Encounters
''shiftless'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜encounter｜ENC｜20260904120411-03-•
For unknown reasons, in 1780 the Captain departed with his wife and children on a 250-mile trek to the remote and dangerous Indian hunting grounds of Kentucky while the Revolutionary War still raged and attacks on settlers were common. In 1784 alone, Indians killed more than a hundred migrants traveling the Wilderness Road from Virginia to Kentucky, which was little more than the trail first blazed by Daniel Boone in 1775. Perhaps Grandfather Abraham wished to avoid taxes, or he may have been lured westward by the prospect of easy gains in land speculation. His decision to sell a large farm in western Virginia for paper money showed bad judgment because the soil there was so fertile that German pioneer settlers had made the area highly productive. Captain Abraham’s inability to thrive in Virginia suggests that he may have been shiftless.
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃
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