Such was Abraham Lincoln at twenty-six, when the tragic death of Ann Rutledge made all that he had attained, all that he had planned, seem fruitless and empty. He was too sincere and just, too brave a man, to allow a great sorrow permanently to interfere with his activities. He rallied his forces and returned to his law, his surveying, his politics. He brought to his work a new power, that insight and patience which only a great sorrow can give.
_Prepared especially for this volume by the Hon. L. E. Chittenden, Register of the Treasury under Lincoln, and author of “President Lincoln,” etc._
The Hon. SOLOMON LINCOLN of Hingham, Massachusetts, in an article on the “Lincoln Families of Massachusetts,” in the “New England Historical and Genealogical Register,” 1865, Volume XIX., page 357, says: “We now come to the family of Samuel Lincoln, in which we find more names than in any other, which leads to the belief that it is in this direction that we must look for the ancestor of Abraham Lincoln. To this family belong the honored names of Levi Lincoln, Attorney-General of the United States, Lieutenant and acting Governor of Massachusetts after the death of Governor Sullivan; also his two distinguished sons, Levi, 1802, who, besides other offices, was by nine elections the popular Governor of Massachusetts; and Enoch Lincoln, Governor of Maine; and many other able men.
“In a correspondence with the late President, in 1848, when he was in Congress, he stated: ‘My father’s name is Thomas, my grandfather’s was Abraham, the same as my own. He went from Rockingham County, Virginia, to Kentucky, about the year 1782, and two years afterwards was killed by the Indians. We have a vague tradition that my great-grandfather was a Quaker who went from Pennsylvania to Virginia. Further than this I have not heard anything. It may do no harm to say that Abraham and Mordecai are common names in our family.’
“In a subsequent letter in 1848, he wrote: ‘I have mentioned that my grandfather’s name was Abraham; he had, as I think I have heard, four brothers, Isaac, Jacob, Thomas, and John. He had three sons, Mordecai, Josiah, and Thomas—the last my father. My uncle Mordecai had three sons, Abraham, James, and Mordecai. My uncle Josiah had several daughters and only one son, Thomas. This is all I know certainly on the subject of names. It is, however, my father’s understanding that Abraham, Mordecai, and Thomas are old family names of ours.’”