am Lincoln while the
latter was a young man. The first time I ever heard of Lincoln,
was when two men came to my father's house to consult with him on
the question of employing an attorney to attend to a law case for
them at the approaching term of the Circuit Court. I remember
hearing my father say to them that if Judge Stephen T. Logan should
be in attendance at court, they should employ him; but if he were
not, a young man named Lincoln would be there, who would do just
about as well. Readers will see by this that while Lincoln was
yet a young man he was ranked among the foremost lawyers at the
Bar. At that time Stephen A. Douglas was beginning to be heard
from.

Judge Logan was one of the best lawyers of the Mississippi Valley.
He was a Kentuckian by birth, and, as a lawyer, was a very great
man. Douglas was a great statesman and a leader of men; a great
debater, but, in my opinion, not a great lawyer. The law is a
jealous mistress; there are no great lawyers who do not give
undivided attention to its study, and Douglas devoted much time to
public affairs.

On the arrival of my father at the grove where he had previously
determined to locate his family, he pitched his tent near a little
stream, then called Mud Creek, afterwards called Deer Creek, because
it was a great resort for wild deer. He soon erected a log cabin
and moved into it with his family. I was less than one year old
when the family located in Illinois. We lived in the cabin for
several years. It was not a single cabin, but there were two cabins
connected together by a covered porch; which was a very pleasant
arrangement in both summer and winter.

Finally, my father built a frame house. During all this time the
wild deer were numerous, and often I have counted from the door
from five to twenty deer feeding in a slough not a quarter of a
mile away.

I never killed a deer. The beautiful animals always seemed to me
so innocent that I had not the heart to shoot them.

The Winter of 1830-31 was long remembered by the early settlers of
Illinois, and of all the now so-called Middle States, as the "winter
of the deep snow." For months it was impossible to pass from one
community to another in the country.

My education was obtained at the local schools and at the seminary
at Mount Morris two hundred miles distant from my father's home.

In my boyhood years there were no common schools. There were only
such schools in the country as th