Thaddeus Stevens Chronicles No. 51

 Thaddeus Stevens museum expands, exhibit about Confederate kidnapping planned

March 2025

By Ross Hetrick

The Thaddeus Stevens Museum is expanding into the storefront next door at 52 Chambersburg Street and the grand opening is on April 5 at 5 p.m. All are invited.

The new space, called the Annex, will feature an expanded research area, tourist information, more exhibits about Stevens and the Thaddeus Stevens Society, and Civil War art for sale. Already in the display window of 52 Chambersburg Street is a nearly 200-year-old cast iron stove made at Stevens's Maria Furnace in Fairfield, PA, which he owned from 1828 to 1837. 

The Thaddeus Stevens Society's extensive collection of books and documents about Stevens, the Civil War and Reconstruction will be housed at the Annex so that researchers will have a suitable place to work. 

There are also plans for an exhibit in the Annex about one of the most heinous acts of the Confederate forces during the Gettysburg campaign -- the kidnapping of hundreds of Black civilians who were taken into slavery. This aspect of the Confederate invasion has been largely ignored in most recounts of the battle. It is estimated that several hundred Black Pennsylvanians were hunted down during the weeks Confederates roamed the counties around Gettysburg.

What happened to them is largely unknown. But one victim, Jane Lyles, who had lived at Stevens's Caledonia Furnace, reached out to Stevens after the war to help locate three of her children kidnapped with her and then separated. Stevens attempted to help her, but in the end she disappeared into the disorder that pervaded the South after the war. Lyles's struggle is told in the February 6 edition of the Smithsonian Magazine in an article by historian Robert Colby.

In a congressional speech on September 17, 1863, Stevens recounted the kidnappings and said a farmer had told him that he had encountered four wagon loads of women and children being carted away and asked the soldier in charge why they were taking children, even babies. "Oh, they will bring something," the soldier replied.

"Thieves, robbers, traitors, kidnappers," Stevens exclaimed in the speech. "Brethren of the South? God forbid that I should thus treat them. They are no more kindred of mine. I would as soon acknowledge fellowship with the sooty demons whose business and delight it is to torture the damned!! Let Copperheads [northern Confederate sympathizers] embrace them. They will find together an appropriate place in the great day of Accounts."

Ross Hetrick is president of the Thaddeus Stevens Society, which is dedicated to promoting Stevens's important legacy. The Society operates the Thaddeus Stevens Museum at 46 Chambersburg St. in Gettysburg, PA. More information about the Great Commoner can be found at the society's website: https://www.thaddeusstevenssociety.com/

The Great Commoner, Spring 2025 No. 50, www.thaddeusstevenssociety.com

 Thaddeus Stevens Society events on April 4 & 5

The Thaddeus Stevens Society has a full slate of events on Friday and Saturday, April 4 and 5, to mark the 233rd birthday of the Great Commoner. On April 4 at 4:30 p.m. the annual graveside ceremony will be held at Stevens's grave at the Shreiner-Concord cemetery at Mulberry and Chestnut Streets in Lancaster, PA, which will be followed at 6 p.m. by the Stevens Day dinner and membership meeting at the the Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology at 750 E. King Street in Lancaster. The dinner is free to members.

Before the graveside ceremony, there will be a tour at 2 p.m. for Society members and supporters of the future site of the Stevens/Smith museum at Queen and Vine Streets. Please come to the convention center entrance on Vine Street.

Then on Saturday April 5 there will be the grand opening of the Annex of the Thaddeus Stevens Museum at 52 Chambersburg Street at 5 p.m. This will be followed by a presentation at Christ Lutheran Church, next door to the museum, at 6:30 p.m. about Thaddeus Stevens, the Emancipation Proclamation and the church itself.

The events on April 4th and 5th are as follows:

Friday, April 4:

2:00 p.m. -- Tour of future site of Stevens/Smith museum at Queen and Vine Streets.

4:30 p.m. -- Graveside ceremony marking Thaddeus Stevens's birthday at Shreiner-Concord Cemetery at Chestnut and Mulberry in Lancaster, PA.

6:00 p.m. -- Stevens Day Dinner and Society membership meeting at Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology at 750 E. King Street, Lancaster, PA

Saturday, April 5:

5:00 p.m. -- Grand opening of the Thaddeus Stevens Museum Annex at 52 Chambersburg St., Gettysburg, PA.

