Freeman Woodcock Thorpe (or Thorp; June 16, 1844 – October 20, 1922), born in Geneva, Ohio, was an American painter who painted portraits of many notable people such as Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, Grover Cleveland, Ulysses Grant, Simon Cameron, Salmon Chase, Robert Smith, Horace Greeley, Walter Forward and Robert E. Lee.

[1] When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, Thorpe enlisted with the 2nd Ohio Cavalry Regiment, serving as a scout in southern Missouri.

Through the 1870s, he gained popularity, especially among politicians in Washington, D.C. Ulysses S. Grant, who Thorpe had met during the Civil War, helped to arrange for him to have a studio space above the Senate wing in the United States Capitol.

[2] In addition to his artistic endeavors, Thorpe was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives in 1878, a position he held for four terms.

[1] In the 1890s, he moved to Crow Wing County, Minnesota due to ill health, and began to farm trees on his land there.