Community Calendar

A presentation titled Thomas Lincoln:  Abraham's Father will be hosted at the Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site.  The event will be held in the Visitor Center Auditorium on Saturday, June 3, at 2:00 pm.

Daniel Cravens Taylor, Thomas Lincoln biographer and author of Thomas Lincoln:  Abraham's Father, has been studying and researching Abraham Lincoln since he was a child.  His interest became centered on Thomas Lincoln upon discovering discrepancies in the historic record and the common portrayal of Thomas in many Lincoln biographies and works.  These often portrayed Thomas as lazy, uneducated (and opposed to education), angry, abusive, and poor. 

But documented interviews with family and friends and the historic documents from his time period reveal a different Thomas.  These documents and records compelled Taylor to three years of research, talking to scholars, reading, searching out records, and visiting the sites associated with Thomas Lincoln. 

Lincoln scholarship is beginning to recognize that the Thomas Lincoln of history is not the Thomas Lincoln given to Lincolniana by William Herndon.  Where most scholars spent little time with Thomas and were eager to get to Lincoln’s adult years, they accepted Herndon’s interpretation without question.  Now, with Herndon’s records readily available and many other documents in archives, it is possible to look for the real Thomas.

Taylor has spent the time to discover Thomas and will walk us down that path in this presentation.

The Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site is located at 402 South Lincoln Highway Road, Lerna, Illinois.