Joseph Hanks ¹⁰³

  General Notes:

The Identity of Joseph Hanks ---- Thelma K. Windham, Derwood, Md 1994

The first rule of genealogy is to never, never, never assume without having first eliminated every other possibility and even then be very, very, careful. Genealogy is based primarily on a chronology of fact and failing that by process of elimination. To date this process have never been followed by any of the Lincoln, Hanks Genealogist or Historians. Among them are noted and respected name as William E. Barton,' Ida Tarbell 2 and N.E. Robinson.3 This has posed a great disservice to those of us who are seeking to find the truth.

The identity of the Joseph Hanks who was Abraham Lincoln's great grandfather is a classic example. The Joseph Hanks of Richmond County, Va., who Historians over the years have blindly and blithely assumed to be that man, albeit reluctantly and with reservations, could not possibly have been that Joseph. No one has ever been able to prove any of the allegations that he sent his son, Thomas, ahead of him to Hampshire County Va. or that Joseph ever left Richmond County to make the numerous journeys he would have had to made to fit the scenario created for him. A few, such as Howard M. Jenkins (The Mother of Lincoln),4 have questioned the story but why they never looked for another probable solution is the biggest mystery of all.

This conclusion by the Historians was founded solely on an elaborate fabrication which originated with Caroline Hanks Hitchcock in her little book, "Nancy Hanks, The Story of Abraham Lincoln's Mother" which was published 1898/9. Her version was soon labeled pure fiction. William E. Barton wrote "An account of the family from which President Lincoln's mother came would have greatly simplified if Mrs. Caroline Hanks Hitchcock had not published, in 1899 her little book "Nancy Hanks". The surprising things about this book are that so much misinformation could have been contained in so small a volume and that so many discriminating people could have been deceived by it But the Joseph story lived on in this poor, illiterate Joseph, for who she had created an elaborate scenario to make him fit the picture.

But, based on the known facts, he does not fit the picture. It is far more of a probability that Abraham Lincoln's great grandfather was Joseph Hanks from Berks County, Pennsylvania, who does seem to fit the picture with no fabrication necessary. Why no has ever considered this a possibility is strange since he was known to exist.6 He was in similar circumstances and in the exact same time frame as was Joseph of Richmond County.

Joseph Hanks of Berks County, Pennsylvania was born 1725 to John Hanks and Sarah Evans as recorded in the records of the Society of Friends. He was disowned by Friends 9/26/1754, about the time he would have married. He was in litigation with Alexander Klinger in 1769.~ He was the only person by the name of Hanks listed in the Pennsylvania Septennial Census of 1779 as living in Berks County. In November of 1779 his daughter, Anna Maria Hanks, married

Emanuel Ludwig", son of Michael and Eva Rosina Ludwig who was a close neighbor to Joseph's family. He was on the tax rolls for Berks Co. from 1754-1780 at which time he disappeared from the records at the same time as in the fall of 1780, a Joseph Hanks appeared in Hampshire Co. Va. where his son, Thomas, either enlisted or was drafted into the Revolutionary Army.9

He was on the tax rolls in Hampshire Co., in 178210 and in the census that same year with a household of eleven persons. On March 9, 1784 he mortgaged 108 acres of land to Peter Putman for twenty one pounds and nine shillings. 12

It has been surmised that Joseph's wife may have died since she did not sign the deed.13 And this may be so, considering the big gap between the births of his daughters, Elizabeth born 1776 and Nancy born 1784. At the time of his death in 1793 in Nelson County, Kentucky he did have a wife whom he called "Nanny" who obviously was the mother of the last child, Joseph. In 1794, after her husband's death, she was reported to have taken nine year old Joseph and probably ten year old Nancy to some unspecified place in Virginia.14 In addition Joseph was left his father's 150 acres of land probably because he was too young to care for himself or because he may have been "Nanny's" only son.

Unfortunately, there are no birth, death or marriage records in Hampshire County as they were all destroyed during the Civil War and nothing can be verified.

