973.7L63 
 C2C67s 
 
 Coleman, Cnarle-s H 
 Sarah Bush Lincoln, the mo- 
 ther who sury* 4 "~ A <r,nTw 
 
LINCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
A bra ham Lincoln Fn 1846. 
 
 Smrak Busk ILincQin, 
 
 THE MOTHER 
 
 By 
 Charles H. Coleman 
 
 Eastern Illinois State College 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://archive.org/details/sarahbushlincolnOOcole 
 
Abraham Lincoln's stepmother, Sarah Bush 
 Lincoln, helped him along the road to great- 
 ness. Her warm heart nourished and sus 
 tained him, and her really good mind under 
 stood and protected his determined groping 
 for knowledge during eleven formative years: 
 from his eleventh year until he reached man- 
 hood. 
 
 Sarah Bush's family in I Iardin County, 
 Kentucky, was Colonial Dutch, the descen- 
 dants of settlers at New Amsterdam. 1 They 
 were prosperous and well regarded in Eliza- 
 bethtown, Kentucky. At one time her father, 
 Christopher Bush, owned over two thousand 
 acres of land. Sarah had six brothers and two 
 sisters, and must have had a comfortable and 
 happy home life until her marriage to Daniel 
 Johnston at the age of seventeen in March, 
 1806. 
 
 Among the friends of the Bush family was 
 Thomas Lincoln, nearly eleven years older 
 than Sarah. The story has been told that 
 Thomas courted Sarah, but that he dropped 
 out of the race when she apparentlv prefer- 
 red Johnston. Thomas was away from Eliza - 
 bethtown on a boat trip to New Orleans with 
 her brother Isaac at the time of her marriage. 
 Whether Thomas courted Sarah before her 
 marriage is doubtful, but we do know that 
 he gave her a wedding present and that a 
 
month after his return he married Nancy 
 Hanks, an E-town girl nearer his own age. 
 If broken, Tom's heart was soon mended. 
 
 If Sarah Bush had a choice, she picked the 
 wrong man. Daniel Johnston was a poor pro- 
 vider, a man of little standing in the E-town 
 community. His wife's brothers had to pay 
 his debts on at least three occasions. The best 
 job he ever held was that of courthouse jail- 
 er and janitor, and he only held that during 
 the two years preceding his death in 1816. 
 When he died leaving three children: Sarah 
 Elizabeth, aged 8, John Davis, 6, and Ma- 
 tilda, 5, his estate was so small that his ad- 
 ministrator was required to post only a bond 
 of $100. An E-town storekeeper jotted on 
 Daniel Johnston's account the revealing ob- 
 servation: "an empty vessel makes the most 
 noise". After his death, Sarah bought a lot 
 in E-town with a cabin on it for $25, and set- 
 tled down to make a home and a life for 
 her three children. 
 
 Thomas Lincoln lost his first wife, Nancy 
 Hanks, the mother of his two children Abra- 
 ham and Sarah, from the "milk sick" in 
 October 1818. They had been living in the 
 Pigeon Creek settlement of Spencer County, 
 Indiana. They had come from Kentucky to 
 this neighborhood in December 1816. 
 
 In pioneer days it was the practice for 
 
widows and widowers to remarry promptly. 
 A pioneer family needed a man to protect 
 them and a woman to keep the family to- 
 gether. So Thomas' children, Sarah, aged 
 twelve, and Abraham, aged ten, probably 
 waited with curiosity rather than regret, the 
 return of their father when he went to E-town 
 to marry and bring home to Pigeon Creek 
 their new stepmother and her three children. 
 
