Early Life and Career of Abraham Lincoln

Early Life And Career Of Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in a one-room log cabin in LaRue County, Kentucky, on a farm near Hodgenville. Lincoln was named after his grandfather, who died in 1786 when he was ambushed and shot by a Native American while clearing a field.

Lincoln lived in Kentucky, until a land dispute forced his father to move to Indiana, when Lincoln was a boy. There Lincoln lost his mother at age 9, and gained a new step-mother. As was common on the frontier, Lincoln received little formal education. In his young adulthood, he moved with his family to Illinois, where he worked as a boatman, store clerk, surveyor, militia soldier, and ultimately a lawyer. He was elected to the Illinois Legislature, and to the United States Congress from Illinois. In 1842, he married Mary Todd; they had four sons.

Read more about Early Life And Career Of Abraham Lincoln:  Illinois Legislature (1834–1842), Lincoln The Inventor, Courtships, Marriage, and Family

Famous quotes containing the words abraham lincoln, early, life, career, abraham and/or lincoln:

    The matter of fees is important, far beyond the mere question of bread and butter involved. Properly attended to, fuller justice is done to both lawyer and client.
    Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)

    The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    But poor devil, poor devil, he’s best gone out of a life where he has to ride a rocking horse to find a winner.
    —Anthony Pélissier. Anthony Pélissier. Oscar (Ronald Squire)

    John Brown’s career for the last six weeks of his life was meteor-like, flashing through the darkness in which we live. I know of nothing so miraculous in our history.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Man you can define; but the true essence of any man, say, for instance, of Abraham Lincoln, remains the endlessly elusive and mysterious object of the biographer’s interest, of the historian’s comments, of popular legend, and of patriotic devotion.
    Josiah Royce (1855–1916)

    There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will succeed too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury. Cast about, and see if this feeling has not injured every person you have ever known to fall into it.
    —Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)