Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v1.djvu/48

18 of destiny as in the few crude arrangements of the parties directly involved, Thomas Lincoln journeyed in a primitive way to the home of Richard Berry, the prospective bride's grandfather, at Mattingly's Mills, and, together with Richard Berry Jr., cousin to the bride-elect, visited the county-seat of Washington County, and executed a marriage bond of the following tenor and import, viz.:

Know all men by these presents, that Mr. Thomas Lincoln and Richard Berry are held and firmly bound unto his excellency the Governor of Kentucky in the just and full sum of Fifty pounds current money; to the payment of which well and truly to be made to the said Governor and his successors, we bind ourselves, our heirs, etc., jointly and severally, firmly by these presents. Sealed with our seals and dated this 10th day of June 1806. The condition of the above obligation is such that whereas there is a marriage shortly intended between the above bound Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks for which a license has been issued. Now if there be no lawful cause to obstruct the said marriage, then this obligation to be void, else to remain in full force and virtue in law.

Witness:.

And the Rev. Jesse Head, D. M. E. C, certifies that on June 12, 1806, he joined Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks in marriage. According to an article published in The American, a Philadelphia magazine published a few years since, it would appear that one John Hank lived on what is now the Perkiomen turnpike, six miles east of Reading in Exeter Township, in Pennsylvania, and within half a mile of the residence of Mordecai Lincoln, who would be the great-great-grandfather of the President, and that Hank