The Question as to the Marriage of Abraham Lincoln’s Father and Mother
 
The following letter from an octogenarian to one of our citizens upon a mooted question as to the paternity and birth of the late President Lincoln, is not without interest:
 
Dear Sir: In the Louisville Courier-Journal of February 20, 1874, is a communication about Mr. Lincoln’s family, copied from the Indianapolis Journal, which bears the impress of truth. I know Mordecai Lincoln, Thomas Lincoln and the Berry’s. I will try to copy it for you:
 
To the editor of the Indianapolis Journal:
 
Some time since, by chance there fell into my hands an Evening Journal containing a letter from the Louisville Commercial, in which it was hinted that there had existed doubts in the public mind as to the marriage of Mr. Lincoln’s father and mother. In the year 1859 I went to Springfield, Kentucky, to teach and was in that neighborhood when he received the nomination for President. On the announcement of the name of the candidate all were on the qui vivre to know who the stranger was, so unexpectedly launched upon a perilous sea. A farmer remarked that he should not be surprised if this was a son of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, who were married at the house of Uncle Frank Berry (the old house is still standing). In a short time this supposition of the farmer was confirmed by the announcement of the father’s name.
 
A few days after I visited an aged lady by the name Litsay, who interested me much by giving me a description of the wedding of the father and mother of the new candidate, she having been a friend of the bride and present at the marriage. In 1866, after the liberation of 4,000,000 slaves had made the name of Abraham Lincoln memorable, I was again in the neighborhood and visited the old house in which was celebrated the nuptial rites above referred to. Its surroundings are among the most pictaresque in Kentucky. The Beach Fork, a small river of wonderful meanderings, flows near and is lost to view in a semi-circular amphitheatre of hills. While surveying the surrounding landscape, I thought it strange that inspiration had fallen on the mother of him who should be known as the liberator of the Nineteenth Century.
 
John Hanks (a cousin) calls her “Mrs. Nancy Lincoln, or Nancy Sparrow before marriage . . .”

The official record of this marriage will probably be found at Springfield. The newly married pair soon after left the country.
 
As I remember the story of Nancy Hanks, it ran thus: Her father and mother were Virginians, and died when she was very young. Her mother’s name before marriage was Shipley, and she was known to have two sisters, one of whom was married to a man by the name of Berry and the other to Robert Mitchell, who came to Kentucky about the year 1780; while on the journey the family was set upon by the Indians and Mrs. M. was fatally wounded, and their only daughter, Sarah, a child of eleven years old, was captured and borne away by the Modocs of the Wilderness. Mr. Mitchell bore the dying wife to a crab orchard and, like Abraham of old, purchased the renowned spot for the burial of his wife. After the last sad rites he mounted his horse, accompanied by his friend, Gen. Adair, and went in search of his daughter, but was drowned in Dip river while attempting to cross.
 
John Hanks (a cousin) calls her “Mrs. Lincoln, or Nancy Sparrow before marriage . . .”

The sons of this father and mother were scattered to different parts of the State. One of them, Daniel, settled in Washington county on the Beach Fork, a few miles from Springfield, and near two cousins, Frank and Ned Berry. To these cousins came Nancy Hanks, whom they welcomed to their homes, for legend is “her cheerful disposition and active habits were a dower to these pioneers.”
 
Soon after Mad Anthony Wayne’s treaty with the Indians in 1794 or 1795, the lost cousin was returned to her friends. The returned captive lived at the house of her brother, and Nancy Hanks at the house of her cousin, Frank Berry. These girls were soon as intimate as sisters. Sarah Mitchell was the pupil of Nancy in learning to spin flax – the later being an adept in that now lost art. It was the custom in those days to have spinning parties, on which occasions the wheels of the ladies were carried to the house designated, to which the competitors, distaff in hand, came ready for the work of the day. At a given house the wheels were put in motion, and the filmy fibre too the form of firmly lengthened strand in their mystic hands. Tradition says Nancy bore the palm, her spools yielding the longest and finest thread.

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When Nancy was about 8 or 10 years old, she was bound out to the family of Abraham Enloe to serve the family and be raised almost like their daughter. Abram Enloe was a well-known and successful businessman and a horse trader. The daughter Manda was sent to live with a family named Pratt.

Several years later, the Enloe family moved from Rutherford County west to Buncombe County, near Cherokee lands. They settled at a river called Ocuna Lufta (not far from present-day Asheville, NC). Nancy Hanks moved with them. But around 1803-4, Nancy became pregnant with Abraham Enloe’s baby.

Her father is *not* Joseph Hanks. (http://www.compapp.dcu.ie/%7Ehumphrys/FamTree/Royal/famous.unproved.html)

Another source says she was born in Hampshire County, (West) Virginia. The birth occurred in a cabin along Mike's Run at the foot of New Creek Mountain in what is now Mineral County, West Virginia.

Another source says Nancy Hanks (1784-1818), mother of Abraham Lincoln, was born on February 5, 1784, in Fauquier County Virginia

FamilySearch™ Ancestral File v4.19 says she was born in Amelia, Amelia County, VA.

In the fall, nearly two years after Thomas Lincoln had moved his family to the Little Pigeon Creek settlement in southern Indiana, Abraham's mother became desperately ill. On October 5, 1818, Nancy Hanks Lincoln died of milk sickness.

Nancy Hanks Lincoln's grave is located in Nancy Hanks Lincoln Cemetery, on the grounds of Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial in Lincoln City, Indiana.

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Another interesting part of the HANKS family heritage is the fact that through Moses Hanks our family is related to President Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln’s mother was Nancy HANKS Lincoln. According to Adin Baber and other Hanks family researchers, Nancy was the daughter of Abraham Hanks. Abraham Hanks was the brother of Moses Hanks, my ancestor. Much has been written about the Hanks lineage of President Abraham Lincoln. Some researchers claim Nancy’s father was Joseph Hanks (who was another brother of Moses Hanks—so the connection is still there). Others says Nancy was the illegitimate daughter of Lucy Hanks and a granddaughter of Joseph Hanks or else the daughter of a James Hanks who died young (married to a Lucy) and granddaughter of Joseph Hanks (the blood connection is still there).

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Nancy's mother was Lucy Hanks, but nothing is really known for certain about Nancy's father. According to Abraham Lincoln's law partner, William Herndon, Abraham once said that his maternal grandfather was "a well-bred Virginia farmer or planter." During the same conversation, Abraham said of his mother, "God bless my mother; all that I am or ever hope to be I owe to her."
Little is known of Nancy's early life. As a child Nancy was taken by her mother along the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky. In Kentucky Lucy Hanks married Henry Sparrow. Young Nancy went to live with Henry's brother, Thomas Sparrow, and Elizabeth Hanks Sparrow, a sister of Lucy. Soon Nancy began being called Nancy Sparrow. Elizabeth Hanks Sparrow became almost a mother to Nancy.