My first memory of too many books to fathom comes from my student days at UNC-Chapel Hill where the Wilson Library famously housed 10 stories of books – five stories above ground and five underground. The collectible and rare books were housed underground, and I would often descend to the bottommost floor on a Sunday afternoon where I would stroll through the cramped, dark aisles, and smell the books. This was before the time of super security and hidden cameras – and so I truly felt alone with all those centuries of knowledge and my own private thoughts.
At the other end of the spectrum, I can’t stop thinking about the tiny bookshop which opened about 18 months ago in the old auto repair shop on Main Street in my hometown in North Carolina – what might be considered one of the 10 smallest bookstores in the nation. I spent many-a-morning, a few weeks ago, perusing the “Local Literature” section which occupies about four feet of space on each of three shelves beside the checkout desk. I recognized many of the authors’ names – my high school English teacher, a guy who played football with my older brothers in high school, a woman who attended church with my mother, and a “stranger” who wrote a book about terrorist Eric Rudolph who was captured in a dumpster behind the local Sav-A-Lot store where my mother often shopped. There were other books about Cherokee Indian folklore and medicine, maps and guides for hiking the local trails, that sort of thing. But why two books about Abraham Lincoln?
“Those are because of Lincoln’s real father being buried here – you never heard that?” That came from Linda who is the bookstore owner and former schoolmate of my older brothers.
After a few questions to reorient my mind to – and against – everything I had learned in elementary school about Abraham Lincoln, Linda proceeded to explain that no local person ever believed that Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky. I was 10 years old when my family moved south from Upstate New York, so I guess that’s why I hadn’t been made privy to what everyone knew . . . and so Linda proceeded to tell me the “real story” of Abraham Lincoln:
His real father was Abraham Enloe, a wealthy Western North Carolina plantation owner. Our future President was born, not in Kentucky as the history books tell us, but illegitimately in Rutherford County of Western North Carolina. He was moved to Kentucky in a wagon when he was about one month old by his mother, Nancy Hanks, and a man named Thomas Lincoln who had been hired by the real father to marry her . . .
I'll back up. As legend goes, Mr. Abraham Enloe’s wife was visiting relatives in South Carolina when Nancy Hanks, a maidservant at the Enloe family estate, became pregnant. Upon her return, Mrs. Enloe promptly fired Nancy for being pregnant out of wedlock – she didn’t know who the father was – but then, once the baby was born, Nancy had the nerve to bring little Abraham Enloe Junior – yes, she named him that on the birth certificate – to the Enloe household to show him off. They say Mrs. Enloe took one look at the baby and went into a screaming fit because he looked just like all her other babies. Reportedly, Mr. Enloe gave a local kid, Thomas Lincoln, $500 in gold and a wagon to take Nancy and the baby to Kentucky and to marry her there. That’s how our future President came to be in Kentucky and came to be named Abraham Lincoln instead of Abraham Enloe. They say Mr. Enloe visited Kentucky – and Nancy – until Abe was six years old. That’s when Thomas Lincoln “found them together,” and decided to move his family to Indiana.
A man in Eastern North Carolina has written a persuasive and well documented book about the local legend that flies in the face of history: “Abraham Enloe of Western North Carolina.” Linda said the author, Don Norris, has come to her store for book signings on several occasions.
“I’ve got three signed copies at home. I’ll bring you one tomorrow,” she promised.
Linda told me that a man drove up from Atlanta last summer and went into the local Chamber of Commerce by the rail tracks and said he needed some help finding the gravesite of a possible relative of his. The woman in charge of the Chamber said to him, “And I know just where he’s buried” – and the man said, “How did you know?” And the woman replied, “Because you look like all the rest of the Enloes.” Linda said the man was tall, lanky, and dark featured.
Unlike today, no one during Abe’s lifetime would have written a book or tabloid article about such a “shameful” past. The locals of the time knew all about it, according to Linda – and that was shame enough. The Enloes were good people, and Enloe is still a good family name in the region; they were landowners and they employed a lot of people in Western North Carolina. No one would have been fool enough to bite the hand that feeds them. But everyone knew . . . and Mildred verified this.
Mildred was the 93-year old woman who walked into the book shop the next morning while I was there to pick up my signed copy of “Abraham Enloe of Western North Carolina” and to report on the gravesite I had visited. Mildred said her grandparents owned much land in the area and they also kept indentured servants. Oh, honey, everyone knew . . . and she shook my arm in earnest.
And I can’t stop thinking: There’s no bookstore in this nation big enough to hold the kind of thing that everyone knows . . .
nice piece
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