Lincoln Ancestry Challenged
(Part Two)
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During this period in history, there was a great shame in illegitimacy. Accordingly, he says, Robert Todd Lincoln
looked over the nine different Kentucky sites where his father was supposedly born, chose one
and decided on his date of birth.
Whatever the truth, Mr. Enlow's story is a riveting and entertaining tale. Not only does he maintain that
Lincoln was illegitimate, he writes that the former president's mother was, as well.
Even establishment historians, he claims, acknowledge Nancy Hanks' mother, Lucy Hanks, was charged
with fornication in 1791. He goes on to state that Lucy had not one but two illegitimate daughters
whom she was forced to place with families because her father, Joseph Hanks, disowned her. Nancy
went to the Enloe household at age 10 or 12 and stayed until she was grown and pregnant with Mr.
Enloe's child.
Mrs. Enloe, upset with the situation, ordered her out of the house. She had her baby at a neighbor's in Puzzle Creek, and left for Kentucky with Enloe's daughter, Nancy Enloe Thompson. That didn't mean Abraham Enloe was out of the picture. He visited occasionally and reportedly was found with Nancy by Mr. Lincoln. There was a terrible fight: "Lincoln got drunk and threatened to kill Enloe," wrote one of Mr. Enlow's sources, Berry H. Melton, the son of Abraham Enloe's sister. "Enloe was a large, tall man, and Lincoln was a heavy, muscular man. They fought just like bulldogs. Old Lincoln got Uncle down and bit off the end of his nose."
There is further proof, said Mr. Enlow, that Mr. Lincoln had been [made sterile], possible from the mumps, and when the Lincoln family moved to Indiana, there were no more children. "Mrs. Lincoln bred like a rat in Kentucky. She had no more children in Indiana," wrote Mr. Herndon, calling into question the paternity of the other two Lincoln children born in Kentucky.
He recently completed a work, which explains all of his findings, entitled "The Abraham Lincoln Genesis Cover-up" or "The Censored Origins of an Illustrious Ancestor."
Mr. Enlow said his published work is the first in 100 years that compares the two traditions, that of Kentucky and North Carolina, although there a have been "oblique references from time to time," he said. He describes the story as a "wilderness drama" that brings to mind characters from a Jerry Springer show, hard to reconcile with the saintly status of Abraham Lincoln.
According to Dr. William Rogers, associate dean of the Casperson School of Graduate Studies at Drew University and a Lincoln expert, it is just one more Lincoln story to toss on a huge pile of the same. "I'm very skeptical," Dr. Rogers said, "because so many stories about Lincoln over the last 150 years have surfaced."
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