Abram J. (Abram Jesse) Dittenhoefer

Born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1836, he moved with his family to New York City as a child and went on to study at Columbia College, graduating in 1855. He entered the law soon after, building a career that combined courtroom work, public service, and energetic political activity.

A committed Republican at a time when that stance was far from easy, he was active in antislavery politics and served as chairman of the German Republican Central Committee of New York for many years. He was also a presidential elector for Abraham Lincoln in 1864 and later served briefly as a judge of New York’s City Court.

Alongside his legal work, he became especially known for cases involving the theater, earning a reputation as an authority on dramatic and stage law. Late in life, he published How We Elected Lincoln: Personal Recollections of Lincoln and Men of his Time (1916), leaving behind a vivid personal account of politics, reform, and public life in nineteenth-century America.