Below is a brief timeline highlighting personal events in Lincoln's life. For additional information on these discussion topics, please click the year.
Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809 in Hardin County, Kentucky to Nancy Hanks Lincoln and Thomas Lincoln.
Moves with family to 230-acre farm on Knob Creek, eleven miles northeast of Hodgenville.
Briefly attends school with sister in fall. Father, who is involved in suit over title to his land, moves family across Ohio River to southwestern Indiana in December. There they settle in backwoods community along Little Pigeon Creek in Perry (later Spencer) County. Family lives in three-sided shelter for several weeks until log cabin is built.
On October 5, 1818 at the age of 34, Nancy Hanks Lincoln died of milk sickness. She contracted this disease by drinking contaminated milk from cows that had grazed on the poisonous white-snake root plant. Thomas Lincoln later married Sarah Bush Johnston.
Lincoln works as boatman and farmhand at junction of Anderson Creek and the Ohio River, near Troy, Indiana. In April, Lincoln and Allen Gentry leave Rockport, Indiana, on flatboat headed for New Orleans with cargo of farm produce. The trip becomes Lincoln’s first exposure to the “peculiar institution” of slavery.
In March, moves with family to Illinois, where they settle on uncleared land ten miles southwest of Decatur in Macon County. Makes first known political speech, in favor of improving navigation on Sangamon River, at campaign meeting in Decatur.
Builds flatboat with two others and makes second trip to New Orleans, carrying corn, live hogs, and barreled pork. Returns to Illinois in summer and moves to village of New Salem, twenty miles northwest of Springfield in Sangamon County (family has moved to Coles County, Illinois). Clerks in general store, where he sleeps in the back, helps run mill, and does odd jobs. Becomes friends with tavern keeper James Rutledge, his daughter Ann, and schoolmaster Mentor Graham. Learns basic mathematics, reads Shakespeare and Robert Burns, and participates in local debating society.
Ann Rutledge dies on August 25 from Typhoid fever at age twenty-two. Her death devastates Lincoln and leads him into a severe depression. Three years to the day after her death, an anonymous poem about suicide is published. Some historians attribute this poem to Lincoln.
Becomes acquainted with Mary Todd, 21-year-old daughter of prominent Kentucky Whig banker, sister-in-law of Illinois Whig legislator Ninian W. Edwards.
After a turbulent relationship over the past three years, Abraham Lincoln married Mary Todd on the evening of November 4, 1842. The small ceremony took place at the home of Mary's sister, Elizabeth Edwards. The service was conducted by Reverend Charles N. Dresser.
Robert Todd Lincoln, the first son of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln was born on August 1, 1843 in Springfield, Illinois. He was named for his mother's father.
The Lincoln family bought their first home in 1844. The home was purchased for $1500.00 from Dr. Charles Dresser, the reverend who married the Lincoln's in 1842. This would be the only home Abraham and Mary ever purchased.
Edward Baker Lincoln, the second son of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln was born on March 10, 1846. Eddie was named after Edward Baker, Lincoln's friend and political associate.
William Wallace Lincoln, the third son of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln was born on December 21, 1850. Willie was named after Dr. William Wallace who was married to one of Mary Todd's sisters.
On February 1, 1850 after 52 days of what is now know to have been pulmonary tuberculosis, Eddie passed away. He was only three years old.
Thomas Lincoln died on January 17, 1851 at the age of 73. Abraham did not attend his father's funeral. Thomas is buried in Shiloh Cemetery in Charleston, Illinois.
Named after Lincoln's father, Thomas Lincoln, the third son of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln was born on April 4, 1853. His father nicknamed him "Tad" because Lincoln thought he resembled a tadpole.
February 20, 1862, Willie Lincoln passed away of typhoid fever at the age of eleven years old. Willie was laid in state in the Green Room at the White House until his funeral on February 24, 1862.
At Ford's Theatre, John Wilkes Booth shot President Lincoln while attending the play "Our American Cousin" on April 14, 1865. An unconscious Lincoln was carried to the home of William Peterson. At 7:22 A.M. the next morning, President Lincoln passed away.
