Boy Hero Saves Life of Young Abe Lincoln

THERE'S ONE IN EVERY FAMILY!

“Where is my old friend and playmate Austin Gollaher? I would rather see Gollaher than any man living.” ...Abraham Lincoln

Ah...boy heroes. Doesn't every family have one? But this hero belongs to us all, because without his intervention, we might not have had a President named Abraham Lincoln.

TALL TALES

Back in 1997 my mother-in-law tried to tell me about an ancestor on her side of the family that she'd heard stories about all her life. This ancestor had saved Abraham Lincoln from drowning in Knob Creek when they were just boys. Her details were extremely sketchy and she pronounced the surname in various ways and, well...she just looked like she was telling me a "tall tale". To say I was skeptical would be an understatement. I was not the least bit interested in wasting time on silly stuff....but I was taught to always show respect for my elders so I turned away before I rolled my eyes. I've learned many a lesson about arrogance since then. It is unproductive and unattractive and you often get your nose rubbed.

I don't know how long it was, probably only a week or two, but something made me go digging. Maybe it was my husband Mike saying he'd heard the tale from others in the family. Could there be something to the story? Before long I came up with the man's name, Benjamin Austin Gollaher, and he was Mike's maternal third great grandfather. At that time there wasn't much on the Internet about him but I talked with Mike's cousins who confirmed the story and said they had proof of it.

Later that year we made a trip to LaRue Co., Kentucky and the surrounding areas and we found out all we needed to know. I was relieved that only my husband would see me eat humble pie! He didn't even say "I told you so" because he was just as surprised as I was that the stories were actually true. 

Even Gollaher's tombstone in Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Cemetery reflected his friendship with Abraham Lincoln.

Best of all was the newspaper clipping, hand dated 1953. This clipping gives our family our own personal interest story. It not only confirms all the stories but it also shows the pocket knife given to Austin Gollaher by his friend, the young Abe Lincoln and the pocket watch that once belonged to Gollaher. 

In this article's photo are Mike's granduncle C. W. "Uncle Bud" Melvin, his grandaunt Myrtle Melvin and his great grandmother Edna "Eddy" Metcalf Melvin Price who remembers the stories told by her husband's grandfather Austin Gollaher. The article also mentions his grandaunt Bessie (Melvin) Church and it was Bessie's daughter Evelyn who made me a copy of this article. Click the article to enlarge.

There is now a huge assortment of articles on the Internet about Austin Gollaher and his heroic act of fishing his pal Abe from the swollen waters of Knob Creek so I won't bother to repeat those here. Interested persons have only to Google his name and Lincoln's to read some of them. There is even a page for him on Facebook "Austin Gollaher Descendants" where his portrait can be seen and on his Find A Grave memorial is a lengthy biography.

The quote by Lincoln at the beginning of this blog was supposedly said to Dr. Jesse Rodman of Hodgenville sometime before Abe invited his friend Austin to the White House. The story above says Lincoln actually wanted him to fill a position there although I have not heard that repeated elsewhere. All the stories seem to agree that President Lincoln offered to pay for Gollaher's trip to the White House but Gollaher turned him down due to his fear of trains!

The pocket knife and watch were in Uncle Bud's possession for many years but when he died his wife kept the items and we believe her children (Bud's step-children who are not related to the family) now have them. It would be nice to have them back in the family.

[Submitted for the 100th edition of the Carnival of Genealogy: "There's One In Every Family!"]

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