Footprints of Abraham Lincoln: Presenting many interesting facts, reminiscences and illustrations never before published — John Shaqi
Footprints of Abraham Lincoln: Presenting many interesting facts, reminiscences and illustrations never before publishedHobson, J. T. (Jonathan Todd)
History
Footprints of Abraham Lincoln: Presenting many interesting facts, reminiscences and illustrations never before published
Hobson, J. T. (Jonathan Todd)
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 -- Anecdotes
Evidence is here introduced to untangle tangled history. Jacob
S. Brother, now in his ninetieth year, resides at Rockport, the
county-seat of Spencer County, Indiana, on the Ohio River, fifteen
miles south of Lincoln City, the site of the Lincoln farm in Indiana.
Mr. Brother is a highly-respected Christian gentleman. I have known him
for many years. On the thirtieth of March, 1899, when visiting him,
he incidentally told me that his father purchased the Lincoln farm
in Kentucky, and that the family lived in the cabin in which Abraham
Lincoln was born. On the eighth of September, 1903, I again visited
him, and, at my request, he gave a fuller statement, which I wrote out,
and then read it to him, all of which he said was correct, and is here
submitted:
"My name is Jacob S. Brother. My father's name was Henry, but he
was generally known as 'Harry.' I was born in Montgomery County,
Kentucky, March 8, 1819. In the year 1827, when I was eight years
old, my father purchased the old farm on which Abraham Lincoln
was born, in Kentucky. He purchased it of Henry Thomas. We
lived in the house in which Lincoln was born. After some years,
my father built another house almost like the first house. The
old house was torn down, and, to my knowledge, the logs were
burned for fire-wood. Later he built a hewed log house, and the
second old house was used as a hatter-shop. My father followed
the trade of making hats all his life. The pictures we often see
of the house in which Lincoln was born are pictures of the first
house built by my father. He died in the hewed log house, and my
youngest brother, Joseph, was born in the same house three weeks
after father's death. Some time after father's death, mother,
I, and the other children moved to near St. Joe, Missouri. The
brother born on the Lincoln farm enlisted in the Southern army,
and was captured at Lookout Mountain, and taken to Camp Morton,
Indianapolis, as a prisoner. My oldest brother, George, who was
a surgeon in the Union army, went to Washington City to see
President Lincoln, in order to get a reprieve for his brother.
Among other things, he told the President that his brother and he
(the President) were born on the same farm. I do not know how much
weight this had with the President, but my brother was reprieved.
I left Missouri to avoid going into the Confederate army, and came
to Rockport, Indiana, in 1863, where I have ever since resided."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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