Robert Lincoln (1823 - 1868)

Ancestors

Died 4 Sep 1868 at age 45 in Fountain Green, Hancock County, Illinois

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Biography

The News of Fountain Green by George. C. Tyler, February 9, 1927

Robert Lincoln, son of Abraham, was born in Grayson Co., Kentucky in 1822 [sic] and died at the Typer House in Carthage, Illinois in 1866 [sic]. He came with his parents to Fountain Green, Hancock Co., in 1830. He remained on the farm and with others of the family went through all the trials and privations incident to pioneer life. After the death of his father in 1852 he remained at home and with his other two brothers, Hezekiah and Nicholas, conducted the farm, there being a family of six, three boys and three girls, Ellen, Mary Jane and Permelia. The other three girls and Hezekiah married, Robert and Nicholas remaining bachelors. All are now dead.

About 1863 Robert Lincoln engaged in merchandising in Webster, Illinois, the firm being Bennett and Lincoln, succeeding Bennett and Conner, later selling out to his partner and moving to Carthage, making his home at the Canfield Hamilton Hotel, later with John Typer at the Typer House, where the Marine Bank is now located.

Robert Lincoln was a genial, humorous, as well as a shrewd businessman. He engaged in what was known in those days, as curbstone broker, that is bought notes at a discount and loaned money.

In personal appearance he more nearly resembled the President in form and feature than any other of the Hancock Lincolns, and many stories are given of his witty sayings and of his humorous and genial manner.

None of the Hancock County Lincolns exploited their relationship to the former President of the United States, but were independent, self-reliant and self-contained people, content with preserving the family traditions as handed down through the generations and preferring a quiet and unostentatious life.

The late Alexander Sympson of Carthage, Illinois, in his friendly intercourse with President Lincoln, took occasion to call his attention to the case of Robert Lincoln, his Hancock County cousin, as worthy of an appointment of trust, and the President wrote to Robert to come to Washington. In the meantime Robert made up his mind what appointment he wanted and went in answer to the President's request to Washington.

What that appointment was, the writer does not know, but on his arrival the President not being able to give at the time the place desired or perhaps preferring first to see what his cousin could do in the way of filling an office, offered some other place, and Robert threw it up with disgust and came home and never held an office either at home or abroad. The above facts were taken from a record kept on the Lincolns of Hancock County by C. C. Tyler, my father.

In 1860 Robert was one of the delegates to the Illinois State Republican Nominating Convention 1860, when his first cousin, once removed, Abraham Lincoln, was nominated for President.

The obituary stated that Robert died on September 5, the date on the tombstone is September 4. Calculating from the inscription, he was born March 4, 1823.

Sources

Burial: [1] Newspaper clipping acknowledgement: [2]

Acknowledgments

Thanks to LaFaye Lincoln for starting this profile.

Click the Changes tab for the details of contributions by LaFaye and others.