This is a story about Louisiana Prestine Chalfant (1855 - 1943)when she was was 8 years old. This incident is when her sick mother died due having no shelter and then her father died of grief she was 14 years old. She continued to live at China Grove Plantation in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana with her sister, Emma and her husband, J. Foster Collins and with her sister, Belle.
MEMPHIS DAILY APPEAL (ATLANTA, GA), June 9, 1863, p.2, c.8
"A spunky Girl.--A letter in a Northern paper says:"One of the houses destroyed by the Queen of the West on her trip down the Mississippi belonged to an old gentleman, (Nathaniel Chalfant) who, with his two sons(Charles and James)and daughters (Mary, Belle, Emma, Ann and Louisiana) carried on the farm and worked the negroes. One of the young ladies admitted that her brother had fired on the Queen of the West, and only wished that he had been a dozen. She abused the colonel and berated the Federals. When she discovered that her abuse failed to move Colonel Ellett, just as the flames began to circle around the house top, she sang, in a ringing, defiant tone of voice, the "Bonnie Blue Flag." until forest and river echoed and re-echoed."
The Bonnie Blue Flag by Harry MaCarthy
We are a band of brothers and native to the soil,
Fighting for the property we gained by honest toil;
And when our rights were threatened, the cry rose near and far,
"Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star!"
Hurrah! Hurrah! For Southern rights hurrah!
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.
As long as the Union was faithful to her trust,
Like friends and like brothers both kind were we and just;
But now, when Northern treachery attempts our rights to mar,
We hoist on high the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.
Hurrah! Hurrah! For Southern rights hurrah!
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.
First gallant South Carolina nobly made the stand,
Then came Alabama, who took her by the hand;
Next quickly Mississippi, Georgia and Florida,
All raised on high the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.
Hurrah! Hurrah! For Southern rights hurrah!
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.
Ye men of valor, gather round the banner of the right,
Texas and fair Louisiana join us in the fight;
Davis, our loved president, and Stephens statesman are,
Now rally round the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.
Hurrah! Hurrah! For Southern rights hurrah!
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.
And here's to old Virginia, the Old Dominion State,
Who with the young Confederacy at length has linked her fate;
Impelled by her example, now other states prepare,
To hoist on high the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.
Hurrah! Hurrah! For Southern rights hurrah!
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.
Then cheer, boys, cheer, raise the joyous shout,
For Arkansas and North Carolina now have both gone out;
And let another rousing cheer for Tennessee be given,
The single star of the Bonnie Blue Flag has grown to be eleven.
Hurrah! Hurrah! For Southern rights hurrah!
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.
Then here's to our Confederacy, strong are we and brave,
Like patriots of old we'll fight our heritage to save;
And rather than submit to shame, to die we would prefer,
So cheer for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.
Hurrah! Hurrah! For Southern rights hurrah!
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.
"Earthen Walls, Iron Men: Fort DeRussy, Louisiana, and the Defense of Red River" by Steve Mayeux. This story is included as a footnote - footnote looks as of now, in my rough draft:
[6] Ibid. This was originally a Chicago Tribune article, dateline February 15, 1863, and can be also be found quoted in Moore, The Rebellion Record, Vol. 6, 387, and Gosnell, Guns on the Western Waters, 183 (Bodman account). According to family stories handed down over the generations, the man who shot Master Thompson was Charles Chalfant, the 25-year-old son of plantation owners Nathaniel and Caroline Burrows Chalfant. Charles had been discharged from the 2nd La. Infantry in 1861 for physical disability. In the Chalfant version, Charles' sisters Isabella (known as Belle, and described as "cold, haughty and regal") and Emma had the Yankees drag their piano from the house, and one played while the other sang "The Bonny Blue Flag" as the house burned. They also reported that in addition to burning the house, the Yankees also burned the gin, the sugar house, the corn crib and twenty-two slave cabins, and stole the cattle and "cut the feet off of little calves." Stories collected by Linda Ellen Perry and posted on the Internet.
Dear Ms. Perry,
For years I have been trying to identify the girl who sang "The Bonny Blue Flag" while the Yankees burned her home down after her brother shot an officer aboard the USS Queen of the West, and now thanks to your geneology site I think I may have her narrowed down. And I also now know the name of the man who shot First Master James D. Thompson. (He died a few weeks later, and is now buried at the National Cemetery in Pineville, LA.)
