Happy Thanksgiving, North Carolina!

We here at the Society offer our warmest holiday wishes to you and yours. We can't speak for everyone, but we feel blessed to live in this wonderful state.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. ...

They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. ...

-From Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation, "this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth."

More on Abe Lincoln, N.C. native(?)

When discussing more than a year ago the "Most Influential North Carolinians" we mentioned the (tenuous) idea that Abraham Lincoln was in fact born near Murphy, not in Kentucky.

Well, author John A. McKinsey has dived right into the speculation with "The Lincoln Secret," a novel.

“The Lincoln Secret” is a modern-day, mystery adventure that explores mysteries of Abraham Lincoln’s life and the Civil War. In particular, the book delves deeply into the theory that North Carolinian Abraham Enloe might be the real father of Abraham Lincoln [according to the Elizabeth City Daily Advance].

The core mystery in “The Lincoln Secret” is whether Abraham Lincoln’s father was really Thomas Lincoln. A documented version of history holds that Abraham Enloe impregnated Nancy Hanks, Abraham Lincoln’s mother, while she was working in Abraham Enloe’s household as a servant girl. She was sent back to Kentucky in disgrace where she secretly had the child after marrying Thomas Lincoln.

As the nation prepares to celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday, “The Lincoln” Secret probes into the topic of who Abraham Lincoln’s father really was and raises doubts about when he was really born. ...

“I tell the story of the Abraham Enloe theory though a modern-day, fictional story,” explains author John McKinsey. “It is a great medium to push the envelope of history and also to get people’s attention. But it has to be done respectfully and accurately. I think I struck the right balance in ‘The Lincoln Secret.’

“The more I explored the story of Abraham Enloe’s possible fathering of Abraham Lincoln, the more curious I became about why the story seems to be covered up and is clearly ignored by many historians. The idea that Lincoln’s parentage might have been covered up is what led to this mystery novel.”

Thoughts on this (some would say preposterous) idea?

(Image of book cover from Amazon.com)