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Show THE TRUTHABOUT ABE LNMS PAIEi$! SON NEVER KNEW WHETHER THEY'D BEEN LEGALLY WED; i . . " v Dr. William E. Rarton, ..f Oak Park, ID., 's recognised us th greatest authority on Abraham Lincoln. Ho baa cpcnt much r lib life delving into original momrve of Lincoln biography. Ir. Barton is the author ol several books on tho rnllp!Htor prvsl dept. The two best known :to "The Paternity ot ihraliom nln" and "the Soul ul brn-bam brn-bam Lincoln." By WILLIAM E. BARTON. U.raham Lincoln lived and died not knowing whether his parents. Thomas and Nancy Lincoln had ever been legally married. Those who knew him intimately believed thai this haunting uneer-v uneer-v as one cause hia periodic melancholy, a sadness so deep that When he was in its black possession. "gloom drlpp I 'Tom him as he Waamade some Ineffectual attempts to le.irn the truth and gave it tip: he learned nothing, and his Inquiry slatted ugly rumors. Ho thought he oubi tind the ! record of the marriage of h.s par- I ent is Hardin county, Kentucky, in which hi' Was born, and at whose county seat. BlUsabethtown, his parent par-ent were living when his older sister sis-ter was born. The records showed hie father s second marriage, that to I Sarah Bush Johnston but not his first marriage to N'aneyHanks. ABANDONED SFAR t! Abraham Lincoln gave up the n-nuiry n-nuiry and there was what was . ailed , B ' significant reserve'" In his conversation conver-sation about his parents He believed n them, but he d d not know . It would have cheered his h-' could he have known the truth which this story contairfs. In 1S78. William F. Booker, county ( l-rk of Washington county Kentucky, Ken-tucky, found ill his records a marriage mar-riage 'bond dated June 10. 1S06, between be-tween Thomas Lincoln nnd Nancy Hanks and nlso 0 return of 16 marriages mar-riages alleged to have heen per-formed per-formed in the years 1806 and i sot by Rev. Jesse Head S Methodist minis-ter, minis-ter, including thai of Thomas Lin-roln Lin-roln and Nancy Hanks. June IS, woe. But Who was Jesse Head . Authorities Au-thorities in the Methodist church I could find no record of him and it was freely charged that this record ' was a forgery, trumped up to give i j color of legality to the irregular re- j latlons of the parents of Lincoln. that there had been no man named Jesse Head, or If there were such -t man. he was not a Methodist preach- I v i s DISCOA l '.u: .1 After a search or years, In whfrih I have been aided by Joseph Pol in, J county attorney of Washington coun-I coun-I ty: L. S. Pence of Lebanon. Ky., and ! Miss Mary A. Stephenson of Uarrods-I Uarrods-I iturg. Ky.. 1 am able to give the facts ' in full. I The "Journal of the Western ''on-I ''on-I ference for the years 1S0ii-18?1" hat recently been published in Nashville I and it shows what is. so fur as I ! know, the only ecclesiastical record j of Jesse Head. On Oct. 2. 1805, I Bishop Ashury presided at the con-' con-' forenoe held at Anthdnv Huston's in Scott county. Kentucky, and Jesse I Head was reported as a deacon. If the legal status of his authority B minister, there is this record, ! discovered b-y Mr. Pence, in a list of courts-martial of the militia of Washington Wash-ington county from 1791 to 1812 "May 25, 1798, Jesse Head returned as delinquent Is cleared off miwter Ieff Dr W E. Barton, Who Has Just ITnooverod the Facts About the Marriage of Lincoln's Parents and. Right, Photograph of a Drawing of Jessc il-ad. Who Married Them. This Drawing, the Onlv One Known to Hxist. Is In flu- Dnrrctt Collection. roll, he having a lii-eno ti prea lij according to the rules of the sect to which he lieiong?."' This settles both his legal and ecclesiastical ec-clesiastical status To tell how the other information was dug up In many and remote places would bo too lung a matter for this story. HEAD'S HISTORY Rut here are the facts about him Jesse Head's home was on Road Run now known as Lincoln Run, In Washington county, Kentucky. He was neighbor to the Tdncolns and Berry.--, and " vus probably this fu'. and no denominational relationship, that caused him to perform the marriage. mar-riage. He was a cabinet maker and a justice jus-tice of tho peace. Year by year Jesse Head turned In his lists of mi rriage" performed, a dozen or more at n time not hy calendar cal-endar years, hut In convenient groups. His last signature on the Washington Wash-ington county records Ls dated Oct. 10 1810. when he signed the court order as "Justice of the peace." At that time he had gl en up his home In th1? village anJ was living on his farm. But his nsms immediately reappears, reap-pears, and thai On the records of Harrodsburg, tin- oldest town In Ken- tuekv. He bought a lot there in March. 1810 On Oct 11, 1811, ho ' was elected to fill a vacancy on tho town board. He continued or.e of 'he town trustees until 1815 wh-n ho resigned, re-signed, and apparently lived nil town- but he was re-oiretoti Mi Mt and again at intervals until 1A27. Frequently he presided at ih- board meetings, and often acted as cleric, many pagos of the records hein-r In his handwriting I NOT Rirri.AR PREACHER Ho seems to have done a good d ,il ! nf nrrt.1 rh i n fr htl fftvrr .-.rt f-i r no any records thus far arc discovered, as regular pastor At one time ho preached statedly in Lexington, but does not Reem to have lived there, unless it wos in one of the Intervals in which his name disappears f rom i the Harrodsburg reci rds, He bad a carpenter shop opposite tho courthouse, court-house, and was within easy reach of couples coming to secure their marriage mar-riage licenses. It Is reported that Jesse Head was a strong opponent of slavery I have! nol been able to ronfirnt this report, j He was an opponent of Henry I and was a good, hard-hitting Dmo-I Dmo-I crat. In 1S30 he edited a newsbttper,, I called" the ' AmoScan. Harrodsburg had a Whig paper called tho Union. The two papers were not on good te ms. There exists but one likeness of I et e Head drawing In the Durrett i collection, whicb I have been permit-ted permit-ted to photograph. How accurate a , likeness it is. I do not know: hut It I Is the best we have. HEAD Dl s RDBED. The onl des, riplion .f his per- j sonal appearance of which I know Is a JliiGle which appeared In the oppof-lng oppof-lng newspaper: "There lives a man in our town Who walks the streets In a dressing-gown; dressing-gown; ' His nose Is long and his liair is red. i And he goes hy the name of Jesse Head " 1 Jesse Head was a brave man. He , had frequent controversies, and was ' a straight out hitter In argument. One day a man with whom he was on bad terms stood watching him as he passed toward the courthouse, and after Head had gone b. fired a shot which mlssod the minister Head at once turned hack, and confronting the man with the smoking pistol said. I "If you fired that shot to kill me. I you are a coward; if you did It to frighten me, you are a fool." GRAVE I MARKED. Jesse Head died March 22 1842. In his 74th year. He was buried In 'Tarrodsburg. I have just visited I arrodsbttrg) and the grave of Jesse I o id Is unmarked. ,' lie died poor. He did not prosper "I ....... iuv mlssioners wer appointed to make ail inventory of his estate, they found j that all that he had possessed be- I longed to his son, who had bought It In at sheriff's salo This present article builds no monument mon-ument to Jesse Head, though he de-served de-served one. but it attempts to resout from oblivion an honored name, and one that stands In Intimate association associa-tion with that of Abraham Lincoln. 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