The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1927-05-12
LINCOLN'S MOTHER BORN
IN MINERAL CO., w. VA.
Story of Search That Fixes The
Site On Mikes Run
(By William E. Barton)

10 llICu III q : INiii-
pie and belongs to the United States
Government; but the cabin where she
herself was born disappeared, and no
one on earth remembered or suspected
its location. All conjectures, and con-
fdent declarations less reliable than
conjectuures, went far wide of the
truth, no one of them coming within
hundred miles of the actual location.
In the cold of bitter winter, 1888
A, at the end of one or the beginning
of the other year, this child of moth
er who was under As when the third
U. S. Census was made in the sum-
mer of 1910, and who probably had
not passed her nineteenth birthday,
when her baby was born, first woke
to the harsh and cruel realities of an
unfriendly world.
President Lincoln did not know
where his mother was born, and he
had not much inclination to inquire.
He knew that his father, Thomas Lin
coin, was born in Rockingham county,
in the Shenandoah Valley, and, like
nearly all information that he had OBJ
tanned through his father concerning
his family history on the paternal
side, this was correct. But all the
Hankses of his mothers generation
known to him were dead before he
made any investigation, and the next
generation was born in Kentucky.
No one manifested any curiosity on
this subject until 1866, and then moth
ing was learned that gave to Lincoln's
mother a local habitation. The first
systematic effort to locate the place
of her birth was in 1899. A little
book appeared in that year, followed
by the beautifully printed Ancestry
of Lincoln" by Lea & Hutchinson,
and this seemed to settle the matter.
The Lincoln centenary occurred ten
years later, and the floods of litera-
ture that were then poured out unani-
mously accepted this story, so far as I
am aware-save in the case of one or
two scurrilous screeds that do not de-
serve to be mentioned even as excep-
tions or for purposes of rebuke.
The Accepted Story.
According to the 1899 story, the
Hanks family in the United States be-
gan with Benjamin Hanks, who ar
rived in Plymouth, Mass, in 1899.
His third son, William, disappeared
from Massachusetts, records. He was
born on Fed. II, 1904, and I presume
died in childhood, but l do not know
mas much as no record was found in
Massachusetts of his having married
or of his having owned land, this 1899
story assumed that he migrated to
Virginia and there became the pro-
genitor of the Hanks family in that
State-thus giving all the New Eng
land Hankses a blood relationship
with President Lincoln. That was not
only the documentary basis of the
story; it appeared also to be its mo-
tive. And very heavy superstruc-
ture was built upon what was probab-
ly no better foundation than the early
demise of one of the numerous Hanks
| babies.
This 1899 story went on to affirm
that the Hankses, after a period of
incubation in tidewater Vigrinia, went
to Amelia county, in Central Virginia,
and were there in the SOS.
When | got at the actual writing
my Life of Lincoln" of course had
to investigate this matter-or take it
as it was fed to me, the way other
authors had been doing for quarter
century. And the more l learned the
more | was disturbed
l wrote to the Clerk of the Courts
in Amelia county for certified copies
of all Hanks records, deeds, wills,
marriages and so on, and he sent me
exactly six entries, all in the years
before the Revolution. Two Hanks
families moved into Amelia county
and soon moved out again. One
bought one piece of land and the 9TH
er bought two, and what they bought
they later sold in the same tracts.
There was not a will, not marriage;
there was in fact, nothing like what
had been published. And the Clerk,
who had been County Judge, said it
would be no use spending time and
money to go there, for he knew the
records and there positively were no
other Hanks records there.
Later, 1 went to Amelia county and
made thorough search of my own.
l found just those six Hanks entries,
and no others. But l had a long talk
with the Judge, then the Clerk, who
told me all about all my predecessors
there. And l found out where the
Hankses came from that had got into
the 1899 story.
They were not Hankses at all. Their
name was Hawks, and they belong
ed to a wholly separate family that
was in Amelia before the two Hank