The Lincoln family has a long history in Hardin County. Bathsheba Lincoln, Captain Abraham Lincoln’s widow, spent the last thirty years of her life living with her youngest child, Nancy, in the Mill Creek area. She and Nancy Lincoln Brumfield are buried in Lincoln Memorial Cemetery, located on the Fort Knox Military Reservation.

Thomas Lincoln lived in or near Elizabethtown from about 1796 to 1808. A solid citizen, he served as a policeman, helped lay out and build roads, and served in the militia. His services as a carpenter and cabinetmakerwere always in demand. Lincoln helped construct both industrial buildings, such as Haycraft’s Mill, and homes such as the Hardin Thomas House, now known as the Lincoln Heritage House. After he married Nancy Hanks in 1806 the couple may have lived on the Mill Creek farm for as long as a year before moving to Elizabethtown, where Thomas built a house. Their first child, Sarah, was born in Elizabethtown in 1808. Both the Sinking Spring and Knob Creek farms were in Hardin County when the Lincolns lived there, LaRue County had yet to be formed. The Lincoln family left Kentucky in 1816. Thomas Lincoln returned to Elizabethtown one more time, after the death of Nancy Hanks Lincoln, to court and marry Sarah Bush Johnston in December 1819.

These stories and more are interpreted at the Hardin County History Museum and Lincoln related sites at Freeman Lake Park.  

Hardin County History Museum

201 W. Dixie Ave.

Elizabethtown, KY 42701

270-763-8339

www.hardinkyhistory.org