Lincoln Relatives

[L Verge]

During a special program at Surratt House yesterday, members from New Jersey arrived and handed me a copy of an undated, unsourced article from a Pennsylvania newspaper relative to "Lincoln's Schuylkill Cousins." For those with a bend towards Lincoln genealogy - especially Ed Steers - you may be familiar with these "cousins."

They are descended through Lincoln's great-great grandfather, Mordecai, and his daughter, Mary, who was born in New Jersey, but grew up in a stone house that still stands on the east bank of the Schuylkill River in Exeter Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania. She married Francis Yarnall, a surveyor, in 1741, and in a few years, the couple moved to North Manheim Township and built a mill. They later moved on to Taylorsville in Barry Township, where most of their descendants still live under the name Yarnall or Yarnell.

It's a lengthy article, but rather amusing in that, while they know their kinship to our famous President, they seldom mention it or own up to it. One family member commented on the fact that Mordecai owned a slave named Jack and another pointed out that one of Mordecai's sons married a cousin of Daniel Boone.

There is a book on the subject that mentions a tie even to Mary Todd. It seems that the first court proceeding in Schuylkill County was held in 1812, with the first judge, Robert Porter, being a grand-uncle of Mary Todd. He presided over the first trial, and the first defendant was Amos Yarnall, who was convicted of assault and battery and ordered to pay court expenses and a fine of fifty cents.

Both Mary Lincoln Yarnall and her husband, Francis, lie in unmarked graves in the Reed's Cemetery (sometimes called "Bickel's") on private land near Taylorsville. The stones that once marked their graves were washed away by flooding from the nearby Mahanoy River years ago, but supposedly some of the elderly residents in the area can point out the approximate location.

[RJNorton]

(02-25-2018 02:22 PM)L Verge Wrote:  They are descended through Lincoln's great-great grandfather, Mordecai, and his daughter, Mary, who was born in New Jersey, but grew up in a stone house that still stands on the east bank of the Schuylkill River in Exeter Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania.

Here's a photo of the home:

[L Verge]

Is this the Mordecai Lincoln who married a Mudd?

[RJNorton]

(02-25-2018 03:59 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Is this the Mordecai Lincoln who married a Mudd?

No, that was the Mordecai Lincoln who was born c. 1771 on Linville Creek, Rockingham County, Virginia. Mordecai's parents were Abraham and Bathsheba Lincoln (according to author William Barton). Mordecai was an older brother of Thomas Lincoln (born 1778), father of President Abraham Lincoln.

Mordecai married Mary Mudd in 1792.

[Houmes]

(02-25-2018 02:22 PM)L Verge Wrote:  They are descended through Lincoln's great-great grandfather , while they know their kinship to our famous President, they seldom mention it or own up to it. One family member commented on the fact that Mordecai owned a slave named Jack and another pointed out that one of Mordecai's sons married a cousin of Daniel Boone.

[/and]

...Nancy Hanks, the young Lincoln's birth mother, had died in Indiana from milk sickness in October of 1818, and the following year Thomas Lincoln returned to Kentucky and married Sarah Johnston in Elizabethtown...Sarah was the daughter of Christopher and Hannah Bush and was born in Kentucky, the last of six sons and three daughters. Her father was prosperous with extensive land holdings and knew Thomas Lincoln well...William Bush, the oldest brother of Sarah Bush, was born in 1763 and had moved with the family from New Jersey to Hardin County in 1780...legal problems of William Bush began much earlier. Although prosperous, he was frequently entangled lawsuits. His reputation was guarded and he did not enjoy the respect accorded other family members...When Sarah Bush Johnston wed Thomas Lincoln and moved to Indiana, she brought three young children and little else. Her first marriage to Daniel Johnston ended with his death in 1818, leaving her penniless...Although he (Abraham Lincoln) lived with them, grew up with them, and moved with them to Indiana and Illinois, his adult life seemed punctuated by their frequent pleas (Johnston and Hanks) for money...In October of 1798, William Bush filed suit against J. McCreery for an uncollected debt of 600 pounds with pounds damages. The was filed to pay after the delivery of four slaves sold to him by Bush...at a final 1801 trial, the jury considered the charges and noted: "We of the jury find for the Defendant five shillings in Damages..."

Manuscripts, 54.3, Summer 2002.