They were not to
escape hardship, however. They fell victims to fever and ague,
which they had not known in Indiana, and became greatly
discouraged; and the winter after their arrival proved one of
intense cold and suffering for the pioneers, being known in the
history of the State as "the winter of the deep snow." The severe
weather began in the Christmas holidays with a storm of such
fatal suddenness that people who were out of doors had difficulty
in reaching their homes, and not a few perished, their fate
remaining unknown until the melting snows of early spring showed
where they had fallen.
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.
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