T. D. Bancroft

Thomas David Bancroft (August 12, 1837 – November 23, 1917) was an American temperance movement activist, writer, and public speaker. An eyewitness to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, he toured the United States giving lectures about Abraham Lincoln.

Born in Elyria, Ohio, Bancroft was raised in New York before moving to the Kansas Territory at age 18. He was a Jayhawker during Bleeding Kansas and fought to prevent Kansas from becoming a slave state. After the war, he returned to New York in 1860 to attend college and became involved in the campaign to elect Abraham Lincoln as president. In the American Civil War he served in a group of Kansas militia men assigned to protect Washington D.C. and then in the Union Army under General Philip Sheridan.

Bancroft later achieved national prominence for his lecture tours on Lincoln's death. In Kansas City, Kansas, he founded a Christian school, created several public libraries across Kansas, and established the first public library in Hot Springs, Arkansas. An activist in the temperance movement, he worked for the Anti-Saloon League nationally. He lived his later life in Los Angeles County, California, before dying in Providence, Rhode Island, during a lecture tour.

Early life and Bleeding Kansas The son of David Bancroft and his wife Louisa Bancroft (née Thomas), T. D. Bancroft was born in Elyria, Ohio, on August 12, 1837. His father was a mason who worked on the initial building of Oberlin College. As Lincoln's body was being carried from the theatre, some of the president's blood fell on a program, and Bancroft kept it. He later had that program framed, and gave it to the Kansas State Historical Society in 1901.

Post-war life

In his later life he lived in El Monte, California. He died in Providence, Rhode Island, on November 23, 1917, while on a lecture tour.