Fulton County tribune. (Wauseon, Ohio) 1883-1925, 1917-02-09
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
H 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 Emanci-
pator were not without exception.
1t was always the proud boast Of
Rev. Edward Head, Methodist
minister, and likewise 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-looking
girl, should say past twenty. Tom
was a respectable mechanic, who could
take his choice; and she was to be
treated with respect. 1 was at the in
fare given by John II. Parrott, 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 string, to bite off for coffee or
whisky sirup in big gourds, peach and
honey; a sheep that the two families
barbecued whole over Goals of wood
burned in pit, and covered with
green boughs to keep in the juices ;
and race for the whisky bottle"
Another guest at the wedding was
Christopher Columbus Graham, who
lived to be more than one hundred
years old. In explaining his presence
ut the festivities, Graham said:
''YOu see, 1 was out hunting roots
for medicines, and just went to the
wedding to get good supper-and
! got it. Tom Lincoln was carpenter
and good one for those days, when a
! cabin was built mostly with an ak
/ 1t didn't have nail or bolt or q
! hinge in it-only feathers and pins tc
! the door. There wasn't any glass
either, except what you might find in
bottles or watches and spectacles, il
they owned them. But Tom Lincolr
/ had the best set of tools in the whole
county,"
Dennis Hanks, Lincoln's cousin anC
playmate, takes up the story:
"When Nancy married Tom he was
working in a carpenter shop. 1t wasnt
Toms fault he couldn't make a living
by his trade; there was scarcely any
money in the country. So Tom tool
up some land-mighty poor land, bu
the best he could get when he hadn'
much to trade for it.
I'VE was all poor them days, but tn,
Lincolns was poorer than anybody
Nancy was terribly ashamed of thu
way they lived; but she knew Tom wal
doing the best he could, and she WASH
the pestering kind. The Hankses wer,
some smarter than the Lincolns; sh,
could read and write. She was prett,
as a picture and smart as you flint
them anywhere"
1t was a couple of years after tn,
| Dlfln VI tleiI AlSL ClAlu' Sdrdu, d yea
after the marriage, that Tom Lincoln
moved his family to the farm nea
Hodgensville, on the Big South forl
of Nolen's creek-a partly cleared
thin-soiled. miserable place, rejoicinl
in the euphoniOus title of Rock SprinI
farm, because n small grove of tree
shaded a really fine spring of water
That was its only natural advantage
AS for the cabin, it bOasted but a sin
gle room, a single window, a big fire
Aplace and an outside chimney. 1t wa
in that cabin Lincoln was born an,
lived the first four years of his life.
"TOm and Nancy lived on a farm
about two miles from us when Alb