Abraham Lincoln Family Farm

Although Abraham Lincoln owned other properties in his lifetime, only one of them to the best of my knowledge-was ever farmed by his father, Thomas Lincoln. This was the “Abraham Forty,” or the Abraham Lincoln “Forgotten Farm.” This identical property eventually proved to be the only real estate owned for the longest period of time in the actual name of the Sixteenth President of the United States.

The forty-acre parcel was purchased from the Government in 1837 by John Davis Johnston, stepson of Abraham Lincoln’s father, Thomas. Thomas Lincoln bought it from Johnston in 1840 for $50. When Thomas found himself in financial difficulties less than a year later, his dutiful son, Abraham, bought the forty acres for $200, allowing his father and stepmother, Sarah Bush Lincoln, lifetime estate.

Thomas Lincoln died in 1851 and Abraham resisted efforts by Johnston to sell the Abraham Forty (for Johnston’s benefit), holding fast to his promise to provide for the widow.

The property remained in Abraham Lincoln’s name even after his assassination in 1865 because the deed clearly reserved this parcel for the personal use of his parents. Sarah Lincoln lived until 1869, whereupon her grandson, John J. Hall, continued to farm the land along with his own adjacent acres.

Finally, in 1888, Hall secured title to the Abraham Forty by reason of undisputed “possession for more than twenty years.”

Ancestors of the present owners purchased the property in 1914. By then it was the “Forgotten Farm” of Abraham Lincoln.

In 2007, Mr. Daniel Arnold, founder and Managing Member of Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Historical Farm LLC, purchased four acres of the original 40-acre Lincoln Family Farm - a swath of land immediately adjacent to the eastern border of today's Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site. The land today remains in its pristine state just as it did when Abraham bought it from his father back in 1841.

The Abraham Forty is legally described as the Northeast Quarter of the Southeast Quarter of Section Twenty-one (21)in Township Eleven (II) North, Range Nine (9) East of the Third Principal Meridian Located approx. 8 miles south of Charleston, Illinois

Wayne C. Temple, Ph. D., F.R.S.A. Springfield, Illinois