 Sarah Rush Johnston was nearly 31 years 
 old and Thomas Lincoln was 41 when the 
 Reverend George L. Rogers, Methodist min- 
 ister, married them on December 2, 1819. 
 The marriage bond was signed by Sarah's 
 younger brother, Christopher. She packed the 
 good pieces of furniture she owned, including 
 a fine walnut bureau which had cost $40, and 
 which probably came from the Hush home, 
 and the stock of clothing owned by the 
 family in a four-horse wagon which had been 
 borrowed by Thomas; and they made the 
 trip back to Pigeon Creek. At the time of her 
 marriage she was a tall, strong woman, with 
 pink cheeks, stead v gray blue eyes, and a very 
 kindlv expression. 
 
 Sarah was a good mother to all her chil- 
 dren. I ler Dutch orderliness soon brought 
 comfort and cleanliness to the cabin which 
 had lacked a woman's hand for over a year. 
 She established a way of living that gave 
 
Abraham the time to pursue his studies when 
 his chores were done. Sarah soon recognized 
 that young Abraham was a cut above the 
 other children. He, alone of the five, found 
 books interesting. He walked miles to borrow 
 them; and he showed an early talent for 
 speaking — for clear statement of fact. He was 
 a thoughtful and meditative youngster: he 
 had the ability to reduce problems to their 
 simplest terms. And his stepmother encoura- 
 ged him, even though she could neither 
 read nor write herself. What is more, she in- 
 fluenced her husband to take the same at- 
 titude towards Abraham's "book lamin' "— 
 even to the point of doing Abraham's chores 
 for him when he was engrossed in a book. 
 After Abraham Lincoln's death, Mrs. Sarah 
 Lincoln told William H. Herndon, Lincoln's 
 law partner and biographer, that Thomas Lin- 
 coln, feeling the lack of his own education, 
 encouraged Abraham to learn. "As a usual 
 thing", she said, "Mr. Lincoln never made 
 Abe quit reading to do anything if he could 
 avoid it. He would do it himself first." 2 
 
 Both Sarah Lincoln and Abraham in later 
 years spoke of their affectionate and under- 
 standing relationship. Abraham Lincoln in 
 1861 told Augustus H. Chapman of Charles- 
 ton (who married Sarah's granddaughter 
 Harriet Hanks) that she had always encour- 
 
aged him in his studies and declared that, "she 
 had been his best friend in this world and 
 that no son could love a mother more than he 
 loved her." 3 Sarah told Herndon in 1865 that 
 "Abe was a good boy, and I can say what 
 scarcely one woman, and mother can say in a 
 thousand .... Abe never gave me a cross 
 word or look and never refused in fact, or 
 even in appearance, to do anything I request- 
 ed him. I never gave him a cross word in all 
 my life .... His mind and mine, what little 
 I had, seemed to run together — move in the 
 same channel." 4 
 
 Abraham Lincoln's Pigeon Creek home was' 
 humble, but there was affectionate family 
 life, mutual trust, and consideration. At 
 every meal Thomas asked this blessing: "Fit 
 and prepare us for humble service. We beg 
 for Christ' sake, Amen". 5 It is difficult to see 
 how Abraham Lincoln's later career could 
 have materialized had he not had this bed- 
 rock of congenial and sympathetic life as a 
 boy. As one writer put it: Abraham Lincoln 
 was "step-mothered to greatness". 6 Sarah Lin- 
 coln, more than any other one person who in- 
 fluenced Abraham Lincoln's youth, deserves 
 the thanks of a nation. 
 
 When Abraham reached his twenty-first 
 birthday, Thomas decided to move to Illinois. 
 Abraham's sister Sarah had died in child- 
 
birth two years before following her marriage 
 to Aaron Grigsby. There was a recurrence of 
 the "milk-sick" in the neighborhood which 
 was killing cattle and humans. Thomas had 
 heard tales of the fertile Illinois land. So he 
 tried Macon County in Illinois for a yeai, 
 but malaria and the terrible winter of the 
 "deep snow" (1830-1831) discouraged him. 
 In May 1831, the Thomas Lincoln family 
 was on its way back to Indiana when friends 
 persuaded them to try Coles County for a 
 while. Hannah Radley, sister of Sarah Lin- 
 coln, lived here. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln was no longer living with 
 lis parents in 1831. He was twenty-two years 
 old, and had started to work out his own 
 destiny — first at New Salem (to 1837) and 
 then at Springfield. He never lived in Coles 
 County, but he visited his folks there many 
 times, the first time in July 1831 and the 
 last time in January 1861. 
 
