Prepared especially for this volume by the Hon. L. E. Chittenden, Register of the Treasury under Lincoln, and author of “President Lincoln,” etc.

The Hon. Solomon Lincoln of Hingham, Massachusetts, in an article on the “Lincoln Families of Massachusetts,” in the “New England Historical and Genealogical Register,” 1865, Volume XIX., page 357, says: “We now come to the family of Samuel Lincoln, in which we find more names than in any other, which leads to the belief that it is in this direction that we must look for the ancestor of Abraham Lincoln. To this family belong the honored names of Levi Lincoln, Attorney-General of the United States, Lieutenant and acting Governor of Massachusetts after the death of Governor Sullivan; also his two distinguished sons, Levi, 1802, who, besides other offices, was by nine elections the popular Governor of Massachusetts; and Enoch Lincoln, Governor of Maine; and many other able men.

“In a correspondence with the late President, in 1848, when he was in Congress, he stated: ‘My father’s name is Thomas, my grandfather’s was Abraham, the same as my own. He went from Rockingham County, Virginia, to Kentucky, about the year 1782, and two years afterwards was killed by the Indians. We have a vague tradition that my great-grandfather was a Quaker who went from Pennsylvania to Virginia. Further than this I have not heard anything. It may do no harm to say that Abraham and Mordecai are common names in our family.’

“In a subsequent letter in 1848, he wrote: ‘I have mentioned that my grandfather’s name was Abraham; he had, as I think I have heard, four brothers, Isaac, Jacob, Thomas, and John. He had three sons, Mordecai, Josiah, and Thomas—the last my father. My uncle Mordecai had three sons, Abraham, James, and Mordecai. My uncle Josiah had several daughters and only one son, Thomas. This is all I know certainly on the subject of names. It is, however, my father’s understanding that Abraham, Mordecai, and Thomas are old family names of ours.’”

Mr. Solomon Lincoln continues: “We have already mentioned among the sons of the first Samuel—Daniel, Mordecai, and Thomas; and among his grandsons—Mordecai, Isaac, and Abraham.

“It has been stated ... that about the middle of the last century the great-grandfather of Abraham Lincoln removed from Berks County, Pennsylvania, to Augusta County, Virginia. These facts, from ‘Rupp’s History of Berks County,’ are furnished by William B. Trask, Esq., of the Genealogical Society.”

From the “History of the Town of Hingham, Massachusetts,” four volumes, 8vo, 1893, by a committee comprising Ex-Governor Long and two members of the Lincoln family. See Volume I., page 271.

“The Lincolns fill the pages of local and Commonwealth history with the story of their services in the field, the town, the halls of legislation, and the council chamber, from the earliest day to the present time. During the French wars we have seen Benjamin Lincoln, as colonel of his regiment, the historical Third Suffolk, ... taking an active part. Colonel Lincoln died in March, 1771, leaving, among others, the son Benjamin who so worthily filled the place he long occupied in public estimation and usefulness. The affection that is felt for the great President Abraham Lincoln, also a descendant from the Hingham family, has given a national fame to the name in later years.”

From “The Lineage of Abraham Lincoln traced from Samuel Lincoln.” By Samuel Shackford, Esq., of Chicago, a descendant of Samuel Lincoln. See New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1887, Volume XLI., page 153.

“Samuel Lincoln came from Norfolk County, England—probably from the town of Hingham—in 1637, at the age of eighteen years, ... first to Salem, as an apprentice to a weaver; then to Hingham, where his brother Thomas ... lived.... He had ten children.... Through his first son, Samuel, came the Governors Levi Lincoln, father and son, and Enoch Lincoln, Governor of Maine. Mordecai, fourth son of Samuel, born at Hingham, June 17, 1767, was a blacksmith; worked at his trade in Hull; married Sarah, daughter of Abraham and Sarah (Whitman) Jones. From Hull the family removed to the neighboring town of Scituate, about 1704, where Mordecai established a furnace for smelting iron ore. The children of Mordecai and Sarah (Jones) Lincoln were five in number: Mordecai, born April 1, 1686; Abraham, born January 13, 1689; Isaac, born October 21, 1691; and Sarah, born July 29, 1691—all in Hingham. By a second wife he had Elizabeth and Jacob, born in Scituate.

“The will of Mordecai, dated Scituate, March 3, 1727, is of an unusual character. Isaac and Jacob, the younger sons—Jacob a lad of sixteen years—were named executors; and to them are bequeathed all the testator’s lands in Hingham and Scituate, with the saw and grist mill, and all his interest in the iron works. To ‘son Mordecai’ is left one hundred and ten pounds in money or bills of credit; to ‘son Abraham,’ sixty pounds in money or bills, ‘besides what he has already had.’ To the oldest sons of Mordecai and Abraham, each ten pounds when they come of age; and provision is made for sending three grandsons to college, if they wish a liberal education.

“Shortly before this time the names of Mordecai and Abraham disappear from, and are not after 1727 found on, the records of Massachusetts. They were active men of property; and this fact, in connection with the will, which gave them only money, and all the immovable property to Isaac and Jacob, raises an almost irresistible inference that Mordecai and Abraham no longer lived in Massachusetts.

“We now turn to New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and find that, in the early part of the last century, the Moores, Hales, Rolfs, Pikes, and other families from eastern Massachusetts, came to Middlesex County, New Jersey, and founded a town which they named, in honor of their old pastor in Newbury, Massachusetts, Woodbridge. At a somewhat later date the names of Mordecai and Abraham Lincoln appear on the records of Monmouth, which adjoins Middlesex County.

“Mordecai Lincoln had married Hannah (Bowne) Salter of Freehold, Monmouth County, New Jersey. Her uncle John Bowne’s will, dated September 14, 1714, gives to Hannah Lincoln a bequest of two hundred and fifty pounds. She was the daughter of Richard Salter, a leading lawyer, member of the assembly, and judge. Captain John Bowne was also a leading and influential citizen. The settlement of his estate involved several lawsuits shown by the court records. The first in 1716, by Obadiah Bowne, executor, against the other heirs, Mordecai Lincoln being a defendant. In this a non-suit was entered, and the second suit ended in the same way. The third, in 1719, also included Mordecai Lincoln as a defendant, but the sheriff returns him non est, and in 1720 the suit as to Mordecai was withdrawn.

