Thomas and Sarah their milk. THE PRESIDENT-ELECT’S LAST Lincoln After what was a very sad year for VISIT TO COLES COUNTY Th omas Lincoln was born on Linville Creek in the Lincoln children, On the morning of Th ursday, January 31st, 1861, Rockingham County Virginia on January 7, 1778 to Th omas traveled back to Abraham Lincoln went to the home of his cousin Dennis Abraham and Bathsheba Lincoln. Around 1781 the Kentucky in 1819 and Hanks in Charleston to have breakfast with the family. family joined other settlers crossing the Cumberland married Sarah Johnston, After breakfast he was joined by Augustus Chapman, Gap attracted by the new lands opening up in a widow with three small husband of his niece Harriet Hanks, for the drive down Kentucky, but tragedy struck in 1786 when Th omas’s children of her own, whom he had known while living in to the Goosenest Prairie. Lincoln would soon be leaving father was killed by an Indian while clearing his fi elds. eTh Kentucky. When Th omas arrived back in Indiana with his for Washington D.C. and had taken a short respite from story of the death of Captain Abraham would be told many new wife, life changed for the family. Sarah Lincoln soon the preparations in Springfi eld to visit his family in Coles times by Th omas over the years and it was the one story had the house and children back in order. Abraham and County, and to make arrangements for the care of his his son Abraham said was “more strongly than all others John Johnston always signed their correspondence between step-mother in his absence. Chapman recalled that on the imprinted on my mind and memory.” them as ‘your brother’, indicating their acceptance of this drive down the conversation “was mostly concerning family According to Lincoln’s 1860 biography “by the early blended family. aff airs. Mr. Lincoln spoke to me...of his stepmother in the death of his father, and very narrow circumstances of his Of his stepmother Sarah, Abraham said that no son most aff ectionate manner. Said that she had mother, even in childhood (Th omas) was a wandering could love a mother more, and she in turn said that Abe been his best friend in this world and that laboring-boy.” Th is “wandering boy” grew up to be a was the best boy ever. Among Sarah Lincoln’s possessions no man could love a mother more than he well-respected man in his community. In 1795 when she arrived in Indiana were books which loved her.” during Indian troubles in Kentucky, Th omas fed her new step-son’s hunger for learning. By this time a widow of ten years, served in the Washington County Militia “in Th omas, due to his own lack of education, Sarah Lincoln was staying with her defense of the frontier” and in 1802 he moved was determined that his son should have the daughter Matilda Moore in the to Hardin County, KY, where he worked as a opportunity to learn. In an 1865 interview village of Farmington, just north of carpenter and house joiner saving enough money Sarah Lincoln said that Th omas would do the the Lincoln Farm. Matilda was twice to buy his fi rst farm north of Elizabethtown. In work himself rather than disturb his son when widowed; fi rst having been married 1805, he was nominated to serve as an offi cer in reading. to Abraham’s cousin Squire Hall, then the 3rd Hardin County Regiment. On June 12, Much has been written regarding the later to Reuben Moore in 1856. Th e 1806 Th omas Lincoln married Nancy Hanks. relationship between Abraham Lincoln and his Moores’ relationship quickly soured after Th e family lived briefl y on the Mill Creek father. Some claim that Th omas and Abraham their wedding and they soon agreed Lincoln had a strained relationship. While Matilda Johnston Moore, ca Farm before moving back to Elizabethtown 1870 to a separation. As a part of that where Th omas owned several lots and continued Dennis Hanks, ca 1860 Abraham Lincoln himself said very little about agreement Reuben Moore provided his work as a carpenter. In 1807 they welcomed his father and his upbringing, others did comment Matilda a cabin in the village. After Moore’s death Matilda their fi rst child, a daughter, named Sarah. eTh family on the man who raised the future 16th president. sued the estate to gain her dower rights as a widow and moved to a new farm on the Nolin River shortly before John Hanks, a cousin of Abraham Lincoln’s who lived wrote her step-brother asking for his assistance. However, the birth of their second child, Abraham, named for his with the Lincoln family for fi ve years in Indiana described her timing was poor, as Lincoln would soon be engrossed paternal grandfather, on February 12, 1809. Th roughout Th omas Lincoln as “…a good quiet citizen, moral habit, in his campaign for the presidency and it is unknown what the remainder of their years in Kentucky, Th omas remained had a good sound judgment, a kind Husband and Father assistance, if any, he provided her. busy, farming, serving on juries, surveying the Nolin Even and a good disposition was lively and cheerful.” At the time of Lincoln’s last visit and the dinner held in to Bardstown Road and most likely also engaging in Dennis Hanks, another cousin, said of Th omas that he his honor at the Moore home, local history places Matilda carpentry. In the fall of 1816 the Lincolns left Kentucky for was “…good humored sociable and never appeared to be in a cabin on the southern edge of the village. Some of Indiana. Although Th omas Lincoln’s reasons for moving off ended.” He further said “ Mr. Th omas Lincoln was a the attendees at the dinner that day said that it was held to Indiana were never recorded, his son Abraham said good, clean, social, truthful & honest man, loving like his in Reuben Moore’s new home because it was vacant and that while the move may have been because of Th omas’s wife Evry thing & every body.” still unfi nished at the time of his death which meant that