Peter Syburt,
Christopher Boston,
John Stuck.”
THE REV. JESSE HEAD.
From an original drawing in the possession of R. T. Durrett, LL.D., of Louisville, Kentucky. The Rev. Jesse Head was a Methodist preacher of Washington County, Kentucky, who married Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks. Christopher Columbus Graham, who was at the wedding, and who knew Mr. Head well, says: “Jesse Head, the good Methodist preacher who married them, was also a carpenter or cabinet-maker by trade, and, as he was then a neighbor, they were good friends. He had a quarrel with the bishops, and was an itinerant for several years, but an editor and county judge afterwards in Harrodsburg.... The preacher, Jesse Head, often talked to me on religion and politics, for I always liked the Methodists. I have thought it might have been as much from his free-spoken opinions as from Henry Clay’s American-African colonization scheme, in 1817, that I lost a likely negro man, who was leader of my musicians.... But Jesse Head never encouraged any runaway, nor had any ‘underground railroad.’ He only talked freely and boldly, and had plenty of true Southern men with him, such as Clay.”—See Appendix.
Soon after the death of Abraham Lincoln, his widow moved from Jefferson County to Washington County. The eldest son, Mordecai, who inherited nearly all of the large estate, became a well-to-do and popular citizen. The deed-book of Washington County still contains a number of records of lands bought and sold by him. At one time he was sheriff of his county, and, again, its representative in the legislature of the State. Mordecai Lincoln is remembered especially for his sporting tastes and his bitter hatred of the Indians. General U. F. Linder of Illinois, who, as a boy, lived near Mordecai Lincoln in Kentucky, says: “I knew him from my boyhood, and he was naturally a man of considerable genius; he was a man of great drollery, and it would almost make you laugh to look at him. I never saw but one other man whose quiet, droll laugh excited in me the same disposition to laugh, and that was Artemus Ward. He was quite a story-teller. He was an honest man, as tender-hearted as a woman, and, to the last degree, charitable and benevolent.
“Lincoln had a very high opinion of his uncle, and on one occasion said to me: ‘Linder, I have often said that Uncle Mord had run off with all the talents of the family.’
“Old Mord, as we sometimes called him, had been in his younger days a very stout man, and was quite fond of playing a game of fisticuffs with any one who was noted as a champion. His sons and daughters were not talented like the old man, but were very sensible people, noted for their honesty and kindness of heart.” Mordecai remained in Kentucky until late in life, when he removed to Hancock County, Illinois.
MARRIAGE BOND OF THOMAS LINCOLN.
From a tracing of the original, made by Henry Whitney Cleveland.
Of Josiah, the second son, we know very little more than that the records show that he owned and sold land. He left Kentucky when a young man, to settle on the Blue River, in Harrison County, Indiana, and there he died. The two daughters married into well-known Kentucky families: the elder, Mary, marrying Ralph Crume; the younger, Nancy, William Brumfield.
MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE OF THOMAS LINCOLN AND NANCY HANKS.—HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED.
From the original, in the possession of Henry Whitney Cleveland of Louisville, Kentucky. This interesting document, discovered by Mr. Cleveland, and published for the first time in this biography, completes the list of documentary evidence of the marriage of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks. The bond given by Thomas Lincoln and the returns of Jesse Head, the officiating clergyman, were discovered some years ago, but the marriage certificate was unknown until recently discovered by Mr. Cleveland.
Thomas Lincoln’s Boyhood and Young Manhood.
The death of Abraham Lincoln was saddest for the youngest of the children, a lad of ten years at the time, named Thomas, for it turned him adrift to become a “wandering laboring-boy” before he had learned even to read. Thomas seems not to have inherited any of the father’s estate, and from the first to have been obliged to shift for himself. For several years he supported himself by rough farm work of all kinds, learning, in the meantime, the trade of carpenter and cabinet-maker. According to one of his acquaintances, “Tom had the best set of tools in what was then and now Washington County,” and was “a good carpenter for those days, when a cabin was built mainly with the axe, and not a nail or bolt-hinge in it; only leathers and pins to the door, and no glass, except in watches and spectacles and bottles.”3 Although a skilful craftsman for his day, he never became a thrifty or ambitious man. “He would work energetically enough when a job was brought to him, but he would never seek a job.” But if Thomas Lincoln plied his trade spasmodically, he shared the pioneer’s love for land, for when but twenty-five years old, and still without the responsibility of a family, he bought a farm in Hardin County, Kentucky. None of his biographers have ever called attention to this fact, if they knew it. A search made for this work in the records of Hardin County first revealed it to us, and we cannot but regard it as of importance, proving as it does that Thomas Lincoln was not the shiftless man he has hitherto been pictured. Certainly he must have been