“These facts are satisfactory proof that Mordecai Lincoln had, before 1720, left Monmouth County.”

As further proof of the identity of the New Jersey with the Hingham Mordecai, there is a letter shown to Mr. Shackford by John C. Beekman, Esq., of Monmouth, written by John Bowne, one of the heirs to his uncle Obadiah, in which he calls Mordecai “brother.”

A deed on file in the office of the Secretary of State in Trenton, New Jersey, dated February 29, 1720, from Richard Salter to Mordecai Lincoln, both of Freehold, conveys four hundred acres of land, situate on the Machaponix River and Grand Bank, Middlesex County. A like deed, of May 25, 1726, conveys one hundred acres of land in the same locality, and describes Mordecai Lincoln, the grantee, as of Chester County, Pennsylvania.

It appears from these records that Mordecai was in New Jersey in 1720. In 1876 there was unearthed in the old burying-ground near Allentown, New Jersey, a tombstone, bearing this inscription: “To the memory of Deborah Lincoln, who died May 15, 1720, aged three years and four months.” As no other Lincolns have been found in the vicinity, it is probable that she was the child of Mordecai and Hannah Lincoln.

A deed on file in the Department of Internal Affairs of Pennsylvania, dated December 24, 1725, from Mordecai Lincoln of Coventry, County of Chester, Pennsylvania, conveys to William Branston, merchant, of Philadelphia, one-third of one hundred and six acres of land, according to an agreement between Samuel Nutt and Mordecai Lincoln, with “the mynes, and minerals, forges, buildings, houses, and improvements.” This is important, for it shows that Mordecai first resided in Chester County, Pennsylvania, where he made iron, a trade learned at his father’s establishment in Scituate.

It is through Mordecai that the pedigree of President Lincoln is traced to Samuel Lincoln. But it is also essential that Abraham of Monmouth County, New Jersey, should be identified as one of the missing sons of Mordecai and Sarah (Jones) Lincoln of eastern Massachusetts.

Abraham, like his father, was a blacksmith, as the next deed shows. By it, on the records of Monmouth County, New Jersey, February 20, 1727, Abraham Lincoln, “blacksmith,” conveys to Thomas Williams two hundred and forty acres of land near Creswick, in said county, and two hundred acres conveyed to Abraham Lincoln by Abraham Van Horn. He was probably preparing to follow his brother Mordecai to Pennsylvania.

The will of Abraham Lincoln is dated in Springfield, Chester County, Pennsylvania, April 15, 1745, and was entered for probate on the 29th of the same month. His estate, a plantation in Springfield and two houses in Philadelphia, was divided among his children, viz.: Mordecai, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, John, Sarah, and Rebecca. Four of his sons bore the same Old Testament names as the four sons of the first Mordecai of Scituate.

Returning to Mordecai, we find in his will, proved June 7, 1736, that he is described as of Amity, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania. By it he bequeaths to “my sons Mordecai and Thomas all my lands in Amity,” etc.; to his daughters Hannah and Mary a piece of land in Machaponix, New Jersey; and to “my son John three hundred acres of land in the same town;” and to his daughters Ann and Sarah one hundred acres, also lying in Machaponix, New Jersey.

His oldest son, John, was by his first wife, Hannah Salter, and went with his father to Pennsylvania. A deed from John, on file in the Secretary of State’s office in Trenton, New Jersey, describes him as the “son and heir of Mordecai Lincoln, of the town of Carnaervon, County of Lancaster,” and the deed conveys to William Dye “three hundred acres in Middlesex County, New Jersey, part of the property conveyed October 20, 1720, by Richard Salter to Mordecai Lincoln, and by him bequeathed to his said son John.”

John Lincoln, in 1758, owned a farm in Union township, adjoining Exeter (Pennsylvania?), which he sold, and went to Virginia, settling in that portion of Augusta County which was organized into Rockingham County in 1779. His will cannot now be found, part of the papers in the probate office at Harrisonburgh having been destroyed by fire. But there is ample proof that he had sons—John, Thomas, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—and daughters.

The son Abraham married Mary Shepley in North Carolina, just over the Virginia boundary line, where their sons Mordecai, Josiah, and Thomas were born. In 1782, or about that time, the family removed to Kentucky, where their daughters Mary and Nancy were born. The son Thomas Lincoln married Nancy Hanks, September 23, 1806, near Springfield, Kentucky, and Abraham Lincoln, their son, was born on the twelfth day of February, 1809.

Mr. Shackford continues: “The Lincolns through which the President’s genealogy is traced were for six generations, with a single exception, pioneers in the settlement of new countries. I. Samuel, an early settler at Hingham, Massachusetts. II. Mordecai, of Scituate, who lived and died near where he was born. III. Mordecai, settled in Pennsylvania, thirty years before Berks County was organized. IV. John, went to the wilds of Virginia. V. Abraham, went to Kentucky with Boone when it was infested by savages. VI. Thomas, with his son Abraham, pioneers to Indiana.”

Mr. Shackford has traced the pedigrees of other members of the Lincoln family, in which the persistence of Scripture names is very marked. We content ourselves with the following, which bears directly on the connection of the Pennsylvania and Virginia families:

“Abraham, the posthumous son of Mordecai and Mary Lincoln of Amity, born in 1736, married Ann Boone, a cousin of Daniel, the Kentucky pioneer. Their grandson, David J. Lincoln of Birdsboro’, Pennsylvania, informs me that his father James, who died in 1860, at the age of ninety-four, and his uncle Thomas, who died in 1864, told him that Daniel Boone often visited his friends in Pennsylvania, and always spent part of his time with his cousin Ann, and that his glowing accounts of the South and West induced John Lincoln to remove to Virginia. After his removal he was known as ‘Virginia John,’ to distinguish him from others of the same name.”

