Abraham Lincoln murdered by an Indian
That's the name of the grandfather of the famous Abraham Lincoln. We explore the connections briefly, then The Story.
The Lincolns and Boones intermarried. They did this in Berks Co PA. See this map on those 2 families living nearby. Touch or click on the icons on the map to see those connections. Squire Boone (Daniel Boone's father) gets into trouble with the Quakers for allowing some of his children to marry non Quaker Lincolns. Daniel Boone marries his wife in Frederick Co VA in 1756. They return to the Culpeper VA area in 1760 after attacks in 1759 by Cherokee around their Yadkin River NC homes. Both Lincolns and Boones moved at different times to the Harrisonburg VA area. And there the Lincolns met the Harrisons, both families of future Presidents. Washington visited this Harrisonburg VA area in 1756 and 1784. The Boones went to the Yadkin River area of North Carolina and then to Kentucky.. The Lincolns then went to the Kentucky area of what was still Virginia.
From all these related criss-crossing of paths by famous families who came through Frederick Co VA and the Shenandoah Valley we saw fit to tell the story of the murder of Abraham Lincoln by an Indian.
The Story
The famous Abraham Lincoln had a grandfather named Abraham Lincoln.
He lived during George Washington's time. He was a Captain in the militia in Augusta and then Rockingham County in Virginia. He then moved to near Louisville Kentucky 1784, what then was still part of Virginia.
This Grandfather got killed by Indians.
Thomas Lincoln's was sitting by his dead Dad, Abraham, probably still in shock. His older brother Mordecai instead took command because the danger is still present. He tells the third brother to run for help. He then must protect his brother Thomas, because an Indian is approaching Thomas and their dead father. Mordecai shoots the Indian, saving Thomas. That Thomas later in life names his son Abraham (the famous one).
Here is that story of that killing.
The story comes from a book simply titled "Lincoln," written by David Herbert Donald:
In [May 1786] while Abraham Lincoln
[the grandfather of the future President ]
and his three boys,
Mordecai, Josiah, and Thomas
[father of the future President],
were planting a cornfield
on their new property,
Indians attacked them.
Abraham was killed instantly.
Mordecai, at fifteen, the oldest son,
sent Josiah
running to the settlement
half a mile away [to Hughes Station]
for help
while he raced to a nearby cabin.
Peering out of a crack between logs, he saw an Indian sneaking out of the forest toward his 8 year old brother, Thomas, who was still sitting in the field beside their father's body.
Mordecai picked up a rifle, aimed at a silver pendant [probably a gorget] on the Indian's chest,
and killed him
before he could reach the boy.
This story in later years Thomas Lincoln repeated over and over again,
so it became as Abraham [the famous one] said,
"the legend more strongly than all others imprinted upon my mind and memory."
Page 21 of David Herbert Donald's Lincoln
Source:
Hughes Station was different from Hughes Fort:
That's it.
That's our Lead Story.
There's always more.
Read more details and versions of story below.
Skip around.
Read bits and pieces.
Compiled by Jim Moyer Sept 23, update 10/10/2023, 10/11/2023, 11/6/23
Wikipedia Version
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' Station for help. Thomas, the youngest, stood in shock by his father. From the cabin, Mordecai observed a Native American come out of the forest and stop by his father's body. The Native American reached for Thomas, either to kill him or to carry him off. Mordecai took aim and shot the Indian in the chest, killing him.
Affadavit
Below is an Affadavit filed by Mordecai , the brother of Thomas (Pres Lincoln's father) who killed the indian after his father Abraham was Killed. Mordecai saved his borther Thomas by killing the Indian. Thomas Lincoln is the father of the future president.
