Hanks, Nancy (1783–1818)

American mother of Abraham Lincoln. Born in 1783; died in 1818; became first wife of Thomas Lincoln (a carpenter), June 12, 1806; children: Sarah Lincoln (d. 1828); Abraham Lincoln (b. February 12, 1809); a third child, a son, died in infancy.

Nancy Hanks, the mother of the 16th U.S. president Abraham Lincoln, was a handsome young woman of humble circumstances; she was known for her intellect and exemplary character. In June 1806, she married the carpenter Thomas Lincoln, and the couple settled in Hardin County, Kentucky. They had three children: the oldest, daughter Sarah Lincoln ; the second, Abraham; the third, a son who died in infancy.

The Lincolns lived plainly in a log cabin. Described as shiftless, Thomas Lincoln could not read or write and was always poor. Nancy Hanks could read but not write. A woman of piety and discernment, she left an indelible impression on her son. From her, Lincoln is said to have inherited his serious temperament which was brightened by a spirit of playfulness that was a prominent trait throughout his troubled career. Abraham Lincoln was closer to his mother than his father. When Nancy Hanks died in 1818, the nine-year-old boy deeply mourned the loss and turned to his older sister Sarah for guidance. (She would die ten years later.) In later years, Lincoln would say of his mother: "All that I am, and all that I hope to be, I owe to my angel mother." Following her death, Thomas Lincoln married a widow, Sarah Bush Johnston .