6:30 p.m. -- Program at Christ Lutheran Church, 30 Chambersburg Street, Gettysburg, PA, about the church, the Emancipation Proclamation, and Thaddeus Stevens

If you plan on attending any of these events, please send a reply email to info@thaddeusstevenssociety.com

Thaddeus Stevens museum expands

The Thaddeus Stevens Museum is expanding into 52 Chambersburg Street, next door to the current facility. Called the Annex, the storefront will be used for a larger research area, more exhibits, tourist information, and a place for the sale of Civil War art. The grand opening will be on Saturday, April 5, at 5 p.m. 

Exterior of Annex at 52 Chambersburg Street, Gettysburg, PA

In front window is stove made at a Stevens's iron mill

Inside the Annex is a giant picture of Thaddeus Stevens

Sneak peek of Stevens/Smith museum 

The Lancaster Historical Society held a "Sneak Peek" at the the future Thaddeus Stevens and Lydia Hamilton Smith Center for History and Democracy in Lancaster, PA. The event was attended by hundreds of people who paid $200 a piece to support the project. While the structure of the museum is completed, the installation of exhibits is more than a year off. The $24 million project still has to raise $5 million. Thaddeus Stevens Society members and supporters will get a chance to see the interior of the museum on Friday, April 4, from 2 to 4 p.m. Participants are asked to gather at the Vine Street entrance to the Lancaster Convention Center.

Hundreds came to the "Sneak Peek" of the future Stevens/Smith museum

The event also had a display of Stevens's wig and grandfather clock.

Thad mentioned in New York Times Book Review

In  the New York Times Book Review of February 23, 2025 about a book by Bennett Parten telling of General William Sherman's effort to distribute land to freed slaves, the last paragraph refers to Thaddeus Stevens's failed effort to redistribute land after the Civil War. It read as follows:

Once back in session, Congress "dithered," or so Parten charges, but that seems not entirely correct. Abolitionists like the Pennsylvania representative Thaddeus Stevens had already been hatching a radical plan to redistribute the wealth of the South: Divvy up the confiscated property and give it to the families of formerly enslaved people and thus effectively overturn the propertied class system that so long had ruled the region. Land ownership meant political power. Stevens reminded the House that four million people had been freed, but "if we leave them to the legislation of their late masters, we had better have left them in bondage. If we fail in this great duty now, when we have the power," he warned, "we shall deserve and receive the execration of history and of all future ages." And so they have.

Surprise at the Thaddeus Stevens Museum

You never know who is going to come into the Thaddeus Stevens museum in Gettysburg. Jackson Rickert visited with his father on March 1. Turns out Jackson had dressed up as Thaddeus Stevens for Halloween and had a picture to share. In turn he took a picture with Society President Ross Hetrick, who was portraying Thad.

Jackson Rickert dressed up as Thad during Halloween.

Ross Hetrick as Thad with Jackson Rickert

Leave a legacy for Thad

Support Thaddeus Stevens's legacy by leaving a legacy of your own. If you wish to include the Thaddeus Stevens Society in your will, please let us know by calling 717-347-8159 or emailing info@thaddeusstevenssociety.com. Thank you.    

Thaddeus Stevens Chronicles No. 50

 Thaddeus Stevens and the Anti-Masonic party

February 2025

By Ross Hetrick

One of the more unusual aspects of Thaddeus Stevens's political career is his association with the Anti-Masonic party. While he represented the Gettysburg area in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in the 1830s, Stevens was a major figure in the party, got an Anti-Masonic governor elected and even held hearings about the Masons.

The Anti-Masonic party was the first successful third party in America and was created in reaction to an incident in upstate New York in the1820s where a man named William Morgan was presumably killed by the Masons for threatening to reveal the secrets of the ancient fraternal order. Community outrage was increased when the Masons seemingly used their judicial connections to cover up the crime. Coupled with that many prominent politicians, such as George Washington and Andrew Jackson were Masons giving the impression that to get anywhere in politics you had to be a Mason. One of the lasting legacies of the party was the tradition of selecting presidential candidates at conventions.

