Lincoln Buying the Farm

Thomas Lincoln added to his eighty acres in Coles County on December 31, 1840 when he purchased for fifty dollars an adjacent forty acres (the "Lincoln Family Farm") that belonged to his stepson, John D. Johnston. In acquiring this land, Thomas Lincoln stretched himself financially. He appealed to his son for financial help. Abraham, in an act of familial duty and love, purchased the recently acquired 40 acres for $200, four times what his father had paid for it just months earlier. Thomas Lincoln signed the original deed, now housed in the Special Collections department of the Chicago Public Library, and Sarah Bush Lincoln left her mark, an "X," as she never learned to read and write. In the agreement, Abraham reserved for his parents "the occupation, use, and entire control of said tract of land, and the appurtenances thereunto belonging" for the rest of their lives. Lincoln relieved his parents' burden by buying a portion of their farm and then giving it right back to them. His mother would live on the land until her death in 1869. Although Lincoln never took up residence on his parents' Goosenest Prairie farm, he visited it and spent time there working it and relaxing with his family and, because his beloved stepmother lived there years after his father's death, considered it in many ways to be home.

The fact that this was an act of filial piety as opposed to a real estate investment was made clear by the fact that at the time of purchase Lincoln also signed a bond agreeing to convey the land to John D. Johnston, his stepbrother, at any time within a year after the death of his last surviving parent, upon payment of $200-the exact amount he paid for the land.