The Anderson River, a name my mate thought one of the least interesting in the country, entered at Troy, Indiana, about where seventeen-year-old Abe Lincoln built a small scow to take travelers out to midstream to board passing paddlewheelers. A Kentucky boatman hailed the boy into court for operating a ferry without a license, but Abe argued his scow didn’t cross the river, so it wasn’t actually a ferry and therefore needed no license; the judge agreed, a decision less important than the suit itself, which introduced Lincoln to the law.
