The Old Rail Splitter

In the days before the Monday holiday celebrating two presidents with February birthdays, we observed Abraham Lincoln's birthday on February 12, the date he was born in 1809.

An unknown artist created this mythical,
life-size portrait of Lincoln used at public
rallies during his presidential campaigns.
Notice the image of the White House
on the distant horizon

From the pen of my grandfather, I found this piece from the 1960s.

 

Today is Lincoln's birthday. The former president has been called the "rail splitter," but somehow we cannot believe he ever split many rails – he had other chores first as an attorney and later as president of the United States.

There is a trick and know-how to rail splitting and if Lincoln did much of such work he had to know!

This scribe is no expert as he never split a rail in his life. My dad was a carpenter – and a good one. There are a goodly number of houses and barns in Whitesville and vicinity standing today that he built. As a youngster, I learned a few tricks from him, and one would have to do with splitting rails.

In winter carpenter work was pretty much suspended because of cold weather. In order to earn a living he built sap tubs, bobsleds and axe handles. The latter were made of hickory but no hickory grew in the vicinity of Whitesville so he had to buy hickory butts from some distance. A butt was from the larger part of a tree and long enough to make a handle.

The trick in splitting was to always split from the smaller end. In that way the wood split straight with the grain. It would apply to splitting rails or other articles.

Those axe handles Dad made were really beautiful, especially the ones for a single bit axe. They were so graceful and smooth a fly would fall off one. Dad got 50 cents apiece for those handles. This scribe, a lover of wood, would give ten bucks for one today.

I've rambled a long way from Abe's rail splitting but we'll bet he splits rails from the small end of the log.