Half Faced Camp

[Gene C]

The story of the Lincoln's living in a half-faced camp during their first winter in Indiana always seemed a bit dubious to me.

William Herndon wrote in the preface of Herndon's Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life - ( https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex...01.05.0025 )
"In determining Lincoln's title to greatness we must not only keep in mind the times in which he lived, but we must, to a certain extent, measure him with other men. Many of our great men and our statesmen, it is true, have been self-made, rising gradually through struggles to the topmost round of the ladder; but Lincoln rose from a lower depth than any of them — from a stagnant, putrid pool, like the gas which, set on fire by its own energy and self-combustible nature, rises in jets, blazing, clear, and bright. I should be remiss in my duty if I did not throw the light on this part of the picture, so [x] that the world may realize what marvellous contrast one phase of his life presents to another."

According to the same book above, in chapter 2,
The head of the household now set resolutely to work to build a shelter for his family.
In this forbidding structure, when completed, was fourteen feet square, and was built of small unhewn logs. In the language of the day, it was called a “half-faced camp,” being enclosed on all sides but one. It had neither floor, door, nor windows. In this forbidding hovel these doughty emigrants braved the exposure of the varying seasons for an entire year.

The article below gives us a little more information regarding the source and story of the half-faced camp.
The author of this article - Lincoln Lore, December 11, 1939 - reaches this conclusion at the end of his article,
"The story of that half-faced camp is but another one of Herndon's gross exaggerations.

You'll just have to read this to find out why
https://www.friendsofthelincolncollectio...-11_01.pdf

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[Rob Wick]

In 1952, Eastern Illinois University Professor Charles H. Coleman published an article in the Abraham Lincoln Quarterly on the half-faced camp. Coleman had long died before I started attending EIU, but as a history major I was very well versed in Coleman's work. In fact, just off the front entrance to Booth Library was a room housing Coleman's books on Lincoln, which I grew very familiar with utilizing it for various projects.

Coleman holds to the view that the camp was a myth. However, he gives credence to the possibility that Thomas Lincoln built the camp for himself when he traveled alone to Indiana. Then the family lived in it for a week until the regular cabin was completed.

Here is a link to the article.

Best
Rob

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/a/alajournals...view=image