Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith

Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith (July 19, 1904 – December 24, 1985) was an American gentleman farmer and the great-grandson of Abraham Lincoln.

Early life Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith was born in Riverside, Illinois, to Jessie Harlan Lincoln and Warren Wallace Beckwith. Jessie's parents were Robert Todd Lincoln—eldest son of Abraham Lincoln—and Mary Eunice Harlan. Jessie eloped in 1897 with Warren Beckwith, a classmate and football star at Iowa Wesleyan College. Before their divorce in 1907, they had two children: Mary Lincoln Beckwith, who died in 1975, and Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith.

Beckwith attended a private school in Washington, D.C., and New York Military Academy in Cornwall, New York, in addition to spending two years at his grandfather Robert Todd Lincoln's previous boarding school, Phillips Exeter Academy. He later received a law degree from what is now Georgetown University. His marriage to Holland lasted nearly four decades, ending with her death in 1966. His marriage to Hoffman lasted almost nine years, ending in divorce in September 1976, and his marriage to Hogan ended with his own death, in 1985.

Beckwith never publicly acknowledged paternity for any child, making him the last confirmed descendant of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States. However, he did have step-children through his marriages to Holland and Hogan. Hoffman alleged that her son, Timothy Lincoln Beckwith, born in 1968, during her marriage to Beckwith, was fathered by him, but her failure to present the child for paternity testing coupled with proof Beckwith had undergone a vasectomy some years prior to the child's birth led the Superior Court of the District of Columbia to declare that Beckwith was not the father. Despite the court's ruling, Timothy's claims to Beckwith's estate were never terminated, and after Beckwith's death in 1985, charitable organizations that had been named as beneficiaries in Beckwith's will offered Timothy, then 17 years old, a settlement of US$1,000,000 in exchange for giving up any claims to the estate. Since 1995, Timothy has worked as an assistant state's attorney in West Palm Beach, Florida, and has maintained a relatively low profile, though articles speculating about his paternity and possible relationship to Abraham Lincoln continue to be published.