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/.
