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Abraham Lincoln

Early life
Main article: Abraham Lincoln's early life and career
Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, to Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, two uneducated farmers. Lincoln was born in a one-room log cabin on the 348 acre (1.4 km²) Sinking Spring Farm, in Nolin Creek, three miles (5 km) south of Hodgenville, in southeast Hardin County, Kentucky (now part of LaRue County), an area which, at that time, was considered the "frontier." The name Abraham was chosen to commemorate his grandfather, who was killed in an American Indian raid in 1786.[2] His elder sister, Sarah Lincoln, was born in 1807; a younger brother, Thomas Jr, died in infancy. It is sometimes debated whether Abraham Lincoln had Marfan syndrome, an autosomal dominant disorder of the connective tissue characterized by long limbs and great physical stature.[3]


Symbolic log cabin at Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic SiteFor some time, Thomas Lincoln was a respected and relatively affluent citizen of the Kentucky back country. He had purchased Sinking Spring Farm in December 1808 for $200 cash and assumption of a debt.[4] The family belonged to a Baptist church that had seceded from a larger church over the issue of slavery. While exposed to his parents' anti-slavery sentiment from a very young age, Lincoln never joined their church, or any other, and as a youth he ridiculed religion.[5]

In 1816, when Lincoln was just seven years old, the family was forced to make a new start in Perry County (now in Spencer County), Indiana. He later noted that this move was "partly on account of slavery," and partly because of difficulties with land deeds in Kentucky: Unlike land in the Northwest Territory, Kentucky never had a proper U.S. survey, and farmers often had difficulties proving title to their property. In 1818, Lincoln's mother, then thirty-four years old, died of milk sickness: Lincoln was only nine at the time. Soon afterwards, his father remarried to Sarah Bush Johnston....