The mortgage deed tells us that Joseph was probably desperate to have accepted so little money for his land but more than likely it was all that he could get. He probably didn't sell outright because, in that post war period, there may not have been any buyers. It also seems to have been a hedge in case he wanted to return since he had the proviso in the document that he had the option of repaying the twenty one pounds nine shillings with interest on or before the 25th day of September next ensuing in which case the deed would be canceled. On default Peter Putman agreed to sell the farm and retain his twenty one pounds nine shillings plus interest and the residue would be paid to Joseph.

We next find Joseph and his family in Nelson County, Kentucky. Presumably he went there from Hampshire County, Va. because he has never been found in any other locality. However, he is not recorded there until 1787 when on 2/23/1787 he contracted to buy 150 acres of land on Rolling Fork in Nelson County. The deed was never made and he never received a good title to his land.15 1/31/1793 Joseph Hanks, being of sound mind but weak in body, made a very ambiguous Last Will and Testament. On 5/14/1793 this will was entered in the Courts of Nelson County for probate. He mentioned only eight of his ten children by name with a small legacy to each with his 150 acres going to his youngest son, Joseph. He instructed that everything was to be left in the hands of his wife until after her death when at that time the residue of his estate was to be divided equally among all of his children.

This will has been the subject of debate by Historians and Lawyers for decades and the general consensus has been that Joseph could, indeed, have had more children than those mentioned in his will. It has long been accepted that Lucy, by then married to Henry Sparrow and already provided for, was his daughter even though she was not mentioned by name in his will. And for the same reason he omitted his other daughter, Anna Maria married to Emanuel Ludwig and left behind thirteen years before in Pennsylvania.

Anna Maria could read and write and taught her children to read and write as confirmed by her son, Samuel, who was a wealthy and well learned man who migrated from Berks County PA to Crawford Co., Ohio in December of 1831. Lucy, also could read and write as confirmed in her own handwriting on her marriage to Henry Sparrow 4/10/1790.

Joseph of Pennsylvania was born in Pennsylvania, the seventh of eight children. His father, John, was born 5/21/1676, and died l73l in what is now Berks Co. He married Sarah Evans, daughter of Cadwallader Evans 10/11/1711 in the Gwyneld Quaker Meeting and settled along the SkuylkiII river in Union Township, Berks County, very near the Exeter Township line. His close neighbors were Mordecai Lincoln, great, great grandfather of Abraham Lincoln, Squire Boone, father of the famous Daniel and Michael Ludwig who had settled in the lower end of Exeter Township about 1740. The Lincoln and Boone homesteads, both in Exeter Township, are still standing.

The Lincoln, Hanks and Boone sons were of an age to have grown up together and become friends and apparently they did. John Hanks, brother of Joseph, was born 9/20/1712, John Lincoln was born 5/3/1711. Daniel Boone was born 5/2/1724. Joseph Hanks was born 1725. The children of Michael Ludwig, John Lincoln and John and Joseph Hanks were of an age to have become friends so it was natural that a marriage would occur among them.

Michael Ludwig's son, Emanual, married Joseph Hanks daughter, Anna Maria, in November of 1779. Since Joseph had been disowned by Friends, none of his children's births were ever recorded so we can only calculate that Anna Maria's birth was approximately about the same time as Emanuel's who was born 7/13/1756~~ Their marriage date was calculated from the inscription on Emanuel's tombstone which read that he had died 3/1/1791 and had been married 11 yrs 3 mo & 2 wks 21 which, calculated backward, gave us November 1779. Anna Maria would have chronologically fit into the family which was later found in Nelson County Kentucky as his oldest child.

John Hanks, brother of Joseph, was the only other Hanks of record in Berks County from l7S4~l7SO.~ John was not disowned by Friends and his children were duly registered so we know that he was not Maria's father. In about 1773/4 John left Berks County and migrated with his family to Augusta County (now Rockingham) Virginia to join his friend, John Lincoln, who had migrated there a few years earlier. There were no Hanks listed in the 1790 census for all of Pennsylvania.

