Was Abraham Lincoln born in N.C.?

(By Charles Joyner, Carolina Country) - In 1899, less than 35 years after Lincoln’s assassination, James H. Cathey of Sylva wrote and published the third edition of a book, entitled “The Genesis of Lincoln,” in which he endeavors to prove “an interesting fact in the story of America’s most remarkable man.”

Quoting interviews and letters from widely scattered sources, Cathey makes a case that Lincoln’s mother, Nancy Hanks, became pregnant as a servant girl in the home of Abraham Enloe, located on Ocona Lufta, about 14 miles from Bryson City in what is now Swain County.

Abraham Enloe fathered nine sons and seven daughters by his wife (a former Miss Egerton). The ninth and only surviving son in 1899 was Wesley M. Enloe. Wesley was 88 years old when he was interviewed by Cathey at the Enloe home — the same house on the same farm where his father and mother lived when Nancy Hanks was banished from the household and sent to Kentucky.