aversion to slavery, it was chiefl y because of his diffi culties Th omas Lincoln’s granddaughter Harriet Hanks, who it could hold the large crowd of well-wishers who had with land titles. Other family members soon followed spent a great deal of time with her grandparents and who gathered to see Lincoln. It is also likely that the home was the Lincolns, including Nancy Lincoln’s uncle and aunt, also lived in Springfi eld for several years with Abraham and vacant due to Matilda’s lawsuit. Th e 1860 census records Th omas and Elizabeth Sparrow, and her cousin Dennis Mary Lincoln described her grandfather as “…not profane- seem to indicate that Matilda Moore was not living in the Hanks. When the Sparrows fell ill the following year it always asked grace at table-read the bible-he could write- new house at the time as her real property was valued at $15 was Nancy Lincoln who came to help nurse them, before not a good reader or scholar…” Clearly those who knew on the census in comparison to her neighbor Dr. Nelson she too fell victim to the same illness, the milk-sick, Th omas Lincoln genuinely liked the man. He had another Freeman, whose real property, a small brick house, was from which they all died. Little understood at the time, notable habit not unlike that of his son Abraham-- Th omas valued at $300. the milk-sick was caused by cows eating the toxic white Lincoln loved to tell stories and jokes; some even said that Whether the home was vacant or lived in by his step- snakeroot plant and then passing the toxins on through his abilities out shown those of his son. sister, it was the scene of Lincoln’s fi nal farewell to his family. After the dinner which had seen people of all walks of life come to pay their respects to the new president, Lincoln’s niece Sarah Fox said that the family was able to spend some private time together during which time Sarah told her step- son that she had always thought there was something great The Sargent Connection in him and with the impending war he was certain to have a hard time. In an 1865 interview about their last visit Sarah Just as the Lincoln family did, Nancy Sargent’s family stated: “I did not want to see Abe run for President, did not also migrated to Illinois in the early 1800s. Her father, want him elected, was afraid somehow or other, felt it in John Chenoweth, brought his family from Mercer Co., my heart that something would happen to him…and that I KY to Illinois, in 1816, settling on the Wabash River should see him no more.” where he served as County Commissioner, plied his trade as blacksmith and also started a ferry business at York, IL. It was there in 1822 that Nancy married her fi rst husband Jacob Harlan. Jacob had come to Illinois at the insistence of his brother-in- law William Archer and was soon followed by his brothers Justin, Newton, and Howard as well as their Uncle Silas Harlan. William Archer was prominent in early Whig politics Illinois and acquainted with Abraham Lincoln from their years in the state legislature, though Uncle Abe’s Visits they may have fi rst met in 1832 when both served in the By the time his parents moved to this farm on the Goosenest Prairie in 1837, Abraham Lincoln had militia during the Black Hawk War. Archer would later been reelected to a second term in the state legislature and had begun his career as a lawyer in Springfi eld. nominate Lincoln as the Vice-Presidential candidate during Although the family was separated by nearly 100 miles they remained close, communicating through letters the Republican national convention in Philadelphia in and occasional visits. In 1832 during the Black Hawk War, Lincoln and his step-brother John Johnston were 1856. Nancy’s brother-in-law Justin Harlan served many reunited briefly when they ser ved together as “mess-mates” but the frequency of his visits ultimately increased years both as a lawyer and a judge on the 4th judicial when he began traveling the 8th judicial circuit and attending court in Charleston. He may have taken circuit and was well acquainted with Lincoln. In 1841, one of his earliest cases in Coles County at the behest of his step-mother, Sarah Lincoln. In May of 1841, Lincoln supported Harlan’s nomination for Lt. Governor Abraham Lincoln successfully defended Hiram Radley and Charles Sawyer on a charge of failure to pay a and in 1849 while Lincoln served in Congress, Harlan sent debt. Hiram Radley was the son of Sarah’s sister, Hannah, at whose Coles County home the Lincoln family him a letter seeking a patronage job for a “crony” of theirs. stayed on their journey from Indiana to Illinois in 1830. Lincoln represented various family members in Lincoln would appointed Justin Harlan to be an Indian Coles County over the next decade including his father, step-brother and cousins, when they were sued for Agent for the Cherokee Indians. Silas Harlan, the uncle failure to pay debts incurred while they operated a mill on the Embarras River. of Nancy’s fi rst husband, was also the grandfather of Mary Whenever Lincoln returned to Charleston he would always make time to visit with his family, bringing Eunice Harlan, who became the wife of Abraham Lincoln’s small gifts of candy for the children and often money for the care of his parents. Lincoln’s niece Amanda son Robert Todd Lincoln in 1868. Nancy married Stephen Hanks remembered his visits fondly; “In the spring of the year, when court was to be in session a week in Sargent in 1842 and they built their home in what is Charleston, we always looked forward to the coming of Uncle Abe, who would be at our home and spend present-day Clark County, Illinois. Today their 1843 the week there, giving his days to work in the courtroom and his nights to us in our home. We would house is preserved on the grounds of the site. gather around him in front of the fireplace and he would tell us stories far into the night…”