Abraham Lincoln’s Parents

THOMAS LINCOLN, Abraham Lincoln’s father, was born January 6, 1778, to Bathsheba and Abraham Lincoln. Thomas, who was born in Rockingham County, Virginia, was the fourth of five children born to the couple. His older siblings were Mordecai, Josiah, and Mary. Thomas had a younger sister named Nancy. During the early 1780′s the family moved to Jefferson County in Kentucky. Native Americans killed Thomas’ father, Abraham, in an attack in May 1786. In 1795 Thomas was listed by name in the Washington County tax lists as a white male between the ages of 16 and 21. In c. 1797 Thomas spent a year working as a hired hand for his Uncle Isaac on the Watauga River in Tennessee.

Thomas moved to Hardin County, Kentucky, in 1802, and he purchased a 238-acre farm the next year. In 1806 he married Nancy Hanks. The couple had three children: Sarah, Abraham, and Thomas (who died in infancy).

Thomas was a farmer and a carpenter and was a responsible citizen living on the frontier. He was at times a jury member, a petitioner for a road, and a guard for county prisoners. In terms of education he lacked ambition, and he never fully understood Abraham’s desire to read and learn. He was a good storyteller and was popular with his neighbors. Thomas and Nancy were members of the Little Mount Separate Baptist Church which had broken from the regular church over the issue of slavery.

Thomas stood approximately 5-9 or 5-10 and weighed about 190 pounds. His face was well rounded. He had dark hazel eyes and course black hair. Thomas was compactly built and very strong physically. He was temperate in his drinking habits and generally had an inoffensive personality.

Late in 1816 Thomas moved his family to southern Indiana. A homesite was chosen 16 miles north of the Ohio River about a mile from Little Pigeon Creek. By February 1817 Thomas had built a new log cabin 18 feet square with a packed dirt floor and a stone fireplace used for both cooking and heating. Although Abraham was only eight, he was handed an ax and put to work helping to clear fields, chop wood, and split rails for fences. Sadly, in 1818 Nancy Hanks Lincoln passed away from milk sickness at the age of 34.

The next year Thomas went back to Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and proposed to Sarah Bush Johnston, a widow whom he had known for many years. On December 2, 1819, the two were married. Soon the couple traveled back to the cabin in Indiana along with Sarah’s three children by a previous marriage: Elizabeth (13), Matilda (10), and John D. (9). In 1823 Thomas joined the Little Pigeon Baptist Church.

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Nancy Hanks Lincoln (1784 – 1818) – Find A Grave Memorial

Nancy Hanks Lincoln

Birth: Feb. 5, 1784

Death: Oct. 5, 1818

Nancy was a Virginia native, moving to Kentucky where she met and married her husband Thomas Lincoln. She gave birth to three children. The Lincoln’s moved to Spencer County in southern Indiana in 1816 and constructed a cabin on Little Pigeon Creek. She soon took ill and struggled between life and death for a week. She passed away a mere two years after arriving in Indiana. Her husband Thomas constructed a coffin from pine cut from the property. He took the body via a sled to a nearby pioneer hill-top cemetery near the Lincoln farm. There was no religious cleric in the region so with Thomas Lincoln, his children and a few neighbors, Nancy Lincoln was interred without a formal religious service. The grave has endured a perilous trip to the present time. Other graves in the tiny cemetery, as well as that of Nancy’s were lost. Finally a family friend, erected a marker in an approximate location. Over the years, the site has been vandalized and allowed to become over grown with trees and brush. Only when the fame of her son President Lincoln was established, was a concerted effort made to preserve the grave location. Life was hard in the wilderness and a man with children could not remain without a wife for long. Thomas Lincoln quickly remarried. Abraham Lincoln was nine at the time of his mother’s death.

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Burial::

Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial

Lincoln City

Spencer County

Indiana, USA

Maintained by: Find A Grave

Record added: Feb 7 2000

Find A Grave Memorial# 8381

via Nancy Hanks Lincoln (1784 – 1818) – Find A Grave Memorial.

 

Abraham Lincoln’s Parents

NANCY HANKS LINCOLN, birth mother of Abraham Lincoln, was born on February 5, 1784, in Hampshire County, (West) Virginia. The birth occurred in a cabin along Mike’s Run at the foot of New Creek Mountain in what is now Mineral County, West Virginia. Nancy’s mother was Lucy Hanks, but nothing is really known for certain about Nancy’s father. According to Abraham Lincoln’s law partner, William Herndon, Abraham once said that his maternal grandfather was “a well-bred Virginia farmer or planter.” During the same conversation, Abraham said of his mother, “God bless my mother; all that I am or ever hope to be I owe to her.”

Little is known of Nancy’s early life. As a child Nancy was taken by her mother along the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky. In Kentucky Lucy Hanks married Henry Sparrow. Young Nancy went to live with Henry’s brother, Thomas Sparrow, and Elizabeth Hanks Sparrow, a sister of Lucy. Soon Nancy began being called Nancy Sparrow. Elizabeth Hanks Sparrow became almost a mother to Nancy.

As Nancy grew up, she became skilled in the art of needlework, and she became an excellent seamstress. She was hired to sew anything from wedding gowns to funeral attire. Nancy became known for her work ethic, neatness, cheerfulness, and intelligence. She was deeply religious. Her cousin, John Hanks, described Nancy as having dark hair, hazel eyes, 5-7 in height, a delicate frame, weighing 120 pounds, and “was loved and revered by all who knew her.” No photographs of Nancy exist.

Nancy sometimes lived briefly with families she was sewing for; her services were in demand in Hardin, Mercer, and Washington counties. During the time Nancy was working as a seamstress she met Thomas Lincoln, a carpenter from Elizabethtown. A romance developed, and the two decided to be married.

On June 12, 1806, Nancy Hanks and Thomas Lincoln were married; presiding over the ceremony was the Reverend Jesse Head. The couple moved to a cabin in Elizabethtown where Thomas worked as a carpenter making cabinets, door frames, even coffins. The Lincolns joined the Little Mount Separate Baptist Church. A daughter, Sarah, was born to the couple on February 10, 1807.

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