The Samuel Lincoln House

This house on North Street in Hingham marks the beginning of President Abraham Lincoln’s family story in America. The historical marker beside it identifies the property purchased in 1649 by Samuel Lincoln, the president’s fourth great-grandfather.

Samuel Lincoln was born in England in 1622 and came to Massachusetts while still a teenager. Known as “Samuel the Weaver”, he was one of several early Hingham settlers who shared the Lincoln name. He married, raised a large family, and established the American branch from which Abraham Lincoln would eventually descend.

The marker commemorates the land Samuel purchased rather than claiming that he constructed the house now standing upon it. The present Samuel Lincoln House is generally dated to about 1721 and is believed to have been built by his grandson, who was also named Samuel. This distinction makes the property no less significant: it remained connected to the same family for generations.

According to the marker, seven generations of Lincoln descendants lived here. The house therefore represents more than one famous ancestral connection. It preserves the story of a family rooted in Hingham for centuries before one of its descendants was born in a Kentucky log cabin and eventually became the sixteenth president of the United States.

The marker itself was erected in 1930 by the Massachusetts Bay Colony Tercentenary Commission. During that anniversary year, markers were placed throughout the Commonwealth to identify people, buildings, roads, and events connected with Massachusetts history.