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{{Short description|Stepmother of Abraham Lincoln (1788–1869)}}

[[Image:Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln.jpg|thumb|220px|Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln]]

{{Infobox person

'''Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln''' (1788-1869) was the second wife of [[Thomas Lincoln]] and [[stepmother]] of [[President of the United States]] [[Abraham Lincoln]]. She was born in [[Elizabethtown, Kentucky]] to Christopher and Hannah Bush. She married her first husband, Daniel Johnston, in 1806, and they had three children. When he died in 1816 she was left penniless.

| image = Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln.JPG

| birth_name = Sarah Bush

| birth_date = {{Birth date |1788|12|13}}

| birth_place = [[Elizabethtown, Kentucky]]

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1869|04|12|1788|12|13}}

| death_place = [[Coles County, Illinois|Coles County]], Illinois

| resting_place = Shiloh Cemetery, [[Lerna, Illinois]]

| known_for = stepmother of [[Abraham Lincoln]]

| spouse = Daniel Johnston<br />[[Thomas Lincoln]]

| children = 3

}}

'''Sarah Bush Lincoln''' (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. She married her first husband, Daniel Johnston, in 1806, and they had three children. Daniel Johnston died in 1816, and in 1819, she married widower Thomas Lincoln, joining his family with her three children.

Thomas Lincoln had met Sarah while living in [[Kentucky]]. After his first wife, [[Nancy Hanks]], died in 1818, Thomas married Sarah in 1819 and brought her and her children to his farm in [[Indiana]]. She treated the two children from Thomas's first marriage the same as her own, earning the lasting affection of Abraham, who always addressed her as "Mother." He visited her "every year or two," and was apparently closer to her than to his father.<ref> Donald, (1995) pp. 28, 152.</ref> After Thomas died, Lincoln maintained the family's farm in [[Coles County]], [[Illinois]] for her and supported her until his death. Their final visit occurred on January 31 and February 1, 1861, just before Lincoln left Illinois for the [[White House]].

==Early life==

The site where she and Thomas lived is preserved as the [[Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site]]. Sarah is buried next to Thomas in nearby Shiloh Cemetery, just south of [[Lerna, Illinois]]. Sarah Bush Lincoln Hospital in Coles County was named after her.

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 Bush, a settler of Dutch ancestry, was a financially well-off slave patrol captain.<ref name="Miller pp. 44-45" /> Described as "a stirring, industrious man,"<ref>{{cite book |last=Haycraft |first=Samuel |title= A History of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and Its Surroundings |orig-date= 1869 |publisher=Woman's Club of Elizabethtown, Ky |year= 1921 |page=16}}</ref> he owned more than two thousand acres of Kentucky land.<ref>{{cite book|last=Reynolds |first=David S. |title=Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times |publisher=Penguin Publishing Group| year=2021 |page=45}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Miller pp. 44-45">{{cite book | title=Lincoln and His World, Volume 1 | publisher=Stackpole Books | author=Richard Lawrence Miller | year=2006 | pages=44–45 | isbn=0811701875}}</ref><ref name="SBJL-NPS">{{cite web | url=http://www.nps.gov/libo/historyculture/sarah-bush-johnston-lincoln.htm | title=Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln - Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, Indiana | publisher=National Park Service | access-date=March 29, 2013}}</ref><ref name="SBJL Memorial">{{cite web | url=http://www.touretown.com/portals/0/pdf/Sarah%20Bush%20Johnston.pdf | title=Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln Memorial (brochure) | publisher=Elizabethtown Tourism & Convention Bureau - and - Kentucky Department of Tourism | access-date=March 29, 2013 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140331113100/http://www.touretown.com/portals/0/pdf/Sarah%20Bush%20Johnston.pdf | archive-date=March 31, 2014 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.lrc.ky.gov/record/Moments08RS/10_web_leg_moments.htm | title=Lincoln Lore - Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln | publisher=Kentucky Historical Society | access-date=March 29, 2013}}</ref>

Her brother Isaac (1779–1827) sold Thomas Lincoln the [[Sinking Spring Farm|Sinking Stream Farm]].<ref name="Miller pp. 44-45" />

''This page includes text from the public ___domain page on Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln maintained by the [[National Park Service]]''

==External links==

==Marriage and family==

* [http://www.nps.gov/liho/family/sarah.htm Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln] from the [[Lincoln Home National Historic Site]] webpage.

