LINCOLN’ S PARENTS MARRIAGE HISTORY! CABIN INSIDE A CHURCH!

Did you know that you can visit and even step inside the actual cabin that Abraham Lincoln’s parents were married in, and first lived as husband and wife? I’ll show it to you and tell you this cabin’s awesome story!

Abraham Lincoln is viewed by many as our greatest President and although controversial to some, his impact on American history cannot be denied. Like all of us, his story begins with the love of a man and a woman. Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln couldn’t have known at the time but the location of their frontier wedding would be visited by hundreds of thousands of Americans, more than two centuries after it took place.

In this article, we will give you the back story of both of Abraham Lincoln’s parents, Thomas Lincoln, and Nancy Hanks. We will tell you how they met, and about the wedding that they had. We will also tell you the story of the cabin that they were married in and its interesting story of how it ended up about twenty-five miles away from where it previously stood.

Abraham’s father, Thomas Lincoln was born in 1778, in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and came with his parents to Kentucky in 1782. His family first settled near modern day Louisville, where his father was killed by Indian raiders when Thomas was very young. Thomas was almost killed himself, if not for the expert shot by his oldest brother Mordecai, who while only being fifteen-years-old, shot the Indian dead before he could kill Thomas. His family soon moved to the Beechland area and became established there. Thomas lived with his mother and siblings until he was 25-years-old.

Abraham Lincoln’s mother, Nancy Hanks was born in the back country of Virginia. As a young girl, her father died and she soon moved with her mother Lucy to live with her mother’s sister, Rachel Shipley-Berry, and her husband Richard Berry, Sr. When Lucy remarried, Nancy stayed with the Berry’s. Nancy was well-known to be skilled at needlework. 

It is said that Thomas and Nancy met each other at a church service and when their hands met during a praise song, the fire for each other was forever lit. Thomas courted Nancy at the Francis Berry home and proposed marriage at the fireplace mantel. While the wedding was being planned Thomas made a profitable trip by using his $200 credit that he had earned from building a flatboat for the firm of Bleakley and Montgomery in Elizabethtown, to take a load of merchandise on a two-month trip to New Orleans. 

Nancy’s uncle, Richard Berry, Sr. had died in 1798, and Richard Berry, Jr. gave his cousin Nancy and her new husband a cabin on his property. It was in this cabin that Thomas and Nancy were married on June 12, 1806. The marriage bond was signed by Thomas Lincoln and Richard Berry, Jr. and witnessed by John H. Parrott. Richard Jr. was good friends with Thomas, and his wife Polly Ewing-Berry was a good friend of Nancy. 

One of the wedding guests, a man by the name of Dr. Christopher Columbus Graham wrote about the wedding feast saying, “We had bear meat; venison, wild turkey and duck; eggs, wild and tame, so common that you could buy them two bits a bushel; maple sugar, swung on a string to bite off for coffee or whiskey; syrup in big gourds; peach-and-honey; a sheep that the two families had barbecued whole over coals of wood burned in a pit and covered with green boughs to keep the juices in; and a race for the whiskey bottle.” This description lets us know that is was a wonderful celebration! I can only imagine.

The cabin was the first home of Thomas and Nancy and was built in 1782. It is fifteen by sixteen feet and typical of pioneer cabins of the time period. Thomas and Nancy did not live here long because they soon moved to Elizabethtown where Thomas worked as a flat boat builder, and built them a new cabin in town. 

The wedding was performed by Reverend Jesse Head, a circuit rider Methodist minister born in 1768 in Frederick County, Maryland. Reverend Head moved to Kentucky in the 1790s and settled near Springfield, where he was elected president of the city’s municipal Board of Trustees and was a Justice of the Peace. He was also a carpenter, known for his cabinet making skills, and a well-known, and important minister in early Kentucky. In 1806 he was credited with discovering the Harrodsburg Springs and the Greenville Springs. Then in 1810, Reverend Head moved to Harrodsburg, and by 1811, he was elected a Trustee of the Town of Harrodsburg. Two years later, he was voted Chairman of the Board where he served until 1827. He died on March 22, 1842 and is buried in Harrodsburg. A common verse that was said about Revered Head was, “His nose is long and his hair is red, and he goes by the name of Jesse Head”. 

All was basically forgotten about the Lincoln wedding and beginnings until 1878, when a Washington County Clerk came across the marriage bond of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks. Interest in Lincoln and anything to do with his life was beginning to be important to Americans and research about all periods of his life was common. 

In 1911, N.L. Curry visited Beechland and located the cabin of the marriage, which was then owned by William A. Clements. Clements decided to donate the cabin to the Harrodsburg Historical Society. The logs were shipped for a cost of $17. In May 1913, the cabin was re-erected on the historical society’s Old Fort Hill property for a cost of $261. The money was raised by the citizens of Harrodsburg and it was placed next to the Pioneer Cemetery that had been donated by Irene Moore.

Not long after the cabin was relocated, concern began to arise for its protection. The cabin was old and in rough shape, and plans began to be made to build some sort of shelter around it. A historian named Ross Lockridge, of Bloomington, Indiana, convinced Mrs. Edmund Burke Ball, of Muncie, Indiana to donate the funds to build the temple around the cabin in memory of her parents, Reverend Marion Crosley & M. Adelia Swift Crosley. In 1931, The Lincoln Marriage Temple was constructed around the cabin, built of brick laid in Flemish bond, and in the shape of a cross. 

On June 12, 1931, the 125th wedding anniversary of Thomas and Nancy Lincoln, a dedication ceremony was held with The Honorable William Doak, the United States Secretary of Labor giving the keynote address.

Today anyone can visit the Lincoln marriage cabin which is located in the center of town, and in the same park as the replica of Fort Harrod, which was the first settlement in the State of Kentucky. When it was first moved, many of the local residents foresaw that the cabin would be a place that Kentuckians would choose to be married at for good luck, and hope that maybe their union would produce a child of great magnitude such as Lincoln. The marriage cabin hasn’t lived up to those dreams but it is an important part of the Lincoln story and an important historical location for Kentucky. 

What’s your thoughts about this unusual historical shrine? Have you visited here before, would like to, or think that it’s just a bit odd? We’d love to hear what you think in the comments below. If you have an interest in Lincoln, we have an entire playlist about him from several states, so be sure to check those out. We are proud to bring you this story about one of our most important Americans. Be sure to see the video below from here. 

-Col. Russ Carson, Jr., Founder, Family Tree Nuts