Lincoln family of Massachusetts

Lincoln family of Massachusetts
Name	Lincoln family of Massachusetts
Caption	Coat of arms associated with Lincoln descendants
Origin	Hingham, Massachusetts
Founded	17th century
Founder	Samuel Lincoln (colonist)
Region	New England

Contents

Lincoln family of Massachusetts The Lincoln family of Massachusetts is an American lineage originating in 17th-century New England with roots in Lincolnshire, England, whose members figure in colonial settlement, Puritanism, King Philip's War, American Revolutionary War politics, and 19th‑century national life. Descendants established connections with institutions such as Harvard College, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Plymouth Colony, and the United States Congress, and intersected with figures from John Winthrop to Abraham Lincoln and networks including Henry Cabot Lodge, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr..

Origins and Ancestry

The family traces to Samuel Lincoln (bapt. 1622), who emigrated from Hingham, Norfolk in England to Hingham, Massachusetts during the Great Migration associated with John Winthrop and the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Early lines married into households tied to Edward Winslow, William Brewster, John Alden, and Governor Thomas Dudley, producing cadet branches connected to Salem, Boston, Plymouth (town), and Essex County, Massachusetts. Genealogical records link the Lincolns to landed families in Lincolnshire and to parish registers used by historians like Francis Galton and antiquarians such as Joseph Hunter.

Notable members include colonial magistrates, militia captains, and legislators whose records appear alongside contemporaries like John Endecott, Thomas Prince, and Increase Mather. Later Lincolns appear in the rolls of Harvard University alumni lists with ties to Harvard College overseers such as James Bowdoin and John Hancock. Members served in the Massachusetts General Court, held municipal offices in Boston, Salem, and Hingham, and corresponded with intellectuals like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and jurists such as Theophilus Parsons and Benjamin Butler (lawyer). The family produced clergy who preached in parishes alongside Jonathan Edwards adherents and physicians who trained at the Massachusetts Medical Society and worked with colleagues like Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. and Horace Mann.

Through service in the Massachusetts Bay Colony assembly, militia leadership during conflicts like King Philip's War, and participation in Boston Tea Party era politics, Lincolns engaged with actors such as Samuel Adams, John Adams, Paul Revere, and John Hancock. In the 19th century family members allied with factions around Whig Party (United States), Free Soil Party, and later the Republican Party (United States), interacting with politicians like Daniel Webster, Charles Sumner, and Henry Clay. Their social networks included memberships in societies like the Massachusetts Historical Society, the American Antiquarian Society, and clubs patronized by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

Lincolns were landholders in Hingham, Hull, Massachusetts, and Essex County, engaging in agrarian enterprises and maritime commerce connected to ports such as Boston Harbor, Salem Harbor, and Newburyport. They invested in shipping ventures that linked to mercantile houses trading with West Indies, Boston Mercantile District, and firms associated with families like the Crowninshield family and Cabot family. Industrial-era descendants participated in textile concerns in Lowell, Massachusetts, banking institutions like the Bank of Massachusetts, and enterprises influenced by industrialists including Francis Cabot Lowell and Moses Brown.

Historic homesteads and landmarks associated with the family appear in inventories alongside sites like Old Ship Church (Hingham), Hingham Harbor, and properties on the Freedom Trail proximate to Old State House (Boston). Preservation efforts engaged organizations such as the Massachusetts Historical Commission, the National Park Service, and the Hingham Historical Society, with archaeological studies referencing archives at the Peabody Essex Museum and manuscripts at the Massachusetts Historical Society and American Antiquarian Society.

The Lincoln lineage has been the subject of genealogical scholarship published by genealogists in journals such as the New England Historic Genealogical Society and by authors comparable to Edmund Sears and Francis G. Lee. Descendants intermarried with families including the Lothrop family, Gurney family, Cabot family, and Luther family, producing branches recorded in county histories of Norfolk County, Massachusetts and Plymouth County, Massachusetts. Contemporary genealogists consult parish registers, probate records, and collections at Harvard University Archives and the Massachusetts Archives to trace links to national figures like Abraham Lincoln (distantly) and regional leaders like Henry Cabot Lodge Jr..

Category:Families from Massachusetts Category:American families