John Brooks Henderson was born in Virginia and moved with his family to Lincoln County, Missouri, at age six. Orphaned by age 10, he became a teacher, lawyer, and state legislator in Pike County, lived and worked in Louisiana, and served as the first president of the Bank of Louisiana. During the early part of the Civil War, he served as a brigadier general in Missouri’s Union militia. Appointed a U.S. Senator in 1862, he soon began regular meetings with President Abraham Lincoln. Though once a slave owner himself, in 1864 he drafted and introduced the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, outlawing human bondage and making the first change to the nation’s founding document in 60 years. He also campaigned for women’s voting rights, supported better relations with Native Americans, fought federal government corruption, was one of only seven Republicans to vote to acquit President Andrew Johnson on impeachment charges, and took part in the temperance movement. In May 1903, Henderson and his wife, Mary Foote Henderson, donated land for the park to the City of Louisiana. They were buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York, with their son, John Brooks Henderson Jr. A strict constitutionalist who served at times as both a Republican and a Democrat, he embraced changes he believed would lead to a more equitable nation and argued that political wrongs should be corrected through the ballot box.