XII.--Christ Our Righteousness 254 PART I.--AUTOBIOGRAPHY. CHAPTER I. Birth and Ancestors. Family Circumstances. "Fist and Skull" Entertainment. Removal to Ohio and Return. Fight with his Mother. Gets Lost. His Father Buys a Farm. The "Improvements." Plenty of Hard Work. His Opinion of Work and of Play. I was born near La Grange, Oldham county, Ky., March 7, 1836. My father, Francis Myers Allen, was born in Brown county, Ohio, December 7, 1807. He was the son of Thomas Allen, who, in 1812, when my father was only five years old, moved from Brown county, O., to Shelby county, Ky., and lived on Little Bullskin, a few miles west of Shelbyville. My mother, Sarah A. Gibbs, was a daughter of James L. Gibbs and Mary Ashby, and was born in Loudoun county, Va., April 6, 1808. The family moved from Virginia to Kentucky in 1810, and lived in Shelbyville. My grandparents on both sides reared large families of industrious, thrifty children, and both grandfathers lived to be quite aged, my mother's father living to be nearly one hundred years old. My parents were married near Simpsonville, in Shelby county, April 9, 1829, and to them were born thirteen children--five boys and eight girls--ten of whom lived to be grown. I was the fifth child--two boys and two girls being older. The oldest child, a boy, died in infancy. Being poor, both parents and children had to work hard and use strict economy to make ends meet. We all knew much of the toils and hardships of life, little of its luxuries. Both parents were blessed with good constitutions, and had fine native intellects, but they were uneducated save in the mere rudiments of the common school. They thought that "to read, write and cipher" as far as the single rule of three, was all the learning one needed for this life, unless he was going to teach. If my father's mind had been trained, it would have been one of vast power. He was philosophical, a good reasoner, and possessed of unusual discrimination. He had also great coolness and self-possession in emergencies.