When Stevens became an Anti-Mason in the early 1830s, the dominant national party was the Democrats, which advocated for the slaveholders of the south. Stevens, who had been an outspoken abolitionist since the early 1820s would never join the Democratic party. Stevens would have also been attracted to the Anti-Mason's position of being against elitism. He deeply believed that people should be judged on their merits, not on who they knew or what organization they belonged to.

Stevens was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1833 as an Anti-Mason and he turned out to be a very effective Anti-Mason. His efforts included shutting down the Mason lodge in Gettysburg and getting Joseph Ritner, the first and only Anti-Mason governor elected.

 But he was willing to part with his fellow Anti-Masons when it came to issues he felt strongly about, like education. In 1834 he was able to get a state grant of $18,000 for the new college in Gettysburg, despite many of his fellow Anti-Masons being against it. In reaction to this criticism, Stevens wrote in a letter to the editor: "I have already resolved that the weight of my name shall never again burthen your ticket." However, he remained with the Anti-Masons for many years. 

Of course the Masons did not sit idly by as Stevens attacked them. Jacob Lefever, the editor of the Gettysburg Republican Compiler and a Mason published articles insinuating that Stevens was involved in the death of a woman in 1820s. Stevens brought two libel cases against Lefever and won them handily since the editor had no evidence to back up the allegations. 

The Anti-Masons was a short-lived phenomenon in American history and had petered out by the early 1840s. When Stevens ran for Congress in 1848 after moving to Lancaster, he ran as a Whig. But his time as an Anti-Mason continued to serve as foder for some accounts of his life. In her 1947 novel,  I Speak For Thaddeus Stevens, Gettysburg writer Elsie Singmaster recounts a fictional incident in which Stevens is hunting on horseback and iron workers call out for him to stop. "Can't!" he shouted back. "I'm hunting Masons."

Ross Hetrick is president of the Thaddeus Stevens Society, which is dedicated to promoting Stevens's important legacy. The Society operates the Thaddeus Stevens Museum at 46 Chambersburg St. in Gettysburg, PA. More information about the Great Commoner can be found at the society's website: https://www.thaddeusstevenssociety.com/

Thaddeus Stevens Chronicles No. 49

 The court case that launched Thaddeus Stevens's crusade against slavery

January 2025

By Ross Hetrick

Thaddeus Stevens was riding high in the early 1820s. He was a young up-and-coming lawyer in the prosperous town of Gettysburg. Then he took a case involving a fugitive slave that would change his life and the course of American history forever.

Born in Vermont, the first state to ban slavery in 1777, it would be expected that Stevens would be anti-slavery. Add to that, he had a club foot which would make him sympathetic to the less fortunate.

But at the same time he was brilliant and was able to work his way through the prestigious college of Dartmouth. And like many a self-made man he felt that discrimination was a necessary ingredient to spur people to become successful.

In fact, in a commencement speech at Dartmouth in 1814, Stevens praised inequality as the engine of progress. "Had they [primitive people] been content to remain in a state of equality, they must likewise have remain in a state of barbarism," he said. "For although invention and improvement are not foreign to the nature of man, yet they will never be exercised until they are called forth by new motives of pleasure and profit."

So it was not unexpected for the young Stevens to represent a Maryland slave owner in August 1820 who was trying to recover a fugitive slave. Charity Butler had escaped captivity in Maryland, married Henry Butler, a free Black in Adams county, and had two daughters Harriet and Sophia. 

Years later, her former enslaver found out where she was and he kidnapped Charity and her two daughters. Her husband hired a lawyer who argued in court that Charity had been brought up to Pennsylvania many times while she was still a slave totaling more than six months, the legal limit you could keep a slave in Pennsylvania before becoming free. But Stevens was able to demolish the case by simply pointing out that the six-month rule required the slave to reside in Pennsylvania for a continuous six months.

But the court victory seemingly caught Stevens by surprise. Not only was Charity sent back into bondage, but her two daughters who had never known slavery were sentenced to a lifetime of captivity. "No one knows what Thaddeus Stevens experienced that day, but surely he felt the family's despair," wrote Bradley R. Hoch in his 2005 biography of Stevens, Thaddeus Stevens in Gettysburg: The Making of an Abolitionist. "He no doubt thought about the consequences of his victory for the rest of his life. He never again represented a slave owner against a slave." Hoch wrote.

