Played in Abe Lincoln’s original log cabin as a child. Cabin was torn down about 1870.

Bob was robbed by several soldiers while taking crops to market. He enlisted in the Union army. Member of Company C, 15th Kentucky Infantry Volunteers Regiment, 10/9/1861. Fought in KY, TN, and Huntsville, AL. Wounded in the Battle of Perryville, 10/8/1862. After the battle he ran away and rode a mule home to Knob Creek. He hid out for several weeks at “Cradle Rock”, named for a place the indians collected water somewhere around Knob Creek area. Later he returned to the community and was considered a war hero. He wanted to know why the slaves were not out working the fields when he got home.47

He was a well liked character and had a whiskey named after him, “Uncle Bob’s”.

Oldest man in Nelson County and had eight grandchildren at his death in 1939.

He was born about 200 yards from Lincoln’s boyhood home in Knob Creek, KY. He was 5’10 1/2”, with a fair complexion, gray eyes, and light hair. He was a private in Company C, 15th KY Regiment. He was wounded in the Battle of Perryville, Oct. 8. 1862 and was discharged on a certificate of disability on October 1, 1863. he was the last of his regiment to die, and perhaps the last living soldier from Larue County..48

Oldest man in Nelson Co., KY Standard, 1939

Robert Thompson’s Statement about Lincoln’s Boyhood Home on Knob Creek
New Haven, Kentucky, October 3, 1934
“To Whom It May Concern: I was born December 18, 1841, on Knob Creek in Larue County, Kentucky, about two hundred yards from Abraham Lincoln’s cabin home.

My father, Steve Thcmpson, was born in 1809, the same year of Abraham Lincoln. My grandfather was one the first settlers on Knob Creek, (at that time Kentucky was a county of Virginia.)

In those days Knob Creek was a large stream of clear water. There was very little cleared land, only small fields. The hills that rise on all sides sideswere the most picturesque of the famous Muldraugh ridge, and the valleys were very fertile. The hllls were fulI of all kinds of game and wiId hogs. I have helped my father trap wild hogs for our meat many times, and he took loads of pork dcwn the river to New Orleans.

My father and mother both went to school with Sarah and Abe Lincoln, on Knob Creek. I have heard them teIl about it many times. The school house was located about two miles North of the Knob Creek farm, at a point that is now Athertonnille. Some other boys who lived close went to school with the Lincoln’s were Hawkins, Woods, Robert Cecil, John Roberts, Joe Cap, Austin Gollaher, Charles Boone, Turner Wilson and Pete Aterton.

I well remember the Lincoln cabin. It was a one room cabin with a flreplace in it. I have played in it many times when I was a chIld, and I was about thirty years oId before it was torn down. I last remember it was used for a corn crib, and hogs were fed around it.

On the site of were it stood now stands a replica, reconstructed with logs taken from the cabin of Austin Gollaher, the boyhood friend who saved young abe from drowning when he fell into Knob Creek. I have heard Austin Gollaher tell about it many times, and he pointed out the spot to me. It was just about 50 yards north of the cabin. The Gollaher home stood up the "hollar" just back of the Lincoln home.

The seven acre field which Lincoln spoke of as being the "Big Field,” and the one that he planted the pumpkin seeds in, was evidently just back of the cabin.
I fought in the Civil War and was wounded in the Battle of Perryville, October 8, 1862. – Robert Thompson

Joined the Union Army on Oct. 9 1861 at Camp Sherman.

At age 95, he was staying with his daughter, Mary Jo Cissell, in Louisville during the 1937 Great Flood. The family was evacuated to Bedford, IN by rail.

Born in Knob Creek, Hardin Co., which later became Larue Co., KY.