Attached is a rather interesting article of 57 pages.

"AN ARCHEOLOGICAL OVERVIEW AND
ASSESSMENT OF LINCOLN BOYHOOD NATIONAL
MEMORIAL, SPENCER COUNTY, INDIANA"

This seems to have been prepared for the National Park Service in 1997

Not sure how I found this, but I found sections of it very interesting.
For those of you interested in trash dump and privies, you will find p 30 of particular interest.

Other interesting topics include
The Farm After the Lincolns
The Nancy Hanks Cemetery
The History of Lincoln City
Reference for Further Studies
Cabin Architecture
Archeology at the Lincoln Boyhood Memorial
Misc. Photos and Maps

https://npshistory.com/publications/libo/aoa.pdf

If you are interested in Lincoln's early life in Indiana, you will find this informative with information not found in most history books.

A few days ago I got a random YouTube video recommendation which led to this video from the same channel. This video is just a recording of a talk given at a confrence in Nov. 2024 by forensic genealogist Colleen Fitzpatrick about the possibility of using DNA to solve a 1971 air piracy/hijacking case. I know, it doesn't really have anything to do with this Forum. But in the openning minutes of her talk she give a brief overview of previous historical cases she's worked on. One of them involved testing the DNA of Abraham Lincoln and his relatives. She seems to say that Lincoln had some African American ancestry:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WrpAZi3AuI

(relevant section begins at 2:41 point)

The whole video is about 40 minutes long but this section is only a couple of minutes long.

Does anyone have any idea what she's talking about?

Steve Whitlock was involved in the Genetic Lincoln group, but sadly he's passed and I can't ask him him about this. Here's a link to her Wikipedia page, so she's not a crank peddling the Abraham Enloe nonsense:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colleen_M._Fitzpatrick

Abraham Lincoln has one of the more mysterious family trees of any of the presidents - his maternal grandfather is unknown and his paternal grandmother (Thomas Lincoln's mother) is only known by her first name, Bathsheba, without a known maiden name or family. (Some people have claimed that her maiden last name was Herring, but as of yet, there's no evidence for that.) That's 50% unknown ancestry with a potential for surprises. But I've never heard of any DNA test finding African ancestry.

Lincoln own words on Ann Rutledge:
After Lincoln's first election as president, Isaac Cogdal, a friend of Lincoln's, ventured to ask whether it was true that Lincoln had fallen in love with Ann. Lincoln is said to have replied:

It is true—true indeed I did. I loved the woman dearly and soundly: she was a handsome girl—would have made a good, loving wife.... I did honestly and truly love the girl and think often—often of her now
From
Donald, David Herbert (1995). Lincoln. New York: Touchstone. ISBN 0-684-80846-3.
pp.57-58 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Rutledge {reference only}

The story of the Lincoln's living in a half-faced camp during their first winter in Indiana always seemed a bit dubious to me.

William Herndon wrote in the preface of Herndon's Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life - ( https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex...01.05.0025 )
"In determining Lincoln's title to greatness we must not only keep in mind the times in which he lived, but we must, to a certain extent, measure him with other men. Many of our great men and our statesmen, it is true, have been self-made, rising gradually through struggles to the topmost round of the ladder; but Lincoln rose from a lower depth than any of them — from a stagnant, putrid pool, like the gas which, set on fire by its own energy and self-combustible nature, rises in jets, blazing, clear, and bright. I should be remiss in my duty if I did not throw the light on this part of the picture, so [x] that the world may realize what marvellous contrast one phase of his life presents to another."

According to the same book above, in chapter 2,
The head of the household now set resolutely to work to build a shelter for his family.
In this forbidding structure, when completed, was fourteen feet square, and was built of small unhewn logs. In the language of the day, it was called a “half-faced camp,” being enclosed on all sides but one. It had neither floor, door, nor windows. In this forbidding hovel these doughty emigrants braved the exposure of the varying seasons for an entire year.

The article below gives us a little more information regarding the source and story of the half-faced camp.
The author of this article - Lincoln Lore, December 11, 1939 - reaches this conclusion at the end of his article,
"The story of that half-faced camp is but another one of Herndon's gross exaggerations.

You'll just have to read this to find out why
https://www.friendsofthelincolncollectio...-11_01.pdf

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Here is a nice web site of some very well done photos that you might enjoy by Galen Frysinger. .

http://www.galenfrysinger.com/interior_l...linois.htm

This video, which answers this question, was recently posted on Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlcIEaqT1qU

Unfortunately, Sondra Hicks got it wrong. If you read the comments to the video, several of the viewers believe her story.

How do I know she got it wrong?
It's a long story that isn't new. She gives you some clues in her video.
I'll give you some time to research it for yourself if you want to.
Over the next few days I'll share with you what I found out.

Please feel free to add your comments. It's a shame how this kind of false history gets spread. We've seen it before, even by some of the former posters on this site.
Stay tuned in, don't worry. We'll sort this out.

short video from Youtube by the History Guy

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/UGxHpovIPEs

your thoughts ?

Did Lincoln get into an actual physical altercation with one of the Grigsby brothers, along the time of the authorship of the, "Chronicles of Reuben"? Thanks in advance.

I haven't watched all of it yet, what I've seen is good, and the comments are very favorable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQnl5TY2eh8

I am sure that many of you may already know this story but I happened to stumble upon this today and it was something I didn't know about Lincoln before he became President. It seems that as Lincoln was running for president during his campaign he attracted a young girl by the name of Grace Bedell who was from Westfield, New York. She wrote Lincoln to express her excitement about his campaign and that she felt that he would gain much more support if he grew facial hair. In her letter to Mr. Lincoln she wrote, "I hope you won't think me very bold to write to such a great man as you are," she goes on, "I have 4 brothers and part of them will vote for you anyway and if you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you you would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President."

In a letter dated October 19, 1960, Mr. Lincoln wrote back to Grace. "Having never worn any, do you not think that people would call it a piece of silly affection if I were to begin it now?" he asked. Yet, by the following January, the recently elected present was seen to have a beard growing in. The next month, in February 1861 a bearded President Lincoln made a stop in Westfield and met Grace Bedell in person.

As he continued to make his way by train to Washington, D.C., his facial hair filled in, and by the time of his March 1861 inauguration, he was the first United States President with a full beard.

I read this in History Facts and it was such an adorable story I just had to bring it here. For those of you who already know this story, I hope you will forgive me. I had never heard the story and thought that I would share it.