Hometown History

Brown County, Indiana. The turning point in history of most hometowns is economic. A factory moves in, or an industry moves in, and then thousands or millions of people follow. This episode is the story of a county in southern Indiana that was changed not through industry, but through art. It's the story of one well-known painter named T.C. Steele and his wife Selma, and how they almost single-handedly changed the future of Brown County and nearly every town within it.

WHY THIS MATTERS

Episode 104 | Hometown History | Hosted by Shane Waters

If you liked this: Episode 180 (Hagerstown, Indiana)

Hometown History explores forgotten stories from small-town America. The overlooked events, hidden triumphs, and buried tragedies that shaped the country we live in. New episodes every Tuesday. Find every episode at mythsandmalice.com/hometown-history

Leavenworth, Washington. but as you guys get out i start to hear gunfire like of a shotgun yeah and i was just like guys do you guys hear that but by that point in time you guys had already been in this gold fever and you guys are so determined you're like yeah i'm sure it's fine i think it was some people up on the hill target shooting they were shooting handguns or something like that i don't think it was rifles i think it was handguns probably nine millimeter nine nine millimeter 45 one of the two i'm here today with.

WHY THIS MATTERS

Episode 103 | Hometown History | Hosted by Shane Waters

If you liked this: Episode 87 (San Juan Islands, Washington)

Hometown History explores forgotten stories from small-town America. The overlooked events, hidden triumphs, and buried tragedies that shaped the country we live in. New episodes every Tuesday. Find every episode at mythsandmalice.com/hometown-history

Bean Blossom, Indiana. I'll never forget the morning you left me, a big mistake you called on. If you come back, sunshine will fall, if you stay away, you'll get my phone. Sweet heart of mine, can't you hear me call? A million times above you been mistreated you, Lord, and I'm sorry. Come back to me is my request. Standing in the center of a music museum in southern Indiana, I'd like to start this episode with a little bit of music trivia. I'll give you just a moment to think about each of these.

TIMELINE

WHY THIS MATTERS

Episode 102 | Hometown History | Hosted by Shane Waters

If you liked this: Episode 180 (Hagerstown, Indiana)

Hometown History explores forgotten stories from small-town America. The overlooked events, hidden triumphs, and buried tragedies that shaped the country we live in. New episodes every Tuesday. Find every episode at mythsandmalice.com/hometown-history

Abraham Lincoln spent fourteen formative years in Spencer County, Indiana, from age seven to twenty-one, in a period that would profoundly shape the character of America's sixteenth president. Between 1816 and 1830, Lincoln transformed from a frontier boy into a self-educated young man on the banks of Little Pigeon Creek, learning the values of hard work, compassion, and justice that would define his presidency. This episode explores Lincoln's Indiana years through an exclusive interview with Ronda Shear, Superintendent of the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, revealing how life in a small log cabin, the devastating loss of his mother Nancy Hanks Lincoln, and exposure to the harsh realities of slavery during a trip to New Orleans forged the moral foundation of the Great Emancipator.

Unlike most presidents who came from established Eastern families, Lincoln was the first president born outside the original thirteen colonies, raised in what he described as an "unbroken wilderness." His father Thomas, a skilled carpenter and farmer, moved the family to Indiana seeking better land titles and freedom from slavery's economic competition. Young Abraham assisted with the brutal work of clearing forest and planting crops, yet his true passion lay in reading. He absorbed every book he could borrow, from George Washington's biography to Aesop's Fables, often reading by firelight in the family's cramped cabin. This self-education, combined with exposure to local lawyers during trips to the county seat of Rockport, planted the seeds of his legal ambitions. The episode reveals Lincoln's often-overlooked humanity: his compassion for animals that made him reluctant to hunt, his devastation at his sister Sarah's death during childbirth, and his lifelong humility about his "deficient" education. These experiences prepared him to empathize with others' suffering, a quality that would prove invaluable when writing letters of condolence to Civil War families.

• December 1816: Lincoln family arrives in Spencer County, Indiana; Abraham is seven years old
• October 1818: Nancy Hanks Lincoln dies of milk sickness at age thirty-four; Abraham is nine
• December 1819: Thomas Lincoln remarries Sarah Bush Johnston, bringing her three children to share the cabin
• 1825-1826: Abraham operates a ferry boat on the Anderson and Ohio rivers near Troy, Indiana
• 1828: Lincoln travels to New Orleans by flatboat, witnesses his first slave auction
• January 1828: Sister Sarah Lincoln Grigsby dies during childbirth at age twenty-one
• March 1830: Lincoln family moves to Illinois; Abraham is twenty-one years old

The fourteen years in Indiana represented a quarter of Lincoln's entire life, during which the nation's future president developed the reading habit, legal curiosity, and moral convictions that would carry him to the White House and through the Civil War.