I am writing a book on the history of Fort DeRussy, and this incident played a part in the history of the fort - the Queen of the West was captured at the fort two days after the plantations on the upper Atchafalaya were burned. Since Captain Thompson was injured, he could not be removed from the boat so it could not be burned, and therefore it fell into Confederate hands.
Steve Mayeux
President, Friends of Fort DeRussy
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
Occoquan Workhouse and Women's Voting Rights
As we crossed the scenic Occoquan River on the way home, we decided to drive through the Fairfax County Park that runs along the bluff. We have visited the historic town of Occoquan, Virginia many times but had never gone into the park across the river. It was a beautiful drive through trees, picnic areas, hiking trails, scenic overlooks and sports fields. We came to a low domed brick building with a rusted metal door and barred openings a few feet off the ground. It was brick kiln which was used by prisoners the Occoquan Workhouse which later became Lorton Prison and now will reopen as an Arts Center. It jolted me to realize I was looking at part of the place of horror recounted in the story below. I do not know the author, as I found it on many sites.
"This is the story of our Grandmothers, and Great-grandmothers, as they lived only 90 years ago. It was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote. The women were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of "obstructing sidewalk traffic."
They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.
Thus unfolded the "Night of Terror" on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.
For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms. When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.
So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because--why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?
Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie (2004) "Iron Jawed Angels." It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.
All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.
My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was--with herself. "One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie," she said. "What would those women think of the way I use--or don't use--my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn." The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her "all over again."
HBO released the movie on video and DVD. I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum. I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.
It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.
The doctor admonished the men: "Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity."
We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Remember to vote."
"This is the story of our Grandmothers, and Great-grandmothers, as they lived only 90 years ago. It was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote. The women were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of "obstructing sidewalk traffic."
They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.
Thus unfolded the "Night of Terror" on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.
For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms. When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.
So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because--why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?
Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie (2004) "Iron Jawed Angels." It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.
All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.
My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was--with herself. "One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie," she said. "What would those women think of the way I use--or don't use--my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn." The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her "all over again."
HBO released the movie on video and DVD. I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum. I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.
It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.
The doctor admonished the men: "Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity."
We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Remember to vote."
Friday, July 4, 2008
Blessed 4th of July 2008 - John Witherspoon and Benjamin Rush
Please note that much of the blog information posted is not my orginial writing but is "cut and pasted from other sources."
On this 4th of July I am proud to be associated with Signer of the Declaration of Independence, John Witherspoon. We share the same ancestors, James Witherspoon (b. 1640 Scotland) and Helen Welch. I descend from their daughter, Janet and he from their son, James. The Witherspoons are descended from the Scottish Reformer Rev. John Knox and his second wife, Lady Margaret Stewart. The Stewart line takes the family back to Charlemagne, as royal lines are well documented.
"The Rev. John Witherspoon was from a branch of a very respectable family, which had long possessed considerable landed property in the East of Scotland. He was descended from John Knox. His father was eminent, not only for piety, but for literature and for a habit of extreme accuracy in all his writings and discourses. His father a minister of Ester, about 18 miles from Edinburgh.
He went to school at Haddington and was a distinguished scholar. He entered the University of Edinburgh when he was 14. At 21, he was licensed to preach the gospel. His first church was at Beith, he them went to a large, flourishing congregation at Paisley. He was a profound scholar, he held two degrees, Doctor of Divinity and L. L. D. He was a great theologian who organized the spirit of Presbyterianism in this country.
He came to America in 1769 to be the President of the College of New Jersey, now called Princeton University, from 1769 to 1794. His wife had to be convinced by Benjamin Rush who was studying medicine in Scotland and Richard Stockton to come to the U.S. John brought 33 valuable books with him as a gift to the College. (Benjamin Rush is another signer of the Declaration of Independence and an outstanding father of America. I will blog about him soon. It is fun that our excellent neighbor and friend of decades, Ralph Stevens, is his descendant.)
John preached two sermons each Sunday, taught mathematics, natural philosophy, divinity, rhetoric, history, chronology, and French.
He was elected as a member of the Congress of the United States and served for 7 years from 1776 to 1779 and from 1781 to 1782. He taught them the importance of basing any form of government on the recognition that our true rights come directly from the hand of God. His life work is a powerful example of the impact one person can have on the renewal of our nation's religious, moral and constitutional roots.