===Daniel Johnston===

Sarah Bush married Daniel Johnston (1782–1816) on March 13, 1806.<ref name="Miller pp. 44-45" /><ref name="SBJL Memorial" /> The Johnstons were parents to three children: John, Elizabeth and Matilda.<ref name="Donald pp. 26-28">{{cite book | title=Lincoln | publisher=Simon & Schuster | author=David Herbert Donald | year=2011 | pages=26–28 | isbn=978-1439126288}}</ref>

The Johnstons struggled financially throughout their marriage, having little or no [[property tax|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.<ref name="Miller pp. 44-45" /><ref name="SBJL Memorial" />

===Thomas Lincoln===

====Indiana====

[[File:Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial LIBO1953.jpg|thumb|Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, Indiana. This is a replica of the home that Sarah came to after marrying Thomas Lincoln. It is here that she raised her three children, Thomas' two children and Dennis Hanks, Nancy Hanks Lincoln's cousin.]]

Thomas Lincoln (1778–1851) met Sarah in Elizabethtown, Kentucky.<ref name="SBJL-NPS" /><ref name="SBJL Memorial" /> After Nancy died in 1818, Thomas returned to Elizabethtown as he had heard that Sarah Bush Johnston was then a widow. His proposal was apparently: "I have no wife and you no husband. I came a-purpose to marry you. I knowed you from a gal and you knowed me from a boy. I've no time to lose: and if you're willin' let it be done straight off." The two decided to marry, and Lincoln paid her outstanding debts.<ref name="Donald pp. 26-28"/><ref>{{cite book|author=Carl Sandburg|title=Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_nL5xCYLFs0C&pg=PA23|page=23|year=2007|publisher=Sterling Publishing Company |isbn=9781402742880|access-date=July 1, 2011}}</ref> Sarah and Thomas married on December 2, 1819, in a [[log cabin|log house]] on Main Street in Elizabethtown. He brought her and her three children, who ranged from 8 to 13 years of age, to his farm in Indiana, where she became stepmother to his two children. Sarah 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, loft for the boys (John Johnston, Abraham Lincoln and Dennis Hanks), creation of a [[greased paper window]] and completion of the roof.<ref name="Donald pp. 26-28"/><ref>{{cite book|author=Carl Sandburg|title=Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_nL5xCYLFs0C&pg=PA22|page=22|year=2007|publisher=Sterling Publishing Company |isbn=9781402742880|access-date=July 1, 2011}}</ref><ref name = "Davenport 32">{{cite book | title=In Lincoln's Footsteps: A Historical Guide to the Lincoln Sites in Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky Trails Books Guide | publisher=Big Earth Publishing | author=Don Davenport | year=2002 | pages= 32–33 | isbn=193159905X}}</ref><ref name="Burlingame 94-95">{{cite book | title=The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln | publisher=University of Illinois Press | author=Michael Burlingame | year=1997 | pages=94–95 | isbn=0252066677}}</ref>

Dennis Hanks described Sarah:

{{blockquote|'Maybe it was somethin' she tuk comfort in to have a man that didn't drink an' cuss none. She made a heap more o' Tom, too, than pore Nancy did. Before winter he'd put in a new floor, he'd [[whipsaw]]ed an' [[plane (tool)|plane]]d off so she could scour it; made some good beds an' cheers, an' tinkered at the roof so it couldn't snow on us boys 'at slep' in the loft. Purty soon we had the best house in the kentry. Thar was eight of us then to do fur, but Aunt Sairy had faculty an' didn't 'pear to be hurried or worried none. Little Sairy just chirked right up with a mother an' two sisters fur comp'ny.<ref>{{cite book | title=Lincoln and His World, Volume 1 | publisher=Stackpole Books | author=Richard Lawrence Miller | year=2006 | page=46 | isbn=0811701875}}</ref>}}

