England family of the same name ended in nothing more definite than a
similarity of Christian names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi,
Mordecai, Solomon, Abraham, and the like." This effort to connect the
President with the Lincolns of Massachusetts was afterward carried
forward by others, who felt an interest greater than his own in
establishing the fact. Yet if he had expected the quest to result
satisfactorily, he would probably have been less indifferent about it;
for it is obvious that, in common with all Americans of the old native
stock, he had a strenuous desire to come of "respectable people;" and
his very reluctance to have his apparently low extraction investigated
is evidence that he would have been glad to learn that he belonged to an
ancient and historical family of the old Puritan Commonwealth, settlers
not far from Plymouth Rock, and immigrants not long after the arrival of
the Mayflower. This descent has at last been traced by the patient
genealogist.

So early as 1848 the first useful step was taken by Hon. Solomon
Lincoln of Hingham, Massachusetts, who was struck by a speech delivered
by Abraham Lincoln in the national House of Representatives, and wrote
to ask facts as to his parentage. The response[1] stated substantially
what was afterward sent to Mr. Fell, above quoted. Mr. Solomon Lincoln,
however, pursued the search farther, and printed the results[2]. Later,
Mr. Samuel Shackford of Chicago, Illinois, himself a descendant from the
same original stock, pushed the investigation more persistently[3]. The
chain, as put together by these two gentlemen, is as follows: Hingham,
Massachusetts, was settled in 1635. In 1636 house lots were set off to
Thomas Lincoln, the miller, Thomas Lincoln, the weaver, and Thomas
Lincoln, the cooper. In 1638 other lots were set off to Thomas Lincoln,
the husbandman, and to Stephen, his brother. In 1637 Samuel Lincoln,
aged eighteen, came from England to Salem, Massachusetts, and three