Daniel Johnston died in 1816, and in 1819, she married widower Thomas Lincoln, joining his family with her three children.

Christopher Bush, a settler of Dutch ancestry, was a financially well-off slave patrol captain.

[7] The Johnstons struggled financially throughout their marriage, having little or no taxable property and debts that Daniel's brothers sometimes settled.

In 1814, Daniel obtained the position of county jailer, which included living quarters for the family within the jailhouse.

[4][5] After Nancy died in 1818, Thomas returned to Elizabethtown as he had heard that Sarah Bush Johnston was then a widow.

Sarah transformed the home with the addition of furniture and furnishings that would have seemed luxurious to the Lincolns, cleaned up the house and children, and insisted upon the placement of a wooden floor in the cabin, loft for the boys (John Johnston, Abraham Lincoln and Dennis Hanks), creation of a greased paper window and completion of the roof.

[7][9][10][11] Dennis Hanks described Sarah: 'Maybe it was somethin' she tuk comfort in to have a man that didn't drink an' cuss none.

Before winter he'd put in a new floor, he'd whipsawed an' planed off so she could scour it; made some good beds an' cheers, an' tinkered at the roof so it couldn't snow on us boys 'at slep' in the loft.

She encouraged his appetite for reading and learning, giving him access to books she had brought from Kentucky, including the Bible, Aesop's Fables, The Pilgrim's Progress and Lessons in Elocution.

In 1826, Abraham's sister Sarah married Aaron Grigsby and lived near the Lincoln home; she died within a year and a half during childbirth.

He remembered that when she got the news of Abraham's death "she jest put her apern over her face and cried out 'Oh my boy Abe; They've killed him.

By all reports their relationship was excellent, and Mrs. Lincoln considered her stepson a model child who was always honest, witty, and 'diligent for knowledge.'

His stepmother repeatedly joked that Lincoln was so tall that he needed to keep his hair washed or he'd leave prints on her ceiling.

One day, when his stepmother was not home, Lincoln got together a group of younger boys and had them dip their bare feet in the mud outside the farmhouse kitchen.

Then Lincoln took each of the boys inside, held them upside-down, and had them walk their feet across the ceiling, leaving muddy footprints.