Abraham Lincoln (captain)

Captain Abraham Lincoln (13 May 1744 – May 1786) was the grandfather of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, a captain of militia during the American Revolution, and a pioneer settler of Kentucky.

Infobox Person
name = Captain Abraham Lincoln
birth_date = Birth date|1744|05|13
birth_place = Berks County, Pennsylvania
death_date = Death date | 1786|05|
death_place = Jefferson County, Kentucky
death_cause = shot from ambush
resting_place = Long Run Baptist Church cemetery, Eastwood, Kentucky
resting_place_coordinates = coord|38.255|N|85.413|W|
occupation = tanner, farmer
title = Santa
spouse = Bathsheba Herring
children = Mordecai Lincoln
Josiah Lincoln
Mary Lincoln
Thomas Lincoln
Nancy Lincoln
parents = John Lincoln Rebecca Flowers
relatives =

Origins

Captain Abraham Lincoln was a descendant of Samuel Lincoln (1622 – 1690), who was born in Hingham, Norfolk, in the United Kingdom, and who, as a weaver's apprentice, emigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637. Abraham's father John Lincoln (1716 – 1788) was born in Monmouth County in the province of New Jersey, and grew up in the Schuylkill river valley in the province of Pennsylvania. Typical of his class, John Lincoln learned a trade, in his case weaving, to practice alongside the subsistence farming necessary on the colonial frontier. His father Mordecai died when John was barely twenty years old. The Lincoln home farm on Heister's Creek, in what is now Exeter Township, Berks County, was left to John's half-brothers, the children of his father's second marriage. In 1743, John Lincoln married Rebecca Flowers Morris (1720 – 1806), daughter of Enoch Flowers of Caernarvon Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Rebecca was the widow of James Morris and the mother of a young son, Jonathan Morris.Lea and Hutchinson.] ["Abraham Lincoln in Pennsylvania".] [Warren.]

Abraham Lincoln was born 13 May 1744 (old style) in what is now Berks County, Pennsylvania. [Berks County was formed in 1752 from Philadelphia County, eight years after Abraham was born. Abraham's father, John Lincoln, had several residences in the Schuylkill valley after his marriage, and the possibility exists that Abraham was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.] Abraham was the first child born to John and Rebecca Lincoln, who had nine children in all: Abraham born 1744, twins Hannah and Lydia born 1748, Isaac born 1750, Jacob born 1751, John born 1755, Sarah born 1757, Thomas born 1761, and Rebecca born 1767.Wayland.] Harrison.]

His life

Abraham Lincoln learned the tanner's trade and later took his brother John as his apprentice. A prominent tanner of Berks County in those days was James Boone (1709 – 1785), uncle to Daniel Boone. James Boone was a near neighbor to the Lincolns of Heister's Creek, and his daughter Anne was married to John Lincoln's half-brother. This family connection may have influenced Abraham's choice of occupation. [Bogan.] [Guenther.]

In 1768 Abraham's father Fred Lincoln purchased land in the Shenandoah Valley in the colony of Virginia. He settled his family on a convert|600|acre|km2|sing=on tract on Linville Creek in Augusta County (now Rockingham County). In 1773, John and Rebecca Lincoln divided their tract with their two eldest sons, Abraham and Isaac. Abraham built a house on his land, across Linville Creek from his parents' home.

In 1770 Abraham Lincoln was issued a marriage license in Augusta County, Virginia. His wife was Bathsheba Herring (c. 1742 – 1836), a daughter of Alexander Herring (c. 1708 - 1778) and his wife Abigail Harrison (c. 1710 – c. 1780) of Linville Creek. Five children were born to Abraham and Bathsheba Lincoln: Mordecai born circa 1771, Josiah born circa 1773, Mary born circa 1775, Thomas born 1778, and Nancy born 1780.

During the American Revolutionary War, Abraham served as a captain of Augusta County militia, and with the organization of Rockingham County in 1778, he served as a captain for that county. He was in command of sixty of his neighbors, ready to be called out by the governor of Virginia and marched where needed. Captain Lincoln's company served under General Lachlan McIntosh in the fall and winter of 1778, assisting in the construction of Fort McIntosh in Pennsylvania and Fort Laurens in Ohio. [Revolutionary War pension applications of Michael Deck, 05 Sep 1832, Madison County, Illinois; John Ruble, 21 Jun 1833, Highland County, Ohio; and Shepherd Gum, 06 Aug 1834, Howard County, Missouri.]

In 1780, Abraham Lincoln sold his land on Linville Creek, and in 1781 he moved his family to Kentucky, then a district of the commonwealth of Virginia. The family settled in Jefferson County, about twenty miles (32 km) east of the site of Louisville. The territory was still contested by Indians living across the Ohio River. For protection the settlers lived near frontier forts, called stations, to which they retreated when the alarm was given. Abraham Lincoln settled near Hughes's Station on Floyd's Fork and began clearing land, planting corn, and building a cabin. Tarbell.] .

