Lincoln's birthday

[Ed Steers]

This book says the pages with the vital information written by Lincoln were torn out of the Bible by Dennis Hanks with copies being made by John D. Johnston and a grandson of Lincoln's stepmother.

https://books.google.com/books?id=wYmvvE...g=PA26&dq=

Although looking at the entries, it looks like John D. Johnston is where Lincoln copied most or all of the information in the Bible from.

My understanding is that it was John D. who copied, not v.v.:

How/why should John D. have been the source of Lincoln's date of birth? Probably the bible entry was a joint venture, each adding his personal family data, Lincoln on the Lincolns, and John D. J. on the Johnstons.

Ed Steers (who wrote the book you linked to) is a forum member - maybe he could kindly comment?

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This book says the pages with the vital information written by Lincoln were torn out of the Bible by Dennis Hanks with copies being made by John D. Johnston and a grandson of Lincoln's stepmother.

https://books.google.com/books?id=wYmvvE...g=PA26&dq=

Although looking at the entries, it looks like John D. Johnston is where Lincoln copied most or all of the information in the Bible from.

My understanding is that it was John D. who copied, not v.v.:

How/why should John D. have been the source of Lincoln's date of birth? Probably the bible entry was a joint venture, each adding his personal family data, Lincoln on the Lincolns, and John D. J. on the Johnstons.

Ed Steers (who wrote the book you linked to) is a forum member - maybe he could kindly comment?

I am not clear on what the controversy is - however, Lincoln made all the entries in the family Bible. Before Dennis Hanks removed the page, John D. Johnston made a copy that he kept in a ledger book that he took to Arkansas. Dennis Hanks's daughter "inherited" the original page from Dennis and gave it to Jesse Weik when he helped Herndon write his biography of Lincoln. John J. Hall (grandson of Lincoln's step-mother) also made a copy of the page. The Hall copy was published in 1879 in "The History of Coles County." I discuss all of this in my Lincoln Herald article "Nancy Hanks. West Virginian" with citations suppoprting the above (vol. 100, no. 2 Summer 1998, pp.64-65).