A historic house built in 1650 by the great-grandfather of President Abraham Lincoln has been wrecked by a teenage driver crashing into it to avoid a squirrel.
The Samuel Lincoln House on North Street in the town of Hingham, Massachusetts, was badly damaged when a 19-year-old motorist crashed into the front of the historic home on the morning of July 15.
First responders at the scene found a 2014 Audi Q7 lodged in the home’s living room. About half of the car entered the home, according to a statement from the Hingham Police Department.
The Hingham Fire Department responded to the incident at around 6:30 a.m., and the road was closed for several hours as teams cleared the scene.
The teenage driver suffered only minor injuries.
“The driver said she swerved to avoid a squirrel in the road and drove off the right side of the road, over the sidewalk, and into the front of the house,” the Hingham Police Department said in a statement.
The police said they issued the teenager with a citation for failing to stay in marked lanes.
The owners of Samuel Lincoln House were still asleep in their upstairs bedroom when the teenager’s vehicle slammed into their home and ended up in their living room.
The owners said they will repair the historical house and hire a specialist team to repair a sign that was knocked off in the crash.
Samuel Lincoln was one of eight early English settlers in Hingham, Massachusetts, and he purchased the land for the house in 1649. The house was constructed in 1650, and it housed seven generations of President Lincoln’s ancestors. The historic location was dedicated in 1930.
An important figure in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Samuel Lincoln’s list of descendants goes beyond the 16th president. His bloodline includes former Maine Gov. Enoch Lincoln, as well as Levi Lincoln Sr., who served as a U.S. Representative and lieutenant governor for Massachusetts before serving as President Thomas Jefferson’s Attorney General, and Levi Lincoln Jr., who served as a U.S. Representative and later governor of Massachusetts.
Samuel’s fourth son, Mordecai Lincoln, would eventually become a distant uncle to the future president Abraham Lincoln, who was born in 1809 to Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln.
Samuel Lincoln died in 1690, and his wife Martha Lyford died three years later.
Abraham Lincoln’s own adult home, a cottage in Springfield, Illinois, is maintained with much of its original structure, walls and foundations by the National Park Service. It became a National Historic Site in 1972.
(Edited by Katie Taranto and Kristen Butler)