"The President [Abraham Lincoln] in his brief statements about the massacre [of his grandfather who was also named Abraham Lincoln] was under the impression that it ocurred about 1784, but we are now able to fix the date definitely as the month of May, 1786. Mordecai Lincoln, oldest son of the pioneer, who was present at the time of the rnassacre, stated on oath in an affidavit filed in the Nelson County Court House: "Abraham Lincoln departed this life May, 1786, without will." "
Washington's 1784 Western Trip
It is interesting Washington did a western trip to the Ohio two years before this Indian attack occurred
The Grandfather
In referring to his grandfather in a letter to Jesse Lincoln in 1854, Lincoln wrote that
“the story of his death by the Indians, and of Uncle Mordecai, then fourteen years old, killing one of the Indians, is the legend more strongly than all others imprinted upon my mind and memory.”
Abraham Lincoln’s forty-two-year-old grandfather, Abraham Lincoln Sr., purchased a four-hundred-acre tract near Hughes Station in eastern Jefferson County in 1780. He migrated to Kentucky from Virginia in 1782. His land on “the Fork of Floyd’s Fork now called Long Run” was surveyed by William May, surveyor of Jefferson County, in 1785.
In May 1786, Abraham Lincoln was putting in a crop of corn with his sons, Josiah, Mordecai, and Thomas, when they were attacked by a small war party. He was killed in the initial volley. Josiah ran to Hughes Station for help. Mordecai and Thomas ran to the cabin, and Mordecai emerged with a rifle in time to kill the Indian who was preparing to scalp his father. Men from Hughes Station pursued the retreating Indians.
After this attack, the Lincoln family moved to a part of Nelson County which later became part of Washington County. The estate of Abraham Lincoln Sr. was administered in Nelson County in 1789.
Lineage
Mordecai - John - Abraham- Thomas - Abraham, the Pres
To keep track, here is the ancestry tree short form:
Mordecai begot John who begot Abraham who begot Thomas who begot Abraham, the President.
These names can be confusing because many of the names were repeated as brothers and sons down the generations.
Another version of the killing
Abraham Lincoln was killed by an American Indian. The year was 1786. The dead man was the grandfather of the Abraham Lincoln the world knows.
It happened this way.
The elder Abraham Lincoln, a sturdy pioneer of Quaker descent, was planting his cornfield in the good earth of Kentucky. Three of his sons helped with the hard work. A shot rang out; perhaps an arrow whistled. We no longer know. Abraham lay dead on the field. One of his sons, Josiah, twelve, ran to get help. Another, fifteen year old Mordecai, took cover in a cabin close by. The youngest, eight year old Thomas, just sat by his dead father in the field.
The Indian who killed Abraham began creeping out of the woods toward the boy. We are so removed from the frontier that the drama may seem exaggerated. Yet so it was. Step by step death or captivity moved closer to the young, paralyzed Thomas. But his brother, hiding in the cabin, picked up a rifle and shot the murdering Indian.
Thomas Lincoln lived to a ripe old age and repeated this story endlessly, for his own family, and surely for anyone else who would listen. But, from that deadly moment in the Kentucky forest, Thomas’ life had changed forever. Instead of growing up the son of a bold, prosperous, and respected farmer, owner of 5,500 acres of prime land (which by law went to the eldest son), Thomas grew up a poor orphan. “By the death of his father, and the very narrow circumstances of his mother, even in childhood [he] was a wandering laboring boy, and grew up literally without education. He never did more in the way of writing than to bunglingly sign his own name.” Words from the mouth of the author of the Gettysburg Address, his son.
The Lincolns and the Boones in Berks Co PA
The Lincoln and Boone children grew up together. One can see them racing back and forth over the fields, and naturally enough, although Mordecai was not to live to see it, as they grew older, falling in love. Mordecai's daughter Sarah was to marry a Boone, and his youngest son, Abraham, a daughter of that house.
As a matter of fact, at this point of the association of the Lincoln's with the Quakers, the intolerance is shown on the other foot. When Mordecai's youngest son, Abraham, came to marry Ann Boone, as he did in 1760, she was disciplined for her "disorderly act."
Page 39, "In the footsteps of the Lincolns" by Tarbell, Ida M. (Ida Minerva), 1857-1944 Publication date 1924
The Lincolns and Harrisons near Linville Harrisonburg area
Sister Abigail [sister to Daniel Harrison ] and husband Alexander Herring settled at Linville also. Their daughter Bathsheba (1742–1836) married Captain Abraham Lincoln (1744–1786), also of Linville, and they had a son Thomas Lincoln (1778–1851); he in turn married Nancy Hanks (1783–1818). They had a son, Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), who was elected president in 1860.
