LINCOLN 



3436 



LINCOLN 



portant cattle and horse fairs. Lincoln has 

 large establishments for the manufacture of 

 agricultural .machinery and implements, as well 

 as extensive iron foundries and flour mills. 



Lincoln Cathedral. This is the principal 

 building of the city, and towers over it ma- 

 jestically from the crown of the hill upon 

 whose slopes the city is situated. It is the 

 oldest purely Gothic work now in existence, 

 for it was first consecrated in 1092, and is con- 

 sidered one of the finest and most beautiful 

 cathedrals in England. Formerly there were 



three spires, all of wood or leader timber, ris- 

 ing above the three large square towers which 

 adorn the structure, but the last of these was 

 removed over a century ago. In the great cen- 

 tral tower, which is 271 feet high, hangs the 

 bell, called "Great Tom," weighing over five 

 tons, while the two western towers, each 

 feet high, rise nobly above the elaborate screei 

 on the west front. For many years after tl 

 Reformation it was not used, but in the nil 

 teenth century extensive repairs were made, ai 

 it is now the center of an Episcopal see. 



Memorial at 



Lincoln Farm. 



INCOLN, ling'kun, ABRAHAM (1809- 

 1865), the sixteenth President of the United 

 States, one of the heroes of the American peo- 

 ple. As the savior of the Union Lincoln stands 

 in history by the side of George Washington, 

 the Father of his Country. He was not merely 

 a statesman, not merely a man who sat in a 

 high place and planned mighty deeds; he was 

 a man whose life seems a part of the national 

 existence. By the gift of that life he preserved 

 the Union, and he gave it ungrudgingly, with- 

 out a thought of its worth. Victory and death 

 were needed to give Lincoln his imperishable 

 place in history. 



His Ancestry. Abraham Lincoln's earliest 

 ancestor in America was one Samuel Lincoln, 

 a weaver, who emigrated from Norfolk, Eng- 

 land, in 1637. Samuel Lincoln made his new 

 home in Salem, Mass., but his descendants 

 moved first to New Jersey, next to Pennsyl- 

 vania, and then to Virginia. In Virginia the 

 Lincolns became fairly prosperous, and in 1780 

 there is recorded the sale by Abraham Lincoln 

 of 240 acres of land for "five thousand pounds 

 current money of Virginia." After this sale 

 the Lincolns, or Linkhorns, as they sometimes 

 spelled the name, moved to Kentucky. There 



the danger from Indians was still so great thz 

 practically the entire population, about 30,( 

 people, lived in fifty-two stockades which 

 been constructed for defense. Abraham Lii 

 coin had three sons, who worked in the clearii 

 with him. One day in 1788 a bullet from ai 

 Indian's rifle killed him. 



According to the custom and law of the time 

 the eldest son, Mordecai, inherited most of 

 father's land, and became a prosperous and 

 spected farmer, besides being a good story- 

 teller, and a fierce Indian fighter. Thomas, tl 

 youngest son, was only ten years old when his 

 father was killed. His widowed mother move 

 with him to a neighboring county, wher 

 Thomas became a carpenter and cabinet 

 maker. He was a good workman, but 

 somewhat shiftless. From time to time 

 was "taken with spasms of religion;" much 

 his life he belonged to no denomination, bi 

 sometimes he would join two or three in rapic 

 succession. In June, 1806, this carpenter rm 

 ried Nancy Hanks, the niece of Joseph Hanks, 

 in whose shop he had learned his trade. She 

 was a sensitive, melancholy, frail girl, with 

 little education. A year or two after their 

 riage, Thomas and Nancy Lincoln moved 