Not only did he stop representing slave owners but he started vigorously representing fugitive slaves. And on July 4, 1823 he went public with his conversion to abolitionism with a toast at an Independence day celebration. "The next President -- May he be a freeman, who never riveted fetters on a human slave," he proclaimed. It was a bold statement since everyone at the event knew that all but one of the five Presidents up to that time had owned human beings. 

It was only the beginning of his 40-year political crusade that would culminate in the destruction of slavery and the ratification of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution requiring equal treatment under the law. And even in death, Stevens wanted people to know where he stood. He insisted on being buried in the only integrated cemetery in Lancaster at the time and the epitaph on his monument reads: "I reposed in this quiet and secluded spot, not from any natural preference for solitude. But finding other cemeteries limited as to race by charter rules, I have chosen this that I might illustrate in my death the principles which I advocated through a long life: Equality of man before his creator."

Ross Hetrick is president of the Thaddeus Stevens Society, which is dedicated to promoting Stevens's important legacy. The Society operates the Thaddeus Stevens Museum at 46 Chambersburg St. in Gettysburg, PA. More information about the Great Commoner can be found at the society's website: https://www.thaddeusstevenssociety.com/

Thaddeus Stevens Chronicles No. 48

 Thaddeus Stevens should join the Gettysburg Trinity

December 2024

By Ross Hetrick

Gettysburg borough recently published a summary of its budget and at the top of the page were pictures of Abraham Lincoln and Dwight Eisenhower. Where was Thaddeus Stevens?  He should be part of the Gettysburg Trinity.

Gettysburg is fortunate that it can lay claim to two presidents. But it should also lay claim to Thaddeus Stevens, who exercised power comparable to presidents, according to many of his contemporaries. 

Gettysburg richly deserves its association with Lincoln and Eisenhower. Lincoln gave his magnificent Gettysburg Address here, yet, he was only here one day. Eisenhower lived in the Gettysburg area in 1918 when he was in the army and in the 1960s after he retired. But he did not leave any lasting mark on the community of Gettysburg.

In contrast, Stevens lived in Gettysburg for 26 years from 1816 to 1842 and regularly visited the borough even after he moved to Lancaster. He helped to establish Gettysburg's first water system, library and bank. He is the most famous person to have served on Gettysburg borough council.

His most lasting contribution was helping to establish Gettysburg College. Stevens was able to get an $18,000 state grant for the college in 1834 to build Pennsylvania Hall, which is one of the borough's iconic buildings. And in 1854 when the college's board of trustees was thinking of leaving Gettysburg, Stevens browbeat them into staying forever.

Taking a broader view, Stevens is credited with saving public education in Pennsylvania in 1835 when he made a powerful speech that turned back a repeal effort of the fledgling system. On a national level, he is the father of  the 14th Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing equal treatment under the law and extending the Bill of Rights to the state level. He prevented President Andrew Johnson from losing the Civil War after the war by orchestrating a brilliant parliamentary maneuver in 1865 that barred ex-Confederates from taking over Congress.

Stevens has been gaining more recognition in Gettysburg over the last 25 years with the creation of the Thaddeus Stevens Society in 1999, the erection of a statue in front of the courthouse in 2022 and the opening of a Stevens museum at 46 Chambersburg Street earlier this year. Now is the time for the borough government to recognize his importance by adding him to the top of its publications along with Abe and Ike. Thad should be part of the Gettysburg Trinity.

Ross Hetrick is president of the Thaddeus Stevens Society, which is dedicated to promoting Stevens's important legacy. The Society operates the Thaddeus Stevens Museum at 46 Chambersburg St. in Gettysburg, PA. More information about the Great Commoner can be found at the society's website: https://www.thaddeusstevenssociety.com/.

Thaddeus Stevens Chronicles No. 47

 Thaddeus Stevens comes to Gettysburg

November 2024

By Ross Hetrick

By 1816, Thaddeus Stevens had graduated from Dartmouth college, completed his legal studies and gotten a certificate to practice law. He was ready to make his mark, but where?

Stevens did a little location shopping. He first went east from York, where had lived for two years, to Lancaster to check out that city. On the way there, he nearly fell into the Susquehanna river when his horse was spooked as he crossed an unfinished bridge. But the quick action of a man working the bridge saved Stevens.