Death

One day in May 1786, Abraham Lincoln was working in his field with his three sons when he was shot from the nearby forest and fell to the ground. The eldest boy, Mordecai, ran to the cabin where a loaded gun was kept, while the middle son, Josiah, ran to Hughes's Station for help. Thomas, the youngest, stood in shock by his father. From the cabin, Mordecai observed an Indian come out of the forest and stop by his father's body. The Indian reached for Thomas, either to kill him or to carry him off. Mordecai took careful aim and shot the Indian in the chest, killing him.

Tradition states that Captain Abraham Lincoln was buried by his cabin, which is now the site of Long Run Baptist Church and cemetery near Eastwood, Kentucky. A stone memorializing Captain Abraham Lincoln was placed in the cemetery in 1937. [Kentucky Historical Marker Database, marker number 101.]

Bathsheba Lincoln was left a widow with five underage children. She moved the family away from the Ohio River, to Washington County, Kentucky, where the country was more thickly settled and there was less danger of Indian attack. Under the law then operating, Mordecai Lincoln, as the eldest son, inherited two-thirds of his father's estate when he reached the age of twenty-one, with Bathsheba receiving one-third. The other children inherited nothing. Life was hard, particularly for Thomas, the youngest, who got little schooling and was forced to go to work at a young age.

In later years Thomas Lincoln would recount the story of the day his father died to his son, Abraham Lincoln, the future sixteenth president of the United States of America. "The story of his death by the Indians," the president later wrote, "and of Uncle Mordecai, then fourteen years old, killing one of the Indians, is the legend more strongly than all others imprinted on my mind and memory." [Letter from A. Lincoln to Jesse Lincoln, 01 April 1854, Springfield, Illinois. Published in Lincoln, "Speeches and Writings". ]

Citations and notes

References

*cite web
title = Abraham Lincoln in Pennsylvania
publisher = Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
url = http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/ppet/lincoln/page1.asp?secid=31
accessdate = 2008-01-08
*cite web
last = Bogan
first = Dallas
title = The Pioneer Writings of Josiah Morrow
work = The Lincoln Family
date = 2004
url = http://www.rootsweb.com/~ohwarren/Bogan/bogan374.htm
format = excerpt
accessdate = 2008-01-08
*cite web
last = Guenther
first = Karen
title = The World of Moses Boone: The Economic Activity of a Berks County Tanner in the 1780s
publisher = The Historical Society of Berks County
date = 2003
url = http://www.berkshistory.org/articles/mboone.html
format = reprint
accessdate = 2007-12-14
*cite book
last = Harrison
first = John Houston
title = Settlers By the Long Grey Trail
publisher = Joseph K. Ruebush
date = 1935
location = Dayton VA
pages = pages 282-286, 349-351
isbn =
*cite web
title = Kentucky Historical Marker Database
work = Jefferson County
publisher = Kentucky Historical Society
date = 2002
url = http://kentucky.gov/kyhs/hmdb/MarkerSearch.aspx?mode=County&county=56
accessdate = 2008-01-14

*cite book
last = Lea
first = J. Henry
coauthors = Hutchinson, John R.
title = The Ancestry of Abraham Lincoln
publisher = Houghton Mifflin
date = 1909
location = Boston
pages = pages 63-64, 68-72, 76-77, 82-83
url = http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=G0RBAAAAMAAJ
format = Google book full text

*cite book
last = Lincoln
first = Abraham
coauthors = Fehrenbacher, Don E. (editor)
title = Speeches and Writings, 1832-1858
publisher = Viking Press
date = 1989
location = New York
pages = pages 299-301
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=2o561jt4Ct4C
format = Google books limited preview
accessdate = 2008-01-13
isbn = 0940450437
*cite book
last = Tarbell
first = Ida M.
title = The Early Life of Abraham Lincoln
publisher = S. S. McClure Ltd.
date = 1896
location = New York
pages = pages 24, 27, 29
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=qBXkVK-xsaoC
format = Google books full text
accessdate = 2008-01-13
*cite web
last = Warren
first = Louis A.
title = The Lincolns of Berks County
publisher = The Historical Society of Berks County
date = 1949
url = http://www.berkshistory.org/articles/lincoln.html
format = reprint
accessdate = 2008-01-06
*cite book
last = Wayland
first = John W.
title = The Lincolns in Virginia
publisher = C.J. Carrier
date = 1987 reprint
location = Harrisonburg VA
pages = pages 24-57

Persondata
NAME = Lincoln, Abraham
ALTERNATIVE NAMES = Lincoln, Captain Abraham
SHORT DESCRIPTION = grandfather of Abraham Lincoln, militia captain during American Revolution, and Kentucky pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH = 13 May 1744
PLACE OF BIRTH = Berks County, Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH = May 1786
PLACE OF DEATH = Jefferson County, Kentucky