Abraham Lincoln spent the first twenty years of his life in the forests of Kentucky and Indiana before migrating to Illinois and settling in New Salem in the woodlands along the Sangamon River. Like other early settlers, he lived in a region where homes were often placed in woods bordering creeks and rivers. Near present-day Lincoln Memorial Garden, the forest along Sugar Creek, later dammed in 1932 to form Lake Springfield, was the site of an early pioneer community that Lincoln frequently visited. The Sugar Creek settlers were accustomed to forested lands, where trees provided shelter from storms, heat, and wind, as well as wood for homes, tools, wagons, and fuel, along with wildlife, fruits, nuts, medicines, and maple sugar. Many of the trees found there, including white oak, black walnut, hickory, and sugar maple, would have been familiar to Lincoln and the early pioneers. Many emigrants reached the Sugar Creek community by way of the Old Indian Trail, or Edwards Trace, a centuries-old path running from Cahokia to Peoria, with branches to Chicago and Galena. In this area it followed the high ground along the east bank of Sugar Creek. Named for Ninian Edwards, territorial governor of Illinois and the father of Mary Todd Lincoln's brother-in-law, the Trace was once the main route into the Sangamo Country and the primary north-south road, though little of it remains today.