took no pains to replace the fertility which was used up in the growing of the crops. They are said to have "mined the soil;" that is to say, as the miner extracts his mineral and puts nothing back, so many of these frontier farmers extracted plant food and put nothing back. Whatever may be said of this from the point of view of national policy, it was, under the circumstances, undoubtedly good business from the point of view of the farmer. He was trying to balance up his establishment. Having an abundance of plant food in his soil, but very little of anything else, he found it to his advantage to sell some of his plant food in order to put up houses, barns, and fences and purchase machinery and live stock. He was doing virtually the same thing that another farmer would do who found himself in the possession of a large number of horses and no plows or harrows to which to hitch his teams. It would pay him to sell off some of his horses and buy enough equipment to make the remaining horses productive."38

The above paragraph by Prof. Carver tells exactly what Thomas Lincoln and other pioneer farmers did. They had too much land to use economically. They used it up and moved on, for land was cheap. It was not shiftlessness that led the Lincolns from New England to New Jersey, from New Jersey to Pennsylvania, from Pennsylvania to Virginia, from Virginia to Kentucky, from Kentucky to Indiana, from Indiana to Illinois. It was the very opposite of shiftlessness that caused them to move on and on. They were "balancing up their establishment" and that was "undoubtedly good business." Had the Lincolns not desired to "balance up

their establishment" they would have remained in the South and have been, no doubt, "the poor white trash," which they were not. Shiftless or not, no other man since time began has ever been the father of such a noble son! That honor belongs to Thomas Lincoln and cannot be taken from him!

Had Thomas Lincoln been the abject failure that Lamon and other biographers picture him to have been, it is quite possible that after the death of his wife he would never have returned to Kentuckyto the very region of his shiftless failures-in pursuit of the hand of Sarah Bush Johnston, who knew him and knew him well, for he had courted her before he married Nancy Hanks. We have evidence to show that Sarah Bush, as Sarah Bush and as Sarah Bush Johnston, thought well of Thomas Lincoln and we know, too, that her relatives thought well of him.

Mrs. Dowling, daughter of Dennis Hanks, said to Eleanor Atkinson in an interview in her home in Charleston, Illinois, in January, 1889: "I'm just tired of hearing Grandfather Lincoln (Thomas Lincoln) abused. Everybody runs him down. Father never gave him credit for what he was. He made a good living, and I reckon he would have got something ahead if he hadn't been so generous. He had the old Virginia notion of hospitality-liked to see people sit up to the table and eat hearty, and there were always plenty of his relations and grandmother's willing to live on him. Uncle Abe got his honesty, and his clean notions of living and his kind heart from his father. I've heard Grandmother Lincoln say, many a time, that he was kind and loving, and kept his word, and always paid his way,

and never turned a dog from his door. You couldn't say that of every man, not even today. . . ."39

Thomas Lincoln and his son Abraham had many traits and characteristics in common. Their hair was coarse and black and their eyes deep-set. They were both excellent story tellers. Neither complained of the lack of physical comfort; all through his life Abraham Lincoln was indifferent about his food, clothing, and refinement of living. From a statement made by Dennis Hanks to Mr. Herndon we know that Thomas Lincoln loved his children. By Abraham Lincoln's own words we know that he did not oppose their education. On the other hand we may feel quite safe in saying that Abraham Lincoln loved, honored, and respected his father. We have no evidence that they quarreled in any serious way. We know that Abe stayed with his father until he reached his majority and that he helped him move to his new home in Illinois.

CHAPTER II

LINCOLN'S MATERNAL ANCESTRY

NANCY HANKS HIS MOTHER

"When I was small and could not sleep,

She used to come to me,

And with my cheek upon her hand,
How sure my rest would be.

For everything she ever touched
Of beautiful or fine,

Their memories living in her hands

Would warm that sleep of mine."
-Anna Hempstead Branch.

In the preceding chapter we have set forth evidence to show that Thomas Lincoln was not the lazy, improvident, shiftless, and ignorant character that early biographers have pictured him to be, but that, on the contrary, he was an industrious, lawabiding citizen-a good workman, an excellent carpenter, and a farmer having in his possession nearly 800 acres of land. We have proved that there was good blood in his veins and that he was far from belonging to the "poor whites" of the South and that his father, Abraham Lincoln, was a worthy pioneer owning over 5,500 acres of land. It is now our purpose to set forth the evidence pertaining to the mother of Abraham Lincoln, Nancy Hanks, and to endeavor to ascertain what blood flowed in her veins.

The genealogy of Nancy Hanks has caused the historians much trouble. In 1899 Mrs. Caroline Hanks Hitchcock published her book, Nancy Hanks, in which she based her conclusion upon the state

ments of Mrs. C. S. H. Vawter and Mitchell Thompson. She says that Nancy Hanks was born in Virginia in February, 1784, the daughter of Joseph and Nancy (Shipley) Hanks. Joseph Hanks moved with his family to Nelson County, Kentucky, where he died in 1793. He left a will, (which we have set forth in the appendix), which Mrs. Hitchcock found in the Courthouse at Bardstown, Kentucky, in which he bequeathed his horses to his sons and his heifers to his daughters. Young Nancy Hanks, soon after the death of her father, was adopted by Richard Berry and his wife, Lucy Shipley Berry, who was a sister of Nancy Shipley Hanks. Richard Berry and his wife came to Kentucky from Virginia at the same time that Joseph Hanks came. In the home of Richard Berry in Beechland, Kentucky, Nancy Hanks was married to Thomas Lincoln, their marriage bond being signed by Richard Berry.

This sounds like a plausible explanation but a serious difficulty arises. Where is the evidence to show that the Nancy Hanks mentioned in the will of Joseph Hanks is the same Nancy Hanks that married Thomas Lincoln? Mrs. Hitchcock saw this troublesome question and set to work to answer it. Her friends claim that up to the present time no one has found another Nancy Hanks in Kentucky who was the proper age to have become the wife of Thomas Lincoln in 1806. The Nancy Hanks mentioned in the will of Joseph Hanks in 1793 was then nine years of age and was of marriageable age in 1806. The will of Joseph Hanks recognized eight children-seven others besides Nancy. Surely some trace could be found of them and their descendants and the latter should be able to give information