Jefferson Davis's Brother: Abraham Lincoln

By Troy Cowan

Kentuckians know stories about Lincoln and Davis being brothers, but most people consider them gossip. Lincoln never said anything about his family’s history. Historians believe that because Thomas and Nancy were married at the time Lincoln was born, Thomas must be the father. Everyone knows that’s not always true.
Everything Abraham knew about his parents died with him. The Davis family wanted nothing to do with Abraham Lincoln. The adult Davis children that knew about the affair hated Nancy because they had to tell lies to their mother to prevent her from learning the truth about their father.
In 1970, Jane Davis told her family’s secret for the first time. I learned the story of Lincoln and Davis being brothers from her. I spent a decade researching her stories and concluded that her stories were accurate, and I decided to write this book.
Nancy Hanks was a rape victim. Her guardian, Elizabeth Sparrow, arranged for Nancy and a man that traveled the countryside looking for work to get married. At the time of their marriage, they barely knew each other. Thomas Lincoln turned out to be a drunken sot, and he abused Nancy. There was no love in this marriage. While Thomas Lincoln was away looking for work, Nancy Lincoln met and fell in love with Samuel Davis.
Samuel Davis was married to Jane Davis. Jane was pregnant with their tenth child (Jefferson Davis). Jane would seldom leave the bedroom, and her absence was straining their marriage. Samuel Davis met Nancy while showing his horses at an auction in Elizabethtown. They fell in love and had a baby named Abraham Lincoln.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troy Cowan
• Release date: Jan 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463413937

Troy Cowan

My aunt’s grandfather called Jefferson Davis—cousin. Jefferson Davis wanted to go into politics and could not let any voter know that he was once married to an Indian girl. That Indian girl died giving birth to Jefferson's baby boy. The boy lived, grew up, married an Indian girl and they had a baby. Unfortunately, they both died before their baby could talk. Jefferson Davis could not take this girl into his house where visitors could learn that the Indian girl was his granddaughter, so he gave the girl to my aunt’s grandfather to raise. John Riley Davis raised Jefferson Davis’ granddaughter, a half-breed named Novella.I grew up, went into education, and retired with her stories in my head. I had time on my hands after retirement and I began doing research to learn if those stories were true. I did find support for everything she said. While doing research for "Lincoln's Family" and "They wanted Lincoln Dead"—I learned about Izola. Her story was so interesting and compelling that I wrote Izola.

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Jefferson Davis’s Brother

Abraham Lincoln

Troy Cowan

Copyright © 2015 by Troy Cowan

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1

1770-1786

Chapter 2

1784-1800

Chapter 3

1800-1815

Chapter 4

1815-1820

Chapter 5

1820-1830

Chapter 6

1830-1832

Chapter 7

1832-1850

Chapter 8

1850-1860

Chapter 9

1619

Chapter 10

The Presidents (from 1841 to 1865)

Chapter 11

1860-1865

Chapter 12

1865-1890

Final Thoughts

Preface

Abraham Lincoln said, History is not History unless it is the truth. Everyone does things they're not proud of. Avoiding judgmental people can become a problem. Lies are sometimes required. History becomes corrupted when it includes cleverly created deception.

In 1808, Samuel Davis had an affair with Nancy Hanks Lincoln. When Samuel's adult son, Joseph Davis, discovered his father had a child with her, he forced his father to end the relationship. Joseph also wanted to keep his mother from learning about the affair. He hid the relationship, and a cover-up had begun.

Jefferson's older brother, Joseph Davis, was successful in business and growing cotton. He owned 346 slaves. When Jefferson became the president of the Confederacy, Joseph wanted to keep his father's affair with Nancy Lincoln hidden from Jefferson's supporters. He used his vast wealth to keep anyone from learning that Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were brothers.

During the Civil War, people living in the South told stories about Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis being brothers. The Davis family never confirmed those stories. The family wanted nothing to do with Abraham Lincoln. Then, in 1970, Jane Davis broke their silence.

Over a hundred years ago, my aunt, Jane Davis, learned her family's secrets from her grandfather, John Riley Davis. John was a young married man when war broke out between the states. His cousin, Jefferson Davis, was the president of the Confederacy.

The war was in its infancy when Jefferson asked John to come and meet with him. When they met, John learned that Jefferson was once married to an Indian maiden, and they had a son. That son grew up, married, and had a daughter. When Jefferson's son and wife died, he became responsible for Novella, his part-Indian granddaughter.

Jefferson was the president of the Confederacy and couldn't let anyone know that he was once married to an Indian and had an Indian granddaughter. At the time, it was unforgivable to marry an Indian or a black person. Jefferson asked John to take Novella and raise her. John accepted Novella into his family and promised to raise her as his daughter.

Many years later, John Riley Davis wanted to write a book about the Davis family and their connection to Abraham Lincoln. He began collecting everything he could find about his family's history but never got around to writing that book. When John was on his deathbed, he asked his granddaughter, Jane, to tell the family secrets. She did as he wished.

I was still in school when I became intensely interested in everything my aunt had to say. I grew up with Jane's stories in my head. When I retired, I began searching for validation of her information. That research and her information were the inspiration for this book.

Introduction

Abraham Lincoln's mother was Nancy Hanks. Several people have described her as an honest woman and a good Quaker; others say she was a loose woman and a barmaid. There were more than a dozen people named Nancy Hanks living in Kentucky. Stories about Lincoln's mother may be descriptions of a different Nancy Hanks.