Lincoln himself acknowledged the profound influence of his Indiana years, stating that "All that I am or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother" Nancy, whose death shaped his capacity for empathy. The frontier experience taught him self-reliance and humility, qualities that made him approachable and effective as president. His exposure to diverse viewpoints in the Little Pigeon Creek community, combined with witnessing slavery's brutality firsthand in New Orleans, crystallized his moral opposition to the institution decades before the Civil War. Today, the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial preserves this critical chapter of presidential history on the original homestead site, including Nancy Hanks Lincoln's grave and a living historical farm that demonstrates 1820s frontier life. The memorial serves as a powerful reminder that America's greatest leader came not from privilege but from humble origins in rural Indiana, where character and curiosity mattered more than formal education.

• Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial (NPS): Visit the official National Park Service site at nps.gov/libo for visitor information, historical resources, and educational programs
• "Abraham Lincoln's Wilderness Years" by Joshua Claybourn: Definitive scholarship on Lincoln's Indiana boyhood compiled from primary sources and neighbor interviews
• Indiana Historical Bureau - Lincoln Collection: Comprehensive archives of Lincoln's Indiana years including original documents and period accounts at in.gov/history
• "Abe's Youth" edited by Joshua Claybourn: Original essays and correspondence about Lincoln's formative years in Spencer County
• Library of Congress - Lincoln Papers: Digital collection including Lincoln's autobiographical writings about his Indiana childhood at loc.gov/collections/abraham-lincoln-papers

Explore more forgotten American history at Hometown History Podcast. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and discover the remarkable stories hidden in small towns across America.Abraham Lincoln spent fourteen formative years in Spencer County, Indiana, from age seven to twenty-one, in a period that would profoundly shape the character of America's sixteenth president. Between 1816 and 1830, Lincoln transformed from a frontier boy into a self-educated young man on the banks of Little Pigeon Creek, learning the values of hard work, compassion, and justice that would define his presidency. This episode explores Lincoln's Indiana years through an exclusive interview with Ronda Shear, Superintendent of the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, revealing how life in a small log cabin, the devastating loss of his mother Nancy Hanks Lincoln, and exposure to the harsh realities of slavery during a trip to New Orleans forged the moral foundation of the Great Emancipator.

Unlike most presidents who came from established Eastern families, Lincoln was the first president born outside the original thirteen colonies, raised in what he described as an "unbroken wilderness." His father Thomas, a skilled carpenter and farmer, moved the family to Indiana seeking better land titles and freedom from slavery's economic competition. Young Abraham assisted with the brutal work of clearing forest and planting crops, yet his true passion lay in reading. He absorbed every book he could borrow, from George Washington's biography to Aesop's Fables, often reading by firelight in the family's cramped cabin. This self-education, combined with exposure to local lawyers during trips to the county seat of Rockport, planted the seeds of his legal ambitions. The episode reveals Lincoln's often-overlooked humanity: his compassion for animals that made him reluctant to hunt, his devastation at his sister Sarah's death during childbirth, and his lifelong humility about his "deficient" education. These experiences prepared him to empathize with others' suffering, a quality that would prove invaluable when writing letters of condolence to Civil War families.

• December 1816: Lincoln family arrives in Spencer County, Indiana; Abraham is seven years old
• October 1818: Nancy Hanks Lincoln dies of milk sickness at age thirty-four; Abraham is nine
• December 1819: Thomas Lincoln remarries Sarah Bush Johnston, bringing her three children to share the cabin
• 1825-1826: Abraham operates a ferry boat on the Anderson and Ohio rivers near Troy, Indiana
• 1828: Lincoln travels to New Orleans by flatboat, witnesses his first slave auction
• January 1828: Sister Sarah Lincoln Grigsby dies during childbirth at age twenty-one
• March 1830: Lincoln family moves to Illinois; Abraham is twenty-one years old

The fourteen years in Indiana represented a quarter of Lincoln's entire life, during which the nation's future president developed the reading habit, legal curiosity, and moral convictions that would carry him to the White House and through the Civil War.