She treated Sarah and Abraham the same as her own children, earning the lasting affection of Abraham, who was 10 when she arrived; he always addressed her as "Mama." She encouraged his appetite for reading and learning, giving him access to books she had brought from Kentucky, including the [[Bible]], ''[[Aesop's Fables]]'', ''[[The Pilgrim's Progress]]'' and ''Lessons in Elocution''.<ref>{{cite book | title=Lincoln | publisher=Simon & Schuster | author=David Herbert Donald | year=2011 | pages=28–31 | isbn=978-1439126288 | orig-year=1995}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite book | title=Lincoln | publisher=Simon & Schuster | author=David Herbert Donald | year=2011 | pages=32 | isbn=978-1439126288 | orig-year=1995}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book | title=Lincoln | publisher=Simon & Schuster | author=David Herbert Donald | year=2011 | pages=33–34 | isbn=978-1439126288 | orig-year=1995}}</ref><ref>Rick Callahan. "Indiana working to bolster its Lincoln legacy." AP Online. Press Association, Inc. 2009. HighBeam Research. 29 Mar. 2013.</ref>

====Illinois====

[[File:Lincoln Log Cabin.jpg|thumb|The reconstructed "[[Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site|Lincoln Log Cabin]]" was the home of Thomas Lincoln and Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln in Illinois.]]

Thomas sold his Indiana land early in 1830<ref>{{cite book | title=Lincoln | publisher=Touchstone | last=Donald | first=David Herbert | year=2011 | ___location=New York | page=36 | isbn=978-1439126288}}</ref> and with Sarah moved first to [[Macon County, Illinois]], and eventually to [[Coles County]] in 1831. The homestead site on Goosenest Prairie, about {{convert|10|mi|km|0}} south of [[Charleston, Illinois]], is preserved as the [[Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site]].<ref name=LBNM>{{cite web | url=http://www.nps.gov/libo/historyculture/thomaslincoln.htm | title=Thomas Lincoln - Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial | publisher=National Park Service | access-date=March 21, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.historyillinois.com/files/Markers/db_markers_by_county.php?county=Coles | title=Illinois Historical Markers by County - Coles | publisher=History Illinois | access-date=March 21, 2013 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131101130918/http://www.historyillinois.com/files/Markers/db_markers_by_county.php?county=Coles | archive-date=November 1, 2013 }}</ref>

Abraham sometimes visited Sarah and Thomas when he was in Coles County on the law circuit;<ref>{{cite book | title=Lincoln | publisher=Simon & Schuster | author=David Herbert Donald | year=2011 | pages=152 | isbn=978-1439126288 | orig-year=1995}}</ref> Sarah recalled that she "saw him every year or two."<ref name="SBJL-NPS" /> After Thomas died in 1851, Lincoln maintained land for Sarah and supported her until his death. Their final visit was before Lincoln left Illinois for the [[White House]]. Illinois historian Charles H. Coleman recounted two narratives of how she received the news of her stepson's murder:

{{blockquote| Mrs. Lincoln was living with the Halls at the Goosenest Prairie farm at the time of Lincoln's assassination. Dennis Hanks recalled in 1889 that he brought her the sad news. "'Aunt Sairy,' sez I, 'Abe's dead.' Yes, I know Denny. I knowed they'd kill him. I ben awaitin' fur it,' and she never asked no questions. She was getting purty old, an' I reckon she thought she'd like to jine him." Hanks did not mention the presence of [John J.] Hall, who later gave his own account of the same incident. He remembered that when she got the news of Abraham's death "she jest put her apern over her face and cried out 'Oh my boy Abe; They've killed him. I knowed they would. I knowed they would.' She never had no heart after that to be chirp and peart like she used to be."<ref name=Coleman>{{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/sarahbushlincoln00cole/page/14/mode/1up|title=Sarah Bush Lincoln, the mother who survived him|first=Charles H. (Charles Hubert)|last=Coleman|date=March 16, 1952|publisher=[Charleston, Ill.]|accessdate=March 16, 2025|via=Internet Archive}}</ref>}}

