Sarah Bush Lincoln

Sarah Bush Lincoln (; formerly Johnston; December 13, 1788 – April 12, 1869) was the second wife of Thomas Lincoln and stepmother of Abraham Lincoln. She was born in Kentucky to Christopher and Hannah Bush. Lincoln married her first husband, Daniel Johnston, in 1806, and they had three children. Daniel died in 1816, and she married widower Thomas Lincoln three years later, joining his family with her three children.

Early life Sarah Bush was born December 13, 1788, in Hardin County, Kentucky, the third daughter to Hannah Davis (1745–1835) and Christopher Bush (1735–1813). Christopher, a settler of Dutch ancestry, was a financially well-off slave patrol captain. he owned more than two thousand acres of Kentucky land. The Bushes moved with their nine children to Elizabethtown, Kentucky, when Sarah was two years old. As a child, Sarah prided herself on her appearance and keeping up with the latest fashion. She had blue-gray eyes and was light complexioned. Sarah has been described as proud, energetic, hard working, neat, and possessing good sense.

Her brother Isaac (1779–1827) sold Thomas Lincoln the Sinking Stream Farm.

The Johnstons struggled financially throughout their marriage, having little or no taxable property and debts that Daniel's brothers sometimes settled. In 1814, Daniel obtained the position of county jailer, which included living quarters for the family within the jailhouse. Sarah became the cook and cleaner for the jail. In addition, the couple performed cleaning services for the courthouse. In 1816, Daniel died of cholera during an epidemic. Thereafter, Sarah seems to have recovered financially somewhat; she purchased a cabin that had previously been owned by Samuel Haycraft, furnished it with luxurious furnishings, and sent one of her daughters to a private school. Sarah and Thomas married on December 2, 1819, in a log house on Main Street in Elizabethtown. He brought her and her three children, who ranged from eight to 13 years of age, to his farm in Indiana, where Sarah became stepmother to his two children. She transformed the home with the addition of furniture and furnishings that would have seemed luxurious to the Lincolns, cleaned up the house and children, and insisted upon the placement of a wooden floor in the cabin, a loft for the boys (John Johnston, Abraham Lincoln, and Dennis Hanks), and the creation of a greased paper window and completion of the roof.

Dennis Hanks described Sarah:

She treated Sarah and Abraham Lincoln the same as her own children, earning the lasting affection of Abraham, who was 10 when she arrived; he always addressed her as "Mama." Sarah encouraged his appetite for reading and learning, giving Abraham access to books she had brought from Kentucky, including the Bible, Aesop's Fables, The Pilgrim's Progress and Lessons in Elocution.

Sarah's daughter, Elizabeth, married Dennis Hanks in 1821, and the couple lived in their own home about a half a mile from Sarah and Thomas' home. In 1823, Sarah, Thomas, and his daughter, joined the nearby Little Pigeon Creek Baptist Church. Although Abraham did not join the church, he attended church and listened to sermons; he sometimes got in trouble for parodying the minister's sermons. In 1826, Abraham's sister Sarah married Aaron Grigsby and lived near the Lincoln home; she died within a year and a half during childbirth. Her grave is located at the Lincoln State Park. Matilda married shortly after Sarah was married and moved away with her husband Squire Hall.

Illinois The reconstructed "Lincoln Log Cabin" was the home of Thomas Lincoln and Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln in Illinois. Thomas sold his Indiana land early in 1830, and with Sarah moved first to Macon County, Illinois, and eventually to Coles County the following year. The homestead site on Goosenest Prairie, about south of Charleston, Illinois, is preserved as the Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site.

Abraham sometimes visited Sarah and Thomas when he was in Coles County on the law circuit; Sarah recalled that she "saw him every year or two."

Sarah died on April 12, 1869, at age 80. |group="nb" She is buried next to Thomas in nearby Shiloh Cemetery, just south of Lerna, Illinois.

Abraham and Sarah's relationship The Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln biography by the National Park Service summarizes the relationship between Abraham Lincoln and his stepmother:

'She proved to be a good and kind mother' to him. By all reports their relationship was excellent, and Mrs. Lincoln considered her stepson a model child who was always honest, witty, and 'diligent for knowledge.' He never needed a 'cross word.' In all the vast literature of controversy over Lincoln's early years, there is hardly an unkind word about Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln.

Honors Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln Memorial in Elizabethtown, Kentucky The homestead where she and Thomas lived in Illinois is preserved as the Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site. The Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center in Coles County, Illinois was named after her.