Lincoln himself acknowledged the profound influence of his Indiana years, stating that "All that I am or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother" Nancy, whose death shaped his capacity for empathy. The frontier experience taught him self-reliance and humility, qualities that made him approachable and effective as president. His exposure to diverse viewpoints in the Little Pigeon Creek community, combined with witnessing slavery's brutality firsthand in New Orleans, crystallized his moral opposition to the institution decades before the Civil War. Today, the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial preserves this critical chapter of presidential history on the original homestead site, including Nancy Hanks Lincoln's grave and a living historical farm that demonstrates 1820s frontier life. The memorial serves as a powerful reminder that America's greatest leader came not from privilege but from humble origins in rural Indiana, where character and curiosity mattered more than formal education.

• Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial (NPS): Visit the official National Park Service site at nps.gov/libo for visitor information, historical resources, and educational programs
• "Abraham Lincoln's Wilderness Years" by Joshua Claybourn: Definitive scholarship on Lincoln's Indiana boyhood compiled from primary sources and neighbor interviews
• Indiana Historical Bureau - Lincoln Collection: Comprehensive archives of Lincoln's Indiana years including original documents and period accounts at in.gov/history
• "Abe's Youth" edited by Joshua Claybourn: Original essays and correspondence about Lincoln's formative years in Spencer County
• Library of Congress - Lincoln Papers: Digital collection including Lincoln's autobiographical writings about his Indiana childhood at loc.gov/collections/abraham-lincoln-papers

Explore more forgotten American history at Hometown History Podcast. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and discover the remarkable stories hidden in small towns across America.

Hometown History explores forgotten stories from small-town America. The overlooked events, hidden triumphs, and buried tragedies that shaped the country we live in. New episodes every Tuesday. Find every episode at mythsandmalice.com/hometown-history

In December 1816, seven-year-old Abraham Lincoln stood at the edge of the Indiana wilderness, watching his father Thomas swing an axe into frozen timber. The family had left Kentucky behind, fleeing land disputes and the shadow of slavery, to carve out a new life along Little Pigeon Creek in what would become Spencer County, Indiana. For the next fourteen years, this remote frontier homestead would shape the boy who would become America's sixteenth president. But the path from boyhood to greatness was paved with profound loss, grinding poverty, and the kind of hardship that either breaks a person or forges them into something extraordinary.

This is Part 1 of our exploration of Lincoln's boyhood home, preserved today as the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial in Lincoln City, Indiana. We trace the Lincoln family's migration from Kentucky to southern Indiana, their struggle to establish a farm in the wilderness, and the devastating milk sickness epidemic that would claim Abraham's mother Nancy in 1818. Through the landscape, the reconstructed cabin site, and Nancy's gravesite in the pioneer cemetery, we discover how these formative years in Indiana, years of loss, resilience, and quiet determination, shaped the character of the man who would one day preserve the Union.

Timeline of Events:

• December 1816: Thomas Lincoln moves his family, wife Nancy, 9-year-old Sarah, and 7-year-old Abraham, from Kentucky to Little Pigeon Creek in southern Indiana (then Perry County, later Spencer County). Thomas builds a log cabin before winter, utilizing his exceptional carpentry skills.
• 1817: The Lincoln family clears land, plants crops, and establishes their homestead. Thomas's carpentry skills are in high demand as the frontier community grows. Abraham begins the grueling work of frontier farming that would shape his physical strength and character.
• September-October 1818: Milk sickness epidemic devastates the Little Pigeon Creek settlement. The illness, caused by cattle consuming the poisonous white snakeroot plant, kills approximately half the community. Nancy's aunt and uncle, Elizabeth and Thomas Sparrow, die in September.
• October 5, 1818: Nancy Hanks Lincoln dies of milk sickness at age 34. Nine-year-old Abraham helps his father construct her wooden coffin, whittling the pegs that hold the planks together. Eleven-year-old Sarah takes on household responsibilities, caring for Abraham and managing the cabin.
• December 2, 1819: Thomas returns from Kentucky with his new wife, Sarah Bush Johnston, a widow with three children. Sarah Bush Lincoln brings furniture, household goods, and, crucially, books to the Lincoln home, encouraging Abraham's education.
• 1820-1830: Abraham's education consists of sporadic attendance at subscription schools, totaling about one year of formal instruction. However, his voracious reading, fueled by his stepmother's encouragement, shapes his intellectual development. Books including Weems' Life of Washington, the Bible, Robinson Crusoe, and Aesop's Fables become his teachers.

