Encyclopedia : A : AB : ABR : Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site
Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site
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Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site preserves two farm sites where Abraham Lincoln lived as a child.
Memorial Building
In the fall of 1808, Thomas and Nancy Lincoln settled on Sinking Spring Farm. Today this site bears the address of 2995 Lincoln Farm Road, Hodgenville, Kentucky. Two months later on February 12, 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born in a one-room log cabin. A cabin, symbolic of the one in which Lincoln was born, is preserved in a memorial building at the site. The Lincolns lived and farmed at Sinking Spring before moving to land a few miles away at Knob Creek, which is located a few miles to the northeast along U.S. Highway 31.
Symbolic log cabin
Log cabin
The main attraction at the Sinking Spring site is a log cabin. New York businessman A.W. Dennett purchased the Lincoln farm in 1894 and had this cabin moved to a site near the Sinking Spring. But shortly thereafter it was again dismantled and re-erected for exhibition in many cities. A neo-classical Memorial Building was designed by John Russell Pope for the birthplace site. In 1909 the cornerstone was laid by President Theodore Roosevelt and the building was dedicated in 1911 by William Howard Taft. Almost a hundred years after Thomas Lincoln moved from Sinking Spring Farm, the log cabin (at that time accepted as his birthplace cabin) was placed inside the Memorial Building. Although its early history is obscure, extensive research suggests that the cabin is probably not the birthplace cabin of Abraham Lincoln.
Knob Creek
Knob Creek features a log cabin and an historic tavern. The log cabin is not original to the site, but may have belonged to neighbors of the Lincolns, and was moved to the approximate location of the Lincolns' home. Abraham Lincoln's earliest memory was his near drowning in Knob Creek, and being saved by the neighbor's son.
