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(14) Ibid.

(15) Nicolay and Hay, "Abraham Lincoln: A History," "Century Magazine," November, 1886.

(16) Ibid.

(17) President Lincoln knew very little about his ancestry. In a letter written in 1848, he said: "My grandfather went from Rockingham County, Va., to Kentucky, about 1782, and two years afterwards was killed by the Indians. We have a vague tradition that my grandfather went from Pennsylvania to Virginia; that he was a Quaker. Further than that I have never heard anything."

It has long been known that the first emigrants from England bearing the name of Lincoln came from Hingham, England, and settled in Hingham, Mass. Recent investigations show that Thomas Lincoln became an emigrant in 1633; that his younger brother, Samuel, apprenticed to Francis Lawes, landed at Salem, Mass., 1637; that he was eighteen years of age, and subsequently settled in Hingham, and was the ancestor of the President. The maiden name of his wife was Martha, but her family name is not known. Their children were:

1. Samuel, born Angust 25, 1650.

2. Daniel, born January 2, 1653.

3. Mordecai, born June 19, 1655; died in infancy.

4. Mordecai, born June 14, 1657.

5. Mary, born March 27, 1662.

6. Thomas, born August 20, 1664.

7. Martha, born December 11, 1667.

8. A daughter, born August 3, 1669; died in infancy.

9. Sarah, born June 17, 1671.

10. Rebecca, born March 16, 1674.

The fourth son, Mordecai, born in 1657, became a blacksmith. He married Sarah Jones, of Hull. daughter of Abraham Jones, of whom he learned his trade. The shop was on a point of land which projects into Boston harbor. It seems probable that the settlers in that vicinity may have been fishermen rather than farmers. He subsequently lived in Hingham, and with his elder brother Samuel was employed, in 1679, in building the meeting-house, still standing (1892) in Hingham. His father, Samuel, and himself paid taxes in that town in 1680, and the blacksmith was assigned a seat in the front gallery. It is probable that he moved into Cohasset, the adjoining town, about 1700, and with his neighbors established iron-works and built a mill. He died in 1727. His grave is in the cemetery in North Scituate.

Children of Mordecai and Sarah Jones Lincoln:

1. Mordecai, born April 24, 1686.

2. Abraham, born January 13, 1689.

3. Isaac, born October 21, 1691.

4. Sarah, born July 27, 1694.

5. Elizabeth.

6. Jacob.

It seems that the two last-named were children of a second wife. The will of the iron-founder was made in 1727, and Jacob was sixteen years of age at the time.

Mordecai Lincoln, junior, born 1686, was the ancestor of President Lincoln. No record of his marriage has been found. We only know that he emigrated to Freehold, Monmouth County, N. J., accompanied by his brother Abraham, and that he had one son, John. He was married to Hannah Salter, of Freehold, before 1714-the date of his uncle's will, which bequeathed to Hannah Salter Lincoln £250. It appears that he moved to Amity township, Pa., and became near neighbor to George Boone. His will bears

date February 22, 1735-36, providing for John, Mordecai, Ann, Sarah, and a posthumous child which was named Abraham.

John Lincoln, born in Massachusetts, ancestor of the President, married and resided in Freehold, but moved to Union, Pa., in 1758, where he was assessed for taxes. His children were Thomas, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is probable that all his children were born at Union, and that he moved to Virginia in 1759.

Abraham, his second son, joined the family of Squire Boone at Holman's Ford, eight miles from Wilkesborough, N. C., where he married Mary Shipley. Their children were Mordecai, Josiah, Thomas, born in North Carolina, and Mary and Sarah, born at Beargrass Fort, Ky. The paternal line of descent is: 1. Samuel; 2. Mordecai; 3. Mordecai; 4. John; 5. Abraham; 6. Thomas; 7. Abraham-President.

The maternal ancestry of President Lincoln cannot to a certainty be traced continuously from his mother, Nancy Hanks, back to John Hanks, who married Sarah Evans, of Gwynedd, in 1711. It is very probable that the mother of the President was a descendant of their son John, who settled in Union township, Pa., and who probably moved to Rockingham County, Va., in 1759. Presumably Nancy Hanks was his granddaughter. It appears that John Hanks, who lived in Whitemarsh, made his will December 12, 1730. It was admitted to probate in May, 1731. His wife was executrix, and he mentions seven children. From the records of marriages among the Friends of Gwynedd, it seems that Sarah Evans Hanks, widow, married Thomas Williams, widower, of Montgomery township, Pa. The witnesses of the marriage were her seven children." Historical Collections of Gwynedd," p. 116.

Mrs. William Parker Faulke, in "Historical Collections of Gwynedd," informs us that Sarah Evans was the daughter of Cadwallader Evans, who, with three brothers, emigrated from Merioneth County, in Wales, which, together with Montgomery, Flint, Denbig, Carnavon, and Anglesey constituted the ancient Gwyned. The Evans family occupied an exalted position. Their ownership of land extends back to the twelfth century. The genealogical line has been traced to Mervyn Vrych, King of Man, who married Essylt, daughter of the King of Wales, in 820, both of whom traced their ancestral line to Lludd, King of Britain, who resisted the Roman invasion.

It does not appear that any of the paternal ancestors of President Lincoln in Pennsylvania belonged to the Society of Friends, but rather that they attended the religious meetings of the Friends, and lived in harmonious relations with them. It seems probable that John Hanks, of Whitemarsh, joined the society, and that his son John remained a Friend; but his nieces, who emigrated to Kentucky, were not Friends. On the paternal and maternal side it was a religious ancestry.-Author.

