After fourteen years of hard labor on the Spencer county soil, Thomas Lincoln had learned what has proved ever since true, that it was very poor farm land. In addition, the milk sickness was a sort of an epidemic disease in those parts. It came about every year. It was from this that Abe's mother died. These things, together with some word that he had received, that Illinois had rich farm land, made him decide to move to that state. A cousin had already moved there and gave splendid reports of it. The company which moved to Illinois included Thomas Lincoln, his wife and her three children, Abraham and some of the other relatives, thirteen in all. They sold their land, cattle and grain in March, 1830 and started on their trip. Their goods were packed in a big wagon, the first one Thomas Lincoln ever owned. It was drawn by four oxen. The people around Gentryville were very sorry to see them go, for the neighbors in those days were almost like relatives, and those of them that still live there, remember the leaving of the Lincoln's as quite an event. The Lincoln family spent the last night with Mr. Gentry, the man for whom Gentryville was named, and he went part of the way with them along the road. One of the boys, James Gentry, planted a cedar tree in memory of Abraham Lincoln on the ground where the Lincoln home had stood. It must have been sad to Abraham to know he was leaving behind him the graves of his mother and sister and the scene of so many struggles to be a better man. As they drove through the country, Abraham, who had some thirty dollars he had saved, purchased some things and sold them as they came to settlements, and in this practical way earned something along the trip. The things he sold were needles, pins, thread, buttons, knives and forks, etc. Abraham wrote back to one of his friends that he doubled his money on the way. This was Abraham's first effort as a merchant. They were about two weeks on their trip. When they passed through Vincennes, Indiana, they saw for the first time, a printing press. They landed in Macon county, where John Hanks, their relative had already cut logs for a new cabin. Many years afterward, when Decatur, the county seat, had become a large city and Mr. Lincoln a great man, he walked out a few feet in front of the court house with a friend, stood looking up at the building and said, "Here is the exact spot where I stood by our wagon when we moved from Indiana twenty-six years ago. This is not six feet from the exact spot." The friend asked him if at that time he expected to be a lawyer and practice law in that court house. He replied, "No, I did not know I had sense enough to be a lawyer then."