Colonel Abraham Lincoln, son of Captain Jacob and Dorcas Lincoln, was born on March 15, 1799. In the first few years of his life, his parents built and moved into the Lincoln Homestead. Abraham was the last boy born to Jacob and Dorcas and he lived with them until after his father passed away in 1822. Abraham married Mary Homan on October 26, 1826, when he was 27 years old. Together they had four daughters from 1827-1837, and one who passed away as an infant. Abraham and Mary first lived together in a “substantial log structure” situated on land he had inherited from his farther near where Virginia John’s house burned down in 1791. In 1837, Abraham purchased the shares of the Lincoln Homestead owned by his sisters Elizabeth Chrisman and Abigail Coffman. Though a record of it has not survived, Abraham’s will also recorded that he purchased his sister Dorcas Strayer’s share from her husband John. [1]
In 1840, when Dorcas Lincoln passed away, Abraham and Mary moved into the Lincoln Homestead and began construction on the rear ell addition. Completed in 1841 or 1842, this structure was likely one of the areas on the property where enslaved people lived and worked; though there are no records which detail exactly which kinds of labor the Lincolns’ enslaved people did at the Homestead, it is highly probable that enslaved labor could have helped build the structure, since Abraham owned 16 enslaved people in 1840. [2]
Abraham ran a substantial farm on the Lincoln Homestead. In 1850, one year before his death, the cash value of the Lincoln Homestead was over $26,000. The Lincolns were growing wheat, corn, hay, rye, oats, potatoes, and barley. Additionally, they had significant amounts of livestock, including 70 cattle, 13 horses, 40 swine and 100 sheep. As did many other farmers in the Valley, Abraham sold his livestock and other products from the farm to various markets in Virginia, particularly Richmond. Abraham seems to have worked primarily with two men named Jacob and John Shook, regularly corresponding with them in the 1840s. In a letter sent from Richmond on August 24, 1849, Jacob Shook advised Abraham that “our beef market has been thinly supplied” and that “there have been no hogs in yet… [but he thought] those that come in tolerably early will get the best price.” Abraham also wrote to Samuel Hartley in Winchester to inquire about the price that flour would get in the market there: “Mr. A Lincoln….I have sent you the price [of flour] in July + Sept 1837.” Abraham also used products from the Homestead as payment for goods. In May 1850, Robert B. Winslow wrote to Abraham to inform him that the machine he had ordered would be ready for him on June 1st and “if [Abraham had] Bacon for sale, [he] may send about 200 lbs, hog round.” Under Abraham, the Lincoln Homestead continued to be a prolific farm. [3]
Kate Pennybacker, Abraham Lincoln’s granddaughter, described him as a “good businessman, of a jovial disposition, humorous and witty. He had a gift for dealing with people.” She also described Abraham as very afraid of fire; he had his fear of fire realized when his barn was burned down by an enslaved man named Squire. Abraham served as a Colonel in the 145th Virginia militia in Rockingham County from 1840 – 1850. In 1851, Abraham passed away at the age of 52. In his will, he divided his property between his wife Mary and his four daughters. Mary was given the Lincoln Homestead and the 200 acres originally belonging to Jacob Lincoln, as well as “the whole of [the] household and Kitchen furniture…. horses, four cows, and twenty hogs also one of my wagons.” Additionally, Abraham wished her to have his “slaves Kate and Jerry, Rachel, and her four children, Ben, George, Lucinda, and Isaac and [his] two men, [name burnt] and Henry.” The remainder of his enslaved people were “equally divided between [his daughters] according to the value of said Slaves.” His three unmarried daughters – Caroline, Josephine, and Dorcas Sarah – were each given an equal share of the rest of his land, while his married daughter Mary Elizabeth Maupin was given the land and the interest on the land where she was already living with her husband Dr. Richard S Maupin. Because Abraham did not have sons to pass his wealth on to, his daughters were able to inherit a significant amount of wealth and property, much of which passed through three generations of the Lincoln family. [4]
[1] John Wayland, The Lincolns in Virginia (Staunton: The McClure Company, Inc., 1946), 181; Joseph Chrisman and Joseph and Abigail Coffman, “Indenture between Joseph Chrisman and Joseph Coffman and Abigail his wife,” September 4, 1837, Lincoln Family Papers 1746 – 1939, Library of Congress Manuscript Division, MMC-0975, Accession no. 6065A; Abraham Lincoln, “Last Will of Abraham Lincoln,” May 14, 1851, Records of Rockingham County, Virginia, Circuit Court, Will Book A, 197. In his will, Jacob Lincoln gave the Homestead and the 200 acres it was on to Dorcas for the rest of her life and then wanted it to be sold and the profits divided between his daughters Elizabeth, Abigail, and Dorcas. The indenture was made by Elizabeth’s husband Joseph Chrisman because Elizabeth passed away in 1824, two years after Jacob died.
[2] United States Census Bureau. “United States Census, 1840, Virginia, United States.” Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1840.
[3] United States Census Bureau, “United States Census Non-Population Schedules – Agriculture, 1850, Virginia,” Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1850; Wayland, The Lincolns in Virginia, 185; Jacob Shook to Col. Abraham Lincoln, August 24, 1849, Lincoln Family Scrapbook, Lincoln Family Papers 1746 – 1939, Library of Congress Manuscript Division, MMC-0975; Samuel Hartley to Mr. A Lincoln, February 12, 1837, Lincoln Family Scrapbook, Lincoln Family Papers 1764 – 1939, Library of Congress Manuscript Division, MMC-0975; Robert B. Winslow to Abraham Linkin Esq., May 27, 1850, Lincoln Family Scrapbook, Lincoln Family Papers 1764 – 1939, Library of Congress Manuscript Division, MMC-0975.
[4] Wayland, The Lincolns in Virginia, 188; Abraham Lincoln, “Last Will of Abraham Lincoln,” May 14, 1851, Records of Rockingham County, Virginia, Circuit Court, Will Book A, 197.