Extra Credit Questions

[Anita]

Excellent Steve! You win a large windproof umbrella!

https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/20...t-the-war/

[RJNorton]

In this sketch a youthful Abraham Lincoln is looking at something he is holding in his hand. What is in his hand?

[Steve]

Change, coins. Young Lincoln has that universal look that he hasn't been paid (or tipped) enough.

[Gene C]

He's looking at the money he earned ferrying two men and their luggage to a riverboat on the Ohio River from the Indiana shore.
He had never earned so much money at one time.

"As he [Lincoln] stood at the landing, a steamer approached, coming down the river. At the same time two passengers came to the river's bank that wished to be taken out to the packet with their luggage. Looking among the boats at the landing, they singled out Abraham's, and asked him to scull them to the steamer. This he did, and after seeing them and their trunks on board, he had the pleasure of receiving upon the bottom of his boat, before he shoved off, a silver half dollar from each of his passengers." In his 1866 Lincoln biography, J.G. Holland relates the story Abraham Lincoln told Secretary of State William Steward

from - https://www.nps.gov/libo/learn/historycu...incoln.htm

[RJNorton]

Wow, that question did not last long. Both of you gentlemen are correct.

Here is the story as told in Francis Carpenter's Six Months at the White House:

"In the Executive Chamber one evening, there were present a number of gentlemen, among them Mr. Seward.

A point in the conversation suggesting the thought, the President said: "Seward, you never heard, did you, how I earned my first dollar?" "No," rejoined Mr. Seward. "Well," continued Mr. Lincoln, "I was about eighteen years of age. I belonged, you know, to what they call down South, the 'scrubs;' people who do not own slaves are nobody there. But we had succeeded in raising, chiefly by my labor, sufficient produce, as I thought, to justify me in taking it down the river to sell.

"After much persuasion, I got the consent of mother to go, and constructed a little flatboat, large enough to take a barrel or two of things that we had gathered, with myself and little bundle, down to New Orleans. A steamer was coming down the river. We have, you know, no wharves on the Western streams; and the custom was, if passengers were at any of the landings, for them to go out in a boat, the steamer stopping and taking them on board.

"I was contemplating my new flatboat, and wondering whether I could make it stronger or improve it in any particular, when two men came down to the shore in carriages with trunks, and looking at the different boats singled out mine, and asked, 'Who owns this?' I answered, somewhat modestly, 'I do.' 'Will you,' said one of them, 'take us and our trunks out to the steamer?' 'Certainly,' said I. I was very glad to have the chance of earning something. I supposed that each of them would give me two or three bits. The trunks were put on my flatboat, the passengers seated themselves on the trunks, and I sculled them out to the steamboat.

"They got on board, and I lifted up their heavy trunks, and put them on deck. The steamer was about to put on steam again, when I called out that they had forgotten to pay me. Each of them took from his pocket a silver half-dollar, and threw it on the floor of my boat. I could scarcely believe my eyes as I picked up the money. Gentlemen, you may think it was a very little thing, and in these days it seems to me a trifle; but it was a most important incident in my life. I could scarcely credit that I, a poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day,--that by honest work I had earned a dollar. The world seemed wider and fairer before me. I was a more hopeful and confident being from that time."

[Steve]

I guess amazement and disappointment of tips share the same universal look, just that the former is rarer.

[RJNorton]

Historians feel this is a sketch of a cabin where someone who has been discussed on this forum lived. What is the person's name?

[L Verge]

(09-23-2017 08:26 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Historians feel this is a sketch of a cabin where someone who has been discussed on this forum lived. What is the person's name?

General Lincoln history related or assassination related?

[RJNorton]

Laurie, it's general Lincoln history.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Someone of the Hanks family? Dennis?

[RJNorton]

Good guess, Eva, but it's not the cabin of a Hanks' family member.

[Steve]

Sarah Bush Johnston, Lincoln's stepmother.

[RJNorton]

Excellent, Steve. That is correct. It is Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln's cabin in Elizabethtown, Kentucky.

If you are ever near Elizabethtown, you have won a free night's stay in the recreated cabin. Just tell the folks there that you got this question right.

[Steve]

(09-23-2017 02:49 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Excellent, Steve. That is correct. It is Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln's cabin in Elizabethtown, Kentucky.

If you are ever near Elizabethtown, you have won a free night's stay in the recreated cabin. Just tell the folks there that you got this question right.

Thanks, but I'd still prefer to pay for the modern comforts of the local Marriott.

[RJNorton]

This is the gravesite of someone who has been previously mentioned on this forum. Whose gravesite is it?