Even as a boy in Indiana he acquired a reputation for gentleness, kindness, and good-nature. He was appealed to by people in trouble, and his great physical strength and quick intelligence made him a valuable aid on all occasions. Once he saved the life of the town drunkard, whom he found freezing by the roadside on a winter night. Picking him up in his arms, he carried him to the nearest tavern and worked over him until he revived. The people who lived in the neighborhood of Gentryville, Indiana, and New Salem, Illinois, where his early life was spent, have many traditions of his unselfishness and helpful disposition. He chopped wood for poor widows and sat up all night with the sick; if a wagon stuck in the mud, he was always the first to offer assistance, and his powerful arms were equal to those of any three men in the town. When he was living at the Rutledge tavern at New Salem he was always willing to give up his bed to a traveller when the house was full, and to sleep on a counter in his store. He never failed to be present at a "moving," and would neglect his own business to help a neighbor out of difficulty. His sympathetic disposition and tender tact enabled him to enter the lives of the people and give them assistance without offence, and he was never so happy as when he was doing good. His religious training was limited. His father and mother, while in Kentucky, belonged to the sect known as Free-will Baptists, and when they went to Indiana they became members of the Predestinarian Church, as it was called; not from any change in belief, but because it was the only denomination in the neighborhood. Public worship was very rare, being held only when an itinerant preacher visited that section. Notice of his approach would be sent throughout the neighborhood for twenty miles around, and the date would be fixed as far in advance as possible. When the preacher appeared he would find the entire population gathered in camp at the place of meeting, which was usually at cross-roads where there were fodder for the horses and water for man and beast. After morning preaching people from the same neighborhood or intimate acquaintances would gather in groups, open their lunch-baskets, and picnic together. At the afternoon service children and "confessors" would be baptized, and towards night the party would separate for their homes, refreshed in faith and uplifted in spirit. When Thomas Lincoln removed to Illinois he united with the Christian church commonly called "Campbellites," and in that faith he died.