Abraham Lincoln Was Related to Paul Revere

Abraham Lincoln in 1862

Although born and raised at different times and in different places, Abraham Lincoln was related to Paul Revere through three marriages in his family.

Abraham Lincoln's father, Thomas Lincoln, had two cousins in Boston during the late 1700s named Amos and Jedediah Lincoln. Like himself, both cousins were carpenters, although they were much more successful at their trade.

After Amos Lincoln participated in the Boston Tea Party when he was 20 years old and served as a Lieutenant Colonel during the Revolutionary War, he married Paul Revere's eldest daughter Deborah in 1781. They had nine children together before she passed away in January of 1797. After Deborah's death, Paul Revere took in their youngest child, Frederick Walker Lincoln, and raised him himself. Later that year, in May, Amos Lincoln married Deborah's younger sister, Elizabeth, and had five more children. The first of those children, Mary Lincoln, was born in December of 1797, just seven months after the couple's wedding, which suggests the baby was conceived before they were married.

Portrait of Paul Revere in 1813

Jedediah Lincoln was also a Revolutionary War soldier. After Jedediah's first wife, Betsey Edwards, died in 1796, he married Paul Revere's daughter, Mary, and they had seven children together. The family lived near Paul Revere in Boston's North End Square.

Both Amos and Jedediah Lincoln are buried at Copp's Hill Burying Ground in the North End of Boston.

Since Abraham Lincoln and Paul Revere's lives overlapped by nine years, Lincoln was nine years old when Revere died in 1818, it is very possible that Lincoln knew of his family connection to the famous Paul Revere.

Sources:

"Paul Revere and the World He Lived In”; Esther Hoskins Forbes; 1942

The Paul Revere House: Paul Revere's Ancestry: http://www.paulreverehouse.org/bio/father.html

"Paul Revere's Ride”; David Hackett Fischer

Ben L. Edwards: The Colonial Edwards Family: http://benledwards.com/edwards/familytree.html

Boston Tea Party Historical Society: Amos Lincoln: http://www.boston-tea-party.org/participants/amos-lincoln.html

History.com: 12 Things You May Not Know About Paul Revere: http://www.history.com/news/2011/04/18/12-things-you-may-not-know-about-paul-revere/