Lincoln township comprises the narrow peninsula at the junction of the Monongahela and Youghiogheny, bordering on the former seven miles and on the latter five, and ranging in breadth from eighty or a hundred rods on the north to two or three miles on the south. The name had previously been suggested for a township to be formed from Ross and Ohio, and on the failure of that project it was appropriated by the admirers of the "martyr president" in the "Forks."

The farm of the late Andrew McClure was surveyed on a warrant applied for in the name of Mary Creigh, June 14, 1767. James Gray settled here as early as 1782, and in 1784 sold land to William Johnson, George Fockler, prior to 1788, and David Pollock in 1792. The lists of early settlers in Elizabeth township include those of Lincoln, as the territory of the latter was embraced within the limits of the former.

Many archaeological specimens have been found in this township, as well as in Elizabeth and Forward. At one place was an Indian cemetery, which gave evidence of having been used as a place of sepulture in widely different periods, for implements belonging to both the stone and iron ages were found in the graves. Tradition relates that in the years following 1780 immense droves of wild hogs were found in the forests of this and the other townships in the peninsula between the Monongahela and the Youghiogheny. They differed in some respects from domestic breeds, but it is a well-known fact that swine will in one or two generations lose the characteristics that they have acquired by domestication, and become, both in appearance and habits, wild. There were no native breeds, and these were probably the descendants of those that had been brought to this region, and, with the fecundity characteristic of these animals, had multiplied till the region was stocked with them. The mast which abounded in the forests here afforded them abundant subsistence. Their ferocity and courage rendered them formidable foes when aroused.

Bellevue, a town of one hundred and fifty or two hundred inhabitants on the Monongahela river, is so named from the fine view commanded from a hill in the vicinity. There is one church, of the Methodist Protestant denomination, built in 1873, in the town. The coalworks here were first operated by William McCaslin. He sold the property about 1847 to James W. Edgar, who was succeeded by George Bradshaw. The works subsequently passed into possession of Hon. Thomas Mellon and Peter Binkey, and then to Farrow, Gumbert & Huey. Mr. Thomas Farrow died May 13, 1873, and the surviving partners have since operated the works under the style of Gumbert & Huey. The coal-lands of Capt. John Pollock, a short distance below, were first developed by Pollock, Dunseth & Co. Along the Youghiogheny river the Lynch Coal company, successors to J. Penney & Co., operate the Lynch Coalworks. The population of the township was 1,399 in 1870, and 1,646 in 1880.