Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1911-01-31
FIRST COUSIN OF
LINCOLN FOUND
Has Long Been Overlooked
By Biographies

Enid Okla, Jan. @0.-Flrst cousin oI
Abraham Lincoln has been discovered
in this city Scores of biographers
who have spent time, labor and money
in tracing the relatives, living and
dead, of the great President have
missed this one of the very few sur
viving persons who were actually re-
lated to Lincoln.
This mans kinship comes from his
mothers side His name is Joseph
William Hanks, nephew of Nancy
Hanks Lincoln, mother of Abraham
Lincoln. Joseph Hanks father and
Nancy Hanks were brother and sister,
The Enid cousin bears the name Of
the father of Nancy Hanks, Joseph,
and of her grandfather, William. His
father was also named Joseph. The lat
ter died when Joseph William was a
little child, succumbing to the hard
ships of pioneer life in Macon and
Brown counties, Illinois.
1t was John Hanks, cousin of Enid
mans father, who gave Lincoln the
nickname "railsplitter" in the Spring
field convention in 1860 The grizzled
pioneer, it is related, walked up the
aisle of the hall carrying, with the
aid of another, two long, rough rails,
on which was fastened a banner with
an inscription setting forth that John
Hanks and Abraham Lincoln had split
these very rails on the banks Of a
nearby stream twenty years before.
Served in Union Army.
Joseph Hanks served through the
civil war with the Union army as a
member of Company F. Missouri cav
airy volunteers. He enlisted in Sep
TENDER, 1851, and was mustered out
in November 1864. At one time he was
a bugler and later was commissary
sergeant. Of the one thousand men,
who made up the regiment at the be-
ginning Of the struggle 26O remained
to be mustered out.
Before going to war Joseph Hanks
was a blacksmith, the calling which
hung in the balance with the Legal
profession in Lincoln's mind after his
N first defeat for the Legislature in 1852.
Mrs. Hanks cared for her two little
zones throughout the long conflict, and
when the battle of Kirksville took
"A place, on August 6, 1862, she rode on
horseback nine miles carrying her
children, to the scene of the fighting in
the hope of seeing her husband. He
was not there, but she did meet three
\ brothers who were in the battle.
The mother of Joseph Hanks had 40
liking for Abraham Lincoln, husband
of her sister-in-law.
She Was SOutherner.
She was a strong Southern sympa-
th1zer, and never ceased her animosity
to Lincoln until years after the war
said Hanks:
She knew Lincoln well, very we'll
pndeed, but she hated him heartily. My
mother used to tell US that Lincoln
was wrong and that the North was
wrong. In those days there were few
Rer newspapers to read, so we studied
sWhat books we had closely I got a
copy of the constitution as soon as |
was big enough to read and persued it
carefully The great question was
whether the States which wanted
slavery had right to secede from
8he Union. 1t never seemed to me in
kplte of my mothers argument. that
#hey had any such right, so very
farly in life I took sides against the
South"
Mr.. Hanks said that from his earli-
est manhood Abraham Lincoln despis-
81 slavery and declared his intention
"a hitting that hard blow if he ever
Kot chance"