Abraham Lincoln’s Younger Brother
In 2012, NPR did a survey on Abraham Lincoln. How many books were written about him? The estimate came out to around 15,000. To read a few is to presume to know the man. His is an American story: ancestors moving from the east coast after the Revolutionary war to settle in the Midwest. Going from rags to riches, and going from multiple political election defeats to winning the highest office in the land. One theme that seems to stalk Abraham Lincoln is untimely death.
We know of the loss of his mother and sister in Indiana, but very little is known or has been written about losing his baby brother in Kentucky.
Yes, Lincoln had a baby brother. While the President never wrote about Thomas “Tommy” Lincoln, and only spoke of him once, we know from his first cousin Dennis Hanks, that in February of 1812, when Abe was 3, Thomas and Sarah Hanks Lincoln welcomed Tommy into the world. Tragically, three days later Tommy passed due to unknown causes. The only other source on this event was in the papers of Dr. Daniel Potter of LaRue County, KY who had a receipt from Thomas Lincoln for $1.46 dated February 1812.
Today, a visitor to the Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site visitor center can find the original grave marker. A simple stone with the initials “TL” carved into them. After Tommy’s death he was buried in nearby Redmon Cemetery about a quarter mile from the Lincoln’s Knob Creek Cabin. Time pretty much erased the cemetery until 1933 when workers from the Works Progress Administration found the cemetery and the marker. In 1959, Scouts from Troop 15, Des Moines, IA., placed the current marker.
It’s on private land, and I reached out to the owner of the property and asked him if we could visit the grave. He suggested we try in the summer and so my wife and I reached out again a few months later and we agreed to meet.
It was nearly dusk by the time we got there. I asked if we could just walk from the house to the cemetery. He looked at me like I was insane. “Son, there are heifers still nursing their calves, snakes and there is most likely a black bear in the woods.”
We hopped onto his ATV and plowed through the knee-high grass. At the top of a small knoll was a fenced-in area and among that tall grass, were slightly taller stones. The farmer knew we were coming, so he and his grandson had courteously mowed a swath between the entrance and Tommy Lincoln’s marker.
I stood there for a moment, just taking it all in. I’d done something that few Lincoln enthusiasts had done which was to visit the gravesite of Abraham Lincoln’s brother. It’s hard to think that for that little 3-year-old boy who stood at that gravesite, this would be the start of immense heartbreak that would see him lose his mom, sister, the love of his life Ann Rutledge and his sons. Sadly, an untimely death would follow him as well.