Abraham Lincoln is considered by most historians as America’s highest-ranked and most influential President.

There are more books written about him than almost any other human on earth, over 50,000 titles and counting.  Few, however, have raised serious study about those who raised him. 

Lincoln’s parentage is worthy of investigation, because the man he became started with his youth; the seeds of greatness were sown in Kentucky, nurtured in Indiana, and began bearing fruit in Illinois.

Lincoln’s parents were not illustrious or wealthy.  They earned no significant awards or had elegant pedigrees, yet they bore and reared a son who remains a recognizable name of renown all over the world – a remarkable achievement. 

Lincoln, in fact, inherited many of his famous traits from his mother, Nancy Hanks, and his father, Thomas Lincoln.

Nancy Hanks Lincoln’s own parentage is obscure.  Lincoln supposedly told his law partner, Billy Herndon, that his maternal grandfather was “a well-bred Virginia planter”, and was someone he never personally knew.  According to Herndon, Lincoln admitted that his maternal grandparents were never married.  Other carefully documented sources admit to difficulty tracing Nancy’s paternal line, but stop short of illegitimacy. ¹

Both Thomas and Nancy Lincoln were born in Virginia.  While the years of their births are somewhat in question, Thomas came into the world either in 1777 or 1778, and Nancy arrived six years later.  Both emigrated to Kentucky at the end of the Revolution, a common occurrence as land was readily available to veterans of that war.  Thomas was the youngest son of Abraham Lincoln (for whom the 16th President was named) and his wife, Bathsheba.  The elder Abraham was a veteran of the American Revolution, having served as a captain of a Virginia militia unit.  The family moved to Kentucky about 1782, on the advice of his friend, Daniel Boone; and Abraham soon came into possession of about 2,000 acres near the Green River. ²

Thomas Lincoln’s immediate family included his parents, his two older brothers Mordecai and Josiah, and two sisters.  They had inhabited their new home in Kentucky only two years, when, while the father and sons were working in the fields, Thomas suddenly saw his father lurch with pain and fall dead – while simultaneously hearing the crack of a rifle.  Young Tom knelt over his father’s body and turned about to see a young warrior brave about to grab him.  A shot from brother Mordecai stopped the kidnapping, but they were unable to save their father. ³

The widowed Bathsheba was unable to provide for her family, so Thomas grew up in various households with relatives.  He was often hired out to other farms to earn  money for his mother, and on at least one occasion he lived and worked on a farm in Tennessee.  His brother Mordecai inherited their father’s land, so Tom apprenticed as a carpenter to support himself.  At age nineteen, Tom enlisted with the local militia – a common practice in the early 19th century – and was elected the constable of the county.  In 1803, he had earned enough money to buy land near Elizabethtown, Kentucky. ⁴

Thomas Lincoln stood about five feet, nine inches tall.  He had light brown hair, hazel eyes, and a stocky build.  He was physically strong, loved to tell yarns and jokes, and enjoyed great popularity among the other settlers.  The great misfortune of his father’s murder and the subsequent necessity to send him from kinsman to kinsman made an education impossible. ⁵

On June 12, 1806 Thomas Lincoln, age 28, married Nancy Hanks, age 22 at the home of Nancy’s uncle, Richard Berry, in Washington County. ⁶

Tom Lincoln had known Nancy Hanks for years.  They lived only a mile apart during their early adult years, and were therefore neighbors.  They attended the same Baptist church, and associated with the same people.

Nancy Hanks was the daughter of Lucy Hanks.  The two moved to Kentucky when Nancy was a small child.  Soon after the immigration, Lucy married Henry Sparrow.  Three sons came from the marriage. ⁷

During this time Nancy did not live with her mother or step-father.  Like Thomas, she found her habitation with various relatives, usually one of her mother’s sisters.  An amiable and affectionate girl, Nancy was close to them all.  In fact, her cousin Sarah Mitchell was like a sister to her – a relationship she cherished.  The pair soon became known as “sister cousins”.  Nancy also lived, for a time, with relatives of her step-father: Thomas Sparrow and his wife, Elizabeth. ⁸