Nancy married Thomas Lincoln. Neither could read nor write, and they could only count to ten. In 1815, Nancy and Thomas signed their names on a bill of sale with an X. Nancy had a few weeks of schooling, and Thomas never attended school.

At the time, births and marriages were recorded in a family Bible, if you had one. On the frontier, most people could not read or write. Very few people had a bible. When recording important events, you had to wait until you found a family member or relative with a Bible.

From memory, Abraham Lincoln recorded the events of his birth and his parents' marriage in a Bible. He was forty-one. Some of the information may be what Abraham wanted to believe or how he wanted others to remember it.

When Lincoln was twenty-one, he moved to New Salem and met a teenager named William Herndon. They became friends, and this friendship would last their entire lifetime. They both became lawyers and formed a law practice together.

After Lincoln's death, William Herndon and Emanuel Hertz wrote a book, The Hidden Lincoln. In the book, Herndon said Thomas Lincoln was castrated. Herndon did not know if Thomas' castration came before or after Abraham's conception.

Shortly after Abraham was born, Mr. William Cessna said that Thomas Lincoln could not be Abe's father. He saw Thomas bathing in a stream and said his testicles looked no larger than peas.

Thomas and Elizabeth Sparrow raised Dennis Hanks and his cousin Nancy Hanks (Lincoln's mother). Dennis said Thomas Lincoln, when tolerably young, was castrated.

Why do people believe Thomas Lincoln was the father of Abraham Lincoln? There was, and there still is, a cover-up, an attempt to make Lincoln's parentage acceptable to the public. Herndon told A. Orendorff about his concern over Lincoln's legitimacy. Orendorff told Herndon, The people wished and greatly wished to have the story of Lincoln's legitimacy well settled and forever fixed.

Later, Herndon was talking to Judge Matheny about Thomas Lincoln's castration and his doubts that Thomas Lincoln was the father of Abraham Lincoln. Judge Matheny told Herndon, If you can clearly make Lincoln out to be a legitimate, a lawful child of Thomas and Nancy, and make it out that Nancy Lincoln, Thomas Lincoln's wife, was chaste, etc., I would do it by all means.

Herndon reasoned that it did not matter who the father was as long as Abraham's mother was a married woman at the time of his birth. He said, "The presumption of law is that all those who are born in lawful wedlock are legitimate." Nancy Lincoln was married to Thomas Lincoln when Samuel Davis impregnated her. Therefore, by Herndon's reasoning, Abraham was legitimate.

Another author, Ward Lamon, wrote The Life of Abraham Lincoln. Ward was Lincoln's best friend during the war years. Lamon's book was nearly ready for publication when Lamon submitted it to Swett and Davis for their criticism. They found a chapter saying Thomas Lincoln was not the father of Abraham Lincoln. Swett and Davis were horrified and convinced Lamon to remove the chapter about Lincoln's illegitimacy.

Several men have claimed to be Lincoln's father. Most have weak claims and insufficient supporting evidence. Their timeline and place of residence were all different and unsupportable. There is one man we must consider. He lived a few miles from the Lincolns. Their families knew each other. His name was Abraham Enloe of Kentucky. Supposedly, he was with Nancy Lincoln when Thomas discovered the affair. A fight ensued, and Thomas Lincoln bit off Enloe's nose. Fearful of Enloe's revenge, Thomas Lincoln moved his family to Illinois.

A reporter wanting to get the story straight from the Enloes went to see the family. Nobody in the family knew of any such fight. None of them knew of any family member with a facial disfigurement. All the Enloe's remembered the Lincoln family with fondness. The reporter determined the story was a complete lie.

Thomas C. Walters was Abraham Enloe's friend. He said Abraham Enloe told him, he rendered the Lincoln family many little acts of kindness and that he believed they named their infant son for him 'Abraham' because of the kind treatment he had given the family.

William Herndon, in 1856, purchased a book on the life of Edmund Burke. One morning, Lincoln came into the office and, seeing a book in Herndon's hands, asked what he was reading. Herndon told him about it as he handed the book over to Lincoln.

Lincoln took the book, went to the office sofa, plopped down, and began reading. He looked through the pages, reading a little here and there, then closed the book and threw it on the table. Lincoln told Herndon he had read enough.

It's like all the others. Biographies as generally written are not only misleading, but false. The author of this book on Burke makes a wonderful hero out of his subject. He magnifies his perfections—if he had any—and suppresses his imperfections. In most instances, they commemorate a lie and cheat posterity out of the truth. History is not history unless it is the truth. The people in this book haven't been condemned or judged for their imperfections. There is no attempt to perpetuate any magnified perfection of their character.

Even today, historians continue to dispute everything about Abraham Lincoln's parents and grandparents. After 1835, Lincoln said almost nothing about his family and early childhood. He mentioned his parents in 1850 as Lincoln and Herndon traveled in a one-horse buggy to court in Menard County, Illinois. Lincoln told Herndon his mother was the illegitimate daughter of Lucy Hanks and a well-bred Virginia farmer or planter.

Most of the personal information in this book is from the memories of the people who knew Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis.

Chapter 1

1770-1786

Abraham Linkhorn

Thomas Lincoln's father was Abraham Linkhorn (Lincoln). Abraham's friends and neighbors pronounced his last name Linkhorn or Linkern.

The settlers in the rural countryside pronounced their words and names according to how they thought the words sounded. Country folk seldom pronounced their words consistently. Spoiled became spiled; mosquitoes, skeeters; chimney, chimbly; certain, sartin; etc.

At the time, there was no radio or TV, and most people did not own a book. In their use of vocabulary,