Joseph of Pennsylvania was evidently a poor and illiterate man. He owned no land of record and we know nothing about how he made a living for his family. He apparently did own personal property as confirmed by the number of years in which he paid taxes. Although he was listed on the tax rolls for 1780 there is no record that he paid the tax. He had nothing to hold him in Pennsylvania so it was natural that he would join the westward and southward migration which was going on at that time. He fits the picture of the man we have found to have been the grandfather of Nancy Hanks, Abraham Lincoln's mother.

There are many reasons why Joseph Hanks of Richmond County does not fit the picture. First of all, there is no known facts that would substantiate all of the maneuvering accredited to him by various historians to try to make him fit the picture. It is highly unlikely that any of them ever happened.

Secondly, his mother, Catherine, died in 1779 after thirty nine years of widowhood and Joseph was named administrator of her estate. Appraisals had to be made, the assets had to be sold, debts and expenses paid, and accounts rendered periodically, and a final distribution which was not completed until December 26, 1782.~ As late as April 1783 Joseph was in Richmond County when his brother, Thomas, was sued by Archibald Ritchie to collect, from his share of the estate, an overdue debt.~ In 1781, during that critical period between 1779 and 1784 he was, employed, probably as an overseer, for two of his neighboring planters, Griffin Fauntleroy and Richard Beale. By the middle of January 1782 his wages for that year 1781 were overdue which he would not collect until he brought suit against them on April 5, 1785.~ For a poor, illiterate man with probably a large family to support, it would seem that he would have had little or no money to either travel or to buy land.

During this period he was recorded frequently in Richmond County as a surveyor of roads, and as a testifier in court cases and as a witness to wills and contracts.~ He was present when the legacies from the estate were divided in December 1782 and was recorded in Richmond County as late as April of 1783 as having made purchases at a neighbor's estate sale. ~ There is nothing in the records anywhere to indicate that he ever left the area.

I have just found a treatise on the subject written and copyrighted in 1988 by Mr. Paul Verduin and published in the Northern Neck of Virginia Genealogical Society Magazine in December 1988. Mr. Verduin has listed the few known facts of record on this Joseph of Richmond County more completely than has any other Historian that I have read. On this very flimsy basis he was woven a scenario with suppositions, conjectures and assumptions that he claims makes it evident that this Joseph Hanks of Richmond County, Va. was indeed the Joseph of Hampshire County.

But it is not evident. Mr. Verduin has given Joseph of Richmond County a very complicated scenario which does not stand up under scrutiny. He is perpetuating, without a shred of evidence to support it, the oft told story how this poor illiterate Joseph from Richmond County "must have" sent his son, Thomas, on ahead to Hampshire County in 1780. And followed thereafter by journeys made by Joseph over the next three years between Richmond County and Hampshire County. All of this at a time when he was mired up to his neck with a load of unfinished business. It makes absolutely no sense that he would have gone to Hampshire County at a time when he hadn't gotten his inheritance, or his back wages from his employers and more than likely didn't have a nickel to his name. And there has not been one shred of evidence ever produced that would even remotely support that this had ever happened.

Mr. Verduin contends that, in or around June of 1782, Joseph "must have" taken a "tentative" sojourn of a few months to Hampshire County because he was not on the tax rolls in Richmond County.~ This was based solely on the fact that a Joseph Hanks did pay taxes in Hampshire County in 1782~ and who was also in the census there that same year with a household of eleven persons.30 A Joseph Hanks who, no doubt, had been there continuously since the fall of 1780.

If he had, as Verduin claims, made a "tentative" trip to Hampshire County in May or June 1782 he would have had to have moved pretty fast to make the tax rolls by June or July and then return to get his family back there by October when the census was presumably taken. And then back to Richmond County at least by November to finish his accounts and settle his mothers estate. It simply never happened.

Verduin goes on to say that after Joseph returned to Richmond Co. in the fall of 1782, to settled his mothers estate, that he was still in Richmond Co. as late as April of 1782 when he purchased unspecified items at an estate sale of one of his neighbors. Then, based on the fact that no taxes had been paid in 1783 in either Richmond or Hampshire Counties, he says by June of 1783 Joseph and his "wife and children" left Richmond Co. "for the last time" and went to Hampshire Co.3

This then brings up the question, had his household of ten dependents, who were in the 1782 census in Hampshire Co., also been commuting? Then he surmises that maybe only the male members were in Hampshire County, so in that case, that still leaves unexplained the eleven member household in the census. Mr. Verduin also claimed that Richmond Joseph had a large family but, he cannot substantiate this since there are no records "anywhere" to prove that either Joseph of Richmond Co. or Joseph of Pennsylvania ever had any more than one child each.

