N.C. town claiming to be Lincoln hometown

RALEIGH, N.C., April 20 (UPI) -- The town of Bostic, N.C., is claiming the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, was born there and not in Kentucky has previously thought.

Bostic officials have opened the Lincoln Center, which lays out the claim that Lincoln was born in the small town, The (Raleigh, N.C.) News & Observer reported Sunday.

Center President Keith Price said the site features a photo quilt that offers evidence supporting the town's claim. The quilt reportedly included pictures of the remains of the local log cabin where Lincoln was said to be born and an area church his mother supposedly frequented.

"We're trying to put together the only way these people had of preserving these truths -- to tell them," Price said.

Center officials want the federal government to arrange a DNA test to determine Lincoln's parentage.

Gettysburg College official Allen Guelzo, who heads up the university's Civil War eras studies program, told the newspaper the town has little basis for that demand.

"What great issue is at stake here? And what great evidence have people been able to produce to mandate such a drastic test?" Guelzo said. "If that's the case, I should be demanding a DNA test to show whether I'm related to Abraham Lincoln."