The personal authentic travels of a world-wide drifter, you'll always see pics of me at the locations being described (if the other blogs you're reading don't do that, odds are they were NEVER there, just saying…)
The friend who hosted me in Ballarat brought me to visit a nearby town called Clunes, Victoria (there’s actually more than one Clunes in Australia). The town (like many in the area) was once a gold mining town, but its current claims to fame is that it has been used many times in movies and TV shows, and they hold the largest yearly book fair in Australia.
Movies and shows shot in this town include, Ned Kelly (with Heath Ledger, Naomi Watts, Geoffrey Rush, & Orlando Bloom), Mad Max, HBO’s the Leftovers, Amazon’s Picnic at Hanging Rock, and a large selection of Australian TV shows, etc. In fact there’s a new big budget about to be filled there about the life of Ned Kelly staring Russel Crow, that’s currently looking for extras.
Other than being very picturesque Clunes seems to be just a quiet little Australian town. I could see why film studios like the place, there’s very are lots of very nice building but not much going on that a filming would disrupt.
What to do with a horse troth? Fill it with flowers
If you were on a Lincoln pilgrimage to the impressive memorial at Lincoln’s birthplace, and have some spare time, one of the places you might want to consider as part of your trip is Knob Creek, KY, the homestead his family moved to when he was two years old; Granted, what’s currently there now is nowhere near as impressive as what stands at his birthplace, but it would have been the place he thought of as his childhood home, and unlike the birthplace, this is where he would have had an emotional connection to… and as such, it’s worth a few minutes.
BOY do I fall behind in my “work” when it comes to this blog. WAY back in 2016 I visited this part of the country, and I had THOUGHT I had blogged about it, but when in 2018 I went to Springfield, IL, the site of Lincoln’s adult home, and his tomb… and found myself wanting to link to that blog post about the one I had done for his birthplace … and found myself wondering where in the hell that blog for it had gone to, only to realize I’d never written it … I decided to rectify that lapse (a few days ago), and today I’m doing the same for this satellite location where he grew up. That said, it’s been a LONG time since I was there, and although I’m looking back in my Facebook postings for notes, those were pretty scarce… so this post will mostly be about the pictures.
The site of Lincoln’s childhood home about 42.5 miles/about an easy 15 minute drive from his birthplace – where his family moved to when he was two years old. So if you choose to visit it (and why not) an important thing to keep in mind is that a horse walks about four miles per hour, and as such… in Lincoln’s time the distance between the two locations took was about 10 hours by horse, or about 14 hours by foot — so it’s likely Lincoln might have had no memory at all of the place of his birth, and as such, to him, Knob Creek would have been much more important to him emotionally.
That said, it is a quick nine minute drive from Hodgenville, KY, a very small town of around five eateries (two being fast food) and little “commercial” museum (basically a business set up by a local). That’s also worth stopping in.
As you’re driving down road 31E watch out for this sign on your left, as it’s fairly easy to drive past if you’re not paying attention (like I said, it’s unimpressive).
What you’ll see is a nondescript roadhouse type building that was built much later on the same property (sorry, I never bothered to take a picture of it, as it is NOT related to Lincoln) and some parking… At the time when I went to visit the building was essentially empty, but had some of these signs scattered around it explaining what it was
Once you’ve parked and walked behind that front building, you’ll see this
And then scattered around that are more official “tourist signs” offering information about the location.
After that you might want to consider a trip back into Hodgenville for a bite to eat, and to walk around the little museum they have there.
There are TWO massive statues in the middle of town….One is very similar to, but different from the at the Lincoln Memorial in D.C., As I discuss in the blog post about his tomb, which I visited two years later, in Springfield, IL in 2018; one of the things I learned there from the docent giving the tour was that first statue of Lincoln that you see when you enter the tomb is NOT an exact copy of the one in the D.C., but rather a precursor to it… according to the docent, the artist, Daniel Chester French, had actually presented various bronze versions of the statue, before one was chosen to be chiseled in marble, and the one in the tomb was one of them. I initially was guessing that this one here near the place of his birth was one of those other designs (because it’s almost a copy of it) …. but one should never assume, because according to Wikipedia, I was wrong… I actually feel kind of sad for the artist of this statue, because AS a former artist myself, there’s nothing more disheartening than having a paying customer who only wants you to mimic someone else’s work.
