Built by Abraham Lincoln's great-uncle Jacob Lincoln, the house is near the site of the dwelling of Abraham Lincoln's great-grandparents John and Rebecca Lincoln, who moved here from Pennsylvania in 1786. The sophisticated quality of this five-bay two-story, painted brick Federal house heralds the arrival of a new design in the largely German community north of Harrisonburg. The ornate wooden cornice with elaborate molding, corbels, and dentils, the splayed window lintels of limestone, and a particularly refined doorway highlight the design. According to oral tradition, a cabinetmaker named Schultz made the doorway, which Jacob Lincoln hauled from New York or Pennsylvania. On a hill overlooking the farm, the family cemetery contains five generations of the Lincoln family as well as some of their slaves.