A fact which will probably impress the reader is that among the numerous Lincolns mentioned in the six generations from Samuel, the immigrant in 1637, to Abraham, the President, two centuries later, there is not one that does not bear a scriptural name. A coincidence not less remarkable is the identity of names in the successive families.

Among the children of the first Mordecai, 1686, were Mordecai, Abraham, Isaac, Sarah.

Of the second Mordecai, 1727: Mordecai, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.

Of Abraham, brother of second Mordecai, 1745: Mordecai, Abraham, Isaac, Sarah—identical with the children of the first Mordecai; also John, Jacob, and Rebecca.

Of John of Virginia, or “Virginia John,” 1758: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Thomas, John.

If there are any doubting Thomases who cannot see in this extraordinary identity of names any blood relationship, no evidence would convince them; neither would they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.

Aside from this identity of names, the foregoing facts, taken from original documents on file, and family papers, prove beyond any reasonable doubt that Samuel Lincoln of Hingham was the ancestor of Abraham Lincoln of Illinois by a line of descent through the first and second Mordecai, “Virginia John,” Abraham, and Thomas Lincoln. In genealogical studies it is seldom, indeed, that a pedigree is so clearly established.

The most important testimony we have in regard to the character of the parents of Abraham Lincoln, and of the conditions under which they lived, is that of Christopher Columbus Graham. Dr. Graham was born at Worthington’s Station, near Danville, Kentucky, in 1784. He lived in the State until his death at Louisville in 1885. This long period was to the very end one of useful activity. A physician by profession, Dr. Graham was, by his love of nature, botanist, geologist, naturalist; and his observations on the flora, fauna, and strata of Kentucky are quoted on both sides of the Atlantic by scientists. For many years Dr. Graham was the owner of the famous Harrodsburg Springs. About 1852 he sold this property to the War Department of the United States as a Retreat for Invalid Military Officers. After the sale of the Springs he spent most of this time in study and in arranging his fine cabinet of Kentucky geology and natural history, before selling it to the Louisville Library Association.

It was only by an accident that Dr. Graham’s knowledge of the history of Thomas Lincoln was given to the public. Recluse and student, he heard little or nothing of the stories about the worthlessness of Thomas Lincoln and his wife which were circulated at the time of the election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency. To what he did hear he paid little or no attention. One day in the spring of 1882, however, he was visiting at the home of Capt. J. W. Wartmann, Clerk of the United States Court at Evansville, Indiana, and Mr. Wartmann overheard him say that he was present at the marriage of Thomas Lincoln. Realizing at once the historical importance of such a testimony, and thinking that it might lead to the discovery of documentary proofs of the marriage, Mr. Wartmann secured from Mr. Graham the following affidavit:

“I, Christopher C. Graham, now of Louisville, Kentucky, aged ninety-eight years, on my oath say: That I was present at the marriage of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, in Washington County, near the town of Springfield, Kentucky; that one Jesse Head, a Methodist preacher of Springfield, Kentucky, performed the ceremony. I knew the said Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks well, and know the said Nancy Hanks to have been virtuous and respectable, and of good parentage. I do not remember the exact date of the marriage, but was present at the marriage aforesaid; and I make this affidavit freely, and at the request of J. W. Wartmann, to whom, for the first time, I have this day incidentally stated the fact of my presence at the said wedding of President Lincoln’s father and mother. I make this affidavit to vindicate the character of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, and to put to rest forever the legitimacy of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. I was formerly proprietor of Harrodsburgh Springs; I am a retired physician, and am now a resident of Louisville, Kentucky. I think Felix Grundy was also present at the marriage of said Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, the father and mother of Abraham Lincoln. The said Jesse Head, the officiating minister at the marriage aforesaid, afterward removed to Harrodsburgh, Kentucky, and edited a paper there, and died at that place.

“Subscribed and sworn to before me, this March 20, A.D. 1882. N. C. Butler, Clerk United States Circuit Court, First District, Indiana. By J. W. Wartmann, Deputy Clerk.”

This affidavit attracted wide attention, and the “New York Christian Advocate,” the leading organ of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in its issue of April 13, 1882, raised several pertinent questions:

1. Was Christopher Columbus Graham, at ninety-eight years of age, in full possession of his faculties?

2. Why had he not given his precious information before to the public?

3. Was there a Methodist preacher named Jesse Head?

These questions called out a large number of answers. The Rev. William M. Grubbs, of the Southwest Indiana Conference, stationed at Castleton, Marion County, in answer to the editor’s first point gave a brief history of Dr. Graham, and explained why he “should never have been heard of before as the possessor of this precious information”:

“The Doctor himself was a man of more than ordinary intelligence, almost a Chesterfield in manners, and a leader for years of the Whig party—a great friend of Henry Clay—and unless he has greatly degenerated, he is now, at ninety-eight years, a good specimen of ‘the fine old Kentucky gentleman.’ Additional to the fact that he has been quite deaf for many years, he is a great lover of nature in its varied forms. As an evidence of this, at the time I was their guest, in 1855, he had been absent six months in the mountains of Kentucky, pursuing his favorite studies in natural history, geology, etc. Thus, though on good terms with his family, his habits became those of the student and the recluse. The family told us pleasantly that such was his passion for nature in its wildest forms that they did not know when he would think of paying them a visit. The last time I saw him was in Louisville, Kentucky, arranging his large cabinet of natural history, geology, etc., for the Library Association of that city, to which he had sold the same for quite a large sum. Since the death of his wife and the marriage of his daughters, I think he has had no settled home—something of a rover—with ample means and friends everywhere. It is not, therefore, surprising that his habits of indifference to passing events and themes kept him ignorant of the mooted point that he sets to rest by his late statement.”

