Thaddeus Stevens in the Limelight–The School Years

By Paul Chouinard

An artist's rendition of the old school. The site of the building is marked in Peacham at the top of the hill near the cemetery.
An artist’s ren­di­tion of the old school. The site of the build­ing is marked in Peacham at the top of the hill near the cemetery.

Com­mon schools were orga­nized in Danville in 1790 with the cre­ation of five school dis­tricts, which includ­ed Danville Cen­ter. They attend­ed school in Danville before mov­ing to Peacham. Around the year of 1807, Sarah moved her fam­i­ly to Peacham, so her boys could have the ben­e­fit of attend­ing Cale­do­nia Coun­ty Acad­e­my, lat­er known as Cale­do­nia Coun­ty Gram­mar School and most recent­ly, Peacham Academy.

Sally Morrill moved her family to Peacham and stayed at what is now known as the Graham place. It is located below the village and the walk up the hill, especially in winter, would have been arduous for Thaddeus and his older brother.
Sal­ly Mor­rill moved her fam­i­ly to Peacham and stayed at what is now known as the Gra­ham place. It is locat­ed below the vil­lage and the walk up the hill, espe­cial­ly in win­ter, would have been ardu­ous for Thad­deus and his old­er broth­er. PHOTO BY PAUL CHOUINARD

Accord­ing to Ernest Bog­a­rt, author of Peacham’s his­to­ry The Sto­ry of a Ver­mont Hill Town, the pri­ma­ry require­ment for admis­sion was: “No per­son shall be admit­ted to study read­ing, spelling or gram­mar or any high­er branch who shall not already have acquired as much knowl­edge of the Eng­lish lan­guage as to read in any com­mon Eng­lish book as cor­rect­ly as to be able to study Eng­lish gram­mar to advan­tage.” Thad­deus’ moth­er had pre­pared him well to meet this chal­lenge by the time he was admit­ted at age 15.

The Acad­e­my was open to all stu­dents from Cale­do­nia Coun­ty. A month­ly tuition fee of 12 1/2 cents per month was charged in 1808. The Stevens fam­i­ly lived in what was known as the Gra­ham place, now owned by Ray­mond Welch, about one and one-half miles from Peacham Cor­ner. For the priv­i­lege of liv­ing there with her fam­i­ly, it is believed that Sal­ly pro­vid­ed house­keep­ing ser­vices for the own­ers of the home. In 1808 Sarah received the sup­port of her father, Abn­er, when he returned from Stanstead, Que­bec to live with her fam­i­ly fol­low­ing the death of her moth­er. Thad­deus walked to school, which giv­en his phys­i­cal dis­abil­i­ty, was no small accom­plish­ment. The dis­tance to the Acad­e­my was about one and one-half miles uphill. The walk was long and ardu­ous in the win­ter since the roads were rolled rather than plowed. Dur­ing a thaw one would sink into the deeply packed snow.

The prin­ci­pal, referred to as the pre­cep­tor, was respon­si­ble for pro­vid­ing all instruc­tion in every dis­ci­pline to about one hun­dred pupils, rang­ing in ages from eight to twen­ty. A clas­si­cal cur­ricu­lum was taught. Notwith­stand­ing his infir­mi­ty, Thad­deus excelled at swim­ming and horse­back rid­ing. He was a high­ly com­pet­i­tive stu­dent; how­ev­er, he was not hap­py in school. His infir­mi­ty set him apart. One of his school­mates said that “boys would laugh at him boy-like, and mim­ic his limp­ing walk.” As a result of his expe­ri­ence with peers, he devel­oped a tart­ness of speech and a com­bat­ive­ness of man­ner that remained with him through­out life.

Thad­deus did well at the Acad­e­my, where he joined one of the two clubs—one was scholas­tic and the oth­er polit­i­cal. It did not take him long to become the leader of the lat­ter, com­pet­ing with the rival group led by Wilbur Fisk, lat­er the pres­i­dent of Wes­leyan Uni­ver­si­ty and a famous Methodist min­is­ter. While a stu­dent at the Acad­e­my, Thad­deus demon­strat­ed that he was will­ing to chal­lenge author­i­ty if he felt the rules were unjust. Con­trary to the rules of the Acad­e­my, he took part in the per­for­mance of a tragedy, a form of dra­ma that was unac­cept­able to the school’s Trustees, whose expec­ta­tion was the per­for­mance of an orig­i­nal play. The twelve stu­dents fur­ther vio­lat­ed the rules by pre­sent­ing the tragedy on the evening of Sep­tem­ber 4, 1811, instead of the sched­uled day­time per­for­mance at the Trustees’ annu­al meet­ing. For this act, he and his fel­low stu­dents were rep­ri­mand­ed by the Board of Trustees, which required them to sign an apology.

Thad­deus’ caus­tic wit showed itself in anoth­er instance. The sto­ry is told that one day John Mat­tocks, one of Peacham’s most accom­plished and respect­ed cit­i­zens of the time, lived in a house in the mid­dle of the vil­lage, at the base of the hill that led to the acad­e­my. Mat­tocks’ law office was oppo­site his home on the oth­er side of the road. Mr. Mat­tocks observed Thad­deus star­ing at the hous­es. Lean­ing out of the win­dow he called to him, “Well, my boy, do you think you are in Par­adise?” To which Thad­deus retort­ed, “I did until I saw the Dev­il look­ing out of the window.”

