Squire Mordecai Lincoln

[RJNorton]

(05-01-2017 01:48 PM)loetar44 Wrote:  John was raised (till his 15th birthday) by his grandparents John and Mary (Yarnall) Lincoln, while Mordecai with his then 3-year-old daughter Pauline, journeyed to Carter County, Tennessee, to his uncle Isaac and aunt Mary Ward. He decided to settle here in the Watauga Valley and bought (about 1815) the "Fish Spring Farm" at Stony Creek.

Writing about his father, Thomas, Abraham Lincoln wrote:

"Before he was grown he passed one year as a hired hand with his uncle Isaac on Watauga, a branch of the Holston River."

William E. Barton writes that this was in 1798. Thomas would have been 20 years old at the time he was in Tennessee. Thomas Lincoln lived in a cabin at the foot of Lynn Mountain, and he apparently did not get along with Isaac. Otherwise he might have settled on the Watauga and not returned to Kentucky.

I have read (Barton) that Thomas Lincoln first met Nancy Hanks c.1805 in Kentucky.

But here it says:

"It was also at the Stover farm, when it was the property of Isaac and Mary Lincoln, that Thomas Lincoln, the father of Abraham Lincoln, worked for a while as a farmhand for his Uncle Isaac. (See Holland's Life of Lincoln, and Nicolay and Hay's Life of Lincoln.)

"Tradition says that it was here, in the beautiful Watauga Valley, so rich in history, that the young Thomas Lincoln first met and wooed the gentle Nancy Hanks, whose name was destined to become immortal through the achievements of her illustrious son. Tradition further says that for a while before Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks left for Kentucky they lived for a time together as common law husband and wife in a little cabin on Lynn Mountain, which overlooks the Watauga Valley. I have been informed that old people in that vicinity still recall the site of what was known as the Tom Lincoln cabin, and traces of the spot where the cabin stood still remain in the way of stone foundations.

"It is also the tradition in that vicinity that when Thomas Lincoln, Nancy Hanks and other members of the Hanks family left for Kentucky they went by what was then and now known as the Stony Creek trail. Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks were legally married in Kentucky."

Does anyone know for certain where Thomas Lincoln met Nancy Hanks? Was it in Kentucky, or was it in Tennessee?