Richmond Joseph had one child of record, a daughter, Betty, born 3/4/177132 Joseph of Nelson County had a daughter, Elizabeth, who stated, in the County Court House on her marriage to Thomas Sparrow, that she was age 20 in 1796 so she would have been born 1776. A significant discrepancy.

Verduin's final conclusion is that Richmond Joseph and Hampshire Joseph "must" be the same man because both were poor, both were illiterate and both had large families.33 A description which also fits Joseph of Pennsylvania who was far more likely to have been in Hampshire County than was Joseph of Richmond County.

Joseph of Pennsylvania's scenario is, simple, direct and uncomplicated. The timing was right, the pieces more nearly fit and he wasn't hampered with a lot of unfinished business that has to be explained away. And significantly, after 25 years on the tax rolls, he disappeared from the Berks County records at the same time that a Joseph Hanks, in the fall of 1789, appeared in Hampshire County, Va. as shown by the drafting or enlisting of his eldest son into the revolutionary Army.~

The Thomas who enlisted in the Revolutionary Army there in the fall of 1780 was much more likely to have arrived there, in 1780, from Pennsylvania with his father, mother and siblings all at the same time.

Since all of these Hanks left so few trails, a determination can only be accomplished by an evaluation of the whole picture based on which probability makes the most sense. From what we know of both of these Josephs it simply makes more sense that the unencumbered Joseph of Pennsylvania was the one most likely to have been the Joseph who was Abraham Lincoln's great grandfather.

SOURCES
I. Wm. E. Barton Linage of Lincoln 1929
2. Ida M. Tarbell - In the Footsteps of the Lincolns 1924
3. H. E. Robinson- Lincoln, Hank & Boone Families
4. Howard M. Jenkins- The Mother of Lincoln PP 135-136
5. Wm. E. Barton - Lineage of Lincoln P. 128
6. Adin Baber - The Hanks Family of Va & Westward 1963 PP 215 & 242
7. Berks Co. Court Records Copies #37
8. Ludwig Family Records
9. Revolutionary Army Pension App I. #4581
10. Hampshire Co. Personal Tax Records 1782 P.27 I I. Va. Census Hampshire Co. 1782
12. Hampshire Co. Deed B. 6 P. 168
13. John W. Wayland - Lincolns of Virginia P. 59
14. Wm. E. Barton Linage of Lincoln P. 189
15. Wm. E. Barton Linage of Lincoln P. 187
16. Nelson Co. Ky Will B.A. P. 107
17. William Barton - Life of Lincoln P. 227
18. Phila Co. PA. Will #W-I90 prob. 5/31/1731
19. H.E. Robinson- Lincoln Hanks & Boone Families P. 79
20-21. St. Paul Church Records- Amityville, PA. PP 42, 64 22. Berks County Pa Tax records
23. Adin Baber - Hanks Family of Va & Westward RCOB 2 PP 28-29
24. Richmond Co. Order B. 18 PP 281-282
25. Adin Baber - Hanks Family of Va. & Westward RCPB 19 PP 239-41
26. Richmond Co. Va. OrderB. 17PP41-44-92 OB. 19PP40
27.-28 Paul Verduin Treatise on Hanks P. 4374 &4363 Pub. Dec. 1988
29. Hampshire Personal Property Tax Records P. 27
30. Va. Hampshire Census 1782
31. Paul Verduin Treatise P. 4363
32. North Farnham Parish Rec. 1672-1800P.217
33. Paul Verduin Treatise PP 4369-4370
34. Revolutionary War Pension Application #4581

  Noted events in his life were:

1. Residence: Berks, Co. PA, To 1779. ¹⁰⁴

Joseph married Nancy (Nannie) Shipley about 1754.