Safely in Lancaster, he walked from one end of King Street to the other. But with little money, he felt the big city was too expensive for him. So he crossed the river again and made his way to Gettysburg, which was more like the small Vermont towns he had grown up in.

He set up an office in the Gettysburg Hotel on the square. That location is now the Stevens conference room in the Gettysburg Hotel on Lincoln Square, though nothing of the original office remains. 

Stevens then ran an ad in the October 2, 1816 , edition of the Adams Centinel, a local newspaper. "Thaddeus Stevens, Attorney at Law," the ad announced, "Has opened an OFFICE in Gettysburg, in the east end of the 'Gettysburg Hotel,' occupied by Mr. Keefer; where he will give diligent attention to all orders in the line of his profession."

But for the first year, the going was rough with only petty cases coming his way. With money running out, Stevens told an acquaintance at a Littlestown dance that he might start looking for another place to hang his shingle. 

Then on June 23, 1817 James Hunter killed Henry Heagy. Stevens had represented Hunter in the past and became his defense lawyer. He argued that the act was not premeditated because Hunter had used an unwieldy scythe to kill Heagy. A scythe is a large tool used to cut crops, often pictured with the Grim Reaper. Stevens said the act was impulsive, making it second degree murder, which did not carry the death penalty. And even though he lost the case and Hunter was hanged, townspeople were impressed with his performance and the law cases started rolling in.

By the early 1820s, Stevens was on his way to becoming one of the leading citizens of Gettysburg. But then in 1821 he would take on a case that involved a fugitive slave that would change his life and the course of American politics forever.

Ross Hetrick is president of the Thaddeus Stevens Society, which is dedicated to promoting Stevens's important legacy. More information about the Great Commoner can be found at the society's website: https://www.thaddeusstevenssociety.com/.

Thaddeus Stevens Chronicles No. 46

 Thaddeus Stevens before Gettysburg

October 2024

By Ross Hetrick

Thaddeus Stevens was born in the small Vermont town of Danville in 1792, the last year of the first term of George Washington. He had a lot going against him. His family was poor, he was born with a clubfoot -- a handicap that was seen as a mark of the devil -- and his father was an alcoholic and abandoned his family when Stevens was 12. But he was blessed with a brilliant mind and a devoted mother who believed in education so much that she moved with her four boys to nearby Peacham, Vermont to be closer to the local academy.

His clubfoot, which gave him a life long limp, made him the object of taunts by fellow students. But they sharpened his wit as evidenced by an incident where he was lolling around Peacham one day and a local judge leaned out a window and yelled, "Well, my boy, do you think you're in paradise?" Stevens quickly shot back: "I did until I saw the devil looking out of the window."

He went on to Dartmouth College, but spent his third year at the University of Vermont, where he got into some mischief when he and a fellow student killed a cow that was leaving droppings on the lawn area, using an ax taken from a fellow student's room. The bloody ax was found and the innocent student was threatened with being expelled, but Stevens threw himself on the mercy of the cow's owner and offered to pay for the animal. Impressed by his honesty, the farmer told the school's administration that passing soldiers had done the deed. Stevens later paid the farmer who in turn sent him a barrel of cider.

After graduating from Dartmouth, Stevens moved to York, PA, on the recommendation of a friend and was a school teacher there for a few years while he studied law with a local attorney. While he was studying law, the local attorneys changed the rules to prohibit part-time students from taking the bar examination. So Stevens went down to Bel Air, MD to take the bar exam which was held in a tavern. The examiners first required Stevens to buy two bottles of Madeira wine and then asked him some questions. After satisfying themselves that he knew his stuff, they told Stevens to buy two more bottles of Madeira and to play cards with them. Stevens had come down to Bel Air with $45 and left with $3.50 and his bar certificate.

He then moved to Gettysburg in 1816 where he would live for 26 years and become famous statewide as a brilliant lawyer, powerful state legislator, industrialist and an outspoken foe of slavery.

Ross Hetrick is president of the Thaddeus Stevens Society, which is dedicated to promoting Stevens's important legacy. More information about the Great Commoner can be found at the society's website: https://www.thaddeusstevenssociety.com/.