Abraham Lincoln's father was descended from Samuel Lincoln, who emigrated from the west of England a few years after the landing of the Pilgrims and settled at the village of Hingham, on the south shore of Massachusetts Bay, between Boston and Plymouth. Eight men bearing that name came over on the same ship and are supposed to have been related. An army of their descendants is scattered over the Union. One of them, Samuel Lincoln, left a large family which has produced several prominent figures besides a President of the United States. One of his grandsons in the third generation, Levi Lincoln, was recognized for a generation as the leader of the New England bar. He was Secretary of State and Attorney-General in the Cabinet of President Jefferson, a member of the Legislature of Massachusetts, and one of the ablest and most influential men of his day. The fourth son of Samuel Lincoln, Mordecai, I, acquired wealth as a manufacturer. His eldest son, who inherited his name, moved to Berks County, Pennsylvania, and had a son named John, who took up a tract of land in Virginia about the year 1760, where, like the rest of his name, he raised a large family. John Lincoln, II, his second son, became prominent in public affairs, and was a member of the Convention that framed the first Constitution of the State of Pennsylvania. On July 10, 1760, Abraham, I, the third of the five sons of John Lincoln, II, married Anna Boone, a cousin of Daniel Boone, the most famous of American pioneers, and his father gave him a farm in the Shenandoah Valley. By frequent intermarriages between the Boones and the Lincolns they were closely allied. By the will of Mordecai Lincoln, II, his "loving friend and neighbor George Boone" was made executor of his estate and Squire Boone, father of the celebrated Daniel, was appointed to make an inventory of the property. Hananiah Lincoln was a partner of Daniel Boone in the purchase of a tract of land on the Missouri River in 1798, and it was there that the great woodsman died. The name Abraham was a favorite among the Lincoln family. It occurs frequently in their genealogy. A young man named Abraham Lincoln distinguished himself for courage and brutality on the Confederate side during the Civil War. He killed a Dunkard preacher whom he suspected of furnishing information to the Union army. The Union President received several letters of offensive tone from his kinsman in the South during the earlier part of his administration.