The LaRue family and its descendants trace their ancestry back to the French
Huguenot Abraham LeRoux, who sailed to America with his family around 1680 as part of a mass exodus from France. According to LaRue descendant and author of
Six Generations of LaRue and Allied Families, Otis M. Mather, several attempts to trace Abraham's family to a particular individual or locality in France have been unsuccessful. However, Don Holland Watson began the search in 1961 and, along with his two sisters, visited Germany and France on several occasions, tracing the family from the sub-province of
Lalloeu in France to Mannheim, in Germany, and from there to the US, then tracking the family until modern times, all across the US in personal visits. The photograph shown here was duplicated with Don, his wife Margarete, and dozens of LaRue family descendants in 1998. The research is current as of 2015. All of it has been posted online, at Rootsweb and Ancestry.com, originally titled "LaRue and Allied Families." Although there are dozens of family traditions describing in various ways how Abraham and his family first arrived in America, all sources agree that some of the LaRues were murdered during or soon after the
Massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572, and afterward scattered across Europe and, eventually, America, where several members of the family were reunited. Over the next couple of generations, the LaRue family spread west into Kentucky and settled near what later developed into the town of
Hodgenville, in
LaRue County. Jacob LaRue sold Bloomfield to his brother James and built a new home near Hodgenville in 1800. Just nine years later, on February 12, 1809, future president
Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin on the
Sinking Spring Farm, amidst "scores of descendants of Isaac LaRue, Sr." Three LaRues are believed to have been present during Abraham Lincoln's birth: Mary Brooks LaRue Enlow, her daughter Margaret "Peggy" LaRue Walters and her cousin Rebecca Hodgen Keith. According to LaRue family tradition, Mary Enlow assisted
Nancy Hanks Lincoln in delivering her baby, who was mistakenly thought to be named after Mary's sixteen-year-old son, Abraham Enlow, because Abraham had helped
Thomas Lincoln in finding assistance for his pregnant wife earlier that day. They were unaware that Abraham was named after his paternal grandfather. . A few years later, the Lincoln family moved to a new home about five miles away, but Abraham often returned to visit Hodgen's grist mill, near his birthplace. At the time, Hodgen's Mill was owned by Robert and Sarah LaRue Hodgen. Abraham probably spent much of his time in the Hodgen home, which was right next to the mill. Abraham's schoolmate and childhood friend, Austin Gollaher, later wrote in his book
The Boyhood of Abraham Lincoln that it was from "his mother and from Mrs. Hodgen Abraham learned his A-B-C's". He also claimed that Sarah's son, John Hodgen, was Lincoln's "childhood hero". The Lincoln family eventually moved away to Indiana in 1816, when Abraham was nearly eight years old. He never again saw the place of his birth. Hodgen's Mill became the town of Hodgensville just a few years later. Most remained loyal to the
Union, but several descendants served the
Confederacy. On the Confederate side, one LaRue became a brigadier general, while another rose to the rank of major. Many others served in lesser positions and in the ranks of the Confederate Army. On the Union side, one man was about to be promoted to colonel when he was elected to serve in Congress. Several others served as captains and lieutenants, enough to "officer a regiment", according to Mather. Over the years, many LaRues went west, settling in Michigan, Iowa, Arkansas, Kansas, California, Texas, Oregon, and elsewhere. The most successful was
Hugh McElroy LaRue, who followed the
Oregon Trail and eventually settled in California, becoming one of the founding pioneers of
Sacramento. ==Notable family members==