The Rev. John R. Eads, pastor of the Danville, Kentucky, Methodist Episcopal Church, wrote of Dr. Graham: “I have never heard his veracity or his integrity questioned.” Of Jesse Head he said: “He is remembered by some of the old people of this community.” He added:

“You seem surprised that the testimony of Dr. Graham to the ‘precious information’ which he communicates should not have been procured earlier. I frankly confess that, while I am a native of central Kentucky, and have spent most of my life here, I never heard before, so far as I can now remember, a question raised as to the legal marriage of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks. Thinking this might be exceptional in my case, I have taken the pains to-day to ask others if they ever heard such a question raised, and they tell me they have not. I feel quite sure that there must be very few people in central Kentucky who ever heard of a doubt expressed concerning the legal marriage of Thomas Lincoln.”

Letters were received from the Rev. R. T. Stephenson of Shelbyville, Kentucky, and others, supplying information as to who the Rev. Jesse Head was and what were his relations to the Methodist Episcopal Church. The facts, however, are all given in condensed shape in the following:

“Dear Sir and Brother:—Your favor reached me on the eve of my leaving Harrodsburg for this place, hence the delay in responding to your request. The Rev. Jesse Head referred to was my grandfather. He was born in Maryland, near Baltimore; was married to Miss Jane Ramsey, of (what is now) Bedford County, Pennsylvania. He removed to Kentucky, and settled at Springfield, Washington County. He was an ordained minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, but was never connected with the itinerancy in Kentucky, on account of feeble health. He held several prominent civil offices while living in Springfield, and was actively engaged preaching the gospel of God’s grace. He celebrated the rites of matrimony between Thomas Lincoln and Miss Nancy Hanks, father and mother of President Lincoln, in 1806, near Springfield. He afterwards moved to Harrodsburg, Mercer County, where he lived until his death, which occurred in March, 1842. At Harrodsburg he engaged in merchandising, also owned and edited the county paper for a term of years. He was largely instrumental, if not wholly, in building the first church ever erected in Harrodsburg; also organized and conducted the first prayer-meeting. In gospel labors he was always abundant. His house was the home for several years of Rev. H. B. Bascom, afterwards Bishop; also of Bishop McKendree especially, as they were bosom friends. Some time before his death he left the Methodist Episcopal Church, and connected himself with the Radical Methodists, on account of slavery, and also some dissatisfaction with the Episcopacy. He then had charge of and preached for a church for years at Lexington, Kentucky. His name at Harrodsburg and through the surrounding country is as ointment poured forth. He was a man of decided and positive character, bold and aggressive, and died loved and honored by all. He died as he lived, in the triumph of the faith of the Gospel of God’s Son.

The “Christian Advocate,” upon receipt of the first letter, requested the Rev. John R. Eads of Danville, Kentucky, to have the marriage record examined, the following reply being returned:

“My Dear Brother:—Your postal card received. I have just received the accompanying paper, which, though somewhat singular in form in some of its parts, will be plain to you in its essential facts. You have received my other two letters, which in connection with this certificate will, I trust, set the whole matter to which they relate in a satisfactory light.

Here follows the certificate:

“Dear Sir:—Yours in regard to the marriage certificate of Thomas Lincoln to Nancy Hanks reached here during my absence in Louisville. I now send you a copy of the same:

“I do hereby certify that the following is a true list of the marriage solemnized by me between Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, September 23, 1806.

The “Christian Advocate,” in publishing the letters, said:

“In summing up the whole the following points may be considered as forever settled:

“1. There was such a man as Jesse Head, a local deacon in the Methodist Episcopal Church, in 1806.

“2. He married Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks on September 23, 1806,^[20] of whom was born the venerated and never-to-be-forgotten Abraham Lincoln.

“3. The fact of the marriage was duly certified by Jesse Head, in the clerk’s office of Washington County, Kentucky, where it may now be seen.

“4. The Rev. E. B. Head has spoken of this fact in the family history prior to the publication of this affidavit.

“5. Dr. Graham is a competent witness, and his testimony is confirmed in every point.

“6. In view of these facts, that there should ever have been any doubts raised about the marriage of the parents of Mr. Lincoln, and that it should have been gravely discussed, and never explicitly settled in the various biographies, is remarkable.”

Soon after the publication of the above facts a historian of Louisville, Kentucky, Dr. Henry Whitney Cleveland, realizing the importance of Dr. Graham’s reminiscences, secured from him, in his hundredth year, an account of what he remembered of Thomas Lincoln. Mr. Cleveland took down word for word what Dr. Graham told him, and we print it in full below. We regard it as in many ways the most important unpublished document we have been able to discover in regard to Thomas Lincoln. As to the mental condition of Dr. Graham in 1884, we have the testimony of some of the leading citizens of Louisville. In the paper read before the Southern Historical Society in 1880, in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of Louisville, Dr. Durrett said of Mr. Graham:

“Four years more will make him a centenarian, and yet he moves along the streets every day with the elastic step of manhood’s prime, and the eagle eye which made him in youth the finest rifle-shot in the world is shorn but little of its unerring sight. He was a practising physician three-quarters of a century ago, and is the author of several learned books of a professional and philosophical character. His health is yet good, his faculties well preserved, and he seems to-day more like a man of sixty-nine than ninety-six.”

In 1884, when Dr. Graham had become a centenarian, a banquet was given him at which all the leading citizens of Louisville were present. Without exception, every one of the persons with whom we have talked of Dr. Graham’s condition at this time affirms that he was mentally vigorous and his memory trustworthy. In the face of such testimony the statements in the following document must be accepted:

DR. GRAHAM’S STATEMENT.

The original statement was written out, at Dr. Graham’s dictation, by Dr. Henry Whitney Cleveland of Louisville, Kentucky, but was signed by Dr. Graham’s own hand.

I, Christopher Columbus Graham, now in my hundredth year, and visiting the Southern Exposition in Louisville, where I live, tell this to please my young friend Henry Cleveland, who is nearly half my age. He was often at the Springs Hotel in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, then owned and kept by me for invalids and pleasure-seekers. I am one of the two living men who can prove that Abraham Lincoln, or Linkhorn, as the family was miscalled, was born in lawful wedlock, for I saw Thomas Lincoln marry Nancy Hanks on the twelfth day of June, 1806. He was born at what was then known as the Rock Spring Farm—it is now called the Creal Place—three miles south of Hodgensville, in Larue County, Kentucky.

