Adin Baber on Nancy Hanks

[Steve Whitlock]

(03-19-2021 02:20 PM)Steve Whitlock Wrote:  

(03-19-2021 01:39 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  Steve,

Evidently the Boston Globe either didn't run that chapter, or I somehow missed it. However, I was able to find the article in the Los Angeles Times. I've uploaded it to a website called PDF Host. Here is the link.

Best
Rob

https://pdfhost.io/v/cxWW7OA52_In_The_Fo..._LIpdf.pdf

I just sent the pdf file from your link to Roger. It's only 568 kb, but I'm limited to 1 kb. Perhaps he can post it, and I'll go from there.

Rob,

Thank you for your efforts!! I decided to make a word document out of Chapter VII. In 1923 it was "In The Footsteps of Abraham Lincoln" and in 1924 it became "In The Footsteps of The Lincolns", but the content is the same for Chapter VII with a couple of minor exceptions for a few words.

So, anyone who wants to follow along can either use the newspaper article with a couple of damaged areas, the book by Ida M. Tarbell or the attached document.

Miss Tarbell starts off by going to a Quaker, John Hanks, in PA, who she believes is associated with the Lincolns. That John Hanks m: Sarah Evans, and among his children had a son, Joseph Hanks; however, he was not the Joseph Hanks that m: Ann "Nanny" Lee. That Joseph Hanks was born in North Farnham Parish of Richmond Co., VA, as shown in the NFP Register, with parents John and Catherine (Williams) Hanks. Ann Lee was also in Richmond Co., VA, a daughter of William Lee 1704-1764. She had several siblings, among them Peter and Mark Lee, who are of record in Nelson and Mercer Co., KY, before moving to LA (where Mark Lee served as a witness for the marriage of Charles Hanks, son of Joseph and Ann (Lee) Hanks, as stated on the marriage record).

The John Hanks mentioned by Ida Tarbell seems likely as John Hank, and Myra Hank Rudolph researched that line heavily in an attempt to prove a link to President Lincoln, but there seems to be no verifiable link.

Ida next mentions Abraham Hanks going over the Wilderness Road, but turning back. That's true, but not the whole story. From an Abraham Hanks document by Nancy Royce we show:

"Abraham Hanks traveled with William Calk to Boone’s Fort, Ky. in 1775. Abraham Hanks in Pr. William Co., Va. on 13 March 1775 set out for Ky. from Pr. Wm. Co., Va. with William Calk.11 On the 13th of April 1775 Hanks and Drake, another man with the group, decide to turn back.12 “Hanks and Drake had not gone far back over the Wilderness road...when they met another band of pioneers going to Kentucky. The two Virginians...joined this band and reached Boone’s fort shortly after Colonel Henderson and his followers.”13

13 Lewis H. Kilpatrick, The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 7, Issue 4 (March 1921), 363-377, The Journal of William Calk, Kentucky Pioneer, page 370

Skipping ahead a little bit Miss Tarbell raises a question, "Was there another Nancy Hanks recognized anywhere in Kentucky records? She could find none of a proper age, nor has any one else found one of proper age." That last line is not true. There was another Nancy Hanks of proper age, the eldest daughter of Lucy (Hanks) Sparrow. She was the Nancy Hanks who married Thomas Lincoln. Nancy Hanks, dtr of Joseph Hanks and Ann Lee, married Levi Hall 18 Oct 1802 in Green Co., KY, and was not available to marry Thomas Lincoln. Nancy and Levi both died later from the "milk sickness" and were buried by her niece, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, and her sister, Elizabeth Hanks Sparrow. It was Elizabeth and her husband, Thomas Sparrow, brother of Henry Sparrow, who had no children and took in Dennis Friend Hanks, the out of wedlock son of Nancy Hanks Hall, as Dennis stated. Dennis also inherited the estate of Thomas and Elizabeth Sparrow after their death.

The letters that Ida Tarbell mentions from Elizabeth (Adams) Hanks and her son, Jacob Mckendree Hanks (4 letters) are in pdf format, so I can't attach them, but they do claim that Nancy Hanks Lincoln was the sister of Joseph Hanks Jr, but that isn't true. Jacob's sister, Mrs M. A. Wilson (Martha Ann (Hanks) Wilson) as stated in an earlier post in this thread somehow knew correctly that Joseph Jr said his sisters were Nancy Hall, Polly Friend and Elizabeth Sparrow, but left out Lucy (Hanks) Sparrow for some reason. William Hanks on the other hand knew that Lucy was his sister, and advised John "The Railsplitter" Hanks that Nancy Hanks Lincoln was his first cousin. It's unfortunate that my exact notes for that are gone with my old notes, which it seems I am not going to recover. Also, when aunts Polly Friend and Elizabeth Sparrow were sent for at Abraham Lincoln's birth, they would have been sisters, not aunts, if Nancy Hanks Lincoln was the daughter of Joseph and Ann (Lee) Hanks.

Mrs E. S. Hanks also claims her father, Green Adams, was a 1st cousin of John Quincy Adams, but that too is false. Green Adams married in Hardin Co.., KY to an Enlow. After his death she remarried, and was with Jacob Vertrees Hanks in a census. I have traced the line of Green Adams back several generations, and not any level of cousin, let alone a 1st cousin. For educated people, as was Charlotte Vawter, significant errors were made.

