TEE  RAW  MATERIAL.  5

he  had  in  New  Jersey,  and  in  1758  moved  into
Virginia,  settling  in  that  part  of  Augusta  County
which  was  afterward  set  off  as  Rockingham
County.  Though  his  will  has  not  been  found,
there  is  "ample  proof,"  says  Mr.  Shackford,  that
he  had  five  sons  named  Abraham,  Isaac,  Jacob,
Thomas  and  John.  Of  these,  Abraham  went  to
North  Carolina,  there  married  Mary  Shipley,  and
by  her  had  sons  Mordecai,  Josiah,  and  Thomas,
who  was  born  in  1778.  In  1780  or  1782,  as  it  is
variously  stated,  this  family  moved  to  Kentucky.
There,  one  day  in  1784,  the  father,  at  his  labor  in
the  field,  was  shot  by  lurking  Indians.  His  oldest
son,  working  hard  by,  ran  to  the  house  for  a  gun ;
returning  toward  the  spot  where  lay  his  father's
body,  he  saw  an  Indian  in  the  act  of  seizing  his
brother,  the  little  boy  named  Thomas.  He  fired,
with  happy  aim ;  the  Indian  fell  dead,  and  Thomas
escaped  to  the  house.  This  Thomas  it  was  who
afterward  became  the  father  of  Abraham  Lincoln.1
Of  the  other  sons  of  Mordecai  (great-uncles  of  the
President),  Thomas  also  went  to  Kentucky,  Isaac
went  to  Tennessee,  while  Jacob  and  John  stayed
in  Virginia,  and  begat  progeny  who  became  in
later  time  ferocious  rebels,  and  of  whom  one  wrote
a  very  comical  blustering  letter  to  his  relative  the
President ; 2  and  probably  another,  bearing  oddly

1  A  different  pedigree,  published  in  the  Lancaster  Intelligencer,
Sept.  24,  1879,  by  David  J.  Lincoln,  of  Birdsboro,  Berks  County,
Penn.,  is  refuted  by  George  Lincoln,  of  Hingham,  Mass.,  in  the
Hingham  Journal,  Oct.  10,  1879.
2  N.  and  H.,  i.  4  note.
6  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.