 Mrs. Lincoln was nearly forty-three years 
 old when she first came to Coles County, and 
 she was nearly fifty-two when she and her 
 husband moved in 1840 to their fifth Coles 
 County home at Goosenest Prairie — now the 
 Lincoln Log Cabin State Park. There she 
 lived for twenty-nine years, dying there in her 
 eighty-first year in 1869. 
 
 Harriet Hanks Chapman, a granddaughter, 
 
 6 
 
has given us a description of the Sarah Lin- 
 coln of Coles County. Mrs. Chapman (the 
 daughter of Sarah Elizabeth Johnston Hanks 
 and Dennis Hanks) was fourteen years old in 
 1840. In 1865 she told Herndon that Mrs. 
 Lincoln was "a very tall woman, straight as 
 an Indian, of fair complexion, and was — 
 when I first remember her — very handsome, 
 sprightly, talkative, and proud. She wore her 
 hair curled till gray, is kindhearted and very 
 charitable, and also very industrious." 7 
 
 Abraham's visits to his folks at Goosenest 
 Prairie were most numerous during the 1840's 
 when he was an active circuit riding lawyer 
 and attended court at Charleston, the Coles 
 County seat, once or twice a year. On most of 
 these court visits he took the time to visit his 
 father and stepmother. Often he would hire a 
 buggy for the trip. We may picture him on 
 the seven-mile drive to his fathers cabin, the 
 floor at his feet piled with gifts: a sack of 
 flour, a bag of sugar, a bag of coffee beans, 
 perhaps a ham or side of bacon (for Thomas 
 probably had no smoke house), and a few 
 bags of rock candy for the children of John 
 D. Johnston, his stepbrother, who with his 
 family lived with Thomas and Sarah. It will 
 not stretch the imagination to include a bolt 
 of calico for Sarah and perhaps a bright 
 shawl or ' comforter" for the old lady. 
 
What happiness for Sarah to have this 
 man take time out of his busy life to come to 
 see her! With his respect for her intelligence, 
 he may have talked over some of his problems 
 with her. 
 
 Throughout his life in Springfield and 
 Washington, Abraham Lincoln kept the wel- 
 fare of Sarah in mind, and made frequent 
 provisions for her comfort. While his father 
 was living, Abraham's financial assistance was 
 not needed very often. Thomas Lincoln, 
 though not wealthy, was a responsible citi- 
 zen and a hard worker. In 1840 Abraham 
 gave his folks $200 for forty acres of their 
 farm, primarily to keep it out of the hands 
 of his indolent stepbrother, John D. John- 
 ston, and to insure that they would always 
 have a home. Thomas and Sarah retained a 
 life interest in the use of the property. After 
 the death of Thomas in 1851, Abraham re- 
 fused to sell this "Abraham forty" (as it 
 is known today) and to give part of the 
 sale price to Johnston. His letter, dated No- 
 vember 25, 1851, to his stepbrother gives us 
 an understanding of his attitude toward his 
 stepmother: 
 
 Dear Brother: 
 
 Your letter of the 22nd is just received. 
 
