Jessie Harlan Lincoln

Infobox Person
name = Jessie Harlan Lincoln


imagesize = 85px
caption = Jessie Harlan Lincoln in her 30s
birth_date = birth date|1875|11|6|mf=y
birth_place = Chicago, Illinois
death_date = death date and age|1948|1|4|1875|11|6
death_place = Rutland, Vermont
occupation =
spouse = Warren Wallace Beckwith (1897–1907)
Frank Edward Johnson (1915–?)
Robert John Randolph (1926–?)
parents = Mary Eunice Harlan and Robert Todd Lincoln
children = Mary Lincoln Beckwith and Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith

Jessie Harlan Lincoln (b. November 6, 1875 – January 4, 1948) was the second daughter of Robert Todd Lincoln, the granddaughter of Abraham Lincoln, and the mother of Mary Lincoln Beckwith and Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, the last Lincoln descendant. [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Biography and Family Line of the Lincolns
url=http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/d/u/n/Terence-L-Duniho/GENE5-0003.html# |] [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=The Family of Mary Lincoln
url=http://members.aol.com/beaufait/biography/geneology.htm|]

Early life

Jessie Harlan Lincoln was born on November 6, 1875, in Chicago, Illinois to Mary Eunice Harlan and Robert Todd Lincoln. She was the last of three children of Robert Todd Lincoln. [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Abraham Lincoln's Descendents |url=http://www.nps.gov/archive/libo/lincolns_descendents3.htm|] After her brother, Abraham Lincoln II, died on March 5, 1890 in London at the age of 16, the family decided three years later to return to America, ultimately to Mary Eunice Harlan’s mother's residence in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. Jessie and her sister were piano students in the summer session of Iowa Wesleyan in 1886. She was later initiated into the Pleasant Chapter A of the P.E.O. Sisterhood on December 31, 1895, an organization of which her sister, Mary "Mamie" Lincoln, had become a member more than 11 years prior.

First marriage

On November 10, 1897, she married Warren Wallace Beckwith in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at 2:30 in the afternoon. Beckwith was a member of the Mt. Pleasant Football Team and Jessie’s father, Robert, strongly and bitterly opposed the couple's being together. He believed their relationship had ended until news of their elopement reached him and his family. He hurried to Jessie’s room only to find it empty and that Jessie had married several hours before. [Lincoln's Sons, p. 333] In 1898, she gave birth to her first child, Mary Lincoln Beckwith, in Des Moines County, Iowa. She continued to live in Mount Pleasant, Iowa and on July 19, 1904, had her second and last child, Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, named after her father.

Later life

In 1907, she divorced Warren Beckwith and subsequently married Frank Edward Johnson in 1915 then Robert John Randolph in 1926; neither of these marriages produced any more children. Jessie spent the next 22 years in her homestead in Manchester, Vermont and became obese, weighing 400 pounds near the end of her life. On January 4, 1948, Jessie Harlan Lincoln died at the age of 72 at Rutland Hospital in Rutland, Vermont, the same place where her daughter, Mary would die 27 years later. [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Descendents of Abraham Lincoln|url=http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/d/u/n/Terence-L-Duniho/GENE5-0003.html |]

Jessie's sister and brother were respectively:

* Mary "Mamie" Lincoln, October 15, 1869 – November 21, 1938
* Abraham "Jack" Lincoln II, August 14, 1873 – March 5, 1890

References