Captain Abraham Lincoln

A Patriot of the American Revolution for PENNSYLVANIA with the rank of SUB-LIEUTENANT. DAR Ancestor # A070396

Relations between these two famous Pennsylvania families must have been close since both took an active part in public affairs; Mordecai Lincoln serving as a commissioner for defense against the Indians in 1728, as a justice of the peace, and as an inspector of roads. Abraham Lincoln, youngest son of Mordecai and Mary (Robeson) Lincoln, married Anne Boone, first cousin of Daniel Boone. This marriage, incidentally, provides proof that the Pennsylvania Lincolns were not Quakers, since the Exeter Friends Meeting censured Anne Boone, a Quaker, for marrying “out of meeting.” This Abraham Lincoln was born after his father’s death in 1736.

Abraham Lincoln of Berks County was the son of Mordecai and Mary Lincoln, he was born in Amity Township , Philadelphia Co., subsequently Berks County., Pa. His father, who died in May of that year , a few months before the birth of Abraham, was the ancestor of President Lincoln. Abraham was brought up on his father's farm. He received a fair education, and became quite prominent in the affairs of his native county. For six years, from 1773 to 1779, he held the office of County Commissioner. He was an active patriot, and was appointed one of the sub-lieutenants of the county March 21, 1777. He served in the General Assembly from 1782 to 1786, and was a delegate to the Pennsylvania Convention to ratify the Federal Constitution in 1787. He did not sign the ratification. Under the act of March 14, 1784, he was appointed one of the Commissioners of Fisheries. He was a member of the State Constitutional Convention of 1780-90, and appears to have been a man of much influence in that body. He died at his residence in Exeter Township, in his seventieth year.

The Lincolns were Congregationalists and the Boones Quakers, consequently Anne Boone's marriage to Abraham Lincoln was "out of Meeting," and considered a disorderly act. For this she was disciplined by the Exeter Monthly Meeting, and acknowledged her error to the Meeting on Aug ust 27, 1761

The Lincolns were an Oley family, some of them Friends. They intermarried repeatedly with the Boones, and were connected also with the Foulkes. But they had only a slight, if any, connection with Gwynedd, as the monthly meeting at Oley was established soon after Mordecai Lincoln, the first of the name in that neighborhood, arrived there. Mordecai was born in Massachusetts, moved to New Jersey, bought lands there in 1720, and again moved, before 1735, to the Oley establishment. (His home was in Amity township.) Mordecai was probably twice married. He died between February 23, 1735, and June 7, 1736 (these being the dates of making and proving his will), leaving lands in New Jersey to his son John, and to his daughters Hannah, Mary, Ann, and Sarah; and the homestead lands in Amity to his sons Mordecai and Thomas. He also made provision for an expected child, and this, without doubt, was Abraham Lincoln (who died 1806, aged 70), who married Ann Boone (daughter of James Boone and Mary (Foulke) Boone). John, the eldest son--a half brother only of Abraham, who was by the second wife--was the direct ancestor of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States. John sold his Jersey land in 1748, and about 1750 moved southward, going ultimately to Rockingham county, Virginia, where he settled. His son Abraham went over into Kentucky in 1782, but was killed there two years later, by the Indians. He and Daniel Boone were no doubt well acquainted. Daniel at least twice (October, 1781, and February 1788) returned to visit his relatives in Berks county, and he would naturally enough have passed through Virginia, and tarried with his neighbors and kinsfolk, the Lincolns of Rockingham county.

Abraham Lincoln, who was killed in 1784, in an Indian fight (in which his son Mordecai, a boy of 14, killed one of the Indians), had three sons: Mordecai, Josiah, and Thomas. The President was the son of the last named, Thomas.