BY ELEANOR ATKINSON Author of “The Boyhood of Lincoln,” and “Mamzelle Fifine” ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY MCMIX Transcriber’s Notes: Punctuation has been standardized. This book was written in a period when many words had not become standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been left unchanged unless indicated with a Transcriber’s Note. Footnotes are identified in the text with a supe

In the sweet spring weather of 1835, Abraham Lincoln made a memorable journey. It was the beginning of his summer of love on the winding banks of the Sangamon. Only one historian has noted it as a happy interlude in a youth of struggle and unsatisfied longings, but the tender memory of Ann Rutledge, the girl who awaited him at the end of it, must have remained with him to the day of his martyrdom. He was returning from Vandalia, Illinois, then the capital, and his first term in the state legisla

There are two descriptions of Ann Rutledge, one by W. H. Herndon. The other, not so well known, is by T. G. Onstot, son of Henry Onstot, the New Salem cooper, in his “Pioneers of Mason and Menard.” Mr. Onstot is still living, at the age of eighty in Mason City, Illinois, the sole survivor of the historic settlement on the Sangamon, and an unquestioned authority on the history of the region. He was six years old when Ann Rutledge died. He does not profess to remember her personally, but to have g