 Your proposal about selling the east forty 
 
 acres of land is all that I want or could 
 
 8 
 
claim for myself; but I am not satisfied 
 with it on mother's account. I want her to 
 have her living, and I feel that it is my 
 duty, to some extent to see that she is not 
 wronged. She had a right of dower (that 
 is, the use of one-third for life) in the 
 other two forties; but, it seems, she has 
 already let you take that, hook and line. 
 She now has the use of the whole of the 
 east forty as long as she lives; and if it 
 be sold, of course she is entitled to the 
 interest on all the money it brings as 
 long as she lives; but you propose to 
 sell it for three hundred dollars, take 
 one hundred away with you, and leave 
 her two hundred dollars at 8 per cent, 
 making her the enormous sum of 16 dol- 
 lars a year. Now, if you are satisfied with 
 treating her that way, I am not. It is true, 
 that you are to have that forty for two 
 hundred dollars, at mothers death; but 
 you are not to have it before. I am con- 
 fident that land can be made to produce 
 for mother at least $30 a year, and I can 
 not, to oblige any living person, consent 
 that she shall be put on an allowance of 
 sixteen dollars a year. 8 
 Actually the forty acres were never sold by 
 
 Abraham. The land eventually went to Mrs. 
 
 Lincoln's grandson, John Johnston Hall, 
 
The original Goosenest Prairie cabin 
 of Thomas and Sarah Lincoln. Moved 
 to Chicago in 1892. 
 
 10 
 
Present monument over the graves of 
 Thomas and Sarah Lincoln. Erected in 
 1924 by the Lions Clubs of Illinois. 
 
 11 
 
with whom she made her home most of the 
 time until her death in 1869. 
 
 After his father's death Abraham sent his 
 stepmother money at frequent intervals. 
 There is a tradition in the Sawyer family, 
 with whom Mrs. Lincoln spent some time 
 following her husband's death, that Abra- 
 ham sent her ten dollars a month. On one 
 occasion she purchased a shawl and a 
 breast-pin as gifts for the daughters of her 
 niece, Mrs. John Sawyer (the daughter of 
 her sister Hannah Radley). When Abraham 
 was in Charleston for the debate with 
 Douglas in 1858, he gave his mother fifty 
 dollars, according to Chapman. On the oc- 
 casion of his last visit to her, in January 
 1861, the biographer Jesse Weik states 
 that he left her "a generous sum of money 
 to lighten the burden of her declining years 
 and thus insure her every comfort." 9 
 
 President Lincoln did not forget his Coles 
 County mother when he was in Washing- 
 ton. He undoubtedly sent her money on 
 occasions of which we have no record, but 
 one recorded instance was in March 1864, 
 when he sent her fifty dollars, in care of her 
 son-in-law Dennis Hanks. Hanks reported 
 to Lincoln: "Dere Abe I received your 
 Letter Check for 50.00 I shoed it to Mother 
 She cried like a child." 10 
 
 12 
 
Evidently the question of taking care of 
 Mrs. Lincoln was a point of contention be- 
 tween Dennis Hanks and John J. Hall, her 
 grandson. Each criticised the other to Lin- 
 coln. On October 18, 1864, Hall wrote to 
 Lincoln that Sarah was not receiving the 
 money he sent her- Hanks and Chapman, 
 according to Hall, were keeping the money. 
 Hall wrote: 
 
 Dear Uncle, 
 
 This leaves us all well but Grand 
 Mother. She is quite puny. I write to 
 inform you that Grand Mother has not 
 and does not receive one cent of the 
 money you send her Dennis & Chap- 
 man keep all the money you send her. 
 She now needs clothing and shoes. 
 They have the money in their Pockett 
 & Uncle Dennis is cussing you all the 
 time and abusing me & and your best 
 friends for supporting you they make 
 you believe they are taking care of her 
 which is not the case. I & my mother 
 are now taking care of her and have for 
 the past four years. If you wish for her 
 to have anything send it by check here 
 to the bank of Charleston, or send none 
 for I tell you upon the honor of a man 
 she does not get it & he Dennis has 
 threatened to put her on the county. 
 13 
 
... I remain your nephew. 
 
 John J. Hall 
 
 N. B. I have written you these plain 
 
 truths by Gran Mothers request She 
 
 has been asking me to do this for four 
 
 years— please write soon 11 
 
 How unfortunate that President Lincoln 
 in the midst of the problems and miseries of 
 the war was bothered by this bickering a- 
 mong his stepmother's relatives. 
 