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Sources:
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April 2022 story posted on GW visiting this area
Ancestry Stories
History of the Lincoln family : an account of the descendants of Samuel Lincoln, of Hingham, Massachusetts, 1637-1920 by Lincoln, Waldo, 1849-1933 Publication date 1923
4th Generation chapter here
Abraham Lincoln, an American migration; family English not German; with photographic illustrations by Learned, Marion Dexter, 1857-1917 Publication date 1909
Abraham Lincoln the grandfather
IMAGE OF ANCESTOR TREE
In the footsteps of the Lincolns
Page 55 by Tarbell, Ida M. (Ida Minerva), 1857-1944 Publication date 1924 Copyright, 1924 By Harper & Brothers Printed in the U. S. A. First Edition
.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
Preface ix
I. The First Lincoln in America l
II. Mordecai Lincoln, Ironmaster 17
III. The Call of New Jersey 30
IV. "Virginia John" 42
V. The Call of Kentucky 53
VI. The Youth of Thomas Lincoln 66
VII. The Mother of Abraham Lincoln .... 78
VIII. Abraham Lincoln's Birthplace 90
IX. The First Home Lincoln Remembered . . . 101
X. Tom Lincoln Seeks Free Soil 114
XI. Lincoln Learns from Labor 128
XII. Lincoln's Intellectual Awakening .... 139
XIII. Starting Out for Himself 154
XIV. New Salem Adopts Lincoln 169
XV. Feeling His Way 183
XVI. Surveyor, Legislator, Law Student .... 197
XVII. Ann Rutledge 211
XVIII. 1837 — Lincoln's First Big Year 225
XIX. The Marriage of Abraham Lincoln and Mary
Todd 236
XX. Lincoln Settles Down 250
XXI. Lincoln the Politician 264
XXII. The First Term in Congress 278
[v]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER SAGE
XXIII. Lincoln Returns to the Law 292
XXIV. On the Circuit 305
XXV. Lincoln Bolts His Party 321
XXVI. Educating Illinois 341
XXVII. A Victorious Defeat 354
XXVIII. The Country Wants to See Lincoln . . . 369
XXIX. In the Hands of His Friends 382
XXX. Awaiting the Verdict 398
Index 415
[vi]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Fireplace in Historical Museum of Hingham, Mass. . Frontispiece
Opening Entry of the Diary of Rev. Peter Hobart . Facing p. 14
Record of Samuel Lincoln's Death in Daniel Cushing's Account
Book Facing p. 14
"Old Ship Church" of Hingham, Mass " 14
House Built in Scituate, Mass., Early in the 18th Century by
Mordecai Lincoln, Son of Samuel Lincoln . . Facing p. 24
Restored Tap Room of the Old Ordinary — Now the Historical
Museum — of Hingham, Mass Facing p. 24
House Built in 1733 in Berks Co., Pa., by Mordecai Lincoln,
Great-Great-Grandfather of Abraham Lincoln . Facing p. 38
Headstone of Grave in Covell's Hill Cemetery, Monmouth
Co., N. J Facing p. 38
Facsimile of Signature of Mordecai Lincoln, Sr. . . 38
Portraits of Abraham Lincoln and His Second Cousin, David Lin-
coln, Showing Striking Resemblance in Features Facing p. 52
House Built in 1800 by Jacob Lincoln, Great-uncle of Abraham
Lincoln Facing p. 52
Memorial at Lincoln's Birthplace Near Hogdensville, Ky. .
Facing p. 96
Fragments from the Daybook of James Renshaw . . Page 161
Facsimile of Tavern License Taken Out in March, 1833, by
Berry and Lincoln Page ! 9 !
