These were the last words Colonel Lamon ever heard on earth. He died at eleven o'clock on the night of May 7th, 1893; and many most interesting chapters of Lincoln's history have perished with him.

Dear Mías Lamon : I hear with deefo sorrow of the death of your dear

father. Ten years have clapred omnio I last our him, but I have in

somining and affectionate remembrance his keen and vigorous intellect, his wide culture and the cordiality of his generons, Mingletfnt naturo.

I recall with pleasure the very many delightful hoss mo afpent together,

and I remember very

for there was mile in common between no

distinctly. The afternoon in animertime when I wrote Those vesses

whils

he slept. He was a

great, good and gracións m

man - Godsest him!

Dese Miss Lumon, you wre ,

lonely without him; but you should not

wish him called back again from that awut compaminship in

Eternity while he is enjoying now. It cannot be so very long before

whither he has already gone. Meanwhile be con=

:ooled by the thought of his great happamies.

I have as evfay of

var fathers life of Lincoln with a long and most complementary in

: simption. I aluned like es further souvenir - wither armething that

Lmion gave your fathen.

"arme little copy of " "Hvrace" that your

letter, which touches me very deefaly, shall be mainted at ma us

the Life of Lmirh..

With all affectionate sympathy, I

always sinisely mass

Engono Fuld

elmago, May the 14th, 1893.

RECOLLECTIONS

OF

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

CHAPTER I.

EARLY ACQUAINTANCE.

WHEN Mr. Lincoln was nominated for the Presi

dency in 1860, a campaign book-maker asked him to give the prominent features of his life. He replied in the language of Gray's "Elegy," that his life presented nothing but

"The short and simple annals of the poor."

He had, however, a few months previously, written for his friend Jesse W. Fell the following:

I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Harden County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks, some of whom now reside in Adams, some others in Macon counties, Illinois My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emigrated from Rockingham County, Virginia, to Kentucky, about 1781 or 2, where, a year

--

or two later, he was killed by indians, not in battle, but by stealth, when he was laboring to open a farm in the forestHis ancestors, who were quakers, went to Virginia from Berks County, Pennsylvania - An effort to identify them with the New England family of the same name ended in nothing more definite, than a similarity of Christian names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Solomon, Abraham, and the like

My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age; and he grew up, literally without education — He removed from Kentucky to what is now Spencer county, Indiana, in my eighth year- We reached our new home about the time the State came into the Union- It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods There I grew upThere were some schools, so called; but no qualification was ever required of a teacher, beyond "readin, writin, and cipherin" to the Rule of Three If a straggler supposed to understand latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizzard - There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course when I came of age I did not know much Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the Rule of Three; but that was all I have not been to school since - The little advance I now have upon this store of education, I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity

I was raised to farm work, which I continued till I was twenty two- At twenty one I came to Illinois, and passed the first year in Macon county - Then I got to New-Salem at that time in Sangamon, now in Menard county, where I remained a year as a sort of Clerk in a Then came the Black Hawk war; and I was

store

elected a Captain of Volunteers

more pleasure than any I have

a success which gave me

had since - I went the

campaign, was elected, ran for the Legislature the same year