Herndon, William H. Herndon's Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life . Springfield, Illinois: The Herndon's Lincoln Publishing Company, 1888. [format: book], [genre: biography]. Permission: Northern Illinois University
Persistent link to this document: http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/file.php?file=herndon1.html

Note from page 51: 33. The original chapter in Lincoln's handwriting came to light in a singular manner after having been hidden or lost for years. Shortly before my trip to Indiana in 1865 a carpenter in Gentryville was rebuilding a house belonging to one of the Grigsbys. While so engaged his son and assistant had climbed through the ceiling to the inner side of the roof to tear away some of the timbers, and there found, tucked away under the end of a rafter, a bundle of yellow and dust-covered papers. Carefully withdrawing them from their hiding-place he opened and was slowly deciphering them, when his father, struck by the boy's silence, and hearing no evidence of work, enquired of him what he was doing. "Reading a portion of the Scriptures that haven't been revealed yet," was the response. He had found the "Chronicles of Reuben."