Nancy Hanks - a wrestler?

[RJNorton]

I do not know how reliable this is, but Lincoln may have inherited his wrestling abilities from his mother. In a book titled "Reminiscences of the early bench and bar of Illinois" (published in 1879) Usher F. Linder wrote:

"Abraham Lincoln was born in Hardin county (now La' Rue), within ten miles of the place where I first saw the light, and a little over a month ahead of me. His mother, whose maiden name was Nancy Hanks, was said to be a very strong-minded woman, and one of the most athletic women in Kentucky. In a fair wrestle, she could throw most of the men who ever put her powers to the test. A reliable gentleman told me he heard the late Jack Thomas, clerk of the Grayson Court, say he had frequently wrestled with her, and she invariably laid him on his back. Lincoln himself was a man of great physical powers a perfect type of sinews and muscles wrapped around enormous bones."