Tying the knot that gave us Abraham Lincoln

Historic Marker at the Homesite of Jesse Head. Author's Collection.

Postcard of Jesse Head. Ky. Hist. Soc.

A block or two off of Springfield's Main Street is the homesite of Jesse Head. Though the home is long gone, replaced in a prior century by a rural Victorian which itself has seen better days, the once-occupant of the site is uniquely tied to history.

One of Springfield and Washington County's greatest claims is their relationship with Abraham Lincoln.

It was in Washington County that Lincoln's parents, Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, were wed in 1806.

Three years later, the Great Emancipator was born in nearby Hodgenville.

The preacher who wed the two was Jesse Head.

Rev. Head, a Marylander born in 1768, had lived in Springfield since the 1790s. On the place of his old  homesite now stands a historic marker which reads  

On June 12, 1806 he performed the marriage of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, who, in 1809, became the parents of Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the U.S. Head, born in Maryland in 1768, "came-a-preaching" to KY in 1798. Cabinet maker, justice of peace, on Sundays he preached fearlessly. Moved shop to Harrodsburg, 1810, kept on preaching, began newspaper.

In 1922, a monument was dedicated at the Spring Hill Cemetery in Harrodsburg which is Head's final resting place. At the time, a poem was prepared and read by Henry Cleveland Wood which spoke of the marriage ceremony once officiated by Rev. Jesse Head:

That from this lowly union there would spring
A modern Moses to a captive race;
A just man, fashioned in heroic mould-
Of Hero's stuff-a fearless President-
Emancipator-yet a Martyr, too-
Abraham Lincoln-Man of Destiny.