whom was the maternal grandfather of President Lincoln.

No one race or breed of men can lay claim to exclusive credit for
leadership in the hinterland movement and the conquest of the
West. Yet one particular stock of people, the Ulster Scots,
exhibited with most completeness and picturesqueness a group of
conspicuous qualities and attitudes which we now recognize to be
typical of the American character as molded by the conditions of
frontier life. Cautious, wary, and reserved, these Scots
concealed beneath a cool and calculating manner a relentlessness
in reasoning power and an intensity of conviction which glowed
and burned with almost fanatical ardor. Strict in religious
observance and deep in spiritual fervor, they never lost sight of
the main chance, combining a shrewd practicality with a wealth of
devotion. It has been happily said of them that they kept the
Sabbath and everything else they could lay their hands on. In the
polity of these men religion and education went hand in hand; and
they habitually settled together in communities in order that
they might have teachers and preachers of their own choice and
persuasion.

In little-known letters and diaries of travelers and itinerant
ministers may be found many quaint descriptions and faithful
characterizations of the frontier settlers in their habits of
life and of the scenes amidst which they labored. In a letter to
Edmund Fanning, the cultured Robin Jones, agent of Lord Granville
and Attorney-General of North Carolina, summons to view a piquant
image of the western border and borderers: "The inhabitants are
hospitable in their way, live in plenty and dirt, are stout, of
great prowess in manly athletics; and, in private conversation,