Poisoned Milk Killed Lincoln’s Mother

The strange "milk disease" that spread over southern Indiana in 1818 when Abraham was 9 years old claimed the life of his mother, Nancy. Later, it was discovered that the peculiar illness was brought on by consuming contaminated milk from a cow that had consumed lethal white snakeroot. In Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, and Western Ohio, you can find the shade-loving White Snakeroot plant. Woods, thickets, and forest edges have rich, damp soil where it can thrive. The plant grows to a height of 18 to 48 inches in late summer when it is fully in bloom and is covered in fluffy, snow-white blooms.

Abraham's mother fell terribly ill in the fall of 1818, almost two years after Thomas Lincoln had relocated his family to the Little Pigeon Creek community in Southern Indiana, after tending to some ailing neighbors. About two weeks later, on October 5, 1818, Nancy Hanks Lincoln passed away from "Milk Sickness." The Library of the Surgeon General in Washington, D.C. houses around 200 articles on "Milk Sickness," the majority of which were published in medical journals. Up until the 20th century, nothing was known about this strange sickness.