To Jesse Lincoln1Jump to section
My Dear Sir: On yesterday I had the pleasure of receiving your letter of the 16th of March. From what you say there can be no doubt that you and I are of the same family. The history of your family, as you give it, is precisely what I have always heard, and partly know, of my own. As you have supposed, I am the grandson of your uncle Abraham; and the story of his death by the Indians, and of Uncle Mordecai, then fourteen years old, killing one of the Indians, is the legend more strongly than [most prominent of] all others imprinted upon my mind and memory. I am the son of grandfather's youngest son, Thomas. I have often heard my father speak of his uncle Isaac residing at [on the] Watauga (I think), near where the then States of Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee join,---you seem now to be some hundred miles or so west of that [there]. I often saw Uncle Mordecai, and Uncle Josiah but once in my life; but I never resided near either of them. Uncle Mordecai died in 1831 or 2, in Hancock County, Illinois [Ill.], where he had then recently removed from Kentucky, and where his children had also removed, and still reside [live], as I understand. Whether Uncle Josiah is dead or living, I cannot tell, not having heard from him for more than twenty years. When I last heard of [from] him he was living on Big Blue River, in [Hancock County] Indiana (Harrison Co., I think), and where he had [has] resided ever since before [``before'' not in sentence] the beginning of my recollection. My father (Thomas) died the 17th of January, 1851, in Coles County, Illinois [Ill.], where he had resided twenty [20] years. I am his only child. I have resided here, and here-abouts, twenty-three [23] years. I am forty-five [45] years of age, and have a wife and three children, the oldest eleven [11] years. My wife was born and raised at Lexington, Kentucky [Ky.]; and my connection with her has sometimes taken me there, where I have heard the older [old] people of her relations [relatives] speak