Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1890-03-20
THREE ABRAHAM LINCOLNS.

THEY WERE ALL CUT DOWN SUDDENLY
BY INDIAN, ASSASSIN AND SURGEON.
Chicago NeacS.-The sad fate of the
great "Emancipator' hallowed the name
of Lincoln. The recent death of little
"Abe" in London has called renewed at
tention to the great President, his anceS-
tors and descendants. Popular knowl-
edge of the family covers about two
centuries. During that time alternate
generations have produced three Abra-
ham Lincolns, all of whom have died
under circumstances that have riveted
upon them the attention of Americans.
The years 1856, 1865 and 1890 are
memorable in Lincoln chronology, for in
those years the grandfather of the Presi-
dent, President Lincoln himself, and his
grandson fell-two by the hands of as
sassins and the third by the hand of the
surgeon, no less fell though better inten-
toned.
The facts of the death of the Presi-
dents grandfather are meager. De-
scended from the good old Quaker stock
of Pennsylvania, and possessed of mod
crate means, he was one of the first to
leave his home, in Rockingham county,
Va, in 1880, to follow the lead of Daniel
Boone into the wilds of Kentucky, taking
with him his wife and five children.
Prepared to brave dangers and hardships
for home, Abraham Lincoln bought,
four hundred acres of land from the
Government for $50. A spot in the for
est was cleared, a log cabin was erected,
and soon Lincoln found himself on the
way to prosperity. The three sons
Mordecai, Josiah and Thomas par
took of the fathers ambition, helped him
with a will. The little farm in the
wilderness gradually broadened, and two
additional tracts of land, one of 800 and
the other 500 acres, were taken.
But fortune soon changed. One morn
ing in 1856 Lincoln and his three sons
went out to the edge of his clearing, and
scarcely had work begun when shot
from the bush killed the father. Nor
decai Immediately ran to the cabin for a
gun and Josiah to Hughes Station for
assistance, while Thomas was left with
his fathers body. Mordecai got the gun
and was just in time to save his brothers
life by shooting the Indian who was
about to kill him. The murdered man
was buried near where he fell, and soon
after the family for better protection
moved to thicker settled portion of the
wilderness, where Mordecai with the
settled hate that is born of unforgiven
wrongs became an Indian-st stalker, who
slew the redskins on no other provoca-
tion than mere sight.
Two generations later the second
Abraham Lincoln was exalted from the
position of an obscure lawyer to that of
President of the United States honor
which he bore with courage and forti-
tude and paid for with his life. All are
familiar with the story of his assassina-
tion.
Another break of a generation in the
transmission of names, and the third
Abraham appeared in the family as the
son of Robert 7. Lincoln, the American
Minister to England. Young "Jack,"
as he was usually called, was born in
Chicago, in 1873, and the story of his
seventeen years is that of many another
bright boy who has been stricken down
before the possibilities in him have been
developed. The promise of the future
was cut off by the surgeons knife while
undergoing an operation for an abcess.
The operation is not usually regarded as
dangerous, but it proved fatal in this
case from the boys weakness.
"Jack" was boy, grave and deliber
ate beyond his years, an unusually good
scholar, and a universal favorite among
his associates.