Mattocks' home in Peacham where young Thaddeus first met the lawyer. PHOTO BY PAUL CHOUINARD
Mat­tocks’ home in Peacham where young Thad­deus first met the lawyer. PHOTO BY PAUL CHOUINARD

Mat­tocks bore no ill-will to Stevens for his imper­ti­nence. It is report­ed that before leav­ing Peacham for Dart­mouth, Thad­deus had a chance encounter with John Mat­tocks who said: “Here Thad,” hand­ing him ten dol­lars, “take this and buy some books and go to col­lege with­out a hat.” Mat­tocks’ kind­ness to Thad­deus con­tin­ued in that when he returned to Peacham in 1814 to teach, Mat­tocks gave him the oppor­tu­ni­ty to study law in his office.

After com­plet­ing his stud­ies at Cale­do­nia Coun­ty Acad­e­my in 1811, Stevens enrolled in the sopho­more class at Dart­mouth Col­lege. By 1811 Dart­mouth had 124 stu­dents. For some rea­son Thad­deus did not remain at Dart­mouth and spent his junior year at Burling­ton Col­lege now known as the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ver­mont. The admis­sion require­ments of the col­lege includ­ed: “good moral char­ac­ter” as well as an exam­i­na­tion by the pres­i­dent and tutors in Latin and Greek par­tic­u­lar­ly in the six books of the Aeneid, four of Cicero’s ora­tions against Cati­line, and four gospels in the orig­i­nal Greek. Chapel atten­dance on Sun­day morn­ings and evenings was obligatory.

This is the original Dartmouth College where Thaddeus went to school. It is still located on the Dartmouth green. PHOTO BY PAUL CHOUINARD
This is the orig­i­nal Dart­mouth Col­lege where Thad­deus went to school. It is still locat­ed on the Dart­mouth green. PHOTO BY PAUL CHOUINARD

One of his not­ed accom­plish­ments at Burling­ton Col­lege the writ­ing of a tragedy in three acts titled The Fall of Hel­vetic Lib­er­ty, which was per­formed pri­or to com­mence­ment in 1813. But, once again he man­aged to get into trou­ble. It hap­pened that a neigh­bor­ing farmer’s cows used the unen­closed cam­pus as a pas­ture. Pri­or to com­mence­ment, their own­ers were warned to keep them away. The farm­ers did not com­ply, and when Stevens and a fel­low stu­dent were walk­ing under the trees a week before grad­u­a­tion and saw a cow, they decid­ed to kill it.

Bor­row­ing an axe from a fel­low stu­dent, they did so and when the own­er com­plained to the pres­i­dent, the inno­cent own­er of the axe fell under sus­pi­cion and was about to be expelled on the day of grad­u­a­tion. This pos­si­ble out­come hor­ri­fied Stevens and his friend. Plac­ing them­selves at the mer­cy of the own­er of the cow, they promised to pay him twice its val­ue if he would help them. The farmer agreed and told the col­lege author­i­ties that sol­diers had killed the ani­mal. The accused stu­dent was cleared and allowed to grad­u­ate. Stevens lat­er did pay the farmer, who sent him a hogshead of cider in return. Thad­deus’ con­science appar­ent­ly did not allow him to have an inno­cent man suf­fer the con­se­quences of his behavior.

He returned to Dart­mouth in 1814 for his senior year. That year the empha­sis was on meta­physics, the­ol­o­gy, and polit­i­cal law. The cur­ricu­lum also includ­ed com­po­si­tion and pub­lic speak­ing. Stevens grad­u­at­ed after tak­ing part in a con­fer­ence on the top­ic: “Which has been more dele­te­ri­ous to society—war, lux­u­ry, or par­ty spirit?”

A room­mate at Dart­mouth remem­bered that Thad­deus “was then inor­di­nate­ly ambi­tious, bit­ter­ly envi­ous of all who out­ranked him as schol­ars, and utter­ly unprin­ci­pled.” One can assume that the roommate’s assess­ment of his char­ac­ter and abil­i­ty might not be com­plete­ly objec­tive, as he con­tin­ues: “he showed no uncom­mon men­tal pow­er, except in extem­po­ra­ne­ous debate. He indulged in no expen­sive vices, because he could not afford them, and because his ambi­tion so absorbed him that he had lit­tle taste for any­thing that did not promise to grat­i­fy it. He was not pop­u­lar enough with the class to get into Phi Beta Kap­pa, or even to be nom­i­nat­ed for mem­ber­ship. This was a source of great vex­a­tion for him, though he was very care­ful not to express his vex­a­tion. Yet it burst out once, in our room, in an unguard­ed moment.”

Mattocks' law office in Peacham where Thaddeus studied law under him.
Mat­tocks’ law office in Peacham where Thad­deus stud­ied law under him. PHOTO BY PAUL CHOUINARD

After his grad­u­a­tion from Dart­mouth, Thad­deus returned to Peacham and served as pre­cep­tor at Cale­do­nia Coun­ty Acad­e­my for the win­ter term of 1814. He took the place of David Chas­sell, who was absent on account of poor health. While in Peacham he also stud­ied law with John Mat­tocks before leav­ing for Penn­syl­va­nia in Feb­ru­ary 1815.

(Sources list­ed after third installment)

 

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