Everything about Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site totally explained
Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site preserves two farm sites where
Abraham Lincoln lived as a child.
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.
Memorial Building
A
Beaux-Arts 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 was placed inside the Memorial Building. The Memorial Building features 16 windows, 16 rosettes on the ceiling, and 16 fence poles, representing Lincoln being the 16th president. There are 56 steps leading up to the building, representing his age at the time of his death.
The log cabin
The original log cabin that Lincoln is reputed to have been born in was dismantled sometime prior to 1865. Local tradition held that some of the logs from the cabin were used in construction of a nearby house. New York businessman A.W. Dennett purchased the Lincoln farm in 1894 and used the logs from this house to create a cabin which approximated the appearance of the original cabin Lincoln was born in on a site near the Sinking Spring, but shortly thereafter it was again dismantled and re-erected for exhibition in many cities. Eventually, the logs for this cabin, along with logs reputed to belong to Jefferson Davis's birthplace.
The logs for both cabins, with a possible third cabin mixed in, were purchased by the Lincoln Farm Association (LFA) under the belief that only the Lincoln logs were included. When reassembly of the cabin was attempted, the problem was realized. The LFA ended up building a cabin very similar to the one build by Dennett. When the rebuilt cabin was placed in the Memorial Building, the size of the cabin made visitor circulation difficult so the LFA sawed the ends off the logs to reduce the size of the cabin from 16-by-18 feet to 12-by-17 feet.
Today, the veracity of the claim that these logs are from Lincoln's birth cabin have been largely seen as inaccurate.
Knob Creek
Knob Creek features a log cabin and a historic tavern. The log cabin isn't 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.
Administrative history
The original Memorial was constructed by the Lincoln Farm Association. In 1916, they donated the Memorial to the Federal government which established the
Abraham Lincoln National Park on
July 17,
1916. The
War Department administered the site until
August 10,
1933 when it was transferred to the National Park Service. It was designated as the
Abraham Lincoln National Historical Park on
August 11,
1939. It was renamed and re-designated to its current designation as a National Historic Site on
September 8,
1959. As with all historic sites administered by the National Park Service, the site was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places on
October 15,
1966. Boundary expanded to include Knob Creek on
November 6,
1998.
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