“Shortly before this time the names of Mordecai and Abraham disappear from, and are not after 1727 found on, the records of Massachusetts. They were active men of property; and this fact, in connection with the will, which gave them only money, and all the immovable property to Isaac and Jacob, raises an almost irresistible inference that Mordecai and Abraham no longer lived in Massachusetts.
“We now turn to New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and find that, in the early part of the last century, the Moores, Hales, Rolfs, Pikes, and other families from eastern Massachusetts, came to Middlesex County, New Jersey, and founded a town which they named, in honor of their old pastor in Newbury, Massachusetts, Woodbridge. At a somewhat later date the names of Mordecai and Abraham Lincoln appear on the records of Monmouth, which adjoins Middlesex County.
“Mordecai Lincoln had married Hannah (Bowne) Salter of Freehold, Monmouth County, New Jersey. Her uncle John Bowne’s will, dated September 14, 1714, gives to Hannah Lincoln a bequest of two hundred and fifty pounds. She was the daughter of Richard Salter, a leading lawyer, member of the assembly, and judge. Captain John Bowne was also a leading and influential citizen. The settlement of his estate involved several lawsuits shown by the court records. The first in 1716, by Obadiah Bowne, executor, against the other heirs, Mordecai Lincoln being a defendant. In this a non-suit was entered, and the second suit ended in the same way. The third, in 1719, also included Mordecai Lincoln as a defendant, but the sheriff returns him non est, and in 1720 the suit as to Mordecai was withdrawn.
“These facts are satisfactory proof that Mordecai Lincoln had, before 1720, left Monmouth County.”
As further proof of the identity of the New Jersey with the Hingham Mordecai, there is a letter shown to Mr. Shackford by John C. Beekman, Esq., of Monmouth, written by John Bowne, one of the heirs to his uncle Obadiah, in which he calls Mordecai “brother.”
A deed on file in the office of the Secretary of State in Trenton, New Jersey, dated February 29, 1720, from Richard Salter to Mordecai Lincoln, both of Freehold, conveys four hundred acres of land, situate on the Machaponix River and Grand Bank, Middlesex County. A like deed, of May 25, 1726, conveys one hundred acres of land in the same locality, and describes Mordecai Lincoln, the grantee, as of Chester County, Pennsylvania.
It appears from these records that Mordecai was in New Jersey in 1720. In 1876 there was unearthed in the old burying-ground near Allentown, New Jersey, a tombstone, bearing this inscription: “To the memory of Deborah Lincoln, who died May 15, 1720, aged three years and four months.” As no other Lincolns have been found in the vicinity, it is probable that she was the child of Mordecai and Hannah Lincoln.
A deed on file in the Department of Internal Affairs of Pennsylvania, dated December 24, 1725, from Mordecai Lincoln of Coventry, County of Chester, Pennsylvania, conveys to William Branston, merchant, of Philadelphia, one-third of one hundred and six acres of land, according to an agreement between Samuel Nutt and Mordecai Lincoln, with “the mynes, and minerals, forges, buildings, houses, and improvements.” This is important, for it shows that Mordecai first resided in Chester County, Pennsylvania, where he made iron, a trade learned at his father’s establishment in Scituate.
It is through Mordecai that the pedigree of President Lincoln is traced to Samuel Lincoln. But it is also essential that Abraham of Monmouth County, New Jersey, should be identified as one of the missing sons of Mordecai and Sarah (Jones) Lincoln of eastern Massachusetts.
Abraham, like his father, was a blacksmith, as the next deed shows. By it, on the records of Monmouth County, New Jersey, February 20, 1727, Abraham Lincoln, “blacksmith,” conveys to Thomas Williams two hundred and forty acres of land near Creswick, in said county, and two hundred acres conveyed to Abraham Lincoln by Abraham Van Horn. He was probably preparing to follow his brother Mordecai to Pennsylvania.