Abraham Lincoln

**22nd President of the United States**

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Hodgenville, Kentucky

**Abraham Lincoln** was an American politician who served as the 22nd President of the United States from 1857 to 1865. Lincoln is the father of the 31st president of the United States, Robert Todd Lincoln.

## Early Life

Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809, the second child of Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, in a log cabin on Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky.

Lincoln was descended from original English settlers, namely Samuel Lincoln, who migrated from Hingham, Norfolk to Hingham, Massachusetts in 1638.

Due to his father losing a majority of his land over court disputes concerning property titles, in 1816 Lincoln and his family moved to Indiana, where land surveys and titles were more reliable. The territory of Indiana being "free" (non-slaveholding). Later, Lincoln would note to close colleagues and friends that his family's move to Indiana was "partly on account of slavery."

In both Kentucky and Indiana, Lincoln's father was a farmer, cabinetmaker and carpenter, owning farms, livestock and town lots various times.

Lincoln's father and mother were both members of a Separate Baptists church, which forbade alcohol, dancing and slavery. Which Lincoln wouldn't learn to do until his late twenties.

## Mother's Death

On October 5, 1818, Nancy Hanks Lincoln succumbed to milk sickness, leaving Lincoln's older sister, Sarah, in charge of a household including their father, himself and their 19 year old orphaned cousin, Dennis Hanks.

Ten years later, on January 20, 1828, Sarah would die while giving birth to a stillborn son, which would devastate Lincoln.

## Education and Move to Illinois

Lincoln was largely self-educated. Any formal schooling was from itinerant teachers, which included two short stints in Kentucky, where he learned to read but not write at age seven. And in Indiana where he went to school sporadically due to farm chores, for a total of less than twelve months in aggregate by the age of fifteen. He persisted as an avid reader, and retained a lifelong interest in learning. Family, neighbors and schoolmates accounted that his reading included the King James Bible, Aesop's Fables, John Bunyan's *The Pilgrim's Progress*, Daniel Defoe's *Robinson Crusoe*, and *The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.*

As a teenager, Lincoln took responsibility for chores and customarily gave his father all earning from work outside the home until he was twenty-one. Lincoln was tall, strong, and athletic, and became adept at using an ax. He was an active wrestler in his youth and trained in the rough catch-as-catch-can style. He became county wrestling champion at the age of 21. And gained a reputation for strength and audacity after winning a wrestling match with the renowned leader of ruffians known as "the Clary's Grove Boys."

In March of 1830, fearing another outbreak of milk sickness, several members of the extended Lincoln family, including Abraham himself, moved west to Illinois, a free state, settling in Macon County. There, Abraham became increasingly distant from his father, in part due to his lack of education compared to his son. In 1831, as Thomas Lincoln and other members of the family prepared to move to a new homestead in Coles County, Illinois, Abraham struck out on his own. He made his new home in New Salem, Illinois for six years. Where he made new friends, and took good by flatboat down to New Orleans, Louisiana, where he was first exposed to slavery.

## Marriage and Children

Lincoln married Mary Todd on November 4, 1842 after some complications with his own duties as Secretary of War. Their oldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln, being born in 1843, their second eldest, Edward Baker Lincoln, known as "Eddie", being born in 1846, and their third son, William Wallace Lincoln, known as "Willie" being born in December of 1850.