As my Facebook followers are aware, I went radio silent for much of the past week due to being on a desperately-needed vacation. For the first time since 2019, my beloved Zenkaikon once again took place at the Lancaster County Convention Center and I was there for the whole thing, participating in discussions about my favorite media and admiring the colorful costumes and hugging people I had not seen in far too long. It is my happy place and I missed it more than I can say. (To use a modern colloquialism: If you know, you know.)
It was originally my intention to do this as a double marker post. However, there is simply too much to say about this particular subject; I can't confine myself to just one. So since there are two markers, in two counties, and a lot to say... you get two posts. The timing of this is deliberate, because the gentleman in question is observing his 230th birthday this coming week, and the two posts will be examining his life and legacy in both Gettysburg and Lancaster.
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| The marker stands at 51 Chambersburg Street, Gettysburg |
Pennsylvania claims him proudly, but it has to be admitted that he wasn't born here. Thaddeus Stevens was born on April 4, 1792 in Danville, Vermont; he was the second of four sons born to Joshua and Sarah (Morrill) Stevens. Like his older brother, Thaddeus was born with a condition known as club foot. This is when one or both of the feet are turned inward and down, making the leg something like a club, and it's unknown even now exactly what causes it; these days it can be corrected with orthopedics, but in the 18th century that wasn't an option. His brother had it in both feet, while Thaddeus 'only' had it in one. This was a stigma for the family, since in those days such a condition was viewed as a punishment from God for something the parents did. It was also somewhat ironic, since dad Joshua was a shoemaker.
Thaddeus's younger brothers were perfectly healthy; but at some point after they were born, Joshua up and left the family. It's not confirmed when or why he left, nor where he went, though some scholars believe it likely that he was killed in the War of 1812. In any case, mom Sarah was determined that her boys would do better in life even without their father's presence. After the family moved to the community of Peacham, Thaddeus began his schooling at the Caledonia Grammar School. He was teased by schoolmates for his disability, which gave him a lifelong limp; but he was a zealous student with a powerful desire to learn and something of a willful temperament.
After finishing his primary schooling, he went to Dartmouth College, where he excelled academically. He was snubbed socially, however, not being permitted to join the Phi Beta Kappa honor society despite his stellar grades. After graduating in 1814, he began to study law while teaching. A friend of his from school, Samuel Merrill, had moved to York, Pennsylvania and taken a position at York Academy (which has its own marker so we'll talk about that in another post), and in 1815 he invited Thaddeus to join the faculty. Thaddeus made his way to Pennsylvania and stayed here for the rest of his life.
While teaching at York Academy, Thaddeus continued to study law. For some reason, this seems to have ruffled the feathers of some local lawyers, because they passed a ruling which is believed to have been aimed at him personally - anyone who pursued a different occupation (like teaching) while studying for the bar would not be allowed to join it. They didn't count on Thaddeus having that willful disposition his teachers had observed back in Vermont, however. He simply went down to Maryland and got his certification there; the reciprocity clause allowed him to practice law anywhere he pleased. But he left York and went instead to neighboring Adams County, where he took a house at 51 Chambersburg Street.
It's a disappointment to historians that neither the house nor the law office of Thaddeus Stevens are still standing in Gettysburg. All that remains of either is the PHMC's marker, which stands in front of the spot where his house used to be. His career got off to a slightly rocky start, simply because nobody knew who he was and he didn't get much business. But in 1817, he took the case of a farmer, who had been jailed for debt and later killed one of the arresting officers; Thaddeus wasn't successful in his efforts to defend the man, but people were impressed by how hard he tried. After that case, he never lacked for clients, and even his critics could not deny that he was a talented lawyer. He was involved in all of the first ten cases to be tried before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and won all but one of them.