Facsimile of Map and Report of a Survey Made by Abraham
Lincoln in 1834 Page 198
[vii]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Facsimile of Letter Written by Abraham Lincoln, Postmaster
of New Salem, Illinois Page 203
Grave of Ann Rutledge in Oakland Cemetery, Petersburg,
Illinois Facing p. 222
Abraham Lincoln's First Professional Card .... Page 223
Facsimile of an Invitation to a Springfield Cotillon Party of
Which Abraham Lincoln Was One of the Managers Page 242
Facsimile of Marriage License of Abraham Lincoln and Mary
Todd Page 249
Facsimile* of Brief in Lincoln's Handwriting .... " 302
The Eighth Judicial Circuit Which Lincoln Traveled . " 306
Facsimile of Foreword Written by Lincoln in a Campaign Book
Page 361
Announcement of the Seventh and Last of the Lincoln and
Douglas Debates Page 366
First Announcement of Lincoln as President .... " 383
Facsimile of a Definition of Democracy Written and Signed by
Lincoln Page 400
Portrait of Lincoln Made Just Before He Left Springfield for
His Inauguration as President Facing p. 406
[viii]
PREFACE
This book reports a pilgrimage undertaken to refresh and
enlarge the author's previous studies of the life of Abraham
Lincoln. The pilgrimage began in Hingham, Massachusetts,
where two hundred eighty-six years ago the first of the family
line, Samuel Lincoln, a boy of seventeen, came as a pioneer;
it passed from there to New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the Shen-
andoah Valley of Virginia, into Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois.
I found it an inspiring thing to trace the roads these seven
successive generations of Lincoln pioneers traveled, to look
upon the remains of their homes, reconstruct from documents
and legends their activities, judge what manner of men and
women they were, the place they held among their fellows.
In these wanderings the whole history of the United States
seemed to unroll before me. In this Lincoln migration we
have the family history of millions of our contemporaries.
.
.
The house still stands.
In August of 1922 I started out
from Reading, Pennsylvania, to find this home of Mordecai
Lincoln.
I had studied my records to bad purpose. They told
me that when he first went to this part of the Schuylkill coun-
try, Berks County, he had settled in the town of Oley. Later
they said he lived in the town of Amity. Carelessly neglecting
[to do what every student of American localities should do at the
start, that is, study the changes in county and township bound-
aries made through the years, and also never failing to re-
member that when the record talks of the town of Oley or of
Amity, it probably means a township, I wandered about
Berks County for twenty-four hours, seeking sites that do not
exist. Finally I discovered that Mordecai Lincoln's land
had first lain in the township of Oley, that a re-division of
the county had put it in the township of Amity, and that a
second re-division had put it in the township of Exeter. With
the three sites simmered down to one, it was an easy enough
matter to find the home.
.
John Lincoln's will, saved to us by the quarrels of his
children, proves him a devout man. "Principally and first of
all," its opening clause reads, "I give and recommend my
soul into the hands of God that gave it." The will shows
him a careful man, doing his best to provide for his "dearly
beloved wife Rebecca" and to recognize all his nine children
in the division of what he calls "such worldly estate where-
with it has pleased God to bless me in this life."
It was no great thing by this time, for he had been using
both his land and his money to help his children start in life.
Four hundred acres of his original 600 had gone in 1773 to
his sons Abraham and Isaac — evidently sums of money had
been distributed to others, but what remained he divided
meticulously. The legacies of money are particularly in-
teresting: "To my son Abraham the sum of five shillings"
(Abraham was now in Kentucky and unhappily never to
know of the bequest, since he was killed by Indians before his
[50]
"VIRGINIA JOHN"
father's death); two shillings and 14 pence each to "my
daughters Hanna and Lydia and my sons Isaac and Jacob."
A careful and unequal will which requires more "inside infor-
mation" to explain than we shall ever have.
Of the children recognized by John Lincoln the one to
become most prosperous was Jacob. To Jacob the homestead
finally went and here, about 1800, he built a large and digni-
fied house, from bricks made on the place. A little later
Jacob's son Abraham enlarged this house and had made for
it some fine old mahogany pieces, which are still owned by
descendants in the Valley. The homestead itself passed out
of the Lincoln family only a few years ago.