 Mrs. Lincoln was living with the Halls 
 at the Goosenest Prairie farm at the time of 
 Lincoln's assassination. Dennis Hanks re- 
 called in 1889 that he brought her the sad 
 news. " 'Aunt Sairy,' sez I, 'Abe's dead.' Tes, 
 I know Denny. I knowed they'd kill him. 
 I ben awaitin' fur it,' and she never asked no 
 questions. She was getting purty old, an' I 
 reckon she thought she'd like to jine him." 12 
 Hanks did not mention the presence of Hall, 
 who later gave his own account of the same 
 incident. He remembered that when she 
 got the news of Abraham's death "she jest 
 put her apern over her face and cried out 
 'Oh my boy Abe; They've killed him. I 
 knowed they would. I knowed they would.' 
 She never had no heart after that to be 
 chirp and peart like she used to be." 13 
 
 In September 1865 Herndon interviewed 
 Mrs. Lincoln. She told him: "I did not want 
 
 14 
 
Abe to run for President, did not want him 
 elected, was afraid somehow or other, felt 
 it in my heart that something would happen 
 to him .... Abe and his father are in 
 Heaven, I have no doubt, and I want to go 
 to them, go where they are. God bless Abra- 
 ham." 14 
 
 Mrs. Lincoln's health was poor during the 
 last few years of her life. In January 1867, 
 Harriet Chapman reported to Herndon that 
 "Grandma is getting very feeble. Since I 
 wrote last [a month earlier] I have visited 
 her and found her quite sick/' 15 
 
 Abraham Lincoln's wife and stepmother 
 never met. But a letter to Sarah Lincoln 
 from Mary Todd Lincoln on December 19, 
 1867, shows that she fully realized her hus- 
 band's affection for his stepmother. The 
 letter accompanied gifts the younger Mrs. 
 Lincoln was sending to her mother-in-law. 
 She wrote: 
 
 Mrs. Sally Lincoln 
 My dear Madam: 
 
 In memory of the dearly beloved 
 one, who always remembered you with 
 so much affection, will you not do me 
 the favor of accepting these few trifles? 
 God has been very merciful to you, in 
 prolonging your life and I trust your 
 health has also been preserved — In 
 
 15 
 
my great agony of mind I can not trust 
 myself to write about, what so entirely 
 fills my thoughts, my darling husband; 
 knowing how well you loved him also, 
 is a greatful satisfaction to me. Believe 
 me, dearv madam, if I can ever be of any 
 service to you, in any respect, I am en- 
 tirely at your service . . I will be 
 pleased to learn whether this package 
 was received by you. Perhaps you know 
 that our youngest boy is named for your 
 husband, Thomas Lincoln, this child, the 
 idol of his father — I am blessed in 
 both my sons, they are very good and 
 noble. The oldest is growing very much 
 like his own dear father, I am a deeply 
 afflicted woman, and hope you will 
 pray for me. 
 
 I am, my dear Madam affectionately 
 yours Mary Lincoln. 16 
 Sarah Lincoln died on April 10, 1869 17 at 
 the old Lincoln farm at Goosenest Prairie, 
 where she had been living with the Halls. 
 She was buried, according to Hall, in a black 
 woolen dress which Abraham had given to 
 her on his last visit to Coles County in 
 1861. 18 The minister was the Reverend 
 Aaron Lovins of Toledo, Illinois, who had 
 been preaching at the Webster School, a 
 
 16 
 
mile and a half south of the Lincoln farm, 
 where Mrs. Lincoln and the Halls had at- 
 tended services. Mr. Lovins was a member 
 of the Disciples of Christ. 19 There was a 
 great crowd at the funeral — the largest 
 ever held in the neighborhood according to 
 a later newspaper account. The minister 
 stood at the door of the cabin, with the fam- 
 ily seated inside and the neighbors standing 
 outside. 20 She was buried by the side of 
 her husband in the Shiloh cemetry. 
 