Kentucky was first a county of Virginia after its settlement, and then was divided into three counties; and these, again divided, are pretty much the present State. The first historian was Filson, who made and published the first map of the separate territory, with the names of streams and stations as given by Daniel Boone and Squire Boone, James Harrod, and others. I knew all of these, as well as President Lincoln’s parents.

I think they lived on the farm four years after he was born. Another boy was born in Hodgensville, or, I should say, buried there. The sister, Sally, was older than Abe, I think. I think the paper now owned by Henry Cleveland is the “marriage lines” written by Rev. Jesse Head, a well-known Methodist preacher. I do not think the old Bible it was found in was that of Tom Lincoln. It would cost too much for him. All of the records in it were those of the father’s family—the John M. Hewetts—of the wife of Dr. Theodore S. Bell. Dr. Bell was only about twenty years younger than I am, and probably got the certificate in 1858 or 1860, when assertions were made that Tom Lincoln and Nancy Hanks were not married when Abe was born.

He was reputed to have been born February 12, 1809, and I see no good reason to dispute it. Sally, I am sure, was the first child, and Nancy was a fresh and good-looking girl—I should say past twenty. Nancy lived with the Sparrow family a good bit. It was likely Tom had the family Bible from Virginia, through his father, called Abraham Linkhorn. His brothers, however, were older—if they were brothers, and not uncles, as some say. I was hunting roots for my medicines, and just went to the wedding to get a good supper, and got it.

Bibles cost as much as the spinning-wheel, or loom, or rifle, and were imported in the main. A favorite with the Methodists was Fletcher’s, or one he wrote a preface for. Preachers used it, and had no commentaries. A book dedicated to King James or any other king did not take well in Revolutionary times. The Bibles I used to see had no printed records or blanks, but a lot of fine linen hand-made paper would be bound in front or back. On this, family history and land matters were written out fully like a book. Some had fifty pages. The court-houses even were made of logs, and the meeting-houses too, if they had any. No registers were kept as in English parish churches, and are not yet. Before a license could be had, a bond and security was taken of the bridegroom, and the preacher had to return to the court all marriages of the year. This was often a long list, and at times papers were lost or forgotten, but not often. The “marriage lines” given by the preacher to the parties were very important in case the records were burned up by accident. Such is the paper that Henry Cleveland has shown to me. The ring was not often used, as so few had one to use. The Methodist Church discipline forbid “the putting on of gold or costly apparel,” and I think a preacher with a gold watch—if not an inherited one—would have been dismissed. A preacher that married was “located,” and that ended his itinerancy in the Methodist Church. The Presbyterians were educated and married; Baptists not educated.

Tom Lincoln was a carpenter, and a good one for those days, when a cabin was built mainly with the axe, and not a nail or bolt or hinge in it, only leathers and pins to the door, and no glass, except in watches and spectacles and bottles. Tom had the best set of tools in what was then and now Washington County. Larue County, where the farm was settled, was then Hardin.

Jesse Head, the good Methodist preacher that married them, was also a carpenter or cabinet-maker by trade, and as he was then a neighbor, they were good friends. He had a quarrel with the bishops, and was not an itinerant for several years, but an editor, and county judge afterwards, in Harrodsburg. Mr. Henry Cleveland has his commission from Governor Isaac Shelby.

Many great men of the South and North were then opposed to slavery, mainly because the new negroes were as wild as the Indians, and might prove as dangerous. Few of the whites could read, and yet Pope and Dryden and Shakespeare were as well known as Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” and Baxter’s “Saints’ Rest.” Some were educated in Virginia and North Carolina before they came, and these, when they became teachers, wrote out their school-books entirely by hand.

Thomas Lincoln, like his son after him, had a notion that fortunes could be made by trips to New Orleans by flatboat. This was dangerous, from snags and whirlpools in the rivers, from Indians, and even worse—pirates of the French, Canadians, and half-breeds. Steam was unknown, and the flats had to be sold in New Orleans, as they could not be rowed back against the currents. The neighbors joked Tom for building his boat too high and narrow, from an idea he had about speed, that has since been adopted by ocean steamships. But he lacked in ballast. He loaded her up with deer and bear hams and buffalo, which last was then not so plenty for meat or hides as when the Boone brothers came in. Besides, he had wax, for bees seemed to follow the white people, and he had wolf and coon and mink and beaver skins, gentian root (that folks then called “gensang” or “‘sang”), nuts, honey, peach-brandy and whiskey, and jeans woven by his wife and Sally Bush, that he married after Nancy died. Some said she died of heart trouble, from slanders about her and old Abe Enloe, called Inlow, while her Abe, named for the pioneer Abraham Linkhorn, was still little. But I am ahead of my story, for Nancy had just got married where I was telling it, and the flatboat and Sally Bush Lincoln come in before he goes over to what people called “Indiany.” I will finish that, and then go back.

He started down Knob Creek when it was flush with rains; but the leaves held water like a sponge, and the ground was shaded with big trees and papaw and sassafras thickets and “cain,” as Bible-read folks spelt the cane, and streams didn’t dry up in summer like they do now. When he got to the Ohio it was flush, too, and full of whirlpools and snags. He had his tool-chest along, intending to stop and work in Indiana and take down another boat. But he never got to the Mississippi with that, for it upset, and he only saved his chest and part of his load because he was near to the Indiana shore. He stored what he saved under bark, and came home a-foot, and in debt to neighbors who had helped him. But people never pressed a man that lost by Indians or water.

Now I go back for a spell. Thomas and Nancy both could read and write, and little Abe went to school about a year. He was eight years old at the time of the accident to Tom Lincoln’s down-the-river venture. Thomas and Nancy were good common people, not above nor below their neighbors, and I did not take much notice of them, because there was no likelihood that their wedding would mean more than other people’s did.