What we have then from a study of the records concern-
ing John Lincoln, the great-grandfather of President Lincoln,
records scattered through three states — New Jersey, Penn-
sylvania and Virginia — crabbed, ill-spelled, dry, and, in the
case of Virginia, scorched, proves that this great-grandfather
of Abraham Lincoln was a man of courage, energy, fidelity.
He must have been a tolerant and a level-headed man, too,
to have lived on peaceful terms with so many varieties of
insistent sectarians. To live among the freakish without be-
coming freakish or contemptuous takes both character and
brains.
A man is also judged by the children he leaves behind him.
John Lincoln founded a line in the Shenandoah Valley that
has carried on to this day, as his father did in Pennsylvania
and his grandfather and great-grandfather in Massachusetts.
It makes one catch his breath to go 150 years after John and
Rebecca settled on Linville Creek into a pleasant home,
twelve miles away, and be introduced to a three-year-old
Abraham Lincoln, to look into the faces of Lincoln men with
the pronounced features made so dear and so familiar to us
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE LINCOLNS
by our acquaintance with the face of Abraham Lincoln; but
that is the experience that one has to-day in the Shenandoah
Valley. John Lincoln stamped himself into that country
and lives there through those that have come after him.
[52]
House Built on Linville Creek of the Shenandoah Valley, Va m in 1800 by Jacob
Lincoln, Great-Uncle of Abraham Lincoln, on Land Bought in
1768 by "Virginia John" Lincoln, Jacob's Father
V
THE CALL OF KENTUCKY
IT is unusual to start the story of a man's life with his mar-
riage license, but, as things have stood in the genealogy of
Abraham Lincoln's family, the first certain date that we have
had concerning his grandfather was that on which he took out
a license to be married. Waldo Lincoln's "History of the
Lincoln Family" published this year — 1923 — gives us an
earlier start — the date of his birth. In the extensive re-
searches for his book Mr. Lincoln found in Ohio an undoubt-
edly authentic "Memorandum of the Births of the sons &
daughters of John Lincoln & Rebecca his wife." This tells
us that the first child, a boy named Abraham, was born May
13, 1744 "(old stile)." In the next 23 years Rebecca bore
eight more children, four boys and four girls, but it is with
her first born that we are concerned.
We can say with certainty that his birthplace was either
Lancaster or Berks County, Pennsylvania, where his father
John had lived from the time he left New Jersey until he
settled in the Shenandoah Valley. It meant much to be born
in that part of the world, around the middle of the eighteenth
century, for it was a land teeming with people of different
nations — English, Scotch, Irish, Germans, Dutch. It was
highway for north and south and east and west travel — a
home in which industries and arts were taking root, and in
which all sorts of ideas, political and religious, sound and
freakish, were seething. Schools were rapidly building up,
and it is certain that young Abraham Lincoln had a better
chance of schooling than his father had had.
[53]
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE LINCOLNS
When John Lincoln yielded to the migratory spirit and
pulled up stakes in Pennsylvania and moved southward into
the Shenandoah Valley, Abraham was 24 years old — old
enough to take a full part in that serious — and dangerous —
task. The Indians, allied with the French in their war on
the English, had for several years made life risky for the
scattered settlers and travelers in Pennsylvania. The air
was filled with rumors, true and false. Refugees continually
sought safety in the large towns like Reading and Lancaster
and defense parties went out to help those who stayed at home
get in their crops. Those who followed the great route south
in 1768 kept a watchful eye against surprise by marauding
bands.
When the Shenandoah Valley was reached and the family
settled in the new home, there was plenty of opportunity for
work for him. He no doubt knew something of all the trades.
Probably, like his father and great-great-grandfather, he could
handle a loom; like his grandfather and great-grand-
father he was something of a blacksmith. The settler
had to be a little of everything, and undoubtedly young
Abraham Lincoln could turn his hand to any one of a
multitude of tasks that arise in a family situated as was
theirs.
