could be procured at the time to preach a funeral sermon.  In the spring, however, Abraham Lincoln, then a lad of ten, wrote to Elder Elkin, who had lived near them in Kentucky, begging that he would come and preach a sermon above his mother’s grave, and adding that by granting this request he would confer a lasting favor upon his father, his sister, and himself.  Although it involved a journey of more than a hundred miles on horseback, the good man cheerfully complied.  Once more the neighbors and friends gathered about the grave of Nancy Hanks, and her son found comfort in their sympathy and their presence.  The spot where Lincoln’s mother lies is now enclosed within a high iron fence.  At the head of the grave a white stone, simple, unaffected, and in keeping with the surroundings, has been placed.  It bears the following inscription: 

NANCY HANKS LINCOLN, MOTHER OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN, DIED OCTOBER 5, A.D. 1818.  AGED THIRTY-FIVE YEARS. Erected by a friend of her martyred son.

Lincoln always held the memory of his mother in the deepest reverence and affection.  Says Dr. J.G.  Holland:  “Long after her sensitive heart and weary hands had crumbled into dust, and had climbed to life again in forest flowers, he said to a friend, with tears in his eyes, ’All that I am or ever hope to be I owe to my sainted mother.’”

The vacant place of wife and mother was sadly felt in the Lincoln cabin, but before the year 1819 had closed it was filled by a woman who nobly performed the duties of her trying position.  Thomas Lincoln had known Mrs. Sarah Johnston when both were young and living in Elizabethtown, Kentucky.  They had married in the same year; and now, being alike bereaved, he persuaded her to unite their broken households into one.

By this union, a son and two daughters, John, Sarah, and Matilda, were added to the Lincoln family.  All dwelt together in perfect harmony, the mother showing no difference in the treatment of her own children and the two now committed to her charge.  She exhibited a special fondness for the little Abraham, whose precocious talents and enduring qualities she was quick to apprehend.  Though he never forgot the “angel mother” sleeping on the forest-covered hill-top, the boy rewarded with a profound and lasting affection the devoted care of her who proved a faithful friend and helper during the rest of his childhood and youth.  In her later life the step-mother spoke of him always with the tenderest feeling.  On one occasion she said:  “He never gave me a cross word or look, and never refused, in fact or appearance, to do anything I requested of him.”