The 16th President resembled his mother’s side of the family.  Nancy was tall, slender, with gray eyes and dark hair.  She was quietly religious and an avid reader.  She was highly intelligent, industrious, possessed an excellent memory, and was adept at penmanship.  It was Nancy who taught her future husband to write his own name so that he could sign their wedding certificate. ⁹

While Lincoln told a newspaper reporter, after his election to the Presidency, that his early life was not worth any biography, and could be summed up by a line in “Gray’s Elegy: The short and simple annals of the poor, ”Thomas Lincoln was not considered poverty stricken when he married Nancy Hanks.  He had employment, he was a skilled carpenter, and he was able to make a home for his bride.  He had a new suit for the wedding ceremony, and wore “a fancy beaver hat”.  The bride’s gown was sewn by hand, no doubt by herself and her bevy of female relatives “in linen and silk”. ¹⁰  

Tom and Nancy Lincoln lived in the first years of their marriage in a log cabin near the courthouse in Elizabethtown.  On February 10, 1807, their first child, a daughter, was born.  Nancy named her Sarah Mitchell Lincoln, after her cousin.  That same year, the married Sarah Mitchell gave birth to her firstborn, also a daughter.  She was named Nancy. ¹¹

Sarah Lincoln may have had some of her mother’s features, but she was shorter in stature with an ample body structure, much like her father.  She inherited much of her mother’s personality, “amiability…modesty and good sense.”  She also inherited her father’s jovial nature and work ethic. ¹²  

In the summer of 1808, the Lincolns were expecting again.  They moved from Elizabethtown to the wilderness in Hardin County, where Tom had built a new cabin near a spring.  On a snowy Sunday, February 12, 1809, a second child was born to the Lincolns.  Sarah had just turned two years old two days earlier.  He was named Abraham, after his slain paternal grandfather.

Because Thomas Lincoln had been bereft of an education as well as a father, he insisted that both Sarah and Abraham receive as much education as possible.  Schools were scarce in the woodlands of Kentucky and on the Indiana prairies during Abraham Lincoln’s early days.  Like his mother, Abraham had a penchant for learning and the memory for retaining it.  His mother taught him how to read when he was five years old, and nightly the family read from the Bible, one of the few books they owned.  At age seven, young Abraham began taking his turn reading from the sacred pages in the family cabin.  At age six, he attended his first school with his sister.  While their schooling was minimal, Abraham took his lessons seriously and eagerly read and studied on his own.  With his accumulating knowledge and his almost photographic memory, family and acquaintances marveled at his intellect, and considered him a prodigy. ¹³

Because schools were scattered in the wilderness of the early 19th century, Abraham and Sarah could not attend school as much as they would have liked.  Planting, harvesting, poor weather, and long distances (two miles each way) interrupted their country education.  Lincoln still read and studied, often taking a book he borrowed, and studying it during breaks from his toil.  At times his father grew irritated by his son’s constant study, urging him to work.  Abraham’s mother always defended him, and encouraged Thomas to let their son read.  Lincoln continually practiced his writing, using charcoal to perfect his letters and putting his thoughts to paper or whatever etchable item that was available to him. ¹⁴

In 1812, while another war raged on the nation’s shores, another son was born at the Lincoln cabin on Knob Creek in southwestern Kentucky.  Named Thomas for his father, the infant lived only a few days. ¹⁵

Less than two years later, Thomas Lincoln learned that his land deed had not been properly recorded; and another person claimed it his.  The Lincolns fought against this unfair practice for two years.  Unable to prove his title, the elder Lincoln packed up his family and moved to Pigeon Creek Settlement in southern Indiana.  Other friends and relatives had already moved there.  Nancy Lincoln took her two surviving children to visit the grave of their brother, then placed them in the wagon.  Lincoln was just seven years old. ¹⁶

Another reason the Lincolns likely lost their property was because they were members of a church that condemned slavery.  It was an unpopular stance in southern Kentucky at the time.  Men with more money and prestige likely targeted the family, however unfairly. ¹⁷

Thomas and Nancy Lincoln’s stern stance against the institution of slavery would profoundly affect their son in the years to come.

