Ancestors

Richard Lincoln

Richard Lincoln was the eldest son of Robert Lincoln of Hingham, in Norfolk, and of Robert's wife Margaret. J. Henry Lea and J. R. Hutchinson, who traced the family in The Ancestry of Abraham Lincoln in 1909, think he was born "in all likelihood, prior to the outbreak of Kett's rebellion in 1549." He was still a boy when his father died in January 1556. His father's will left the dwelling house and lands to his mother "till my son Richard is 21." If Richard died under age without heirs, the property was to go to his sisters.

His mother married again, to Roger Wright of Hingham. Roger Wright made his will on 9 February 1570/1. He left a close to "Richard Lyncolne, my wife's son," and named Richard an executor together with his mother. Richard was a grown man by then.

In 1574 he married Elizabeth Remching, the eldest daughter of Richard Remching of Carbrooke. Her father, by then dead, had held the manor of Carbrooke on a lease. A marriage settlement was made in the sixteenth year of Queen Elizabeth's reign. It settled the Hingham freehold on Richard, on his bride, and on the heirs of their two bodies, so that the land would descend to the children of that marriage. Her brother Edward Remching was one of the feoffees, the trustees who held the land under the settlement. Their first son was baptized at Carbrooke on 2 November 1574: "Henrye Linckone son of Richard Lincolne." Henry died young. Their second son was Edward. Elizabeth died while Edward was still, in his words, "an infant of tender years."

Richard married three more times. His second wife is not named. She bore him a son, also called Richard, who married a Fulsham. His third wife was Margery Dunham, a widow, whom his will calls "sometymes my wyfe." His fourth was Anne Small, another widow, born Anne Bird at Great Witchingham, a sister of John, Edward and Henry Bird. She was several years younger than he was. By then he had moved to Swanton Morley. Anne bore him two daughters and a son there: Anne, baptized 6 May 1599; Elizabeth, baptized in November 1602; and Henry, baptized 23 June 1605.

He made his will at Swanton Morley on 3 January 1615/16 and added a codicil on 2 February 1618/19. He called himself a yeoman, a farmer who held his own land. He asked to be buried "in the Church of Hingham, in the midle Alley there," the central aisle. He left his houses and lands to his wife Anne while their son Henry was under age. She was to "bringe upp the said Henrie ... unto litterature and good education." His daughters Anne and Elizabeth were to have fourscore pounds each, eighty pounds. He left five shillings to "my grandchild Richard Lincolne." He left nothing to his eldest son, Edward.

In December 1620 he was "surprised by sudden death" as he came home from his fields, in the words his daughters later used. He was buried at Hingham on 23 December 1620. His widow proved the will on 24 February 1620/1 in the Consistory Court of Norwich, the bishop's court that dealt with wills.

The will went to law the next spring. Chancery was the court in London that heard disputes over wills, trusts and settlements of land. Anne and Elizabeth Lincoln, still children, sued their half-brother Edward through their guardian and uncle, John Bird. They claimed six acres at Swanton Morley and Great Witchingham, and charged that Edward "hath suppressed and deteyned the said will." Edward answered on 2 June 1621. He said he had been "disinherited by her meanes and procurement," meaning his stepmother's. He produced the settlement of 1574, and he set out his descent: Robert Lincoln, Robert's eldest son and heir Richard, and Richard's eldest son and heir Edward.

Lea and Hutchinson count Richard among the ancestors of President Abraham Lincoln, through Edward's son Samuel, the settler of Hingham in Massachusetts. Waldo Lincoln, writing the family genealogy in 1923, held that Edward's fatherhood of Samuel was not proved. Edward's own descent from Richard rests on his sworn answer.

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Cite: Heirology, "Richard Lincoln (d. 1620)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/richard-lincoln-1620-7e8dd0.