In October 1844, Abraham Lincoln rode from Springfield, Illinois, back to his boyhood home in Spencer County, Indiana, after an absence of 14 years. With his term as a state legislator over, he was serving as an elector for Henry Clay in Clay’s campaign against Democratic nominee James K. Polk, while incumbent President John Tyler had failed to win his party’s Whig nomination. Lincoln’s purpose was to campaign for Clay, and he made speeches throughout the area. After several weeks of campaigning, visiting his mother’s grave, and seeing old acquaintances, he gave a campaign speech at the Rockport Courthouse on Oct. 30, 1844, then left town the next day. He later wrote a poem about returning to his boyhood home in Indiana, and an observer of his courthouse speech remembered him as gangling, tall, and awkward, wearing a brownish suit and an old-fashioned cap, attracting attention before he had become famous.
