The farm Thomas Lincoln and his wife Nancy moved to in 1808 was just within the borders of "the Barrens," a four-hundred-square-mile subregion of the Pennyroyal that Native Americans had burned repeatedly to create grazing land for game. Tall grasses dominated the Barrens, with scattered trees present only along stream courses. Locally known as the Sinking Spring Farm, the Lincoln property contained a large spring that flowed through a limestone channel, dropped into a sinkhole, and disappeared into the earth.