- Nancy Lincoln
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- For the passenger train, see Nancy Hanks (passenger train). For the National Endowment for the Arts chairman, see Nancy Hanks (NEA).
Nancy Hanks Lincoln (February 5, 1784 – October 5, 1818) was the mother of Abraham Lincoln (the 16th President of the United States) and of Sarah Lincoln after her marriage to Thomas Lincoln. After the family moved from Kentucky to Spencer County, Indiana, Nancy Lincoln died of milk sickness at the Little Pigeon Creek settlement. That fall several people died of the condition at the village, including her maternal aunt and uncle Elizabeth (Hanks) and Thomas Sparrow, with whom Nancy had spent years as a child.
Contents
Early life and education
Memorial cabin at the Nancy Hanks Farm in Mineral County, West Virginia.
Nancy Hanks was born the illegitimate daughter of Lucy Hanks in what was then part of Hampshire County, Virginia. Today it is Mineral County, West Virginia. Years later, her son Abraham reportedly told his law partner William Herndon that his maternal grandfather was "a well-bred Virginia farmer or planter."[1][2] In 1863 during the American Civil War, West Virginia, where slavery was limited and many people supported the North, was admitted to the Union as a separate state, having seceded from the Confederate state of Virginia.
Lucy Hanks moved with Nancy to follow her sister Elizabeth Hanks Sparrow and her husband Thomas to Washington County, Kentucky. There she married Thomas' brother Henry Sparrow. Lucy placed her daughter Nancy with Elizabeth and Thomas Sparrow, who essentially raised the girl. Nancy would have learned the skills and crafts a woman needed on the frontier to cultivate crops, and clothe and feed her family. Hanks became an excellent seamstress, working at that before her marriage.[3]
Marriage and family
On June 12, 1806, Hanks married Thomas Lincoln. Lincoln had proposed to her in his childhood home at what is now Lincoln Homestead State Park in Washington County, Kentucky.[4] A record of their marriage license is held at the county courthouse. They had three children:
- Sarah Lincoln (February 10, 1807 – January 20, 1828)
- Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865)
- Thomas Lincoln (died in infancy, 1812)
In 1816, the Lincoln family moved to Spencer County in southern Indiana and proceeded to homestead at Little Pigeon Creek Settlement. That year Indiana became a state.
Death
While living at Little Pigeon Creek Settlement, Nancy Hanks Lincoln died of "milk sickness" on October 5, 1818. Several people died that fall from the illness, including her maternal aunt Elizabeth and uncle Thomas Sparrow.[3] It was caused by settlers drinking the milk or eating the meat of cows that had eaten the white snakeroot. The plant contains the potent toxin temetrol, which is passed through the milk.[5] The migrants from the East were unfamiliar with the Midwestern plant and its effects. In the nineteenth century before people understood the cause of the illness, thousands in the Midwest died of milk sickness.[6] Nancy Lincoln was thirty-four when she died. Her nine-year old son Abraham assisted his father in the making of her coffin by whittling the wooden pegs that held the planks together.[7] The eleven-year-old Sarah cared for Abraham until their father remarried the next year.
Nancy Hanks Lincoln's grave is located in what has been named the Pioneer Cemetery[8], also known as the Nancy Hanks Lincoln Cemetery.[9] At least twenty unmarked and eight marked graves are at the site; Lincoln is buried near Nancy Rusher Brooner, a neighbor whom she cared for, but who died from milk sickness two weeks before Lincoln.[9][10] Also buried here are Elizabeth (Hanks) and Thomas Sparrow, Nancy Lincoln's maternal aunt and uncle.[9] The cemetery is located on the grounds of the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, a National Historic Landmark District managed by the National Park Service in present-day Lincoln, Indiana.
Honors
Memorial to Nancy Hanks in Mineral County, West Virginia, at the site of her birth.- 1941, Katherine K. Davis, who co-wrote the lyrics to "The Little Drummer Boy", wrote the ballad "Nancy Hanks"as a tribute to Lincoln's mother.[11] The song uses as its lyrics the Rosemary Benét poem "Nancy Hanks" (originally published in Stephen Vincent Benét's A Book of Americans):[12]
-
- If Nancy Hanks
- Came back as a ghost
- Seeking news
- Of what she loved most... etc.[13]
- November 2008, the Mineral County Historical Society and the Mineral County Historic Landmarks Commission officially recognized the researched site of the birthplace of Nancy Hanks in Mineral County, West Virginia, which was first identified in 1929. They had a memorial placed at the site.[14]
- On February 12, 2009, on the bicentennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, the West Virginia House of Delegates passed a resolution recognizing Nancy Hanks Lincoln for her contributions and her birth site in Mineral County, West Virginia.[14]
References
- ^ Donald, David Herbert (1995). Lincoln. New York: Touchstone. p. 20.
- ^ Donald, David Herbert (1995). Lincoln. New York: Touchstone. p. 23.
- ^ a b "Abraham Lincoln Research Site", Roger J. Norton Website, accessed 1 July 2011
- ^ DuPont-Ewing, Annette C. (2007). Washington County. Arcadia Publishing. p. 117. ISBN 0738552992.
- ^ "Abraham Lincoln Biography". Biography.com. http://www.biography.com/articles/Abraham-Lincoln-9382540?part=1. Retrieved 28 April 2010.
- ^ Walter J. Daly, "'The Slows', The Torment of Milk Sickness on the Midwest Frontier", Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. 102, No. 1, March 2006
- ^ Carl Sandburg (2007). Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years. p. 22. http://books.google.com/books?id=_nL5xCYLFs0C&pg=PA22#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved July 1, 2011.
- ^ graveyards.com "Pioneer Cemetery, Graveyards.com
- ^ a b c "Nancy Hanks Lincoln Cemetery". National Parks Service. http://www.nps.gov/libo/historyculture/cemetery.htm. Retrieved July 1, 2011.
- ^ Richard Lawrence Miller, Lincoln and His World, at Google Books
- ^ "Catalog of copyright entries: Musical compositions, Part 3". Library of Congress, Copyright office. 1941. p. 959. http://books.google.com/books?id=Ai9jAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA959#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved July 1, 2011.
- ^ "A Book of Americans". Encyclopedia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/73367/A-Book-of-Americans. Retrieved July 1, 2011.
- ^ http://www.dw-jotd.com/inspirational/nancy_hanks.htm
- ^ a b "House Resolution No". West Virginia Legislature. http://www.legis.state.wv.us/Bill_Text_HTML/2009_SESSIONS/rs/BILLS/hr7%20intr.htm.
External links
Categories:- Abraham Lincoln
- 1784 births
- 1818 deaths
- Lincoln family
- People from Mineral County, West Virginia
- Parents of Presidents of the United States
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