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 <The Beloued Foster Motner 
 
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 am Lincoln 
 
 A Memoria 
 
 Elizabelhtotun IDomdn's Club 
 Elizaoetnlocon, KenlucI 
 
Copijnqht 1922 
 Elizabefhtoujn lUoman's Club 
 
Foreipord 
 
 HIE purpose of this brochure is to preserve a val- 
 uable item of history relative to the foster mother 
 of Abraham Lincoln, and to establish as a fact 
 data that might become traditional. A further 
 desire on the part of the compilers, is to present 
 
 to the public a descriptive booklet that will allow 
 
 them to appreciate the significance of a bronze tablet to be 
 erected to the memory of Sarah Bush Lincoln, at Elizabethtown, 
 Kentucky, contemporaneous with the publication of the work 
 in' hand. 
 
 The memorial, which will stand on the courthouse square, 
 will consist of a bronze tablet placed on a limestone base. This 
 piece of limestone has been taken from the Mill Creek farm, 
 where Thomas Lincoln lived in 1803 and which he purchased on 
 September second of the same year. This memorial cons ^ructed 
 by the Elizabethtown Woman's Club is made possible by a gift 
 for this purpose from Dr. William Allen Pusey of Chicago. 
 
 A feature of this booklet is the reproduction of a photo- 
 graphic copy of the Thomas Lincoln Marriage Bond, the original 
 document being filed in the Hardin County Court House. It con- 
 tains the signature of Thomas Lincoln, father of the President. 
 A picture of the old cabin, in which the wedding took place, is 
 also presented, taken while the building was in the process of 
 demolition. Mr. Squire Bush, an own nephew of Sarah Bush Lin- 
 coln, and the last one of his generation, is seen in the foreground 
 of the picture. Mr. Bush's affidavit aflirms the authenticity of 
 this picture. 
 
 While this old building was being razed, Rev. Louis A. War- 
 ren, an authority on the Kentucky history of the Lincolns, pur- 
 Chased the roof containing the original wooden pegs, and has 
 since presented it to the Elizabethtown Woman's Club. This roof 
 has been worked into attractive souvenirs, and may be purchased 
 from the committee whose names appear at the close of this fore- 
 word. 
 
 Miss L. C. Goldnamer Mrs. L. A. Warren 
 
 Miss Margaret Stewart Mrs. R. B. Park 
 Miss Lucy T. Robertson Mrs. J. R. Selby 
 Miss Lena Johnson Mrs. W. A. Pusey 
 
 Uisloriail Cnwniittrc, F.licahrlh/owii l]'(>nniii's Cluh 
 
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 Fold-out 
 Placeholder 
 
 This fold-out is being digitized, and will be inserted at a 
 future date. 
 
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 Placeholder 
 
 This fold-out is being 
 
 digitized, and will be inserted a 
 
 future date. 
 
Mr. Squire Bush in Front of Old Cabin 
 
Last Lincoln Ldndmark 
 
 Louis Jluslin IDarren 
 
 HE last old landmark which connects the Lincoln 
 family with Hardin County, Kentucky, has 
 recently been razed at Elizabeth town, to make 
 room for a more modern structure. Under this 
 cabin roof on December second, eig-hteen hundred 
 and nineteen, Thomas Lincoln, father of Abraham 
 Lincoln, married his second wife, Mrs. Sarah Bush Johnston, 
 who was to divide honors with Nancy Hanks Lincoln in bringing: 
 up the world's foremost citizen. The removal of the old resi- 
 dence has called to mind the second romance of Thomas Lincoln, 
 which tradition suggests was but the renewal of an earlier court- 
 ship abruptly interrupted by the admiration of Lincoln for a 
 Miss Nancy Hanks, whom he married on June 12, 1806, in Wash- 
 ington County. 
 
 After the death of Lincoln's first wife on October 5, 1818, he 
 tried as best he could to make a home for his motherless children, 
 Sarah and Abraham, aged eleven and nine, respectively. He con- 
 tinued this effort to maintain home life for more than a year, 
 when he resolved to return to Kentucky with the determination to 
 win the favor of his old sweetheart, whose husband, Daniel John- 
 ston, jailer of Hardin County, had died three years previous, leav- 
 ing her with three children. The success of his suit is recorded 
 by the marriage certificate on file in the Hardin County Court 
 House. This certificate was thought to have been lost, as it had 
 not been seen for years, but it was recently discovered by the 
 writer and photographed for this booklet. 
 