To be clear here, what Ida M. Tarbell wrote concerning the Jacob Vertrees Hanks family is in accordance with the letters she received from people who should have reasonably been expected to know the truth, but were untruthful.

Both John Hanks and Abraham Lincoln mention Lucy Hanks being the mother of Nancy Hanks Lincoln, so it's pointless for me to keep chewing on that bone. The Jacob Vertrees Hanks descendants, and wife, seem not to have any knowledge of her.

This is already lengthy, but there are 2 more points to make re:

"One thing is certain, no such discussion as this disturbed the peace of the marriage of Nancy Hanks and Thomas Lincoln. That marriage on June 12, 1806, at Beechland, Washington County, Kentucky, was a gay affair, with a great dinner and friends and neighbors from far and wide. The ceremony was performed by one of the best known clergymen of that part of Kentucky in that day, Jesse Head, whose marriage returns, to be seen in the Springfield court house, report the wedding he had celebrated."

The "gay affair" part seems to be the testimony of Dr. C. C. Graham, who mentioned Nancy's guardian, Mr Parrot, the clerk who signed the marriage bond for Thomas and Nancy, as her guardian and the one with all the food and "gay affair", but the reality is that Richard Berry Jr was the guardian, likely because Nancy had no close male kin in attendance, even tho she was of age. If C. C. Graham just saw the marriage record and made up the rest, who was still around to know. He is an unreliable witness.

Also, tho it took awhile, and Charlotte Vawter, to come up with the marriage records in the 1870's for Thomas and Nancy, President Lincoln knew about the marriage in 1864, much sooner. General Samuel Gano "Butcher" Burbridge wrote a couple of letters to Lincoln explaining what Jesse Head and others had advised him of in regard to the marriage of Tom and Nancy.

"I Have Seen a Good Deal of the Back Side of This World": Childhood in Kentucky (1809-1816)
Michael Burlingame – Abraham Lincoln: A Life
39 Poortown was also known as Beechland. The wedding, performed by the Methodist minister Jesse Head, was held at the cabin of Richard Berry, who served as Nancy’s guardian. The cabin was made of “hewn logs, fine for that day.” Reminiscences of the Rev. Mr. George L. Rogers of Elizabethtown, paraphrased in Stephen G. Burbridge to Abraham Lincoln, Lexington, Kentucky, 8 November 1864, copy, Lincoln Collection, Brown University. At the age of ninety-nine, Christopher C. Graham described the wedding. Ida M. Tarbell, The Early Life of Abraham Lincoln(New York: McClure, 1896), 235-36. His account is suspect. Martha Stephenson to William E. Barton, 14 February 1924, Barton Papers, University of Chicago. A Mrs. Litsey, who was allegedly an eyewitness, gave her account to Charlotte Spear Hobart Vawter, who reported it in a letter which appeared in the Louisville Courier, 20 February 1874. Vawter alleged that Nancy Hanks was a cousin of her grandmother, Sarah Shipley Mitchell, who also lived with the Berrys. That document is reproduced in Caroline Hanks Hitchcock, Nancy Hanks: The Story of Abraham Lincoln’s Mother (New York: Doubleday & McClure, 1899), 72-80. Cf. Lincoln Lore, no. 1418 (11 June 1956).
49 Otis M. Mather, “Thomas Lincoln in Larue County, Kentucky,” talk given 26 June 1937, 2, Mather Papers, Filson Club, Louisville, Kentucky. Mather called Thomas Lincoln “a good, substantial citizen.” Ibid., 9. A parishioner of J. Edward Murr told him that her grandmother was present at Lincoln’s birth. That grandmother “described the evidences of poverty – the rude bedstead, the one room log cabin – the bear skin placed upon the bed.” Murr, “Wilderness Years of Lincoln,” 74. Harvey H. Smith alleged that his great grandmother, Sally Gentry Smith, and her daughter Nancy, then eleven years old, along with an aged slave, were the only persons present at the delivery of Lincoln. Thomas, Smith said, was away on jury duty. H. H. Smith to Esther C. Cushman, Vine Grove, Hardin County, Kentucky, 11 February 1934, Lincoln Collection, Brown University. One unlikely tradition suggests that the baby was named after Abraham Enlow, a neighbor whom Thomas Lincoln asked to fetch a midwife when Nancy was ready to deliver. This story was told by Mrs. Betsy Middleton, who in turn imparted it to Mrs. Mary J. Churchill, a sister of Judge Alfred Mackenzie Brown. Alfred Mackenzie Brown to Reuben T. Durrett, Louisville, Kentucky, 12 May 1886, Durrett Personal Papers, University of Chicago. See also J. L. Nall to W. H. Sweeney, Carthage, Missouri, 2 February 1881, unidentified clipping, copying an undated article from the Lebanon, Kentucky, Standard, ibid. Nancy Hanks told the Rev. Mr. George L. Rogers of Elizabethtown that young Abe was baptized (“sprinkled”) in the traditional Methodist fashion. Stephen G. Burbridge to Abraham Lincoln, Lexington, Kentucky, 8 November 1864, copy, Lincoln Collection, Brown University.
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That's enough for now.

Steve Whitlock