rough five
generations to Samuel Lincoln of Norfolk County, England. Not many
years after the landing of the "Mayflower" at Plymouth--perhaps in the
year 1638--Samuel Lincoln's son Mordecai had emigrated to Hingham,
Massachusetts. Perhaps because he was a Quaker, a then persecuted sect,
he did not remain long at Hingham, but came westward as far as Berks
County, Pennsylvania. His son, John Lincoln, went southward from
Pennsylvania and settled in Rockingham County, Virginia. Later, in 1782,
while the last events of the American Revolution were in progress,
Abraham Lincoln, son of John and grandfather of President Lincoln, moved
into Kentucky and took up a tract of government land in Mercer County.
In the Field Book of Daniel Boone, the Kentucky pioneer, (now in
possession of the Wisconsin Historical Society), appears the following
note of purchase:

"Abraham Lincoln enters five hundred acres of land on a Treasury
warrant on the south side of Licking Creek or River, in Kentucky."

At this time Kentucky was included within the limits and jurisdiction of
Virginia. In 1775 Daniel Boone had built a fort at Boonesborough, on the
Kentucky river, and it was not far from this site that Abraham Lincoln,
President Lincoln's grandfather, located his claim and put up a rude log
hut for the shelter of his family. The pioneers of Kentucky cleared
small spaces and erected their humble dwellings. They had to contend not
only with the wild forces of nature, and to defend themselves from the
beasts of the forest,--more to be feared than either were the hostile
Indians. The settlers were filled with terror of these stealthy foes. At
home and abroad they kept their guns ready for instant use both night
and day. Many a hard battle was fought between the Indian and the
pioneer. Many an unguarded woodsman was shot down without warning while
busy about his necessary work. Among these was Abraham Lincoln. The
story of his death is related by Mr. I.N. Arnold. "Thomas Lincoln was
with his father in the field when the savages suddenly fell upon them.
Mordecai and Josiah, his elder brothers, were near by in the forest.
Mordecai, startled by a shot, saw his father fall, and running to the
cabin seized the loaded rifle, rushed to one of the loop-holes cut
through the logs of the cabin, and saw the Indian who had fired. He had
just caught the boy, Thomas, and was running toward the forest. Pointing
the rifle through the logs and aiming at a m