Captain Abraham Lincoln (May 13, 1744 – May 1786) was the paternal grandfather and namesake of the 16th U.S. president, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was a military captain during the American Revolution, and a pioneer settler of Kentucky. Some historical sources attest his last name as Linkhorn, although neither Abraham nor his children ever signed themselves as such.
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Origins
Abraham Lincoln was a descendant of Samuel Lincoln (1622–1690), who was born in Hingham, Norfolk, England, and who, as a weaver's apprentice, emigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637. Abraham's father John Lincoln (1716–1788) was born in Monmouth County in the province of New Jersey, and grew up in the Schuylkill river valley in the province of Pennsylvania. Typical of his class, John Lincoln learned a trade, in his case weaving, to practice alongside the subsistence farming necessary on the colonial frontier. The Lincoln home farm on Hiester's Creek, in what is now Exeter Township, Berks County, was left to John's half-brothers, the children of his father's second marriage. In 1743, John Lincoln married Rebekah Morris (1720–1806), daughter of Enoch Flowers of Caernarvon Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Rebekah was the widow of James Morris and the mother of a young son, Jonathan Morris.
