HINGHAM, Mass. (NEXSTAR) – A teenage driver lost control of her vehicle last week and slammed into a historic home that belonged to Abraham Lincoln’s ancestors in Hingham, Massachusetts.
The 19-year-old told Hingham police that she swerved to avoid a squirrel in the road just after 6:30 a.m. July 15, sending her 2014 Audi Q7 careening over the sidewalk and into the side of the house.
According to the Library of Congress, the home at 182 North St. is the historic Samuel Lincoln Cottage, which belonged to the former president’s ancestors.
Police said neither the driver, who they found sitting on the curb waiting for officers, nor the occupants of the house were injured. Police, the fire department and a Hingham building inspector responded to the scene.
Andrea Young, administrator of the Hingham Historical Commission and Historic Districts Commission told the Hingham Journal that the cottage, built in 1650, is a “very important” part of the Lincoln Local Historic District.
“So this is really a disaster,” Young said. “I mean that house…everything in that house is original.”
Samuel Lincoln died in 1690. He was Abraham Lincoln’s great-great-great-great-grandfather, a representative from the Lincoln presidential library and museum told the New York Post.
The cottage at 182 North St. sits just down the street from the Samuel Lincoln House according to the Boston Globe. The Lincoln House at 170 North Street, which was home to a number of the late president’s ancestors, is listed for $1,850,000.
