Thomas Lincoln: Father of the Sixteenth President

By Carles H. Coleman and Mary Coleman

Thomas Lincoln, born in 1778, conquered the wilderness, built cabins and furniture, and supported his family as a farmer and carpenter. But his most important job was helping to raise Abraham Lincoln, who would become the sixteenth president of the United States of America.

His story reveals what the American experience was like for those who settled the West leading up to the nations pre-Civil War period. He set an example of honesty, morality, hard work, diligence, and good humorall traits that were also associated with his son, Abraham, known as Honest Abe.

Charles H. Coleman, Ph.D., the former Chair of the Department of History at Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, Illinois, and his daughter, Mary Coleman, explore Thomas Lincolns life in detailstarting with his ancestors in England to his death in 1851.

Despite the mythology that grew up around Abraham Lincoln, at the time of his fathers death, the family owned as much if not more than many of their neighbors. Success did not come easy, but Thomas Lincoln established the foundation that allowed his son to become a man who will always be remembered.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491759271

Carles H. Coleman

Charles H. Coleman, Ph.D., was the Chair of the Department of History at Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, Illinois. The main building on campus is named after him and is called Coleman Hall. He spent more than ten years researching the life of Thomas Lincoln. His daughter, Mary Coleman, compiled this book.

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THOMAS LINCOLN

FATHER OF THE SIXTEENTH PRESIDENT

Copyright © 2015 Charles H. Coleman and Mary Coleman.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-5928-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-5929-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-5927-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015903233

iUniverse rev. date: 07/06/2015

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter One       A Story Of A Pioneer Family

Chapter Two      The Virginia Years

Chapter Three    The Kentucky Years

Chapter Four     The Indiana Years, 1816-1830

Chapter Five     The Illinois Years

Chapter Six       Thomas Lincoln And His Son

Appendix I        The People Mentioned In This Book

Appendix II       The Family Of Thomas Lincoln

Appendix III      Transactions (land titles, financial transactions) Affecting Thomas Lincoln

Acknowledgements

Bibliography

THE PUBLICATIONS OF CHARLES H. COLEMAN

BOOKS

America’s Road to Now (co-author Edgar B Wesley) (1939, 1942) Boston: D.C. Heath and Company.

Abraham Lincoln and Coles County, Illinois (1955) New Brunswick, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press.

Historical Essays (May 1962) Charleston, Illinois: Eastern Illinois University Bulletin.

The election of 1868: The Democratic effort to regain control. (Studies in history, economics and public law, no. 392) (1971) Octagon Books.

PAMPHLETS

The Constitution Up to Date; Some Suggested Adjustments for the Federal Constitution (1938). Cambridge, Massachusetts: The National Council for the Social Studies.

Sarah Bush Lincoln, the mother who survived him (summer 1952) from The Lincoln Herald, Harrogate, Tennessee: Lincoln Memorial University.

ARTICLES IN BOOKS

Democratic Despondency: the Votes are cast (1933) in The Election of 1868: the Democratic Effort to regain Control. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 344-367.

Copperheads (2003): an entry from Charles Scribner’s Sons’ Dictionary of American History; co-author Julienne L. Wood.

Northwest Conspiracy (2003): An entry from Charles Scribner’s Sons’ Dictionary of American History.

ARTICLES IN JOURNALS

The Use of the Term Copperhead during the Civil War (June, 1938 – March, 1939) Mississippi Valley Historical Review, pp. 263-264.

The Father of Abraham Lincoln (Feb 12, 1952) St. Louis Post Dispatch.

Lincoln’s Lincoln Grandmother (1959) Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. pp. 59-90.

The Half-faced camp in Indiana – Fact or Myth? (September, 1952) Abraham Lincoln Quarterly, vol. 7, pp. 18-21.

Lincoln’s knowledge of his Ancestry. (winter, 1957-1958) Lincoln Herald, pp. 18-21.

