HARTFIELD, Va. (AP) _ Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, the last direct descendant of Abraham Lincoln, has died at age 81.
Beckwith, the great-grandson of the 16th president, died Christmas Eve in a nursing home in Saluda, about 45 miles from Richmond, according to Charles Bristow of the Bristow-Faulkner Funeral Home in Saluda.
Elizabeth Young, the family’s attorney, said in later years Beckwith had been afflicted with Parkinson’s disease.
Miss Young, who said she had represented the family for 40 years, said Beckwith never discussed his feelings about his famous heritage.
''We didn’t talk about anything like that,’' she said. ''Socially, it’s not done, and in business I talked about what I was paid to talk about.’'
Last year, Beckwith told an interviewer for Life Magazine that in his youth he had enjoyed sailing on Chesapeake Bay, raising Black Angus cattle on his ranch in Hartfield, Va., and car racing.
''I’m a spoiled brat,’' he said.
Abraham Lincoln and his wife, Mary Todd, had four sons, but only one survived to manhood. Edward died in infancy, William Wallace died in 1862 at age 11, and Thomas died in 1871 at age 18.
The eldest, Robert Todd Lincoln, had a law career in Chicago, served as secretary of war under President James A. Garfield, was Minister to the Court of St. James and was president of the Pullman company. He died a multimillionaire in 1926 at age 82.
Robert Todd Lincoln and his wife, Mary, had three children. A son, Abraham Lincoln II, died at age 16 while on a trip to Europe in 1890. A daughter, Mary, married Charles Bradley Isham in 1891. They had a son, Lincoln Isham, who died in 1971 in Dorsett, Vt.
The youngest of Lincoln’s grandchildren, Jessie, eloped in 1897 with Warren Beckwith, a classmate and football star at Iowa Wesleyan College. They had two children: Mary Lincoln Beckwith, who died in 1975, and Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, who was born in Riverside, Ill., on July 19, 1904.
The great-grandson received a law degree from what is now Georgetown University. He donated most of his famous forebearer’s documents, artwork and furniture to the state of Illinois.
Miss Young said she did not believe Beckwith left any other Lincoln documents.
In February 1984, Beckwith had the name of his uncle, Abraham Lincoln II - the president’s grandson, carved on the massive stone sarcophagus that marks the Arlington cemetery grave shared by the younger Lincoln and his parents, Robert Todd Lincoln and Mary Lincoln.
The younger Lincoln’s name had been left off the monument because of rules prohibiting the listing of minors’ names. Until then, the only clue that the boy was buried there had been a small footstone with the initials ''A.L. II,’' almost completely covered with grass and earth.
Beckwith was married three times, but his lawyer said he was childless. His widow, Margaret, lives in Chevy Chase, Md.
