The farm of Abraham Lincoln, I, in the Shenandoah Valley, was on the
great national highway along which the course of empire took its
westward way, and, infected by continual contact with the emigrants and
encouraged by the greatest of American pioneers, he sold the property
his father had given him, packed his wife and five children into a
Conestoga wagon, and followed the great migration until it led him
to what is now Hughes Station, Jefferson County, Kentucky, where he
entered a large tract of land and paid for it one hundred and sixty
pounds "in current money." The original warrant, dated March 4, 1780,
is still in existence. By the blunder of a clerk in the Land Office the
name was misspelled Linkhorn, and Abraham, I, was too careless or busy
to correct it, for it appears that way in all the subsequent records.
Hananiah Lincoln, the partner of Daniel Boone, furnished the surveyor's
certificate.
Four years later, in the spring of 1784, occurred the first tragedy
in the annals of the Lincoln family. Abraham, I, with his three sons,
were at work clearing ground upon his farm when they were attacked by
a wandering squad of Indians. The first shot from the brush killed the
father. Mordecai, III, the eldest son, started to the house for his
rifle; Josiah ran to the neighbors for assistance, leaving Thomas, a
child of six, alone with his father. After Mordecai had recovered his
rifle he saw an Indian in war-paint appear upon the scene, examine the
dead body of his father, and stoop to raise the lad from the ground.
Taking deliberate aim at a white ornament that hung from the neck of the
savage, he brought him down and his little brother escaped to the cabin.
The Indians began to appear in the thicket, but Mordecai, shooting
through the loopholes of the cabin, held them off until Josiah returned
with reinforcements.
From circumstantial evidence we must infer that Anna Lincoln was a poor
manager, or perhaps she suffered from some misfortune. All we know is
that she abandoned the farm in Jefferson County and moved south into
the neighboring county of Washington, where she disappears from human
knowledge. Her eldest son, Mordecai, III, appears to have inherited
his father's money, as the rules of primogeniture prevailed in those
days. He was sheriff of Washington County, a member of the Kentucky
Legislature, and tradition gives him the reputation of an honorable
and influential citizen. Late in life he removed to Hancock County,
Illinois, where he died and is buried. Josiah, the second son, crossed
the Ohio River and took up a homestead in what is now called Harrison
County, Indiana. Mary, the eldest daughter, married Ralph Crume, and
Nancy, the fourth child, married William Brumfield. Their descendants
are still found in Hardin, Washington, and other counties in that
neighborhood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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