The preacher Jesse Head often talked to me on religion and politics, for I always liked the Methodists. I have thought it might have been as much from his free-spoken opinions as from Henry Clay’s American-African colonization scheme in 1817, that I lost a likely negro man, who was leader of my musicians. It is said that Tom Corwin met him in Ohio on his way to Canada, and asked if I was along. The boy said no, he was going for his freedom. Governor Corwin said he was a fool; he had never been whipped or abused, but dressed like a white man, with the best to eat, and that hundreds of white people would be glad of such a good place, with no care, but cared for.

The boy drew himself up and said: “Marse Tom, that situation with all its advantages is open to you, if you want ter go an’ fill it.”

But Judge Head never encouraged any runaway, nor had any “underground railroad.” He only talked freely and boldly, and had plenty of true Southern men with him, such as Clay. The Eli Whitney cotton-gin had now made slavery so valuable that preachers looked in Hebrew and Greek Testaments for scripture for it.

Tom Lincoln and Nancy, and Sally Bush were just steeped full of Jesse Head’s notions about the wrong of slavery and the rights of man as explained by Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. Abe Lincoln the Liberator was made in his mother’s womb and father’s brain and in the prayers of Sally Bush; by the talks and sermons of Jesse Head, the Methodist circuit rider, assistant county judge, printer-editor, and cabinet-maker. Little Abe grew up to serve as a cabinet-maker himself two Presidential terms.

It was in my trip to Canada after my negro that I met the younger brother of the great chief Tecumseh. A mob wanted to kill me because I was after my property that had legs and a level head. The Indian was one of the finest looking men I ever saw, and in the full uniform of a British officer. He protected me, and we had a talk after the danger was over. He said that history was right about the death of his great brother Tecumseh at the battle of the Thames in 1813. But the story of his skin being taken off by soldiers to make razor-straps was all a lie, as they never had the chance. He was not even slain at the point in the battle indicated by Colonel Richard M. Johnson, whose accession to the Vice-Presidency in 1836 was largely due to the credit which he gained for this supposed exploit. My Indian protector said he was a lad at the time, but [was] there; and that the red men never abandoned their chiefs, dead nor alive.

I come back again to the Lincoln-Hanks wedding of 1806. Rev. or Judge Jesse Head was one of the most prominent men there, as he was able to own slaves, but did not on principle. Next, I reckon, came Mordecai Lincoln, at one time member of the Kentucky legislature. He was a good Indian fighter; and although some say he was the elder brother of Tom Lincoln, I understood he was his uncle, or father’s brother. The story of his killing the Indian who killed old Abraham Linkhorn is all “my eye and Betty Martin.”

My acceptance of this whole pedigree is on hearsay, and none of it from the locality of Tom Lincoln’s home. There is a Virginia land warrant, No. 3,334, of March 4, 1780, for four hundred acres of land, cost one hundred and sixty pounds, located in Jefferson County, Kentucky, on Long Run; and [there is a report of survey for the same tract (see pages 22 and 23)] signed by William Shanon, D. S. J. C., and William May, S. J. C., witnessed by Ananiah Lincoln and Josiah Lincoln, C. C. (chain-carriers), and Abraham Linkhorn, Marker, dated May 7, 1785, five years later. “Mordecai Lincoln, Gentleman,” is the title given one who died in Berks County, Pennsylvania, in 1735, and his will is recorded in the Register’s office in Philadelphia. New Jersey, Virginia, and Tennessee also have the name correctly, in the last century. The fame of General Benjamin Lincoln of the Revolution was on every tongue at that time. In the field-book of Daniel Boone, owned by Lyman C. Draper, five hundred acres of land was entered for Abraham Lincoln on treasury warrant No. 5,994, December 11, 1782. The officers of the land-office of Virginia could spell, and so could the surveyor and deputy surveyor (Record “B,” p. 60 of Jefferson County in 1785). The two chain-carriers spelled the name correctly. Why not also think that the third man spelled his correctly? A very illiterate man could pronounce what he could not spell, and Abraham Linkhorn, who had money and could write, knew his own name. President Lincoln told James Speed: “I don’t know who my grandfather was, and am more concerned to know what his grandson will be.” I am not sure that we know, either, perfectly yet.^[21]

While you pin me down to facts I will say that I saw Nancy Hanks Lincoln at her wedding, a fresh-looking girl, I should say over twenty. Tom was a respectable mechanic and could choose, and she was treated with respect....

I was at the infare, too, given by John H. Parrott, her guardian, and only girls with money had guardians appointed by the court. We had bear-meat (that you can eat the grease of, and it not rise like other fats); venison; wild turkey and ducks; eggs, wild and tame (so common that you could buy them at two bits a bushel); maple sugar, swung on a string, to bite off for coffee or whiskey; syrup in big gourds; peach-and-honey; a sheep that the two families barbecued whole over coals of wood burned in a pit, and covered with green boughs to keep the juices in; and a race for the whiskey bottle. The sheep cost the most, and corn was early raised in what is now Boyle County, at the Isaac Shelby place. I don’t know who stamped in the first peach-seed, but they grew before the apples. Our table was of the puncheons cut from solid logs, and on the next day they were the floor of the new cabin.

It is all stuff about Tom Lincoln keeping his wife in an open shed in a winter when the wild animals left the woods and stood in the corners next the stick-and-clay chimneys, so as not to freeze to death; or, if climbers, got on the roof. The Lincolns had a cow and calf, milk and butter, a good feather bed, for I have slept in it (while they took the buffalo robes on the floor, because I was a doctor). They had home-woven “kiverlids,” big and little pots, a loom and wheel; and William Hardesty, who was there too, can say with me that Tom Lincoln was a man and took care of his wife.

