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Excerpt from Past and Present of Menard County, Illinois The soil produces abundant crops of corn. Wheat, oats, rye, barley, millet. Timothy, clover, potatoes. All kinds of. Vines and vegetables. Grapes and small fruits grow in luxuriant abundance. But while the large standard fruits in past year did well they are. Now practically a failure. Peaches are winter-killed at least four years out of live, while apples and pears are almost a total failure on account of the numerous 'l'ungoid and insect. Pests that attack them in countless hordes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

At the age of twenty-two, Abraham Lincoln arrived in New Salem, Illinois, as a "strange, friendless, uneducated, penniless boy" (in his own words). He did not remain friendless for long. Meet the community that welcomed him: Bennett and Elizabeth Abell, the couple who guided him through heartache; Mary Owens, Elizabeth Abell's sister who helped educate him in the realm of the heart; Mentor Graham, the schoolmaster who helped teach him; Bowling Green, the jolly justice of the peace who allowed Lincoln to practice law before his court; and Slicky Bill Greene, who clerked with Lincoln at a frontier dry goods store. Making good use of primary sources overlooked by many historians, Dale Thomas helps flesh out the important story of Lincoln's formative years in Menard County.