Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial preserves the site of the farm where Abraham Lincoln spent 14 formative years of his life, from the ages of 7 to 21.  He and his family moved to Indiana in 1816 and stayed until 1830 when they moved on to Illinois.  During this period, Lincoln grew physically and intellectually into a man.  The people he knew here and the things he experienced had a profound influence on his life.  His sense of honesty, his belief in the importance of education and learning, his respect for hard work, his compassion for his fellow man, and his moral convictions about right and wrong were all born of this place and this time.  The time he spent here helped shape the man that went on to lead the country.  This site is our most direct tie with that time of his life.  Lincoln Boyhood preserves the place where he learned to laugh with his father, cried over the death of his mother, read the books that opened his mind, and triumphed over the adversities of life on the frontier.