I have been in bark camps with Daniel and Squire Boone and James Harrod. We have had to wade in the “crick,” as Daniel spelt it, to get our scent lost in the water, and the Indian dogs off our trail. When trailed and there was no water handy, I have seen Daniel cut a big grapevine loose at the bottom, with his tomahawk, from the ground. Then, with a run and swing from the tree it hung to, swing and jump forty feet clear, to break the scent on the ground. I have done it too, but not so far. He could beat any man on the run and jump, but it took more than two Indians or one bear to make him do it. If no dog barked in the silent woods, we could run backward very fast, and make Mr. Indian think we had gone the way we came. They went that way, and we the other for dear scalps and hair. Squirrels barking or chattering at Indians, or dogs, often told us of our danger. I wanted to have a pioneer exhibit at the great Louisville Southern Expositions of 1883 and 1884. I wanted the dense laurel and the papaw thickets planted in rich soil; the bear climbing the bee-tree, and beaten by the swinging log hung by the hunter in his way; the creeping Indian with his tomahawk, and the hunter with the old flint-and-steel rifle, just as I had seen them. Then I wanted to have women from the mountains and the counties that railroads and turnpikes have not opened, and have them in real life, to spin and weave, or bead and fringe the moccasin and hunting-shirt and leggings as they did when I was a boy. This, by the side of the industries and arts of the new era, and the wool and cotton machinery in its present perfection, would indeed tell to the eyes of the changes seen by an old man who has lived a hundred years. As they did not listen to me, I have asked Henry Cleveland, who was a boy and played with my little children at the Harrodsburg Springs in the forties, to write it as I talked to him. I am very deaf, but can see and talk, and will now write my autograph to what he has written and copied off, and will take up James Harrod at another time.

Mr. Lambert’s collection of Lincolniana has been made most intelligently. Primarily it consists of the literature directly relating to Lincoln, and includes a large number of books and pamphlets, the list of biographies and eulogies being very full. It also comprises a large number of engravings of Lincoln, and a number of autograph letters and documents, chief among which are a leaf from Lincoln’s sum-book, 1824; the precipe in his first lawsuit; letter to William H. Herndon, relative to General Taylor and the Mexican War; letter to his step-brother, John D. Johnston, refusing assent to the latter’s proposition to dispose of the mother’s interest in property; printed copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, signed by Lincoln, attested by Mr. Seward, and certified by Mr. Nicolay, being one of the twenty copies made for the great Sanitary Fair in Philadelphia, 1864; and a series of autograph letters of William H. Herndon, written in 1866 and 1867, relative to his lectures on Lincoln and the biography which he proposed writing. Among the books are a copy of Paley’s works, from Lincoln’s private library; “Angel on Limitations,” from his law library; and “Webster’s Dictionary,” used by Lincoln at the White House.

The office table, bookcase, revolving chair, and wooden inkstand owned and used by Lincoln in his law office at Springfield, with certificates from Mr. Herndon and others as to the genuineness of these articles, are in the collection. From the inkstand, Mr. Herndon states, the “house-divided-against-itself” speech was written.

The Volk life-mask and casts of hands, the Clark-Mills life-mask, and an original ambrotype of Lincoln, made in August, 1860, are also owned by Mr. Lambert.

The oldest and probably the largest collection of Lincolniana which has been made is known as the Oldroyd collection, and is at present in the house in Washington, D. C., where Lincoln died, April 15, 1865. The collection takes its name from its owner, Colonel O. H. Oldroyd. The germ of the collection was a campaign badge which excited the possessor’s desire to have others. In the days of 1860 in Ohio—Mr. Oldroyd lived in Ohio—it was easy to get badges adorned with Mr. Lincoln’s face, or with a section of the rail fence and the flatboat which had been adopted by the people as his armorial bearings. The campaign badges which young Oldroyd saved naturally drew other things to them; pictures off tomato cans, tobacco pouches, soap and chewing-gum wrappers, and what not; cuts from the newspapers, campaign pictures.

If Mr. Oldroyd had not been born with the collecting spirit all this would probably have amounted to nothing. It would have been relegated to the garret and one day have been burned. But he had that itching for possession, and the more he had the more he wanted. He spent all he could earn in buying new treasures, and he began a general exchange with other collectors, until by the close of the war he probably had the finest lot of Lincolniana in the United States.

It was the possession of this collection which induced Mr. Oldroyd to go to Springfield, Ill. Here he hoped to add easily to what he had already gathered, much concerning Lincoln’s early life, and to find a permanent home for his whole collection. Few people appreciated the value of Lincoln souvenirs in those days, and many curious pieces came into Mr. Oldroyd’s hands for the asking. As the collection became larger and the public began to show interest in it, Mr. Oldroyd determined to put it in a place where he could exhibit it freely. The old Lincoln homestead, bought by Mr. Lincoln in 1846, the house where he was living when elected to the Presidency, was standing. It had been sadly neglected for many years, and now was vacant. Mr. Oldroyd rented it, and put his collection into the double parlors of the house. The place became soon one of the “monuments” of Springfield, and visitors went out of their way to see it. It became the headquarters for old soldiers and the starting point for all kinds of patriotic gatherings. Mr. Robert Lincoln, seeing the interest which the public took in his father’s old home, and appreciating the efforts of Mr. Oldroyd to make a complete collection, turned over the Lincoln homestead in 1887 to the State as a perpetual memorial to Abraham Lincoln. The legislature of Illinois formally accepted the gift, and installed Mr. Oldroyd as guardian of the house, it being understood that his collection was to remain with him.

The undertaking proved a success, and matters went well until in 1893 the administration changed. For some reason which only those initiated into the mysteries of party government can understand, it was deemed unwise by the party rulers to allow Mr. Oldroyd, who happened to be of the opposing faith, to remain in charge of the Lincoln Home; so he was relieved of his functions as guardian, and a new incumbent selected. One result of the change, which the new administration had probably not counted on, was that, as the collection in the house belonged to Mr. Oldroyd, and not to the State, when he went out that went out too. The intelligent people of Springfield of both parties regretted exceedingly this ludicrous application of party principles to so non-partisan a subject as a collection of Lincoln relics; but nothing was done to save the museum, and Mr. Oldroyd was obliged to leave the town where he had struggled with pathetic patience for so many years to get a permanent home for his Lincolniana.

