Nancy Lincoln - Death

Death

While living at Little Pigeon Creek Settlement, Nancy Hanks Lincoln died on October 5, 1818, age 34. Her nine-year old son Abraham assisted his father in the making of her coffin by whittling the wooden pegs that held the planks together. The eleven-year-old Sarah cared for Abraham until their father remarried the next year.

There are two views of what Nancy Hanks Lincoln died of. One view is that she died of "milk sickness." Several people died that fall from the illness, including her maternal aunt Elizabeth and uncle Thomas Sparrow. It was caused by settlers drinking the milk or eating the meat of cows that had eaten the white snakeroot. The plant contains the potent toxin temetrol, which is passed through the milk. The migrants from the East were unfamiliar with the Midwestern plant and its effects. In the nineteenth century before people understood the cause of the illness, thousands in the Midwest died of milk sickness.

The second view is that Nancy died of consumption. In 1870 Lincoln's law partner and biographer, William Herndon, wrote to fellow Lincoln biographer Ward Lamon saying that "Mrs. Lincoln died as said by some with the milk sickness, some with a galloping quick consumption", i.e. a wasting disease or tuberculosis. This, with the recent demonstration that Nancy had a marfanoid body habitus and the same unusual facial features as her son, would suggest that she died of cancer (which is a wasting disease) related to multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2b (MEN2B), and that she passed the gene for this syndrome to her son (see Medical and mental health of Abraham Lincoln).

Nancy's grave is located in what has been named the Pioneer Cemetery, also known as the Nancy Hanks Lincoln Cemetery. At least twenty unmarked and eight marked graves are at the site; Nancy Lincoln is buried near a neighbor whom she cared for, but who also died from milk sickness. Her childhood caregivers, Elizabeth (Hanks) and Thomas Sparrow (aunt and uncle) are buried nearby. The cemetery is located on the grounds of the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, a National Historic Landmark District managed by the National Park Service in present-day Lincoln City, Indiana.