Los Angeles herald., 1908-02-23
THE LINCoLNS.

So fierce the hand to hand struggle with
the Indians, and privation and hunger in the
wilderness during the early settlement of this
country, that the pioneers paid little attention to
their antecedents. Family records were neglected,
and by the time three or four generations had
passed away it would have puzzled the best of them
to reveal the names of their great
whence they
Such the case with Abraham Lincoln. His
father Thomas, was only little over twelve
years old when he lost both father and mother
and was left alone in the wilderness of Ken
lucky with no one to tell him or keep him in
mind of his forbears. Consequently he left
records for his
Late exhaustive researches have however proved
beyond a doubt that they came from ordinary
source. No efforts have been made far to
establish their connection with the parent branch
in England, which by the law of heredity, would
seem to have been noble. 1t is a strange CO.
incidence that the English family of Lincoln bears
for arms a red cross upon which is impaled a
star of gold, strangely signifcant-of the close of
President Lincolns life.
In 1885 small company of immigrants came
from bingham, Norfolk county, England, and set
tied in Massachusetts, naming their little township
for the home in the old country, bingham In
1888 the ship Diligent brought twelve other
families-eighty-four souls, from Old bingham, to
join the little colony in the New World. At some
time between 1886 and 1915 eight men to
bingham from England, named Lincoln; three of
them, Samuel, David and Thomas, being brothers.
from whom sprung many good citizens and pa
trots, public officers in charge of the affairs of
their day. one or them was OF tnat notable COM
pany known as "The Boston Tea Party" and served
afterward captain of artillery in the Revolution
Three of these Lncons served on the brig Haz
ard Later another of Samuel Lincoln's de-
scendants, Levi, of the trainers of the
Massachusetts constitution and afterward
elected to the Continental Congress. He was state
representative and senator, and was appointed U.
s. Attorney General by President Jefferson, and
served for few months as Secretary of State
prior to the Presidency of James Madison, who ap-
pointed him Associate Justice of the United States
One of his sons Levi H., became Governor of
Massachusetts,; another son, Enoch, served eight
years in Congress, then made Governor of
Maine dying while still an incumbent of that office.
The fourth of Samuel Lincoln, the immi-
grant, devoted himself to the iron industry and as
the fruit of his labor left to his children fortune
in his iron works of various kinds Two of his
sons, Abraham and Mordecai, moved from Massa-
chusetts to New Jersey, thence to Pennsylvania,
where they bought large tracts of land Abraham
Lincoln residing in Bucks county Pennsylvania,
filled many offices of trust; was member of the
general assembly of the state, and of the state
constitutional convention.
Mordecai had sons, and to one of them, John,
gave three hundred of land in the Jerseys"
From there John moved to Virginia and became
the head of the Virginia branch of the Lincoln
family He had five sons of whom, Jacob,
served as lieutenant at the battle of Yorktown.
Abraham Lincoln third son of John, the head
of the Virginia branch of the famiy-descended
from Samuel Lincoln, of the founders of Hing
ham, Mass.-received from his father in 1878,
tract of two hundred and ten acres of land, in
Rockingham county, Virginia, to which he added
other acres and patiently cultivated the SOIL while
the of the revolution surged about the eastern
shore of the Old Dominion.
When the strife was ended, the victorious colo
nists betook themselves to retaining their lands
lying waste and desolate from the tide OF war
fare which had swept back and forth over them.
Many of them, worn and weary with the pro-
longed struggle, cast longing eyes to the noun
tains which alone separated them from "Transyl-