After some casting about he finally determined to remove to Washington, and he was encouraged to this step by several men of the city and government—prominent among whom were Chief Justice Fuller, Dr. Hamlin, a leading clergyman, General Schofield, and the Hon. G. G. Hubbard. These gentlemen had founded a Lincoln Memorial Association; and, renting the house on Tenth Street where Lincoln had died on April 15, 1865, they installed Mr. Oldroyd in it. Their plan was to petition Congress to buy the house and collection, and to appropriate enough for the guardian’s salary. Considerable interest was awakened in the enterprise, and the association, on the strength of this, felt justified in keeping the house open for several months. The appropriation did not come, however, and the gentlemen decided that the expenses could not be kept up indefinitely, and that it would be necessary to close up the exhibit until the heart of Congress could be converted.

The situation was a difficult one for Mr. Oldroyd. He had made the change from Springfield to Washington at large expense to himself, and now he could ill afford to carry on the enterprise alone. But with a pluck and a devotion to his cause which has characterized all his movements he decided to take the burden on himself, rent the house, keep open the museum, and trust to the public to support it. To aid in the undertaking, he compiled and published a small volume—“The Words of Lincoln.” The profits from the sale of this book, together with the small fee charged to enter the museum, are all that now support the undertaking.

The collection whose history has been here sketched is full of curious and interesting articles. Among the personal effects of Mr. Lincoln which Mr. Oldroyd has collected, the most valuable is undoubtedly the tall silk hat which was worn by Lincoln on the night of his assassination. There are several specimens of the plain and homely garments used by Mr. Lincoln in his early days in Illinois. Of household furniture there are many examples. The most touching is, undoubtedly, the simple, old-fashioned cradle in which Mrs. Lincoln, and, if tradition is correct, Mr. Lincoln also, rocked “Tad” and Willie. A wooden settee which stood for years on the veranda of the Springfield house, is exhibited, as well as the cooking-stove which stood in the Lincoln kitchen at the time when the family moved to Washington. Mr. Oldroyd says that he has been offered extravagant sums by stove dealers for this stove, they wanting it presumably to use as an advertisement. Another valuable piece of furniture is the wooden office chair which Mr. Lincoln used when he first began to practise law in 1837. A chair of still greater interest is an old-fashioned haircloth rocker in which he sat in Ford’s Theatre on the night on which he received his death-wound.

Several autograph letters from Mr. Lincoln are owned by Mr. Oldroyd. By far the most interesting specimen of his writing is the short autobiography which he prepared for his friend Jesse Fell before the campaign of 1860. This autobiography was the foundation of all the histories which were issued in such great numbers just before and after his first election.

In Lincoln portraiture the collection is very full, though it is rather from a historical point of view than from an artistic that it is valuable. Mr. Oldroyd has copies of nearly all of the engravings and lithographs issued in Mr. Lincoln’s lifetime. He has also a splendid lot of wood-cuts gathered from newspapers, magazines, and pamphlets. In this collection of prints there are numbers of views of the Lincoln family and of various scenes connected with Mr. Lincoln’s public career. From the spring of 1860 until after the funeral, in 1865, there were few issues of the illustrated papers in this country which did not contain something on the President. Mr. Oldroyd has succeeded in getting nearly all of these prints, among them a great many caricatures. He has a full set of “Vanity Fair,” and many of the Currier and Ives lithographs, now so rare. An interesting feature of the collection is the number of curios it contains—campaign documents of various kinds, such as badges, medals, pins, letter paper and envelopes, flags, etc.

The use that was made by advertisers of Lincoln’s face during his Presidency is shown by a case of common articles; there are tomato cans, soap, washing fluid, tobacco pouches, cigarette cases, spruce gum, and many other trivial articles, all enclosed in highly-colored papers bearing portraits of Mr. Lincoln, surrounded by a rail fence or some popular campaign legend.

The only complete collection of the portraits of Lincoln issued by the government which we have ever seen, Mr. Oldroyd owns. Among them is a revenue stamp calling for five pounds of tobacco; another is good for seventy gallons of distilled spirits, a third for four ounces of snuff, and a fourth calls for cigarettes. Lincoln’s head appears on a variety of postage stamps; the four, six, fifteen, and ninety-cent stamps all bear his face. The six-cent stamp of each of the Departments has a head of Lincoln. The old fifty-cent “shin plaster” is exhibited. It was the only one of our scrip issue which bore a head of Lincoln. His picture is also to be found on a ten-dollar greenback, a one-hundred-dollar United States note, and a one-hundred-dollar government bond.

The most valuable portion of the Oldroyd collection is undoubtedly its books, pamphlets, and clippings. The library contains almost all of the biographies which have been issued, a large number of memoirs by contemporaries of Lincoln, and many war records. There are copies of some three hundred different sermons delivered at the time of Lincoln’s death, as well as a great number of the pieces of music composed in his honor.

A precious book in Mr. Oldroyd’s Lincoln library is the Bible owned by Thomas Lincoln, the father of the President. This Bible bears the date of 1798; it undoubtedly went with the Lincolns from Kentucky to Indiana, and was carried from there by them when they moved into Illinois. It was kept in the family of Thomas Lincoln’s step-children until 1892, when it was sold to be exhibited at the World’s Fair. It afterward passed to Mr. Oldroyd.

At present it is not known what will be done with the Oldroyd collection. The owner has made heroic efforts to keep it together, and it is to be hoped that some way will open by which he can realize his ambition.

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A series of articles on the middle and later periods of Lincoln’s life will be found in the McClure’s Magazine, beginning with the number for March, 1896. These articles are prepared by the authors of the present volume, assisted by many persons who were in close personal association with Lincoln, and possess important facts and reminiscences never before published. The articles are very fully illustrated with numerous portraits of Lincoln, his friends and associates, and with pictures, specially drawn or photographed for the Magazine, of all important places and scenes with which he was connected.

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