Lincoln Moves to Illinois - 1830 In the spring of 1830, when Abraham Lincoln was twenty-one years old, he and his parents left their home in Indiana and came to Illinois. It was a long hard trip. Much of their way was over trails frozen at night and deep with mud by day. Their rude wagons creaked and groaned under the strain, and often the tall young man in buckskin breeches and coonskin cap had to prod the slow-moving oxen. But in time they reached their goal-a grove on the Sangamon River west of Decatur - where they settled in the hope that in a new state they would find the good fortune which they had missed in Kentucky and Indiana. From painting by Louis Bonhajo Copyright 1939, R.L. Parkinson, Chicago << | >> ALL | TEXT