Lerna is a village in Coles County, Illinois, United States. The population was 226 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Charleston–Mattoon Micropolitan Statistical Area. Thomas Lincoln, father of President Abraham Lincoln, spent the later part of his life on a homestead a few miles away, preserved today as the Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site. Thomas Lincoln and his second wife Sarah Bush Lincoln are buried in Shiloh Cemetery south of town.