John Gould Stephenson

John Gould Stephenson was an American physician and soldier who served as Librarian of Congress from 1861 to 1864. Born in Lancaster, New Hampshire, to a prominent merchant family, he attended the Dartmouth Medical College and Castleton Medical College, where he received his M.D in 1849. Stephenson moved to Terre Haute, Indiana, in the early 1850s, where he became active in the temperance movement and the nascent Republican Party. He campaigned for Abraham Lincoln in the 1859 Senate race in Illinois and the 1860 presidential election. He pursued an appointment as Librarian of Congress immediately following Lincoln's election, possibly due to his brother's work as a librarian in Cincinnati. After a lengthy pressure campaign from prominent Republicans, Lincoln appointed Stephenson as Librarian of Congress, replacing long-term incumbent John Silva Meehan despite opposition from the Joint Committee on the Library.