Lincoln's grandfather, for whom he was named Abraham, was a distant cousin to Daniel Boone. The Boones and the Lincolns had intermarried for generations. The Lincolns were of good old English stock. When he was President, Abraham Lincoln, who had never given much attention to the family pedigree, said that the history of his family was well described by a single line in Gray's "Elegy": "The short and simple annals of the poor." Yet Grandfather Abraham was wealthy for his day. He accompanied Boone from Virginia to Kentucky and lost his life there. He had sacrificed part of his property to the pioneer spirit within him, and, with the killing of their father, his family lost the rest. They were "land poor" in the wilderness of the "Dark-and-Bloody-Ground"--the meaning of the Indian name, "Ken-tuc-kee." Grandfather Lincoln had built a solid log cabin and cleared a field or two around it, near the Falls of the Ohio, about where Louisville now stands. But, in the Summer of 1784, the tragic day dawned upon the Lincolns which has come to many a pioneer family in Kentucky and elsewhere. His son Thomas told this story to his children: HOW INDIANS KILLED "GRANDFATHER LINCOLN" "My father--your grandfather, Abraham Lincoln--come over the mountains from Virginia with his cousin, Dan'l Boone. He was rich for them times, as he had property worth seventeen thousand dollars; but Mr. Boone he told Father he could make a good deal more by trappin' and tradin' with the Injuns for valuable pelts, or fur skins. "You know, Dan'l Boone he had lived among the Injuns. He was a sure shot with the rifle so's he could beat the redskins at their own game. They took him a prisoner oncet, and instead of killin' him, they was about ready to make him chief--he pretended all the while as how he'd like that--when he got away from 'em. He was such a good fellow that them Injuns admired his shrewdness, and they let him do about what he pleased. So he thought they'd let Father alone. "Well, your grandfather was a Quaker, you see, and believed in treatin' them red devils well--like William Penn done, you know. He was a man for peace and quiet, and everything was goin' smooth with the tribes of what we called the Beargrass Country, till one day, when he and my brothers, Mordecai--'Mord' was a big fellow for his age--and Josiah, a few years younger--was out in the clearin' with the oxen, haulin' logs down to the crick. I went along too, but I didn't help much--for I was only six. "Young as I was, I remember what happened that day like it was only yesterday. It come like a bolt out of the blue. We see Father drop like he was shot--for he _was_ shot! Then I heard the crack of a rifle and I saw a puff of smoke floatin' out o' the bushes.