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Week In Pictures
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The Rev. Jesse Head, a Methodist, officiated. The couple's future son Abraham, the 16th president of the United States, narrated for the audience.
The bride, 22, an excellent seamstress, is the daughter (probably; historical records are uncertain and rumors are unkind) of Lucy Shipley Hanks and James Hanks of Virginia, although she was raised by Kentucky relatives. She wore a dress of cream-colored linen and red satin, as well as a tiny microphone, as did everyone else with a speaking role in the play Dearly Beloved: The Vows of a Lincoln Legacy.
The groom, 28, a carpenter and farmer, is the son of Bersheba Lincoln and Abraham Lincoln of nearby Springfield. He has helped support his family since Indians killed his father.
The wedding was held in the yard of the beautifully restored two-story log home of Francis Berry, one of Nancy Hanks' local kin. The groom is said to have proposed to the bride in front of the fireplace.
The bride's actual bed is displayed on the second floor. Given the number of protective relatives who lived with Nancy Hanks, it's a safe bet that Thomas Lincoln never saw that bed until after they were married.
With Washington County residents in period costume acting as the festive Lincoln-Hanks wedding party, there was much fiddle playing, dancing and "yahooing!" after the exchange of vows. Not shown Saturday: the subsequent meal, which according to an account by guest Dr. Christopher Columbus Graham included a heart-stopping pile of bear meat, venison, turkey, duck and an entire sheep barbecued whole. Fruits and vegetables were not mentioned.
Dinner concluded with "a race for the whiskey bottle," Graham wrote.
The Lincolns are expected to settle in Hodgenville and have three children. The oldest, Sarah, will be born in 1807; the youngest, Thomas, will be born in 1812 and die in infancy.
The middle child, Abraham, will be born in 1809 and go on to become a self-educated prairie lawyer whose magnificent presidency during the American Civil War ends when he's shot in the head while attending the theater.
As a boy, Abraham will be devastated by his mother's death in 1818 from accidentally drinking poisoned milk.
He has nothing good to say about his father and skips the old man's funeral in 1851. Perhaps feeling guilty, two years later, he names one of his sons "Thomas." Everyone immediately calls the boy "Tad" instead.
During Abraham Lincoln's political career, his enemies will spread word that he is a bastard because his parents never married. Lincoln and his allies search in vain for proof to the contrary.
Not long after he is killed, the 1806 wedding certificate turns up in Springfield. A copy now hangs in Francis Berry's log home.
More than 200 years after the marriage, fascination with all things Lincoln will allow Scott Fattizzi -- the artistic director of the Central Kentucky Community Theater in Springfield -- to establish himself in the recurring role of groom Thomas Lincoln.
Fattizzi played the same part in 2006 for the wedding's bicentennial and hopes to continue.
"What I like about this is the personal history involved," Fattizzi said after Saturday's first wedding. "A lot of people just think of Lincoln as Lincoln the legend. They don't really think about him having parents and siblings and uncles and grandparents. He was actually a man, a human being. He came from somewhere."
