The LINCOLN MEMORIAL NATIONAL PARK, 67.9 m., is on the old Sinking Spring Farm (R), the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln.
Crowning an eminence within the park is the LINCOLN MEMORIAL,
an austere square structure approached from a plaza by a long flight
of steps, 30 feet wide, flanked by hedges and trees. SINKING SPRING,
its waters still sweet and clear, is protected by stone walls and flagging at the foot of the knoll.
The memorial, designed by John Russell Pope, is built of Connecti-
cut pink granite and Tennessee marble. Across the front are six granite Doric columns; similar columns frame three grilled openings on each side. Over the entrance is carved "With Malice Toward None
with Charity for All." On the rear inside wall are inscribed the life
stories of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks.
Marble tablets bear quotations from Maurice Thompson and Edwin
Markham and Lincoln's simple one-paragraph autobiography.
In the center of the building stands the log cabin that is believed to have been the BIRTHPLACE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. When the cabin
was restored and placed within the walls of the Memorial Building, its size was reduced slightly. It is now 12 feet wide and 17 feet long and its walls are 11 logs high. The spaces between the logs are chinked with clay, and a clay-lined log chimney stands at one end. A small window gives the only light, and the doorway is so low that a man of average height must stoop when entering.
Abraham Lincoln, the grandfather, came to Kentucky from Virginia
between 1782 and 1784 (see Tour 16). His son, Thomas Lincoln, and
Nancy Hanks were married at Beechland in Washington County in
1806 (see Tour 15 and Harrodsburg), and set up housekeeping at Eliza-
bethtown (see Tour 7).
In December 1808 Thomas Lincoln purchased this farm on the South
Fork of Nolin River, and came here with his wife and daughter. In
the short time he lived on it, he farmed a few acres, hunted, and did
carpentry work for other farmers. Hardin County tax records show
that he was taxed for possession of a few horses. On February 12,
1809, Abraham Lincoln was born, and in 1811 another son, Thomas,
was born and died. In 1813, possibly because of a dispute over title to the land, the Lincoln family moved to a Knob Creek farm where they
lived until they moved to Indiana.
In 1894 Alfred Denett of New York purchased 110^ acres of land,
including the site of the log cabin in which Abraham Lincoln is believed to have been born. This was all but 10 acres of the Lincoln tract. The log cabin was moved from place to place for exhibition purposes ; it was shown at the Tennessee Centennial Exposition at Nashville, in New York City's Central Park, and at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. About 1904 it was stored in the basement of the Poffenhaufen mansion at College Point on Long Island.
These exhibitions aroused widespread interest, and, as a result, the
Reverend Jenkin Lloyd Jones of Chicago proposed that the Federal
Government buy the farm. His son, Richard Lloyd Jones, who was
managing editor of Collier's Weekly, interested Robert Collier, the publisher, in the proposal, and other publications took up the cause. The Lincoln Farm Association was organized to raise money for buying
both the farm and the cabin and to erect a memorial to Lincoln. By
1905 the organization had obtained sufficient contributions, mostly in small amounts, to purchase the farm and cabin. The cornerstone of the memorial was laid by former President Theodore Roosevelt on February 12, 1909, the centenary of Lincoln's birth, and the completed structure, containing the log cabin, was dedicated by former President Taft on November 9, 1911.
A company, including former President Woodrow Wilson, gathered
here on September 14, 1916, when the property, together with an en-
dowment fund of $50,000, was received by the Secretary of War, New-
ton D. Baker, on the part of the United States, as a gift to the Nation.
In 1933 the property was transferred to the control of the Department
of the Interior."
--Kentucky: a guide to the Bluegrass state, 1939
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In the fall of 1808, Thomas and Nancy Lincoln settled on the 348 acre Sinking Spring Farm. Two months later on February 12, 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born in a one-room log cabin near the Sinking Spring. Here the Lincolns lived and farmed before moving to land a few miles away at Knob Creek. The area was established by Congress on July 17, 1916. An early 19th century Kentucky cabin, symbolic of the one in which Lincoln was born, is preserved in a memorial building at the site of his birth.
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