A Tar Heel Lincoln?

Jerry Goodnight, author of The Tarheel Lincoln, pointed out to me that I was probably reading a book on the Lincolnton area that was released in 1899. He also wrote that the same source was used by John Preston Arthur in his 1914 Western North Carolina: A History from 1730 to 1913. Arthur writes:

NANCY HANKS TRADITION. For a hundred years a tradition has persisted in these mountains to the effect that between 1803 and 1808 Abraham Enloe came from Rutherford county and settled, first on Soco creek, and afterwards on Oconalufty, about seven miles from Whittier, in what is now Swain county; that he brought with his family a girl whose name was Nancy Hanks; that this girl lived in Enloe's family till after his daughter Nancy ran away with and married a man named Thompson, from Hardin county, Ky. An intimacy had grown up between Nancy Hanks and Abraham Enloe, and a son was born to her, which caused Enloe's wife, whose maiden name had been Edgerton, to suspect that her husband was the father of Nancy's child. Soon after the birth of this child, the tradition relates, Mrs. Nancy Thompson came to visit her parents and on her return to Kentucky or Tennessee took Nancy Hanks and her son with her, much to Mrs. Enloe's relief. Abraham Enloe is said to have been a large, tall, dark man, a horse and slave trader,(14) a justice of the peace and the leading man in his community. Thus far the tradition as given above is supported by such reputable citizens as the following, most of whom are now dead: Col. Allen T. Davidson, whose sister Celia married into the Enloe family, Captain James W. Terrell, the late Epp Everett of Bryson City, Phillip Dills of Dillsborough, Abraham Battle of Hay wood, Win. H. Conley of Hay wood, Judge Gilmore of Fort Worth, Texas, H. J. Beek of Ocona Lufty, D. K. Collins of Bryson City, Col. W. H. Thomas and the late John D. Mingus, son- in-law of Abraham Enloe.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN TELLS OF HIS PARENTAGE. That the child so born to Nancy Hanks on 0cona Lufty was Abraham Lincoln is supported by the alleged statements that in the fall of 1861 a young man named Davis, of Rutherford, had, during the fifties, settled near Springfield, Ill., where he became intimate with Abraham Lincoln and "in a private and confidential talk which he had with Mr. Lincoln, the latter told him that he was of Southern extraction; that his right name was, or ought to have been, Enloe, but that he had always gone by the name of his step-father."

Thanks Jerry!

Over at Civil War Interactive, blog editor Laurie Chambliss writes on her weekly review of my site: "An obligatory look at the coverage of the ‘North Carolina Lincoln Birthplace’ story is taken, although no opinion is expressed on the matter."

No. I really don’t have an opinion. As I stated before, I would really like to see the DNA testing done to prove or disprove and settle the manner. A good friend of mine recently said on the subject "Maybe we don’t want to claim Lincoln here in North Carolina."