I finally managed (on my third try) to complete Part 1 of my Chasing Abraham Lincoln tour. Last week I wrote about my first stop at the Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum, which is on the campus of Lincoln Memorial University. My next stop was the homestead where Abraham Lincoln died and Thomas Lincoln got married.
That may sound a little confusing at first. Consider how I started chapter one of my book, Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America:
Abraham Lincoln was killed by an Indian in the spring of 1786. This was the namesake grandfather of the future president. Thomas Lincoln, the president’s father, was nearly killed at the same time. Only 8 years old, young Thomas was being dragged away by his father’s murderer when Mordecai, his 15-year-old brother, killed the attacker with a shot from the family musket. Thus, Thomas was saved and the family line leading to Abraham Lincoln’s birth remained intact. Had Thomas died as a child, the future of the United States would have been substantially different, if the country existed at all.
The Lincoln Homestead is the farm where Abraham Lincoln (the grandfather) was killed. It’s also where Thomas Lincoln (Abe Lincoln’s father) courted Nancy Hanks, Lincoln’s mother.
The site itself was closed the day I arrived, which meant I couldn’t get inside the buildings. I could, however, walk around the grounds and take photos. The “Lincoln Cabin” is a reconstruction, as is the “Lincoln Workshop.” These are set up as they would have been when Thomas Lincoln was growing up. The third building is an original structure. The two story Francis Berry House is where Nancy Hanks was working as a seamstress while being courted by Thomas. Thomas proposed in front of the big fireplace. I couldn’t get inside but did snap a few photos through the windows.
As I mention in the book excerpt above, Thomas’s older brother Mordecai had killed their father Abraham’s killer. Through the ancestral law of primogeniture, the entire estate passed to the eldest brother Mordecai when he gained adulthood, at which point he likely turned the 12-year-old Thomas out of the house to work for others. Mordecai then built the much larger house above about a mile down the road. He lived out the rest of his life in that house, farming the large tract of land that now encompasses the Lincoln Homestead State Park (and an 18-hole golf course).
And here is where the story gets weird. Mordecai gained even more pedigree by marrying Mary Mudd from one of the “first families” of Washington County, Kentucky. If that name sounds familiar it’s because she is a distant cousin to Samuel Mudd, the doctor who set John Wilkes Booth’s broken leg after he assassinated Abraham Lincoln.
From the Lincoln Homestead I headed for Knob Creek and the Lincoln Birthplace. More on those in following posts.
David J. Kent is the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (2013) and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (2016) and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.
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Everyone knows about the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois, but there is another Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum. This one is in Harrogate, Tennessee in the campus of Lincoln Memorial University. And I spent the day there. It was an incredible experience.
In mid 
Named after our nation’s fifth president, Fort Monroe is, or at least was, one of the premier defenses of the Chesapeake Bay and Hampton Roads. Not far from here was the famous Battle of the Ironclads. On a recent visit I was able to tour the Fort Monroe National Monument, and in particular, the 
The 
In the summer of 1864 Lincoln was becoming increasingly desperate to finish the war. He authorized Grant to engage in destructive warfare, targeting and destroying plantations, railroads, bridges, crops, and anything that the Confederacy needed to sustain its troops. In the latter part of 1864, General Philip Sheridan burned fields and plantations in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, while Sherman did the same in his March to the Sea through Georgia. Union forces left no possibility that Confederate forces could resupply soldiers along the way.
Meanwhile, Lincoln was coming under fire, literally. Robert E. Lee sent Confederate General Jubal Early to race up the Shenandoah Valley, invade Maryland, 
I’ll soon be off chasing Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln is everywhere it seems – Cuba, Norway, Scotland, the UK – but he spent most of his life in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois. And that’s where I’m going on my Chasing Abraham Lincoln Tour of 2018.
The Abraham Lincoln Institute holds an annual symposium, the last several years of which were held in historic Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. Standing on-stage under the theatre box where Lincoln was assassinated creates a wave of emotions, from intimidating, to sadness, to inspiration.
