Farewell at Farmington

Number Ten

From Lincoln’s Autobiographies and other Sources

". . . I always addressed my step-mother as "Mother."   I visited her "every year or two," when I lived in Springfield.  After my father died, I maintained the family's farm in Coles County, Illinois, for her and supported her after my father's death.  "

. . . On January 31, 1861, President-elect Abraham Lincoln would make a secret journey back to Coles County, Illinois to visit his step-mother, Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln and to go to his father's grave at Shiloh Cemetery.  No written record was recorded as to what was said by the President-Elect at his meeting of his mother and visit to Shiloh. 

The historians leave the story of a "feast," for their Abraham at the home of Matilda "Tildy" Moore in Farmington.  Farmington was very close to the Thomas Lincoln Fourth Farm, and the gravesite of Mr. Lincoln. 

Abraham, as his relatives and friends would call him, arrived by train to Charleston.  He would be taken by buggy out to Farmington.  The whole community prepared a grand farewell.  Mrs. Lincoln is said to have sent a new black dress for her husbands' step-mother.  As far as historical record goes, Sarah never met or saw her step-son's wife or their children.  They never traveled to Charleston. 

Many of the people in attendance at that feast in Farmington were children.  Those same children have left personal remembrances of having been with the future President of the United States. 

The President visited his father's grave, and then returned to Charleston.  He would give his final farewell from Illinois at Springfield, and would never come back again.

Abraham would communicate to Charleston relatives and constantly did things to help his step-mother.  He and his step-mother had a very loving relationship. 

Harriet Chapman, Sarah Bush Lincoln's grand daughter described Sarah Bush this way:

"My grandmother is a very tall woman, straight as an Indian, of fair complexion, and was, when I first remember her, very handsome. sprightly, talkative and proud.  She wore her hair curled till gray; is kind hearted and very charitable, and also very industrious."