Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial

Indiana

Managed by National Park Service

Established 1962

200 acres

Overview

In 1816, Thomas and Nancy Lincoln moved their two children, Sarah and Abraham, from Hodgenville, Kentucky to a 160-acre farm in southern Indiana. The future-President Abraham Lincoln lived there 14 years until he turned 21 and the family relocated to Illinois. In 1818, his mother Nancy Hanks Lincoln died of milk poisoning because a dairy cow had eaten white snakeroot plant, and visitors can learn more about the poison tremetol in the Memorial Visitor Center and stop at her memorial stone in the pioneer cemetery (although her exact burial place is unknown).

Highlights

Museum, film, Abraham Lincoln Hall, U.S. Post Office, cemetery, spring, Living Historical Farm, Cabin Site Memorial

Must-Do Activity

Start at the Memorial Visitor Center to visit the museum inside and use the U.S. Post Office if needed. If the weather is nice, take a walk past the pioneer cemetery to the Cabin Site Memorial where a bronze casting of sill logs and the fireplace hearthstones are at the site of the Lincoln’s cabin begun in 1829. The Living Historical Farm has costumed interpreters in the summer that depict homestead life at an authentic cabin and several outbuildings that were moved here from other parts of Indiana.

Best Trail

It is about one mile roundtrip to walk from the museum to the Living Historical Farm and then return on the Trail of Twelve Stones. There is a parking area closer to the Cabin Site Memorial, if you do not wish to walk the entire way. The Boyhood Nature Trail offers an additional one-mile loop through the forest.

Instagram-worthy Photo

The five relief panels on the outside of the Memorial Visitor Center were created from Indiana limestone by E.H. Daniels to depict different periods in Abraham Lincoln’s life. The building was constructed in the 1940s by the state of Indiana and given to the National Park Service when they took over the site in 1962.