The President's Other Father

Every valley likes to claim a famous son. This one reached for the most famous of them all. A settler named Abraham Enloe lived here in the Oconaluftee valley, on this same river. When North Carolina chartered the Oconaluftee Turnpike, the first road over these mountains, Enloe was one of its commissioners, licensed to sell the stock and collect the tolls. Now, there's a tale a good many folks in western North Carolina told, well into the nineteen hundreds. The story goes that Nancy Hanks worked in the Enloe household. That she came to be with child by Abraham Enloe. That she gave birth to a son in this valley, and named him Abraham. And that she moved on to Kentucky, and married a man named Thomas Lincoln. You can see how a story like that would take hold. Two Abrahams. One famous mother. And a mountain valley proud enough to want it true. I'll give it to you straight. There's more been written about Abraham Lincoln than about any other American who ever drew breath, and the serious historians have mostly left this one on the shelf. The paper trail runs through Kentucky, marriage records and tax records and the like, and it tells a different tale. So why did it hang on so long? That part I can only guess at, so take it as a guess. These coves were a long way from any Kentucky courthouse, and a tale that puts Abraham Lincoln in a cradle on your own river is worth more to a valley than a stack of records it will never see. I don't hold with it myself. Still, I've got a soft spot for old Enloe at his tollgate on that turnpike, taking his coin off every wagon coming down out of the gap. And if young Abe Lincoln had ever come through driving one, I believe Enloe would have charged him full price.