It was at the Pigeon Creek Settlement where young Abraham Lincoln’s first great sorrow came, in early October 1818.  The family had lived there for two years in their new cabin and with family nearby. The ground had been cleared and crops were planted.  The year 1818 was a dry one, which created the dreadful scourge known as Milk Sickness.

Milk Sickness resulted when foraging cattle ate a wild plant, practically omnipresesnt in the area, known as snakeroot.  It could grow in fields, around fences, and entwined on trees – and flourished under drought conditions.  In the early 1800s, no one knew the noxious plant was the cause that poisoned the cows and their milk.  While it was not contagious, it could spread to others who drank or handled the milk or tended the sick, cleaning up bodily fluids without using proper hygiene. ¹⁸

Nancy Lincoln’s guardians, Tom and Betsy Sparrow, had followed the Lincolns to Indiana.  They came down with the terrible sickness, and Nancy hurried to their cabin to nurse them.  While caring for them, she came in contact with the poison, and soon became gravely,  as it turned out fatally, ill.

All three died of the milk sickness within a week of contracting it.  Nancy Lincoln was just thirty-five years old.  Abraham Lincoln was nine years old, and Sarah was eleven.

Knowing she would not survive, Nancy called her young children to her bedside and urged them to “be good to one another.”  Upon her death, Thomas Lincoln fashioned a coffin for her, and had Abraham whittle wooden pegs for securing it.  Thomas had Abraham help him place his mother inside, close the lid, secure it with the pegs, take her to the burial site and help lower her into the ground. ¹⁹

Thomas Lincoln remarried after the mourning period, but he had truly loved his wife Nancy.  “She was one of the very best women in the whole race,” claimed one who knew her.  A pall fell over the Lincoln homestead on that autumn of 1818, and Abraham never forgot it.  “God bless my mother,” he said years later to William Herndon.  “All that I am or ever hope to be I owe to her.” ²⁰

While human beings are doubtless unique individuals, they often inherit the traits of their parents.  From Nancy Hanks Lincoln, Abraham inherited his sharp intellect, his love of learning, his ability to write and speak with compassion and emphasis.  He learned benevolence, kindness, and forbearance from her.

From his father, Lincoln learned honesty, industry, and the ability to spin a great yarn – and seeing the humor in everyday life.

Abraham Lincoln was someone who was a most unique American, the one who kept the nation together when it was nearly destroyed in the fratricidal Civil War.  He remains the Great Emancipator.  All over the world, his love of liberty for all is recognized.  He was the right person at the right place for the time when he was desperately needed.  His noble inheritance from honorable and cheerful parents, products of the wilderness, played a significant role in shaping the President that the nation so sorely needed.

End Notes: 

1.  Herndon, p. 16.  Warren, p. 6.  Sandburg, p. 4. 

2.  Warren, p. 4. 

3.  Sandburg, p. 3.  Warren, p. 4. 

4.  Warren, p. 4.  Sandburg, p. 4. 

5.  Herndon, p. 20. 

6.  Warren, p. 7. 

7.  Sandburg, p. 4.  Warren, p. 7. 

8.  Herndon, p. 16.  Warren, pp. 7-8. 

9.  Herndon, p. 22.  While there are no likenesses extant of Nancy Hanks, photographs of Dennis Hanks, her cousin, are remarkably similar to Abraham Lincoln.  There is a photo extant of Thomas Lincoln, who does not resemble his son at all. 

10.  Sandburg, p. 5. 

11.  Sandburg, p. 6.  Warren, pp. 9-10. 

12.  Herndon, p. 24. 

13.  Warren, pp. 10-11, 25. 

14.  Ibid. 

15.  Sandburg, p. 9. 

16.  Warren, p. 13. 

17.  Ibid. 

18.  The Lincoln Birthplace Museum.  The museum has an example of the snakeroot plant. 

19.  Herndon, p. 31.  Sandburg, p. 11. Warren, pp. 54-55. 

20.  Warren, p. 57.  Herndon, p. 16.