Disease claimed the life of Nancy Hanks Lincoln in 1818, and left Abraham and his sister without a mother. The family carried on as best they could, with the twelve-year-old Sarah Lincoln cooking and keeping house. After a year Thomas Lincoln returned to Kentucky to find a bride, and married Sarah Bush Johnston, a young widow and mother of three children.

 

Young Abraham grew up with the hard manual labor required by clearing the land and maintaining a farm. At a young age he took up a daily routine of toil with the shovel and axe. Lincoln's responsibilities and chores left little time for education, and he attended local schools in fits and starts. In later years Lincoln remembered these schools in an unfavorable light, although he did master the rudiments of reading, writing and arithmatic.

Lincoln proved hungry for new knowedge, and scrounged for books to read. But his aging father continued to rely upon Abraham for farm labor, and tension grew between the two men. At the age of seventeen Abraham took a job on a flatboat and traveled to New Orleans with its cargo. Upon returning from the river, Abraham handed over his earnings to his father, as required by law. Abraham Lincoln began to imagine life beyond Pigeon Creek.

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