Historical Significance:

The fourteen years Lincoln spent in Indiana, from age seven to twenty-one, represent perhaps the most formative period of his life. Here, he experienced profound loss with his mother's death, learned the value of hard work through frontier farming, developed his legendary physical strength by splitting rails and clearing land, and, most importantly, cultivated his intellectual curiosity through books. His stepmother Sarah Bush Johnston recognized something special in young Abraham, later saying, "I never gave him a cross word in all my life... His mind and mine seemed to run together."

The milk sickness that claimed Nancy Lincoln and decimated the Little Pigeon Creek community exposed young Abraham to the fragility of frontier life and the importance of medical knowledge, experiences that would later inform his presidency during a national crisis. The poverty and isolation of southern Indiana taught him empathy for common people, while the absence of slavery in Indiana (having entered the Union as a free state in 1816) reinforced his family's anti-slavery convictions that he'd first witnessed in Kentucky.

Today, the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial preserves 200 acres of the original Lincoln farm, including the pioneer cemetery where Nancy Hanks Lincoln rests. The site offers visitors a tangible connection to Lincoln's most formative years, a place where loss and learning, hardship and hope, combined to shape an American icon. In Part 2 of this series, we'll explore Lincoln's transition to manhood in Indiana, his sister Sarah's tragic death, and the family's eventual departure for Illinois in 1830.

Sources & Further Reading:

• Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial (National Park Service): https://www.nps.gov/libo
• "Abraham Lincoln's Boyhood in Indiana 1816 to 1830" (NPS article)
• Lincoln State Park, Spencer County, Indiana (includes Pigeon Creek Baptist Church and Sarah Lincoln Grigsby's gravesite)
• Donald, David Herbert. Lincoln (Simon & Schuster, 1995) - Pulitzer Prize-winning biography
• Warren, Louis A. Lincoln's Youth: Indiana Years, Seven to Twenty-One (Indiana Historical Society, 1991)

Hometown History explores forgotten stories from small-town America. The overlooked events, hidden triumphs, and buried tragedies that shaped the country we live in. New episodes every Tuesday. Find every episode at mythsandmalice.com/hometown-history

West Columbia, South Carolina. I'm back with Benny Sultan, Reverend Charles Jackson, and Keller Kisham to discuss the legacy of the 1963 South Carolina State Championship football team. In the last episode, we looked at the amazing on-field success of this team, which outscored its opponents 526-27 over the course of the season. This episode, we're going to focus more on the legacy of that team and the way these three men have partnered to preserve it, while serving their community in new ways.

WHY THIS MATTERS

Episode 99 | Hometown History | Hosted by Shane Waters

If you liked this: Episode 181 (Edgefield, South Carolina)

Hometown History explores forgotten stories from small-town America. The overlooked events, hidden triumphs, and buried tragedies that shaped the country we live in. New episodes every Tuesday. Find every episode at mythsandmalice.com/hometown-history

West Columbia, South Carolina. It looked like sand. It looked like dirt. Absolutely. , they referred to it as the dust bowl, even when they played football back then. At the other end, you saw some rusted, dilapidated fencing. I look at it like this. It was a big part of the community, but it was a yard that was in disrepair, and it needed people coming together. And I'm putting their hearts together, putting their souls together, and letting their sweat flow together.

WHY THIS MATTERS

Episode 98 | Hometown History | Hosted by Shane Waters

If you liked this: Episode 181 (Edgefield, South Carolina)

Hometown History explores forgotten stories from small-town America. The overlooked events, hidden triumphs, and buried tragedies that shaped the country we live in. New episodes every Tuesday. Find every episode at mythsandmalice.com/hometown-history

New Harmony, Indiana. Have you ever wanted to join a commune? Better yet, have you ever wanted to start a commune? Have you ever wondered how communes work, or how they feel, which they seem to inevitably do? If your answer is yes to any of those questions, this episode is for you. The founder of the Communal Studies Association, Dr. Donald Pitzer, is with me today. Dr. Pitzer also founded the Center for Communal Studies at the University of Southern Indiana, and wrote the book on America's communal utopias.

