On June 12, 1806, Thomas Lincoln traveled to Springfield, Kentucky, to obtain a marriage license to wed Nancy Hanks. Richard Berry, Nancy's uncle, signed the document as guardian of the bride-to-be. Two days later, Thomas Lincoln and Nancy were married near here, at Richard Berry's Beechland property. The Reverend Jesse Head, a Methodist minister and neighbor of the Berrys, presided over a traditional pioneer wedding ceremony. Thomas and Nancy later became the parents of future president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.
The ceremony was followed by a celebratory feast for the Lincolns. A guest later described the festivities:
We had bear meat...venison, wild turkey and ducks; eggs, wild and tame, so common that you could buy them at two bits a bushel; maple sugar, swung on a string, to bite off for coffee or whiskey; syrup in big gourds; peach-and-honey; a sheep that the two families barbecued whole over coals of wood burned in a pit, and covered with green boughs to keep the juice in; a race for the whiskey bottle.
(sidebar)
Kentucky Lincoln Heritage Trail
1809 Abraham Lincoln born at Sinking Spring farm, in present-day Larue County, Kentucky.
1816 Lincoln family moved from Kentucky.
1841 Abraham Lincoln visited his friend Joshua Speed at Farmington, the Speed family plantation, in Louisville, Kentucky.
1842 Abraham Lincoln married Mary Todd of Lexington, Kentucky.
1847 The Lincoln family visited Lexington, Kentucky, en route to Abraham's only term in Congress.
1860 Abraham Lincoln elected President of the United States in November.
1865 Abraham Lincoln assassinated at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.
www.kylincolntrail.com www.heritage.ky.gov www.kylincolntrail.org www.history.ky.gov www.transportation.ky.gov
A project of the Kentucky Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission produced by the Kentucky Heritage Council in partnership with the Kentucky Historical Society and the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet
Comments 0 comments