Rivers

Rivers conversely symbolize both lines of access and division. Smaller waterways that were farther inland gave access to rivers. Abe knew how to build a flatboat and, like his father before him, could travel to new places via these waterways. The rivers that Abe encountered throughout his life were the Ohio and the Mississippi. His father traveled up the Ohio River to move his family’s belongings to Kentucky before returning for them, and Abe would later work on the Ohio River at Anderson Creek ferry making the most money he had ever seen. Rivers allowed Abe to access new people, stories, cultures, and goods that he had not encountered on the family’s farms, along with some degree of financial freedom. His recruitment for two trips down the Mississippi River brought him to New Orleans, a place vastly different from the frontier states of Kentucky, Indiana...