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William Osborn Stoddard was born on September 24, 1835, in his grandfather’s
house located at no. 5 Albany Street, Homer. His grandfather, John Osborn, a
silversmith and one of the first trustees of the Academy on the Green, was a
participant in the Underground Railroad and the Abolition movement. Young
Stoddard was an eye witness at the famous “Jerry Rescue” by abolitionists in
Syracuse in 1851. Later, Stoddard moved West to Illinois where he met an up-and-
coming lawyer from Springfield named Abraham Lincoln. As co-editor of the Central
Illinois Gazette, Stoddard was one of the first to editorially nominate Lincoln for
President. Ultimately, Stoddard went on to become an assistant personal secretary to
Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln, working at the White House during Lincoln’s first term. As
such, he was responsible for making handwritten copies of Lincoln’s historic
Emancipation Proclamation, which began the process of freeing the slaves. He, also,
was instrumental in gaining acceptance by the Reconstruction U.S. Government of
Francis B. Carpenter’s famous painting of Lincoln presenting the Proclamation to his
Cabinet.
Both Homerites, Carpenter and Stoddard, were at the White House at the same time
and later wrote books about their interactions with President Lincoln. Carpenter’s
book, Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln, and Stoddard’s
memoirs (in at least three editions) are still used as primary sources by Lincoln
scholars, such as Harold Holzer.
Stoddard went on to be an inventor and a successful writer of books for young boys.
He died on August 29, 1925, and is buried in Madison, NJ.
How Homer’s two native sons have contributed to the Lincoln legacy in paint and
print will be addressed by Mr. Holzer in May of 2009 during “Homer’s Celebration of
Lincoln in Paint and Print.”
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