Retiring President of Lycoming College James Douthat was cleaning out a closet in his office when he stumbled upon a document from a slightly more famous former president, Abraham Lincoln. Douthat found a certificate that named the found of Lycoming College a Civil War Chaplain in 1863 signed by President Lincoln, according to the Associated Press.
The document is in good condition and the signature of the 16th president of the United States is clearly visible on the certificate proclaiming the Methodist founder of Lycoming College, Benjamin Crever, a chaplain. The document also contains the signature of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.
"In the back of my mind, I remember hearing about it," Douthat told the Associated Press. "When I took it down, of course I recognized Lincoln's signature immediately."
Douthat assumes that the document had been sitting in the closet for the entirety of his 24 years at the college. Officials from the college say that they were aware that the document existed and that it was somewhere at the college, they just didn't know where, associate dean and library director Janet McNeil Hurlbert told the Associated Press.
John Brinsfield, a U.S. Army Chaplain Corps historian told the Associated Press that Crever served as one of 500 Union hospital chaplains between the years of 1862 and 1865. Crever served at a military hospital in Frederick, Md., not far from where one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War took place, Antietam.
"Civil War commissions of any type are rare because they were sent to the individual chaplains," Brinsfield said. "If any exist, it is only because the families saved them."
The document at Lycoming College was found only days after professors at Illinois State University confirmed that some of President Lincoln's math homework had been discovered in the archives of Houghton Library at Harvard University, according to the Associated Press.
The cyphering book, or what today would be considered a math workbook, is the earliest known manuscript of the former president's. Dates on the pages go back to the year 1824 and 1826 when President Lincoln was 17-years-old.
Professors Nerida Ellerton and Ken Clements were able to ascertain that not only did President Lincoln appear to have attended more school than previously thought but that he wasn't that bad of a student either.
"Most people say he went to school for anything between three months and nine months," Clements told the Associated Press. "We think he went to school (up to) two years. He made very few errors, and he always knew what he was trying to do."
Images of the Lycoming College document can be seen here.
Images of President Lincoln's math homework can be seen here.
