J. L. Hanks

[Anita]

Welcome Gene!

Thanks you for sharing some of your Hanks family history. Hope you'll share more.
Do you still live in Illinois?

I did a quick search of Decatur Harristown and here's what topped the list on Google. It's a story in the Herald and Review, Sept. 13, 2016.
https://herald-review.com/news/local/han...34d99.html

Here's a bit of the story. Gene, do you know this house?

"DECATUR -- In 1866, the man who brought Abraham Lincoln to Illinois and later helped label him the “Railsplitter Candidate” built a brick house in Hickory Point Township.

This was John Hanks, and the house he built still stands -- it’s at 3496 Betzer Ave. Other than peeling white paint, a different porch and a general state of disrepair, it doesn’t look much different than when it was erected."

"John Hanks isn’t a household name among nonhistorians, but he was first cousins with Lincoln’s mother Nancy Hanks Lincoln. He not only brought Lincoln to Decatur, but was also a major figure in Macon County history.

The house in question was built in 1866, but John Hanks’ history on the property dates back to 1829. Like Lincoln, Hanks came to Illinois from Indiana: He lived with the Lincolns awhile before moving west to Macon County in 1828. He originally settled near Harristown along the Sangamon River, and sent word to the Lincolns that there was rich farmland under the prairie and to “pull up stakes and come to Illinois.”

John, though, moved to Bull Point -- now called Hickory Point Township, about a half-mile east of Boiling Springs. He built a cabin there and began farming. When the Lincolns arrived in 1830, he helped them build a cabin, smokehouse and barn near Harristown where John had originally settled. John and Lincoln -- then 21 years old -- split the rails used to build the cabin, and later split more than 3,000 logs in the employ of Macon County Sheriff William Warnick, who lived near there."