THOM

CHAPTER II.

EARLY YEARS.

HOMAS LINCOLN selected a quarter-section of land situated on Nolin's Creek, near Hodgensville, for a farm. The site chosen for his home was near an ever-flowing spring of pure, cool, refreshing water, issuing from a cleft in a rock shaded by forest trees. Asters, columbines, and other flowers bloomed around it, drawing their moisture from the crystal fountain.

1809.

We may justly infer that the carpenter could not earn much money by working at his trade. Not many mills had been built for sawing

THE SPOT ONCE OCCUPIED BY THE CABIN IN WHICH
ABRAHAM LINCOLN WAS BORN.

[From a photograph taken by the author, 1890. The stones at the
foot of the pear-tree mark the locality of the fireplace.]

lumber, and consequently

the time had not come for erecting frame-houses. A log-cabin could be easi ly constructed by the settler himself felling the trees and notching the logs. His neighbors would manifest their friendship by coming to the "rolling," lifting the logs that were to form the cabin walls, and partaking freely of the whiskey provided for the occasion. The owner of the house could lay the stones for the fireplace and hew the timbers for the floor. The cabin built by Thomas Lincoln had but one

[graphic]

room. The floor was not laid, no glass had been purchased for a window, or boards provided for a door, when it became the home of the family.

The wife had not many utensils for house-keeping-probably a Dutch-oven, frying-pan, a few tin dishes, wooden plates, and a bucket. None of his ancestors could have ever lived in a home more destitute of needed articles or one more cheerless. Perchance the cabin of his father on the Yadkin or that at Bear-grass Fort may have been but little better; but the home of Mordecai, the iron-founder of Scituate, and that of Mordecai, the land proprietor of Freehold and Amity, were palaces in comparison with this habitation. Shall we conclude that inability to acquire wealth or that intellectual decadence are the natural outcome of the adverse circumstances of life on the picket line of civilization? It is not probable that the grandfather or father of Thomas Lincoln had much opportunity to attend school. Theirs was a limited education. The owner of the home on Nolin's Creek did not know the letters of the alpha

[graphic]

A DUTCH-OVEN.

[From a photograph taken by the author, Nolin's Creek, Ky., October, 1891.]

bet until taught them by his devoted wife. How shall we account for the gradual waning of intellectual endowment in the generations between the active and energetic "gentleman,” the landed proprietor of Freehold, and the unambitious carpenter of Hodgensville? Though the roots of the husband's ancestral tree reached down to Puritan England, and, on the part of the wife, to the days when a King of Britain confronted imperial Rome, nature gave no intimation, through hereditary descent, of the coming of one who should be a redeemer to millions of his fellow-men. The evolution had been downward rather than upward. No prophetic voice whispered of coming greatness; no sign appeared; no star rested above the cheerless cabin by Rock Spring, in which, February 12, 1809, Abraham Lincoln, son of Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, was born.

To keep out the snow and rain possibly the skin of a bear may have hung across the doorway of the cabin, or that of a deer over the open-. ing left for a window; but the wintry winds had free access through the unplastered crevices between the logs. Here the mother folds in her

arms her infant son. Here she attends to her household duties-living the routine of drudgery, baking the corn-bread, frying the bacon, dressing the skins of the deer brought down by her husband's rifle, making his clothing, carding cotton and wool to obtain a dress for herself and garments for her children.

It was not a difficult matter for Thomas Lincoln to obtain meat for his family, as the woods abounded with deer and wild turkeys. It was more of a task to obtain corn. When obtained, it must be taken to Mr. Hodgen's mill for grinding. What other home surpasses this in exhibition of pathetic scenes? Another child came, to live only a few hours. Nancy Hanks Lincoln-queenly in personal appearance, imperial in her aspirations-attends to her wifely duties. The day begins and ends with religious service. The cultured wife reads the Bible to the uncultured husband. His lips utter the prayer. The Puritan instinct in the husband has come down through the successive generations from the Hingham straw-thatched cottage in old England, and in the wife from the Friends' home on the white hills of Wales. In the gloaming, when work for the day is done, the mother tells the stories of Abraham, Moses, David, and the Child of Nazareth. The horizon of her life was wider than the walls of her home. That her kind-hearted husband might be more than he was to her, himself, and his fellow-men, she taught him the alphabet; but he never was able to construct sentences. She showed him how to write his name, but his proficiency with the pen ended with that attainment. The iron which had given vigor to his ancestors seems to have been wanting in his blood. Little did this mother know how deeply her lessons of truth and virtue went down into the heart of her listening son; how in the fulness of time the germs would put forth their tender shoots; how her own spirit would reappear in his, and the beauty of her soul glorify his life.

She had few opportunities to gratify her longings or enlarge her sphere of usefulness. Occasionally a preacher came to the log meetinghouse at Little Mound to hold services on Sunday. Like her own home, it had no floor. Logs split in halves served for seats. Public spirit in Hodgensville had erected the building, but had not provided glass for the windows. To this meeting-house, located three miles from the Lincoln home, settlers came from far and near-parents and children, on foot or on horseback. It was not only a place for religious service, but the news exchange, where, before and after the sermon, they could hear what was going on in the community and in the world outside of Nolin's Creek. At Little Mound young men could look into the faces of the

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