The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1917-02-10
knew LINCOLN
FROM HIS BIRTH
Dennis Hanks, Cousin of the
Emancipation, Has Left Record
of the Early Days in the Hum
BILE Little Kentucky Log Cabin.

w EDDINGS and births al
M ways attract attention. so it
" is interesting TO note that
the marriage OF Thomas
Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, the parents
Of Abraham Lincoln, and the advent
into the world of the Great Enamel
pator were not without exception
It was always the proud boast OF
Rev. Edward Head, a Methodist
minister, and likewise a carpenter, that
he performed the ceremony that united
Abraham Lincoln's parents in mar
riage. In telling OF the bridal couple
and the feast, he said:
Nancy Hanks was a fresh-IOoking
girl, I should say past twenty. Tom
was a respectable mechanic, who could
take his choice; and she was to be
treated with respect. was at the in
fare given by John 81. PARROT, her
guardian-and it was only girls with
money who had had guardians appoint
ed by the court. Our table was Of
puncheons cut from the solid logs, and
they were the cabins floor next day.
We had bear meat, 'Venison, wild tur-
key, ducks eggs, wild and tame-so
common that you could buy them at
two bits buShel-maple sugar, swung
on a string, to bite OF for coffee or
whisky; strip in big gourds, peach and
honey; a sheep that the two families
barbecued whole over Goals OF wood
burned in a pit, and covered with
green boughs to keep in the juices !;
and race for the whisky bottle"
Christopher Columbus Graham, who
lived to be more than one hundred
years old. In explaining his presence
at the festivities, Graham said:
"You see, I was out hunting roots
for medicines, and I just went to the
wedding to get a good supper-and
got 1t. Tom Lincoln was a carpenter,
and a good one for those days, when a
cabin was built mostly with an ak.
1t didn't have a nail or a bolt or q
hinge in it-oply feathers and pins to
the door. There wasn't any glass.
either, except what you might find in
bottles or watches and spectacles, if
they owned them. But Tom Lincoln
county"
Dennis Hanks, Lincoln's cousin and
playmate, takes up the story:
%When Nancy married Tom he was
working in a carpenter shop. It wasn't
Toms fault he couldn't make a living
by his trade; there was scarcely any
money in the country. So Tom took
ND some 1and-mighty poor land, but
the best he could get when he hadn't
much to trade for it.
'We was all poor them days, but the
LincoIns was poorer than anybody.
Nancy was terribly ashamed Of the
way they lived; but she knew Tom was
doing the best he could, and she wasn't
the Fostering kind The Hankses were
some smarter than the Lincolns; she
could read and write. She was pretty
as a picture and smart as you find
them anywhere"
It was a couple OF years after the
birth OF their first child, Sarah, a year
sitter the marriage. that Tom Lincoln
moved his family to the farm near
HodgensvfIle, on the Big South fork
/ OF Nolen's creek-a partly cleared,
! thfn-soiIed. miserable place, rejoicing
/ In the euphonious title OF Rock Spring
farm, because a small grove OF trees
shaded q really fine spring Of water.
That was it's only natural advantage
As for the cabin. It boosted but a sin
gle room, a single window. E big fire
place and an outside chimney. Il was
IN that cabin Lincoln was born and
lived the first f0r years OF his life
TON and Nancy lived On 5 farm
nf,rr.f tro miles from us when Abs