Lincoln and His Father

[Gene C]

Gene, I found a web page that says:

"Historians believe John Jake Gordon, one of the early settlers in the area, started the cemetery in the 1830s.

After Lincoln was assassinated, Baker’s grandparents helped raise money to purchase a limestone obelisk to replace the hand-carved markers over Thomas and Sarah Bush Lincoln’s grave.

Throughout the years, souvenir hunters chipped away pieces of the first stone monument, so the local Lion’s Club collected funds to erect the headstone currently delineating the Lincolns’ graves. The limestone marker was relocated near the entrance to the cemetery."

http://jg-tc.com/news/the-dead-are-not-s...98062.html

Thanks Roger.

The first paragraph of the article appears to be a bit in error.
"Before he left Illinois to assume the presidency, Abraham Lincoln visited the graves of his father and stepmother. And it was John W. Baker, grandfather of Charleston resident Gale Baker, who showed the president-elect where Thomas and Sarah Bush Lincoln were interred in the Coles County cemetery now named after the elder Lincoln.

Abraham's step mother was still alive when he left for Washington.
An interesting article.
Perhaps if we do a fall Springfield Tour of 2018 or 2019 we can look into this further