Kentucky-Born Abe Lincoln Never Knew of His Massachusetts Roots

The nation's 16th president certainly got around.

Recently, we told you how in September 1848, U.S. Representative Abraham Lincoln spent a night at the Grinnell Mansion on County Street.

Lincoln was in New Bedford to campaign on behalf of Zachary Taylor's presidential bid and for the re-election of his friend, Massachusetts Congressman Joseph Grinnell.

"Honest Abe's" Massachusetts connection is much deeper than that, however.

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Lincoln was born into poverty in a log cabin on Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville in Larue County, Kentucky, on February 12, 1809. Lincoln's family moved to Indiana and eventually Illinois, where he became a lawyer and served as an elected state representative and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Most images of young Abe Lincoln are of a plain-spoken woodsman from the Midwest who was quite adept with an ax when he wasn't reading, but did you know that Lincoln's paternal ancestors were from Europe and settled in Massachusetts?

The History of Massachusetts Blog says, "Although Lincoln was never able to confirm it during his lifetime, he descended from English colonists who settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 17th century."

Lincoln's fourth great-grandfather, Samuel Lincoln, sailed from Norwich, England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637.

The History of Massachusetts Blog says, "Samuel Lincoln lived briefly in Salem, Massachusetts, where he was either apprenticed or indentured to a weaver named Francis Lewis, before moving to Hingham, by the end of the year, where his older brother Thomas lived."

Samuel Lincoln had a son, Mordecai, in 1657. Like his father, Mordecai was a foot soldier in Hingham. The History of Massachusetts Blog says, "Mordecai owned a grist mill that still stands today and is now known as the Lincoln Mill Antique Shop."

Mordecai's son Mordecai began the family's migration out of New England and to the Midwest. Lincoln, who died on April 14, 1865, never knew of his New England roots.