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| One of two "symbolic" log cabins of Abraham Lincoln in Kentucky. |
There are two log cabins within ten miles of each other, constructed on properties where Abraham Lincoln was born and where he grew up, in Hodgenville, Kentucky. The only disclaimer - Lincoln never set foot in either one. We visited the boyhood residence, and while it has a story, it doesn't quite match the tall tales of the birthplace cabin.
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| Knob Creek Farm |
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| Signs inform visitors of historic significance. |
This month, we concluded our three president's homes, in three days, in three states at the humblest of them all, Knob Creek, Kentucky, the farm where Lincoln lived, from age two to eight, with his parents and older sister. The family had possession of 30 of the 228 acres of Knob Creek and, with little disruption since, visitors can see the grounds pretty much as the Lincolns did over two hundred years ago.
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| Visitor Center and log cabin not currently opened. |
Since we were at Knob Creek "pre season" neither the Visitor's Center nor the log cabin were open. Looking more like a roadside park than an historic landmark, the tale of the tiny cabin and its log-built doppelganger ten miles away, is almost more remarkable than the grounds.
The one room tiny home at Knob Creek, unlike its birthplace competitor, has always been presented as a cabin representative of what the Lincolns lived in. The logs came from the Gollaher's land, Lincoln's neighbors.
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| We were the only visitors on a sunny February afternoon. |
The log cabin at the Memorial building - the one we passed on this trip - was a bit more boastful and, at one time, did claim to be the actual home that our 16th President was born in.
As noted in "Not Even Past", this birthplace pretender began its wild ride in 1895 when entrepreneur Alfred Dennet constructed a cabin from logs sourced near the Sinking Spring Farm, the site where Lincoln was born. Dennet took the faux cabin on tour around the country but wasn't content with only one. Incredibly, Dennet added the "birthplace cabin" of Confederate President Jefferson Davis to the show - and, like Lincoln's humble abode - its authenticity wasn't challenged.
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| The logs from the cabin at Knob Creek came from the Gollahers, neighbors of Lincoln. |
The dubious duo finally landed in Brooklyn's Coney Island, but due to inadequate packaging for shipping, the logs became mixed together. Undaunted, the parts were combined, creating a new attraction, the "Lincoln-Davis Birthplace Cabin".
When it made its way back to Kentucky, it was sold as Lincoln's "original" birthplace cabin and was housed in the newly built memorial site in 1911.
When the National Park Service took ownership of the landmark, they had the logs date-tested. That confirmed the cabin's non-authenticity. Lincoln was born in 1809, the logs were circa 1840.
It is now referred to as the "symbolic" Lincoln birthplace cabin.
Real or fake, Lincoln's early dwellings would have been very small, with a footprint measuring approximately 12' by 17' - an average two car garage measures 20' x 20'.
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| Hildene, home of Robert Lincoln |
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| Front of Hildene, bricks outline Lincoln cabin |
We were reminded not only of the size of the Lincoln log cabins, but the contrast in family dwellings in just one generation when visiting Hildene last July. The Vermont home of Robert Lincoln, the only child of President Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln to live to adulthood, is an 8,000 square foot abode (a "downsize" retirement home). In a tribute to his father's humble beginnings, a frame of bricks, just outside the front entryway of Hildene, measures 12' by 17', another symbolic representation of Lincoln's birthplace.
Real or really close - the Lincoln cabins in Kentucky do give perspective. It was worth the stop, giving us a bit of more history and another check on our Presidential Homes list.
🏡🏡🏡🏡🏡🏡
Current count, we're up to eleven Presidential Homes/Libraries (that is our strict criteria; homes or libraries, other places of interests, e.g., where a President stayed or dined, doesn't count) for seven presidents. To date, we've been to the following:
- Mount Vernon: Washington 1968
- Hyde Park, NY and the Little White House, GA: FDR 2015, 2024
- Hermitage, TN: Jackson 2018
- Gerald Ford Library, Grand Rapids, MI: Ford, 2016
- Taft Home, CN: Taft 2015
- McKinley Home and Library, Canton, OH: McKinley 2018
- Harding Home and Library, Marion, OH 2024
- Calvin Coolidge birthplace, Plymouth, Notch, VT 2024
- Jimmy Carter, boyhood home, Plains, GA 2025
- James K. Polk, home and museum, Columbia, TN 2025
- Abraham Lincoln, site of boyhood home, Knob Creek, Hodgenville, KY 2025
5 comments:
Add to your list a trip to Lincoln City, Indiana for two things: the A.Lincoln boyhood home memorial site (good museum, working homestead re-creation, and the grave of Nancy Hanks Lincoln) and a Nat’l Park Service site; then, across the road at a state park, the small church (still active) where Abe’s sister is buried, and a short walk from there through the woods to the site of Gordon’s Mill where young Abe was kicked in the head by a horse. (My better half is a Gordon descendant).
Excellent suggestion. Sounds very worthwhile - and, I can say I know someone who is connected to this Lincoln history!!
Hodgenville seems a lot like Coopersville. Did they have a “Grandpa’s Jar” as well?
😂Since the cabin was closed, I can't say for certain. Definitely a lack of John Wayne posters, though.
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