In March, 1831, at the end of this terrible winter, Abraham
Lincoln left his father's cabin to seek his own fortune in the
world. It was the frontier custom for young men to do this when
they reached the age of twenty-one. Abraham was now twenty-two,
but had willingly remained with his people an extra year to give
them the benefit of his labor and strength in making the new
home.

He had become acquainted with a man named Offut, a trader and
speculator, who pretended to great business shrewdness, but whose
chief talent lay in boasting of the magnificent things he meant
to do. Offut engaged Abraham, with his stepmother's son, John D.
Johnston, and John Hanks, to take a flatboat from Beardstown, on
the Illinois River, to New Orleans; and all four arranged to meet
at Springfield as soon as the snow should melt.

In March, when the snow finally melted, the country was flooded
and traveling by land was utterly out of the question. The boys,
therefore, bought a large canoe, and in it floated down the
Sangamon River to keep their appointment with Offut. It was in
this somewhat unusual way that Lincoln made his first entry into
the town whose name was afterward to be linked with his own.

Offut was waiting for them, with the discouraging news that he
had been unable to get a flatboat at Beardstown. The young men
promptly offered to make the flatboat, since one was not to be
bought; and they set to work, felling the trees for it on the
banks of the stream. Abraham's father had been a carpenter, so
the use of tools was no mystery to him; and during his trip to
New Orleans with Allen Gentry he had learned enough about