Abraham Lincoln (from Wikipedia) Abraham Lincoln's mother Nancy Hanks was claimed to have African descent.[5][7][8] No reliable historians have supported this.[citation needed] However, history is less clear on who his maternal grandfather was.[41] At one time, Lincoln described him as "a Virginia planter or large farmer"[41] who had taken advantage of a young woman, Lucy Hanks, which encounter led to the birth of Nancy Hanks, Lincoln's mother.[41] Lincoln felt that it was from this aristocratic grandfather that he had inherited "his power of analysis, his logic, his mental activity, his ambition, and all the qualities that distinguished him from the other members and descendants of the Hanks family."[41] According to historian William E. Barton, a rumor "current in various forms in several sections of the South" was that Lincoln's biological father was Abraham Enloe, which Barton dismissed as "false".[42] According to Doug Wead, Enloe publicly denied this connection to Lincoln but is reported to have privately confirmed it.[43] Another claim was that Lincoln was "part Negro",[44] but that was unproven. Mail received by Lincoln called him "a negro"[45] and a "mulatto".[45][46] Thomas Lincoln's "complexion [was] swarthy".[47] According to Lincoln's law partner William H. Herndon, Lincoln had "very dark skin"[48] although "his cheeks were leathery and saffron-colored"[49] and "his face was ... sallow,"[49] and "his hair was dark, almost black".[50] Abraham Lincoln described himself ca. 1838–'39 as "black"[51] and his "complexion" in 1859 as "dark"[52] but whether he meant either in an ancestral sense is unknown. The Charleston Mercury described him as being "of ... the dirtiest complexion" and asked "Faugh! After him what white man would be President?"[53]