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DEDICATED TO RYMAHRI, DANE AND LILY

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LIST OF FIGURES

FRONTISPIECE - THOMAS LINCOLN

It has not been established that this is an actual picture of Thomas Lincoln, but is the only possibility available.

FIGURE ONE

Drawing of the blockhouse and stockade of Hughes’ Station in Jefferson County, Kentucky where Captain Abraham Lincoln lived when he was killed in 1786.

FIGURE TWO

Imaginary portraiture of Nancy Hanks Lincoln, first wife of Thomas Lincoln.

FIGURE THREE

Recreation of the Nolin Creek cabin at Big South Fork where the sixteenth president was born. After the cabin was torn down, it was believed that the logs were saved. In August 1895, the old cabin was rebuilt on the original site with those logs.

FIGURE FOUR

Map showing points of interest in the life of the Lincoln family.

FIGURE FIVE

Cabin built by Thomas Lincoln for his family in Indiana in 1817 and photographed as it appeared in 1869.

FIGURE SIX

Photograph of Sarah Bush Lincoln, second wife of Thomas Lincoln, who outlived her husband by eighteen years.

FIGURE SEVEN

Little Pigeon Creek Church in Indiana where the Lincolns attended services. It is believed that Thomas Lincoln, a skilled carpenter, built the pulpit. Later the building was used as a tobacco barn before being torn down.

FIGURE EIGHT

Goosenest Prairie cabin built by Thomas Lincoln for his family in 1831 in Coles County, Illinois. It was moved to the World’s Fair in1893 by the Lincoln Log Cabin Association and then returned to the original site in Coles County.

PICTURES FOR THE BACK COVER –

Charles H. Coleman

Mary Coleman standing in front of a portrait of Charles H. Coleman

PREFACE

History is not an exact science. The history of a person, such as Thomas Lincoln, or of any group of people, is fraught with many shadings and errors. Even contemporaneous sources of an event can be biased by personal points of view and the zeitgeist of the times. The role of the historical writer is to try to tease out the data that seems to be the most reasonable interpretation. Yet it seems unavoidable that historians rewrite history each generation with an emphasis on their own interests and of points of view, including the present authors.

To take an example in the story of Thomas Lincoln, the book, Herndon’s Lincoln; The True Story of a Great Life, was written by Abraham Lincoln’s law partner, William H. Herndon, with a co-author Jesse W. Weik. A few months after President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, Herndon set out for Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois to interview people with personal recollections of the childhood of his former law partner. The resultant 250-plus transcripts have been described as ‘one of the first extensive oral history projects in American History’ (1) and are a major source of information about Abraham’s father, Thomas, the subject of the present book.

However, Herndon’s book has been heavily criticized for unverifiable and decades-old reminiscences, as well as Herndon’s apparent personal animosity to Abraham’s wife, Mary Lincoln, which may have led to an exaggerated description of Abraham’s early romance with Ann Rutledge. Also a number of other specific errors have been found by comparison with other independent sources. Nevertheless, Herndon’s body of material constitutes an unmatched treasure-trove of first person perspectives about Abraham’s family while he was growing up and has been used, with caution, throughout this book.

After Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, a great deal of mythology grew up about him, including about the family of this extraordinary president. Lincoln’s family, colleagues, friends and associates reported many memories, often valid, which unfortunately were often blended with other exaggerated reports, overstatements and understatements which did not turn out to be historically correct.

Another example of this phenomenon are the writings of John M. Hay and John G. Nicolay, who wrote Abraham Lincoln: a History in 10 volumes, and actually worked for the sixteenth president when they were younger. John Nicolay was a twenty-eight year old German-American immigrant who had worked for three years as a clerk in the secretary of state’s office in Springfield, Illinois. Lincoln had met Nicolay when searching out the latest election figures maintained in that office. After Lincoln was nominated to be the Republican candidate for president, he asked Nicolay to be his private secretary. Shortly after Lincoln won the presidency, he was in need of a second