Tuesday, 18 June 2019
Shakamak State Park is a very pleasant campground, but I unfortunately have no wifi signal and no phone signal here. And since I had a substantial drive ahead, I left fairly early.
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| today's route |
Because I didn't have the benefit of the internet last night or this morning, I was left to my own devices (thank goodness for AAA maps) and chose what looked like a straightforward route. And except for another detour and some stops on imaginary shoulders to regroup, it was. I drove through a lot of farm country this morning.
There was water, or evidence of water, everywhere thanks to yesterday's heavy rain. I passed one field that was on a slope (yes, they have slopes in Indiana) and it looked like the farmer had planned around the rivulets that probably form with each rain and had planted the crop only within a certain distance of the path of the rivulet.
Driving through so much corn made me wonder what percentage of US corn is grown here in Indiana, so I looked it up. What I found was something I thought more interesting. www.indystar.com/2019/06/10/indiana-farmers-behind-corn-planting
When I say I saw standing water in the fields, I really mean it. I got stopped at a road construction site so had time to take this photo:
As I moved south I noticed first slopes, then hills, and realized southern Indiana was like southern Ohio. After so much time in flat land, the hills come as a relief in more ways than one.
We made a rest stop in a town called Loogootee. Really. I looked it up and the only explanation I can find doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Per wikipedia, it's most likely a mashup of the names of the town's land owner (Gootee) and the engineer of the 1st train through town (Lowe). I'm not buying it. Nobody pronounces Lowe as loo, even in the early 1800s. And the trains were certainly important to settlement of the area, but naming the town after the train's engineer? Why not the train's owner? So who knows, is the answer.
I saw a sign that said Cornish Irish Heritage Center. At least, that's what I thought it said, which I thought was really odd, which is why I looked it up. And apparently it said Corning Irish Heritage Center, honoring the Irish immigrants who settled the town called Corning. I liked my way better.
Some of the corn I'm passing is now 3' high. Other fields are barely planted.
I saw a herd of cows in a field - no people anywhere around - all heading to a gate. I knew they were headed there because some of them were already there. And I saw a calf running after its mom up ahead - really cute. But I wouldn't have thought this was a regular time for anything - it was only about 10:30 or so in the morning - so I couldn't figure out why they'd all be headed for the gate.
Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial
In 1816 when Abe was 7, his father left Kentucky where they'd been living and went up to Indiana to check things out. Finding good farming country, he went back and gathered up his wife and 2 kids (Abe had an older sister Sarah) and their belongings and moved north. According to the museum here, lots of Kentuckians were moving to Indiana due to Kentucky's land laws that were costing some people their land.
Thomas, Abe's father, was known for his physical strength, his honesty and his integrity. He was also a mighty good storyteller. Abe learned a lot from him, clearly.
Two years after they got to Indiana, Abe's mother Nancy died of milk sickness. This sounded odd to me but it was very common back then. A plant called white snakeroot grows (or grew, maybe still does) in the Ohio River Valley. Cows eat it. The plant contains a poison that kills the cows but, before they show signs of illness, they produce milk that humans drink. Or maybe the human has killed and eaten the cow. And humans get just as sick as the cows and get just as dead as the cows. And this is what killed Nancy. Abe's sister Sarah was just 11 but had to assume all the duties her mom had been doing because Thomas and Abe were earning money.
Abe was 9 then, but he was big and strong for his age and the family needed the money. Abe's cousin Dennis moved in with them because his family had also been victims of the milk sickness.A year later, Thomas went back to Kentucky and married Nancy's cousin, called Sally, who was a widow with 3 children. She was a good mother to Abe, uniting the 2 families and encouraging him to read. She gave him books, one of which was called Lessons in Elocution. He acquired biographies of Washington and B. Franklin and learned what had caused the American Revolution.
Abe worked hard but he also spent time at Gentry's store, listening to neighbors discuss issues of the day. Gentry, also a farmer, hired Abe and his son Allen to take a flatboat down the river to Louisiana to find a market for his produce. While they were there, they came across a slave market - the first time Abe had seen anything like this. His parents were anti-slavery, but seeing people being bought and sold was a shock to him. They came back by steamboat, another big experience.
Abe, known to be good with an axe, chopped wood for the steamboats to earn more money. Once he was asked to take some people out to meet the steamboat, and that gave him an idea. He built his own rowboat and started taking people out regularly to catch the steamboat. The local ferry company took Abe to court, claiming he didn't have a license to take folks across the river. Abe argued to the judge that he wasn't taking anybody across the river, he was only taking them to the center of the river. The judge agreed; Abe won his first court case.
Abe's sister Sarah died in 1828 during childbirth. She and Abe had been really close all their lives and he was devastated by yet another loss.
Two years later, the family moved to Illinois - they'd heard there was better soil, and the milk sickness was returning. Lincoln lived in Illinois until he became president. But it's interesting to see how much of who he was to become had its roots in these 14 years in Indiana.
There's nothing left in Indiana that relates to the family's life here. Even Nancy's grave is lost with time. But this memorial was built in the 1940s because Indiana wanted something to show what Lincoln meant to them.
There's not really a lot here. There's a memorial for his mother Nancy, who was buried somewhere here on this property. And there's a plaque to mark the site of the cabin they lived in. They've got a little film reenacting his boyhood. Like that. But none of the photos is original, for instance. None of the artifacts belonged to him or his family. Instead, they've constructed a memorial and an explanation of the time he spent in Indiana, which makes sense. And because my opinion of Lincoln is about as high as it can get for a human being, I'm glad I came.
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| 1809-1816 |
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| 1816-1830 |
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| 1830-1861 |
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| 1861-1865 |
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| "And now he belongs to the ages." |
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| 1846 - earliest known photo |
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| August 23, 1860 |
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| November 8, 1863 |
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| March 6, 1865 |
Back on the road
Just a few miles away is an establishment called Dr. Ted's Musical Marvels, and I'd intended to stop and visit. But by this time I was tired and still had a bit of a drive to yet another campground so decided that'd have to be one of the things I see when I come back to Indiana. But you can take a look. http://www.drteds.com/
Clouds were starting to look really quite tornado-ish for a while, which worried me quite a bit. But I kept going and found with relief that my path was taking me out of theirs.
And I was greeted at the new campground by several Red-headed Woodpeckers, which I've never seen before but are completely unmistakable.
This is obviously not my photo, but this is what they looked like. The broad white band near the end of the wings spreads out when he flies and, with his all-white breast, it almost looks like a white bird is flying. And that red head is really red, especially if he's in any sun. Just stunning.
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