Encounters
''enterprise'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜encounter｜ENC｜20260904120411-13-•
Thomas preferred hunting to farming. Dennis Hanks recalled, “[w]e all hunted pretty much all the time, Especially so when we got tired of work—which was very often I will assure you.” Such behavior was common on the Midwestern frontier. A Northeasterner who moved to central Illinois described the inhabitants there as “destitute of any energy or enterprise,” and “their labors and attention being chiefly confined to the hunting of game.” In sketches of pioneer life in that same locale, Francis Grierson portrayed a representative farmer, Zack Caverly, who explained, “My ole daddy larnt me te go through this sorrowin’ vale like the varmints do—easy en nat’ral like, never gallopin’ when ye kin lope, en never lopin’ when ye kin lay down. It’s a heap easier.” Thomas, in short, was a classic Southern backcountry cracker (a term originating in northern Britain). Often of Celtic background, crackers were famously easygoing, improvident, unacquisitive, lazy, and restless. They preferred to spend their days hunting, fishing, and loafing rather then farming. They had little use for education and were often illiterate. Their folkways and culture derived largely from northern England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, and the Hebrides.
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃
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