Not my image, borrowed from this open source website dedicated to US presidents
Than, across the park (?) from the much older Lincoln, stands a newer smaller statue of Lincoln as the young boy he might have been when he lived here, sitting on a log, reading a book, and looking across a street to the statue of himself as an adult… almost as though he were dreaming of who he might be when he grew up. It’s really a very nice juxtaposition… and I’m guessing that artist (of the newer statue) has a lot of pride in his new creation. In fact, AS a former artist, I think the new statue sort of redeems the copycat older one.
Keep in mind, when this picture was taken, Obama was still President
As is visible in the picture of the statue of the older Lincoln, behind it there is a museum dedicated to Lincoln. In fact it’s a sort of shop, really; as, it is a commercial/private enterprise rather than professionally curated museum, which is pretty obvious once you get inside. That said, I think it’s still worth looking at, especially if you have kids with you who are just learning about Lincoln.
First when you walk in there are a wide variety of art type objects related to Lincoln that are scattered pell-mell through the front rooms (like I said, NOT curated in any way shape of form)
One of my favorite pieces in the collection, it’s very conceptual and made with local stone
Two images… the first is a print where the artist has created a montage of Lincoln’s face using a variety of actual photographs taken of him, the second is an image of him made up of Lincoln pennies
Once you pass this area you enter a back section where a LOT more effort was put into creating the area. Each section is full of life-size constructed vignettes or dioramas full of antiques (authenticity or period-correctness be damned I am guessing, but again I’m not sure) with semi-realistic wax dolls, sort of like a mini Madame Tussaud‘s dedicated to Lincoln, at different points in his life
So, like I said, especially if you’re traveling with a child, and you know your history and can explain, I think the museum is definitley worth a walk through.
I have been to Lincoln’s birth place, and according to both the staff member at the memorial and Wikipedia the log cabin that is there is NOT the original, but according to this site it was — or at least the guys who made up the Lincoln Association, who were the ones that bought the building thought it was. Doing more research I found this site which sort of explains the confusion.
Apparently, in 1894 a speculator by the name of A.W. Dennett bought the farm where Lincoln had been born thinking people would want to see it, and had deconstructed a two-story log cabin found on a different part of the property, and moved its logs over to the spot where the original farm was thought to have stood (the original building had long ago been disassembled and he just assumed that this Lincoln cabin had been built using those logs). He then opened the spot for business, only no one came — because, no one was interested enough to shelp to rural Kentucky… So, as the saying goes, if you can’t bring Mohammed to the Mountain…. and at one point he added the logs from the cabin that was supposed to have been the childhood home of Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy. But, with all the building and taking-apart and moving around, the Davis logs and the Lincoln logs got mixed up… so that by the time the Lincoln Farm Association got around to buying the land and the logs back from Dennett, it was anybody’s guess (by historical standards) which if any of the logs were from the original house, when they ‘rebuilt the house’ in Hodgenville.
SO, Frank Loyd Wright’s son is the cousin of the guy who started the foundation to buy up the property that had been Lincoln’s birthplace and original home which was on touring display (come see Lincoln’s cabin) both of which were owned by the same guy… oh and this guy also own the Jefferson Davis logs from his original home and would show them together… and in the South, Lincoln logs were not marketed as Lincoln logs, they were marketed as Jefferson Davis Logs… coincidence? I doubt it…
Over a year ago, on Sunday Nov. 13, 2016, during one of my many road trips I had pit stopped at the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, and for some reason COMPLETELY forgotten to blog about it. (I had been to Zachary Taylor’s Tomb the day before and THAT I had blogged about, but for some reason never did this.) I thought I had, but apparently Not so much. I didn’t realize till just yesterday, when I was blogging about his tomb and wanting to link to the post about his birthplace and wondering where the hell the blog for it had gone to … so I have decided to rectify that lapse now. That said, it’s been a LONG time since I was there, and although I’m looking back in my Facebook postings for notes, those were pretty scarce… so this post will mostly be about the pictures.