 Perhaps the finest compliment paid to 
 Sarah Lincoln by the biographers of her 
 son comes from William E. Barton, who in 
 his The Women Lincoln Loved, wrote: 
 'Tear in and year out, through the period 
 of his late boyhood and young manhood, 
 Abraham Lincoln saw and admired and 
 loved this handsome, curly-haired new 
 mother of his, and he carried into life a finer 
 ideal of womanhood for what he discovered 
 in her." 21 
 
 Sarah Lincoln deserves to be remembered 
 and honored. Where she could have brought 
 bitterness and futility into the life of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln, she brought affection and in- 
 spiration. The quality of warm human kind- 
 ness so marked in Abraham's character was 
 a reflection in part at least of his happy 
 home life as a boy after Sarah became 
 
 17 
 
his stepmother. The affectionate relation- 
 ship between Sarah and her adopted family 
 was due to her own motherly affection, 
 shared without difference or distinction with 
 the son of Thomas and her own children. 
 Let us honor Sarah Lincoln, a worthy 
 mother to Nancy Lincoln's boy. 
 
 NOTES 
 
 1 Information on Bush family ,and Sarah Bush's 
 
 two marriages in The Lincoln Kinsman, No. 6, 
 
 December 1938, "Bush Family Documents". Dr. 
 
 Louis A. Warren, compiler. 
 
 2. Statement of September 8, 1865. Herndon- 
 Weik Mss., photostats in Illinois State Historical 
 Library, Nos. 335-342. 
 
 3. The same, No. 442. 
 
 4. The same, Nos. 335-342. 
 
 5. Sandburg: Lincoln Collector, pp. 107-108. 
 
 6. Thomas J. Malone, "Stepmothered to Great- 
 ness", in American Legion Magazine, February 
 1939, p. 3. 
 
 7. December 17, 1865. Herndon-Weik photo- 
 stats, Nos. 458-459. 
 
 8. Nicolay and Hay: Complete Works, vol. II, 
 pp. 152-153. 
 
 9. Weik: The Real Lincoln, p. 50. 
 
 10. Robert Todd Lincoln Collection, Library of 
 Congress. No. 32134. 
 
 11. The same, No. 37368. 
 
 12. Atkinson: The Boyhood of Lincoln, pp. 54-55. 
 
 13. Gridley: The Story of Abraham Lincoln, p. 
 279. 
 
 14. Herndon-Weik Mss., Library of Congress. 
 Group IV, No. 2315. 
 
 15. Herndon-Weik photostats, No. 1363. 
 
 16. Photostat in possession of the writer. Original 
 in files of the Lincoln National Life Foundation, 
 Fort Wayne, Indiana. Also in Lincoln Lore, No. 
 526. Courtesy of Dr. Louis A. Warren. 
 
 18 
 
17. Herndons Lincoln (1930 edition), p. 30. 
 Barton: The Women Lincoln Loved, p. 108, and 
 Tarbell: The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. Ill, 
 p. 26 (picture caption), gives the date of her death 
 as December 10, 1869. The county death records 
 of Coles County do not go back to 1869. 
 
 18. Gridley: The Story of Abraham Lincoln, p. 
 277. 
 
 19. Lerna (Illinois) Weekly Eagle, April 17, 1931. 
 
 20. Clipping, no date, probably February 1892. 
 Photostat from Abraham Lincoln Associations- 
 Springfield, Illinois. 
 
 21. Barton: The Women Lincoln Loved, p. 91. 
 
 Reprinted Courtesy of 
 
 Lincoln Memorial University, 
 
 Harrogate, Tennessee. 
 
 19 
 
Mrs. Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln, step- 
 mother of Abraham Lincoln. Picture 
 taken about 1865. 
 
 20 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 973.7L63C2C67S C001 
 
 SARAH BUSH LINCOLN, THE MOTHER WHO SURVI 
 
 3 0112 031801985