 Rev. George L. Rogers, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, performed the ceremony that united the widower and the 
 widow, which together with the two sets of orphan children, were 
 to create a new home environment, that grew a President and 
 made Sarah Lincoln the most famous stepmother in all the world. 
 The influence which this new mother exerted over the boy Abra- 
 ham can hardly be estimated, but history records the fact that 
 the aff"ection which she bestowed upon the children of Thomas 
 Lincoln was not less than her love for her own. 
 
The old building recently razed, in which this wedding took 
 place, has a history of more than local interest. The half acre lot 
 on which it stood, grew the timber which was used in its con- 
 struction. While the structure acquired several additions during 
 its life of more than a century the original cabin built in 1798 
 was the last part of the building to fall under the wrecker's bar. 
 In 1806 Samuel Patton, who owned the cabin, erected a brick 
 chimney, and placed in the basework the inscription, "S. P. 1806." 
 Improvements which had kept the house in modern appearance, 
 had hid from view this old inscription for more than half a cen- 
 tury, and Elizabethtown did not realize that its oldest building 
 was being demolished until workmen discovered the date which 
 established its antiquity. 
 
 Many families of distinction in Kentucky have occupied the 
 residence. The Pirtles, living there as early as 1800, have been 
 well known educators, clergymen and lawyers, a descendant of 
 this same family being superintendent of the public schools of 
 Elizabethtown at this time. General Duff Green, who occupied 
 the house in 1814 while teaching school in the town, became a 
 close friend and advisor of General Jackson, President of the 
 United States, and had much to do with the conduct of the admin- 
 istration, later becoming a congressman. He married a sister of 
 Governor Ninian Edwards. Many professional men lived in the 
 conveniently located house, and it was occupied by tenants up 
 until a few days before its demolition. 
 
 Next to this recently cleared site stands another old building, 
 in which the last survivor of the immediate Bush family, still 
 conducts a law office. Mr. Squire H. Bush, althougn in his 84th 
 year, is at his office every day, and while he needs the assistance 
 of crutches in moving about, his mind is still active. Mr. Bush 
 is a nephew of Sarah Bush Lincoln, the youngest son of Mrs. 
 Lincoln's youngest brother, Christopher Bush, Jr. While Mrs. 
 Lincoln never returned to Kentucky after her marriage to 
 Thomas Lincoln, her brother, Christopher, visited her in her 
 Illinois home, and his children grew up to admire their "Aunt 
 Sally" who mothered President Lincoln. 
 
The affidavit oj Mr. Squire II. Bush, ichirh follows, gives the most 
 interesting feature of Thomas Liinohi's second Kentucky courtship: 
 
 Afiidauit of S. R. Bush 
 
 llic iiltiani. Ml-. S. 11. IMSll. aftiT bciiii; duly swoiii iipcm his oath, states: "My 
 liMiiie is .SQLIKK 11. IJLSII. I was burn iu llardiii Cdiiuty September oO. ISt'-'u, and, 
 with the exceajtioii of eijrht years residence at H'odgeiiville, 1 have lived in Hardin 
 County all my life. My lather's name was Christopher Bush, Jr., who was one of u 
 family of nine children, and an own brother of Sarah Bu.sh Johnston, who later 
 married Thomas Lincoln, father of President Lincoln.' 
 
 IMie aftiant further slates: "The nuirria^ue hond wliiili was issued to Thomas 
 Lincoln and Sarah Bush Johnston was si.aned by Thomas Lincoln and my father. 
 IMy "Aunt Sally' never returned to Kentucky after her marriage to Thomas Lincoln. 
 but my father visited her in their home in l.llinoi.s. I have often hoard my father 
 tell the story how Thomas Lincoln won the hand of my "Aunt Sally.' When he 
 <-a,me to Eiiza'bethtown from Inddana to see her, he told her that they had knowii 
 e'Uch other for a long time and had both lost their (partners, and asked her to marry 
 him. S'he told' him that she could not just then, and Avheu asked the reason why 
 replied, that she owed a few small de'bts which she must pay. Thomas Lincoln asked 
 her how much they were, and after le.irnin,!?, wt-nt out and paid off each one of them 
 and then t!ie\- mvw married." 
 
 .VflianI further statc> 
 twelve children. After so 
 My office is in tlie buildi 
 Bush Johnston, which \v; 
 
 !■ nnly surviving- inci 
 
 ■derate Army I bejiaii 
 
 ill which Thomas Li 
 
 i\ his recently licen t 
 
 Subscribed and sworn to by S. II. Bush | 
 
 ',Tiiib..r 1, V.)2\. 
 
 .Miii.N <;. <;.\ki>m;k. 
 
 N.flary I'uililic. Ilardiu County. Ky, 
 
 1160 
 

 
 
 
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