ciphering, writing Poetry, etc." and must have done it to avoid strenuous manual labor. His stepmother also acknowledged he did not enjoy "physical labor", but loved to read. "He (Lincoln) read so much—was so studious—too[k] so little physical exercise—was so laborious in his studies," that years later, when Lincoln lived in Illinois, Henry McHenry remembered, "that he became emaciated and his best friends were afraid that he would craze himself." In addition to reading, Lincoln cultivated other skills and interests during his youth in Kentucky and Indiana. He developed a plain, backwoods style of speaking, which he practiced during his youth by telling stories and sermons to his family, schoolmates and members of the local community. By the time he was twenty-one, Lincoln had become "an able and eloquent orator"; however, some historians have argued his speaking style, figures of speech, and vocabulary remained unrefined, even as he entered national politics. Move to Illinois (1830) In 1830, when Lincoln was twenty-one years of age, thirteen members of the extended Lincoln family moved to Illinois. Thomas, Sally, Abraham, and Sally's son, John D. Johnston, went as one family. Dennis Hanks and his wife Elizabeth, who was also Abraham's stepsister, and their four children joined the party. Hanks's half-brother, Squire Hall, along with his wife, Matilda Johnston, another of Lincoln's stepsisters, and their son formed the third family group. Historians disagree on who initiated the move, but it may have been Dennis Hanks rather than Thomas Lincoln. Thomas had no obvious reason to leave Indiana. He owned land and was a respected member of his community, but Hanks had not fared as well. In addition, John Hanks, one of Dennis' cousins, lived in Macon County, Illinois. Dennis later remarked that Sally refused to part with her daughter, Elizabeth, so Sally may have persuaded Thomas to move to Illinois. The Lincoln-Hanks-Hall families departed Indiana in early March 1830. It is generally agreed they crossed the Wabash River at Vincennes, Indiana, into Illinois, and the family settled on a site selected in Macon County, Illinois, west of Decatur. Lincoln, who was twenty-one years old at the time, helped his father build a log cabin and fences, clear of land and put in a crop of corn. That autumn the entire family fell ill with a fever, but all survived. The early winter of 1831 was especially brutal, with many locals calling it the worst