"Captain J. W. Lamar, of Buffaloville, Spencer County, a delegate to the Republican State Convention, knew Abraham Lincoln when the latter lived in Spencer County. He is past eighty years old, but his memory is keen, and he is unusually vigorous for a man of his age. He is six feet tall, broad-shouldered, with flowing white hair and beard, making him one of the picturesque figures of the convention crowd. Lincoln is his favorite theme, and he delights to talk of him. "'I well remember the first time I saw Abe,' he said. 'My father took me to Troy, at the mouth of Anderson River, to do a little trading, and Lincoln was at that time working at the ferry. Dressed in the frontiersman's coon-skin cap, deerskin shirt, and home-made trousers, he was indelibly impressed upon my memory as being one of the gawkiest and most awkward figures I ever saw. From that time on I saw him very often, as he lived near, and worked for my father frequently. He and my father and his father all helped to build the old Pigeon meeting-house, near which Abe's only sister, Sally, was buried. Tom Lincoln, Abe's father, often did odd jobs of carpentering for us. "'One day, about a year after I first saw Lincoln, my father and I went over to old Jimmy Gentry's store, where the town of Gentryville now stands. When we got there, I noticed Lincoln out by an old stump, working very industriously at something. On going nearer, I saw that he was figuring or writing on a clapboard, which he had shaved smooth, and was paying no attention to what was going on around him. My father remarked to me then that Abe would be somebody some day, but, of course, did not have any idea how true his words would come out. "'Many times have I seen him studying at odd moments, with a book or something to write on, when others were having a good time. That was what made him so great. "'In August, before the spring that the Lincoln's left for Illinois, a township election was held at a log house near where the town of Santa Fe now stands.... All the men in the neighborhood were gathered there, and conspicuous among them was one, Sampson, a braggart and bully. He was storming around, praising a horse he had. "'"Why," said he, "I ran him four miles in five minutes this morning, and he never drew a long breath!" "'Abe, who was sitting on a rail fence near me, remarked quietly to him, "I suppose, though, Mr. Sampson, he drew a good many short ones."