Sarah died in 1869.<ref name="SBJL-NPS" />{{#tag:ref|Sarah was the homeowner on the 1860 United States Federal Census living in Pleasant Grove, Illinois. With her were five members of the John Hall family, who farmed the 40 acre property in Cole County.<ref>Kathy Millen. "Batavian finds rare Lincoln document For North Central College professor, census document is a potential treasure." The Beacon News - Aurora (IL). Sun-Times News Group. 2004. HighBeam Research.</ref>|group="nb"}} Sarah is buried next to Thomas in nearby Shiloh Cemetery, just south of [[Lerna, Illinois]].<ref name="SBJL Memorial" /><ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMPKV_Shiloh_Cemetery | title=Shiloh Cemetery - Illinois Historical Marker | publisher=Waymarking | access-date=March 29, 2013}}</ref>

==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:

{{blockquote|'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.<ref name="SBJL-NPS" />}}

Lincoln's legendary sense of humor was probably influenced by his stepmother. He recalled that she was a firm but kind-hearted woman who loved to laugh. When he was 18 years old, Lincoln, at 6' 4", was so tall that his head nearly touched the ceiling of the family's farmhouse kitchen. His stepmother repeatedly joked that Lincoln was so tall that he needed to keep his hair washed or he'd leave prints on her ceiling. Lincoln decided to have some fun with this idea. One day, when his stepmother was not home, Lincoln got together a group of younger boys and had them dip their bare feet in the mud outside the farmhouse kitchen. Then Lincoln took each of the boys inside, held them upside-down, and had them walk their feet across the ceiling, leaving muddy footprints. When Sarah Lincoln saw the muddy footprints on her ceiling, Lincoln recalled, she chuckled as she threatened to spank him.<ref>{{cite book | title=Famous Americans: George Washington and Abraham Lincoln | publisher=Scholastic Inc. | author=Maria Fleming | year=1997 | isbn=0590535501}}</ref>

==Honors==

* Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln Memorial in Elizabethtown, Kentucky<ref name="SBJL Memorial" />

* The [[Homestead (buildings)|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.

==Notes==

{{Reflist|group="nb"}}

==References==

{{Reflist}}

<references/>

==Further reading==

* Charles H. Coleman (1952) ''[https://archive.org/stream/sarahbushlincoln00cole#page/n2/mode/1up Sarah Bush Lincoln, The Mother Who Survived Him]''. East Illinois State College.

* Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection (1959) ''[https://archive.org/details/thomaslincolnfammtllinc Thomas Lincoln Family - Johnston-Lincoln Marriage]''. Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection.

* Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection (1895) ''[https://archive.org/details/thomaslincolnfambjflinc Thomas Lincoln Family]''. Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection.

* Louis Austin Warren (1922) ''[https://archive.org/stream/sarahbushlincoln00warr#page/n0/mode/2up Sarah Bush Lincoln: The Beloved Foster Mother of Abraham Lincoln: A Memorial]''. Elizabethtown Woman's Club.

* Louis Austin Warren (1940) ''[https://archive.org/details/threelincolnmoth00warr Three Lincoln Mothers]''. Lincoln National Life Insurance Company. Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection.

==External links==

{{Commonscatinline}}

* [http://www.nps.gov/liho/family/sarah.htm "Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln"], [[Lincoln Home National Historic Site]] webpage, National Park Service

{{S-start}}

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{{succession box | before = Jane Polk | title = Step Mother of the President of the United States | years = March 4, 1861 - April 15, 1865| after = Mary McDonough Johnson}}

{{S-end}}

{{Abraham Lincoln}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lincoln, Sarah Bush}}

[[Category:Abraham Lincoln]]

[[Category:Coles1788 County, Illinoisbirths]]

[[Category:1869 deaths]]

[[Category:19th-century American people]]

[[Category:19th-century American women]]

[[Category:Lincoln family]]

[[Category:People from Coles County, Illinois]]

[[Category:People from Elizabethtown, Kentucky]]

[[Category:Housewives]]