Sarah Bush Johnston Memorial, Inc.

Ring Road Sarah Bush

Freeman Lake Park Johnston Lincoln Sarah Bush Exit 94 Johnston

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Exit 91 The Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln Memorial has been established to keep alive these memories of our PAST, to help teach this part of our history in the PRESENT and to preserved these facts for the Printed by Elizabethtown Tourism & Convention Bureau FUTURE. in cooperation with the Kentucky Department of Tourism

The Memorial Cabin was built in 1992, Kentucky’s Bicentennial year, from hand‐hewn logs that were 122 EElizabethtown years old. It is a close replica of the one Sarah Bush Johnston was living Elizabethtown, Kentucky in, here in Elizabethtown, at the time she married on December 2, 1819. This size and type Elizabethtown of cabin was common in the early 1800’s 1030 North Mulberry Street Kentucky Elizabethtown, Kentucky 42701 The furnishings, house wares, tools, Web: www.TourEtown.com etc. are similar to ones used on the E‐Mail: [email protected] frontier during the Bush‐Lincoln era. (270) 765‐2175 or 1‐800‐437‐0092

The most famous stepmother in American history. Thomas Lincoln was acquainted with young Sarah Bush and her family, but Sarah Bush was born in Hardin was always in debt. In 1814 he was the year Sarah married Daniel County, Kentucky on December 13, appointed Hardin County Jailer. Living Johnston, Tom Lincoln returned to 1788. She was the third daughter of quarters for the jailer and his family were Springfield, Kentucky where he Christopher and Hanna Bush, in their provided in one corner of the stone jail. married Nancy Hanks. Tom and family of nine children. By the time Sarah cared for her children (two Nancy came back to live in the Sarah was two, the family had moved daughters and a son), while she cooked for Elizabethtown area, and their first to the Elizabethtown area and Sarah the inmates and kept the jail clean. baby, little Sarah Lincoln was born grew up here. there the following year. In 1816 Daniel Johnston died of cholera Sarah Bush met young Thomas leaving Sarah with no money. Sarah Two years later the Lincolns moved Lincoln in Elizabethtown, but when moved into a 14’ x 14’ log cabin owned by to the Sinking Spring Farm on Nolin she was 18, she married a local boy Samuel Haycraft. Later she purchased the Creek near Hodgenville, Kentucky where within a few weeks Nancy named Daniel Johnston on March 13, cabin and was living there with her three gave birth to a baby boy on February 1806. Little is known about Daniel children in 1819. Johnston other than the fact that he 12, 1809. That baby was named . Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln

In 1811 the Lincolns moved to the , some ten miles away and there they remained for five years. In 1816, the year Sarah Bush Johnston lost her husband In the fall of 1819, Thomas Lincoln left his team and wagon, carrying all of her buried next to her husband Thomas Lincoln in Daniel, the Lincolns left Kentucky two children in the care of a cousin who household goods. They headed for the Shiloh Cemetery in Coles County, Illinois. and settled near a place now known was then living with them and rode back Thomas’ home in . Upon their as Lincoln City, Indiana. Within two to Kentucky where he had spent so many arrival, Abraham and Sarah Lincoln met years, Nancy Hanks Lincoln would be years. Upon arriving here he learned that their new mother. Sarah Bush Johnston was widowed with dead of the “milk sick” Abraham The remained in Indiana three children to raise. Thomas called on Lincoln was nine years old, and his until 1830, when they moved on to Illinois, Sarah, courted her and asked her to sister Sarah was 11, when their finally settling in present day Coles become his wife and return with him to mother died. Life was hard and County. Sarah never returned to Kentucky Indiana where they could raise all the lonely. again. When Thomas died in 1851, children together. Abraham retained a 40‐acre plot of land in Thomas and Sarah were married in his own name “for mother while she lives.” Elizabethtown on December 2, 1819, in an Sarah always spoke fondly of Abraham and he spoke fondly of her. He described old log house, which stood at the present Marker recognizing site of Thomas and address of 117 North Main Street. A copy her as “a good and kind mother,” and Sarah Lincoln’s marriage. of the marriage bond may be found at the referred to her as “mother” in his letters. local library. She died in 1869 at the age of 80, four years after the death of her beloved Sarah and her three children left Thomas Lincoln Nancy Hanks Lincoln stepson Abraham Lincoln. Sarah was Kentucky. They traveled with Thomas by