What did Abraham Lincoln often use to write arithmetic with?
Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky, to Thomas and Nancy Lincoln in their one room log cabin on their farm known as Sinking Spring (near modern-day Hodgenville, Kentucky). Although Thomas lacked formal education, he was an excellent farmer and carpenter, and often times served a member of the jury. Thomas and Nancy joined a small Baptist church in the area that had broken away from the larger church over the issue of slavery.
When Abe was two, the family moved to nearby Knob Creek Farm, where Abe\'s first memories of his childhood were formed. Because of difficulties his father had with the title to the farm, Thomas Lincoln moved his family to Pigeon Creek, Indiana in 1816 where the seven year-old Abraham helped him build a log cabin in the woods. Two years later, Nancy died of “milk sickness.” Milk sickness is a rare disease caused by drinking the milk or consuming the meat of a cow that had fed on poisonous roots. In 1819, however, Thomas married Sarah Bush Johnston, whom Abraham would call “mother.” Sarah was a kind and warm women who brought her three children, Matilda, Elizabeth, and John to the Lincoln homestead to live with Abraham and his sister.
From an early age, Sarah recognized Abraham’s quick wit and intellect and encouraged him to read. Abraham became an avid reader, gobbling up any book he could get his hands on from neighbors, clergymen, and traveling teachers. Abraham attended school on an inconsistent basis. At times, traveling teachers may have taught at a nearby rudimentary schoolhouse, and at other times Abraham walked several miles to the nearest school. Lincoln himself admitted that the total amount of schooling he received in his childhood was no more than twelve months; nevertheless, he became an excellent reader, learned to write, measure, and make division and multiplication calculations. Abraham took his studies very seriously. Without paper in the house to practice his writing and math, he often did arithmetic on the back of a wooden spoon using charcoal as a makeshift pencil. Lincoln described where he grew up.