The Marriage of Nancy & Thomas Lincoln

On June 12, 1806, Thomas Lincoln traveled to Springfield, Kentucky, to obtain a marriage license to wed Nancy Hanks, and Richard Berry, Nancy's uncle, signed the document as guardian of the bride-to-be. Two days later, Thomas Lincoln and Nancy were married near here at Richard Berry's Beechland property, where the Reverend Jesse Head, a Methodist minister and neighbor of the Berrys, presided over a traditional pioneer wedding ceremony. Thomas and Nancy later became the parents of future president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. The ceremony was followed by a celebratory feast for the Lincolns, later remembered by a guest for its bear meat, venison, wild turkey and ducks, eggs, maple sugar, syrup in big gourds, peach-and-honey, a whole sheep barbecued by the two families over wood coals in a pit and covered with green boughs to keep the juice in, and a race for the whiskey bottle.

Kentucky · United States