Nancy Hanks
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
- For the passenger train, see Nancy Hanks (passenger train).
Nancy Hanks, mother of Abraham Lincoln, born February 5, 1784 in Hampshire County, Virginia (now Mineral County, West Virginia.) She was born in a log cabin near Mike's Run at the base of Knobly Mountain. Little is known about her early life, but she was admired as an excellent seamstress. On June 12, 1806, she married Thomas Lincoln. They had three children: Sarah Lincoln, born February 10, 1807; Abraham Lincoln, born February 12, 1809; and Thomas Lincoln, born in 1812 (and who died in infancy.)
In 1816 Nancy Hanks and her family moved to Southern Indiana. On October 5, 1818, Nancy Hanks Lincoln died of "milk sickness", a disease contracted from drinking the milk of a cow that has eaten the poisonous white snakeroot. In the same year, several other people also died of "milk sickness" in the small town of Little Pigeon Creek in Spencer County, Indiana, where the Lincolns lived. Nancy Hanks Lincoln was only thirty-four years old when she died, and her son Abraham was only nine.
Nancy Hanks Lincoln's grave is located in Lincoln City, Indiana.
