abundance of food from field and forest contributed to the wonderment of the harvest festival. When Thanksgiving was over Christmas could not be far behind, in fact it appears in this modern day as if December is trying to jostle November out of its rightful place in the calendar. Christmas in primitive America offered the occasion for telling the story of another marvelous journey, this one by land, in the midst of which a child was born in poor surroundings marked by a star. After rich gifts had been presented by learned messengers and angels had sung their praise with divine fervor, the infant was secretely hurried to another country for fear of a jealous king who would destroy the infant. These November and December pageants were high spots which tested the imagination of every child.

So it was between Thanksgiving and Christmas, in his eighth year when the wonder days of youth are at their zenith, that Abraham Lincoln reached his Hoosier home site. He later described the arrival in verse: When first my father settled here 'twas then the frontier line The panther's scream filled night with fear and bears preyed on the swine.

The primitive condition of the country in which his father chose to locate is further visualized by Abraham Lincoln in these words, He settled in an unbroken forest and the clearing away of the surplus wood was the great task ahead. The great seal of the state of Indiana portrays a pioneer with axe in hand attacking the virgin growth of timber.

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