WHY THIS MATTERS

Episode 97 | Hometown History | Hosted by Shane Waters

If you liked this: Episode 180 (Hagerstown, Indiana)

Hometown History explores forgotten stories from small-town America. The overlooked events, hidden triumphs, and buried tragedies that shaped the country we live in. New episodes every Tuesday. Find every episode at mythsandmalice.com/hometown-history

In January 1825, Welsh industrialist Robert Owen arrived in the small Indiana town that would become the epicenter of American utopian experimentation. Having purchased the entire community from George Rapp's Harmonie Society for $150,000, Owen envisioned transforming New Harmony into a model society based on cooperation, education, and equality. This ambitious social experiment attracted some of the brightest minds in early America and left a legacy that still influences Indiana today.

Owen brought unprecedented intellectual capital to the Indiana frontier. The famous "Boatload of Knowledge", a term Owen himself coined, delivered approximately 40 prominent scientists, educators, and reformers via the keelboat Philanthropist in January 1826. Among them was William Maclure, the "Father of American Geology," who implemented revolutionary Pestalozzian educational methods emphasizing hands-on learning over rote memorization. Naturalist Thomas Say, who captained the vessel, remained in New Harmony after the community dissolved, continuing his groundbreaking work in entomology. The intellectual atmosphere also attracted reformer Frances Wright, who visited the community multiple times and later co-edited the New Harmony Gazette with Owen's son Robert Dale Owen. Wright simultaneously operated her own experimental community, Nashoba, in Tennessee.

The daily reality of communal living proved far more challenging than Owen's theories suggested. On February 5, 1826, residents adopted the "Community of Equality" constitution, establishing shared property and collective decision-making. However, disagreements erupted over work distribution, resource allocation, and social organization. Some residents contributed minimal labor while expecting equal benefits. Others clashed over educational philosophy, religious practice, and governance structure. The idealism that drew nearly 1,000 residents to New Harmony couldn't overcome practical challenges of communal life.

By early 1827, Owen recognized the experiment's failure. He departed permanently in June 1827, returning to England where he became a leader in the British labor movement. The community dissolved over 1827-1829, with residents gradually departing or reorganizing into smaller groups. Yet Owen's brief experiment left an outsized impact on American education and culture.

Timeline of Events:

• January 3, 1825 - Owen purchases New Harmony from Harmonie Society for $150,000
• January 1826 - "Boatload of Knowledge" arrives with prominent intellectuals
• February 5, 1826 - Community of Equality constitution adopted
• 1826 - Establishment of infant school, public schools open to boys and girls
• March-June 1827 - Community recognized as failed; Owen departs for England
• 1827-1829 - Gradual dissolution of communal experiment
• 1838 - William Maclure establishes Working Men's Institute

Historical Significance:

New Harmony's educational innovations proved more enduring than its utopian governance. The community established the first public schools in the United States open to both boys and girls, predating Indiana's statewide public school system by decades. Maclure's infant school for children under five pioneered early childhood education in America. The community also created one of the country's first trade schools, the first civic drama club with written constitution and bylaws, and Indiana's first public library. The Working Men's Institute, established in 1838, remains operational today as Indiana's oldest continuously functioning public library, the only survivor of 144 Working Men's Institutes once scattered across Indiana and Illinois.

Owen's New Harmony experiment demonstrated both the promise and peril of utopian communities. While communal governance failed within two years, the educational and cultural institutions launched during those brief years influenced American society for generations. New Harmony proved that radical social experiments, even when they fail, can leave lasting legacies.

Sources & Further Reading:

• New Harmony Working Men's Institute: workingmensinstitute.org
• University of Southern Indiana Historic New Harmony Collections
• Indiana Historical Society Archives
• Pitzer, Donald E. "The Original Boatload of Knowledge Down the Ohio River"

Hometown History explores forgotten stories from small-town America. The overlooked events, hidden triumphs, and buried tragedies that shaped the country we live in. New episodes every Tuesday. Find every episode at mythsandmalice.com/hometown-history

New Harmony, Indiana. We're talking with Jennifer Green today, history professor at the University of Southern Indiana, and one of my all-time favorite guests. Jennifer also serves as the school's reference and archives librarian. I met Jennifer following a trip to a small town called New Harmony on the Indiana-Illinois border. New Harmony is without a doubt one of the strangest places I've ever been. Founded by a commune, constructed by that commune, and then sold to another commune, both of which ultimately failed.

WHY THIS MATTERS

Episode 95 | Hometown History | Hosted by Shane Waters

If you liked this: Episode 180 (Hagerstown, Indiana)

Hometown History explores forgotten stories from small-town America. The overlooked events, hidden triumphs, and buried tragedies that shaped the country we live in. New episodes every Tuesday. Find every episode at mythsandmalice.com/hometown-history