THERE I GREW UP: REMEMBERING ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S INDIANA YOUTH by William E. Bartelt
Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial - replica of his boyhood farm. Photo by DWD. Published in 2008 by Indiana Historical Society Press. Most know that Abraham Lincoln came from Springfield, Illinois. But, a lot of people are not aware that at age 7, Lincoln and his family moved to Indiana from Kentucky. Lincoln and his family stayed in Indiana until just after his 21st birthday. In a four paragraph autobiographical sketch written in 1859, Lincoln devoted a little more than a paragraph to these years in Indiana, including this nice little sentence: "There I grew up." All of the stories of Lincoln's childhood (reading by firelight, the legend of the rail splitter, his aversion to shedding blood of any sort, his kindness to animals and more) took place in Indiana. Hoosiers are happy to claim him. The author, William E. Bartelt, worked for fifteen summers at the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial as a ranger and historian and was the vice chair of the Indiana Abraham Lin