Grigsby, Aaron

Born: 1801-XX-XX

Died: 1831-XX-XX Spencer County, Indiana

Aaron Grigsby was the husband of Sarah Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's older sister, and was therefore Lincoln's brother-in-law. His family was from North Carolina, but lived in Kentucky before moving to Spencer County, Indiana. He was a neighbor of the Lincoln family while they lived along the Pigeon Creek in Spencer County. He married Sarah in August 1826, and the couple set up a home for themselves just a few miles from the Lincoln cabin. Lincoln spent a good deal of time at their home, although it is said he believed that the Grigsby family looked down upon Sarah and mistreated her. When she and her infant died during childbirth in January 1828, Lincoln blamed the Grigsby family for their deaths and carried on a bit of a feud with them thereafter. Aaron Grigsby remained in Spencer County and remarried in September 1830. He and his second wife, Margaret Miller, produced one child, Elsa, before Grigsby died.

Lincoln Family Record; David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 33-35; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:44-46; Kenneth J. Winkle, The Young Eagle: The Rise of Abraham Lincoln (Dallas: Taylor Trade, 2001), 19; Indiana Marriages Database through 1850, 12 September 1830, Indiana State Library, Indianapolis, IN; Louis A. Warren, Lincoln's Youth: Indiana Years, Seven to Twenty-One, 1816-1830 (New York: Appleton, 1959), 258.