Isaac W. Binckerhoff was born in Ulysses, Tompkins County, NY on November 12, 1821 and died February 24, 1910 in Manhattan. After initially joining the Fourth Associate Reformed Church in 1840, he joined Amity Street Baptist Church in 1850 and was licensed to preach in 1851. He was ordained in 1862 at a meeting of delegates from churches in New York City and Vicinity.

He began working at the American Tract Society in 1834 as an errand boy and worked his way up to the position of Depositary which he held from 1853-1857. From 1859-1862 he was an agent for the American Tract Society of Boston, MA which had split from the New York Society over the issue of slavery. In 1862 he went to Beaufort, SC as a volunteer with the National Freedman's Relief Association. He was later commissioned to this work by the American Baptist Home Mission Society and continued in it until 1874.