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Honoring Abe: Information sought on Lincoln's family history

October 09, 2007|BRENDA S. EDWARDS

FORKLAND - A Forkland Community Center committee is looking for family history for a museum to honor former President Abraham Lincoln, whose grandmother, Lucey Shipley Hanks Sparrow, lived in the Mitchellsburg and Forkland communities.

The museum officially will open during the annual Forkland Festival and Heritage Revue on Friday and Saturday and also will be open various times of the year.

Henry Sparrow, a Revolutionary War veteran, migrated in 1789 to Mercer County, Ky., with his parents. He married Lucey Shipley Hanks in 1791 at the age of 26. Two years after Lucey's death, he married Rhoda Johnston.

Born in 1763, Lucey was a daughter of Robert Shipley. She married James Hanks in 1783 and gave birth to a daughter, Nancy, in 1784. Nancy was Lincoln's mother.

She came to Kentucky after his death in 1788 or 1789.

She died at the age of 62 and Henry died in 1840. Descendants believe they are buried in western Boyle County, where they lived for 34 years.

In a court document dated April 26, 1790, Lucey wrote a statement of her marriage commitment. It is filed in Mercer County Clerk's office in Harrodsburg.

Shirley Sheperson, a descendant of Lucey Hanks, said it was unusual for a woman to write in early Kentucky. Henry Sparrow made an "x" mark and apparently could not write at that time.

Anyone who is related to the Sparrow, Lincoln, Whitehouse, Edwards and other families connected to the Lincoln family and have documentation to help prove their kinship or descent from Lucey and Henry Sparrow are asked to share their information.

The children of Henry and Lucey Shipley Hanks Sparrow were: Mary Polly who married Ben Whitehouse; Thomas, who married Sally Smith, then Mary Smith; Henry Jr., who married Aisley Smith; George, who married Susan Ingram; Margaret (Peggy), who married William Ingram; Elizabeth, who married Clayborn Franklin; Loucinda, who married James Campbell; and James, who married Nancy Hindman, then Parthenia Van De Venter.

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