Thaddeus quickly became one of the wealthiest and most prominent residents of Gettysburg. He served repeatedly on the borough council, including as its president. He purchased enough real estate in the community that he was its biggest landowner by 1825, and also held interest in a number of the iron furnaces in Adams County and beyond. One of these was the Caledonia Furnace, which was actually situated in Franklin County; the iron ore supply was better there, and Thaddeus himself owned this furnace from the start, naming it after his home county in Vermont. It opened in 1837 and grew to include several buildings beyond the blast furnace, such as a blacksmith shop and stable. But it was something else too - a stop on the Underground Railroad. Thaddeus was already into the abolition movement, and the foreman of Caledonia Iron Works also served as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. Today it's the site of Caledonia State Park, and home of what is known as the Thaddeus Stevens Historical Trail. The furnace has its own marker, so it will also be the subject of another post, and therefore I won't say more about it here except that it was arguably one of the first casualties of the battle of Gettysburg.
In addition to his club foot, Thaddeus had other health issues. An unspecified illness in the late 1820s left him permanently bald; he wore wigs for the rest of his life, which usually didn't fit very well. His health issues are believed to be at least part of the reason why he was strongly opposed to the Masonic Lodge, which had rules in those days forbidding "cripples" from joining. Thaddeus may have taken that personally - honestly, I have health problems and I can't help feeling the same. But he also opposed the Masons for another reason; one of their most prominent members was Andrew Jackson, and Thaddeus was against many of Jackson's principles. In fact, James Buchanan once advised Thaddeus that joining the Democrats who supported Jackson (who became President in 1828) would be the best thing he could do for his political aspirations. Thaddeus, however, liked to be able to look himself in the mirror, and refused. His one-year term in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives was partially spent trying to have the Masons investigated, and although his time there gained him great recognition and helped him learn how to navigate legislative waters, the efforts cost him re-election. He became quieter about the subject, but nevertheless opposed them for the rest of his life.
Working with George Wolf, who had been elected governor (and who is mentioned on a couple of markers himself), Thaddeus was able to get an act through the state legislature in 1834 to allow districts across the state to decide for themselves if they would have public schools - and if the taxpayers would fund them. Gettysburg, perhaps unsurprisingly, voted to create a public school and also to have Thaddeus serve as their school director, which he did for the next five years. But thousands of people signed petitions to have this act reversed, which in turn led to a repeal bill that passed the Senate with ease. It was expected to pass the House of Representatives too, even though Thaddeus himself was there. But he gave a powerful speech to the House in 1835, defending this new system by explaining how it could save money for the state and accusing his opponents of not sympathizing properly with those too poor to seek private education. One of his most famous quotes came from this speech:
"Build not your monuments of brass or marble, but make them of everliving mind!"
The speech (or at least, the speaker's influence) won the day. The bill was repealed; public education has been offered in Pennsylvania ever since.
Following this victory, in 1838 Thaddeus again won a seat in the state legislature, representing Adams County. Although he remained a Republican (he was a "Radical Republican," in fact, but I'll get to that in the next post), he supported many of the policies of the Whig party, and helped to get their candidate, William Henry Harrison, elected as President in 1840. It was his understanding that Harrison would grant Thaddeus a place in his Cabinet; unfortunately, Harrison died only a month into his term. His successor, John Tyler, was from the south and resented Thaddeus's opposition to slavery, so there went any possibility of a Cabinet appointment.
Meanwhile, despite being Gettysburg's biggest landowner and most successful lawyer, he had some debt piling up thanks to his investments in businesses which didn't pan out. He decided that the best thing he could do would be to move to a bigger area, someplace where he could earn enough money to pay off his debt. He set his sights on Lancaster, where he knew there were a lot of people who shared his political views, and in 1842 he moved to the other side of the Susquehanna River.
Sources and Further Reading:
Lee, James F. "On the trail of Thaddeus Stevens, Pennsylvania's equal rights champion." Washington Post, June 10, 2021.
History of Caledonia State Park by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources
Brodie, Fawn. Thaddeus Stevens: Scourge of the South. W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., New York, 1966.
Ellis, Franklin, Samuel Evans, Everts & Peck. History of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men. Salem, Mass., 1993.
Levine, Bruce C. Thaddeus Stevens: Civil War Revolutionary, Fighter for Racial Justice. Simon & Schuster, 2021.
Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.
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