A marriage license that he took out in 1770 argues that
he immediately improved the social opportunities of the Val-
ley, for his bride was, it is now believed though not proved,
Bathsheba Herring, the daughter of one of the first families
of Rockingham County.
There is a possibility, though I have come to the con-
clusion that it is not a probability, that Bathsheba was his
second wife. Until some fourteen years ago her name was
unknown to Lincoln genealogists; the grandmother of Presi-
dent Lincoln, the wife of his grandfather Abraham, was sup-
[54]
.
.
According to the members of the Herring family still
living in the Shenandoah Valley, as reported by one of them
to Mr. Lea, in 1908, "Abraham Lincoln, who married Bath-
sheba Herring was a poor and rather plain man. Her aristo-
cratic father looked with scorn on the alliance and gave his
daughter the choice of giving up her lover or being dis-
inherited. The high-spirited young woman did not hesitate.
She married the man she loved and went with him to the
savage wilds of Kentucky in 1782.
Her husband was afterwards killed by an Indian, and one of her sons, a lad of 12 years, killed the Indian, avenging his father's death. Bathsheba Herring was a woman of fine intelligence and strong character. She was greatly loved and respected by all who knew her."
"Poor and plain" though Abraham Lincoln may have
been, he seems to have been able promptly to establish him-
self in the Valley. Three years after the license was taken
out his father, John Lincoln, deeded to him 210 acres of the
600 he bought when he first came into the country. Five
shillings and "one peppercorn on Lady Day next if the same
shall be lawfully demanded" was the price he paid. To this
land, six years later, he added fifty-two acres adjoining, pay-
ing for the same the sum of £500 in the depreciated currency
of the colony equal to about $60.
But he was doing more than growing in property in the
Valley. The dangers from the Indians made a strong militia
[55]
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE LINCOLNS
necessary in a remote region like that of the Shenandoah and
when the Lincolns arrived they found the Augusta County
militia a well organized body. Abraham Lincoln soon be-
came a member of this militia, and as early as 1776 was a
captain. At least a part of his company in the summer of
that year took part in an expedition against the Cherokee
Indians. Whether Captain Abraham Lincoln himself com-
manded his troops we do not know, though we do know that
in the year 1776, 1777 and 1778 he served as a judge advo-
cate of the court.
The court was composed of the colonel, lieutenant-colonel,
major and a captain of the county militia. Charles Kemper,
the present leading authority on the Augusta County records,
tells me that they represented the best element of citizenship
of the county. Among the captains were many whose names
are still well known. That Abraham Lincoln was chosen
from this group to serve on the court shows that he must have
been, if "poor and plain," a man of as good or better educa-
tion than most of the others, and a man, too, that had won the
respect of his fellows. No document that we have concern-
ing him is a better indication of the standing of the President's
grandfather than this from the court militia records of Au-
gusta County.
Page 55 In the footsteps of the Lincolns by Tarbell, Ida M. (Ida Minerva), 1857-1944 Publication date 1924 Copyright, 1924 By Harper & Brothers Printed in the U. S. A. First Edition
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This story has no relation to Fort Loudoun Winchester VA, but it does have some slim relation to George Washington who had designed that fort. Ths slim connection is this: Washington toured the Kanawha and Ohio in 1784, two years before the story of this killing. He went out west in the same year the Lincolns went over even further west near today's Louisville KY. This whole area was a borderless land used for hunting by the Indians and settlement by the whites. The other connection is that the Lincoln and Boone families lived next to each other in Berks Co PA. Daniel Boone then went on to meet his wife in Frederick Co VA in 1756. The Lincolns and the Boones intermarried. The Boones moved to Frederick Co VA at that time. The Grandfather of Future President Lincoln was Captain of the militia during the Revolutionary War in the 1770s in Augusta Co and later Rockingham VA.The Fall 1759 attacks on Yadkin settlements in North Carolina by the Cherokee caused the Boones to move back temporarily to Culpeper area in 1760. Even another Presidential family, the Harrisons, in the Rockingham area and Dayton where Shenandoah University came from, are related to the Lincolns.
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