So, one thing I did find in my Facebook notes from the day of my visit was that there had been NO WiFi or data accessible outside of the building (I have T-Mobile), although there was some free WiFi inside of it.
Getting up to the top of the building was NOT easy for me. My legs were still very weak at this point, and all of the various ways up to the monument involved a lot of steps (handicapped accessible the place is not)….
The poor Dachshund belonging to these two people was not liking the steps either
Today I learned from Wikipedia that there are in fact 56 steps going up the hill, and that the number is intentional, as it was Lincoln’s age at the time of his death
Once you got to the top you could read this dedication laid into the stone …
(only I remember at the time I was seriously wondering why almost all the R’s in it looked like P’s)
Here
over the log cabin where Abraham Lincoln was born
Destined to preserve the Union and to free the slave
A grateful people have dedicated this memorial
To unity peace and brotherhood among these states
With Malice toward none, with charity for all
And when you got inside (according to my FB notes from that day) there was movie about Lincoln and his life, whose over-riding message was that “acceptance and inclusion are what makes America great”… something that had sounded particularly jarring to me at the time. (Keep in mind that Donald Trump beaten Hillary in the election for President JUST four days before, and I was in the state of Kentucky, a former slave state that had declared neutrality at the start of the Civil war, and where pro-Trump stickers and posters were common place — he won the state by 62.54%, and on that day every racist red neck in the state was still in a state of euphoria over the win).
There was a nice bronze of Lincoln’s family, when he was a tiny baby (having just been born of course)
And then inside this huge structure stood what the staff member (I remember this person was particularly grumpy) told me and the other visitors was a reminder of the original house. We were like all amazed that it was the actual house and he was like, “No, it’s just a replica.”
You can see the cabin stands empty (no furniture), and in the bottom left the staff member who told us it wasn’t the actual home
So, while from the outside it’s a very nice looking building (there was a slab on the side of the building that gives you some of the history of the place… something about the whole thing had my hackles up… could a state that had just gone overwhelmingly Trump have actually put up a monument to Lincoln?
According to this plaque on the outside of the building I still couldn’t be sure. It says that the memorial was built with funds raised by the Lincoln Farm association, the Cornerstone was laid by President Roosevelt in 1909, and it was dedicated by President Taft in 1911
However, now that I’m researching all of this I have learned that, the Association was founded in 1906 specifically to save this location, was headquartered in New York (NOT Kentucky) and included such notables as Samuel Clemens (aka, Mark Twain), Ida M. Tarbell, Robert Collier and Richard Lloyd Jones
Apparently, in 1894 a speculator by the name of A.W. Dennett bought the farm where Lincoln had been born thinking people would want to see it, and had deconstructed a two-story log cabin found on a different part of the property, and moved its logs over to the spot where the original farm was thought to have stood (the original building had long ago been disassembled and he just assumed that this Lincoln cabin had been built using those logs). He then opened the spot for business, only no one came — because, no one was interested enough to shelp to rural Kentucky… So, as the saying goes, if you can’t bring Mohammed to the Mountain…. and at one point he added the logs from the cabin that was supposed to have been the childhood home of Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy. But, with all the building and taking-apart and moving around, the Davis logs and the Lincoln logs got mixed up… so that by the time the Lincoln Farm Association got around to buying the land and the logs back from Dennett, it was anybody’s guess (by historical standards) which if any of the logs were from the original house, when they ‘rebuilt the house’ in Hodgenville.
So, all that said, back to the site… At the bottom of the hill where the memorial to Lincoln’s childhood home sits, on what is known to have been the location of said home is a spring, which is still there….
And worth walking down to…
Also, out by the parking lot, there is something actually pretty cool. It is a metal copy of the memorial specifically designed to allow blind people to see the memorial. Keep in mind blind people see by using the sense of touch… Cool right? I seriously wonder why I haven’t seen more of these around the country. This would be my first.
Rebecca Radnor's Personal Blog: Consider yourselves warned! 
