John Carroll Power (September 19, 1819 – January 11, 1894) was an American historian who served as the first custodian of the tomb of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois, from its opening in 1874 to his death in 1894.
[3] In 1876, as the nation celebrated its centennial, a gang of counterfeiters based out of Chicago concocted a plan to steal Lincoln's body from the tomb and hold it hostage in exchange for a pardon for their imprisoned engraver and a cash reward.
On the morning of November 7, Secret Service detective Patrick D. Tyrrell, who had learned of the plot, asked Power to assist in stopping it.
[5] Power wrote an account of the plot to steal Lincoln's body, as well as a history of the services of the Guard of Honor, in 1890.
He was buried at Oak Ridge Cemetery next to his wife, Sarah, who had died three years earlier; his gravestone notes that he "was on duty the night of Nov. 7, 1876 when ghouls attempted to steal the body of President Lincoln".