John Witherspoon was the Signer of the Declaration of Independence. He said, "There is a tide in the affairs of men - a nick of time. We perceive it now before us. To hesitate is to consent to our own slavery. That noble instrument upon your table should be subscribed this very morning by every pen in this house. He that will not respond to its accents and strain every nerve to carry into effect its provisions is unworthy of the name of freeman."
"Although these grey hairs must soon descend into the sepulcher, I would infinitely rather that they should descend thither by the hand of the public executioner than desert at this crisis the sacred cause of my country."
"Sir, in my judgment the country is not only ripe for the measure (Declaration of Independence) but in danger of rotting for the want on it." When the British burned his library, a colleague reported, 'He would lay aside the cloth to take revenge on them, I believe he would send them to the devil if he could."
He was described as of medium height, tended to stoutness, bushy eyebrows, prominent nose, large eyes and a commanding presence.
Dr. Witherspoon was a dedicated patriot who held one of the most responsible positions in Congress as the trusted financial counselor for the new republic. He was an affectionate husband, a tender parent to his twelve children, a kind master and a sincere friend. He was a good companion full of amusing and instructive stories. He was a powerful minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ using his melodious voice, good sense, elegant and beautiful expression to give sermons without notes or oratorical flourishes and gestures. He was called by John Adams, "as high a Son of Liberty, as any Man in America."
JOHN WITHERSPOON AND THE FOUNDING OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC, by Jeffry H. Morrison, Notre Dame, $22.50, was reviewed in The Washington Times Sunday, August 28, 2005. Morrison argues that any one of the Witherspoon's three careers - pastor, college president and politician - should have guaranteed him the "prominent and lasting place in American history that he has been denied." Witherspoon signed the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation, and, the author argues, only "a prior commitment to his ministerial duties" (attending to a conference to establish a national Presbyterian Church, where he was elected the first Moderator) kept him from playing a key role at the Constitutional Convention. He helped write the Presbyterians' national constitution, which "provides an interesting corollary to his pro-federal Constitution stand." Five of his students including James Madison were delegates to the Constitutional Convention.
Witherspoon was a man of many achievements in religion, education and politics.
Benjamin Rush decided to propose to his future wife partly because of her high opinion of Witherspoon's preaching.
Morrison states, "Even in his day some Americans were made uneasy by the idea of clergymen as legislators," and Witherspoon didn't make it easier for those Americans by insisting on wearing his clerical garb to the Continental Congress and composing religious proclamations in the name of that Congress. He was also accused of favoring "A general establishment of Protestantism," although the author argues that Witherspoon advocated nonestablishment.
Witherspoon, John (1723-1794), was the sixth president of Princeton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and from 1776 to 1782 a leading member of the Continental Congress. He came from Scotland in 1768 to assume the presidency of the college and held office until his death a quarter of a century later.
A graduate of the University of Edinburgh, who received an honorary doctorate from St. Andrews in 1764, Witherspoon had become widely known as a leader of the evangelical or "Popular Party'' in the established Church of Scotland, of which he was an ordained minister. The trustees of the College first elected him president in 1766, after Samuel Finley's death; but Mrs. Witherspoon was reluctant to leave Scotland, and he declined. Thanks very largely to the efforts of Benjamin Rush 1760, then a medical student at Edinburgh, she was persuaded to reconsider. Informed that Witherspoon would now accept the call if renewed, the trustees again elected him to the presidency in December of 1767.
With their five surviving children (five others had died in early childhood), and 300 books for the college library, the Witherspoons reached Philadelphia early in August 1768. When a few days later they moved on to Princeton, they were greeted a mile out of town by tutors and students, who escorted them to Morven, home of Richard Stockton. That evening the students celebrated the occasion by 'illuminating' Nassau Hall with a lighted tallow dip in each window.
Witherspoon had arrived in time to provide the highlight for commencement, which in those days was held in September. Early in October, he wrote Rush that on the preceding 28th he had delivered "an inaugural Oration in Latin'' before "a vast Concourse of People.'' He was obviously heartened by the warmth of his reception, but he also reported a number of disturbing conditions in the state of the college. He found far too many of the students inadequately prepared for college work, a complaint frequently heard since, and one that explains the close attention he subsequently gave to the grammar school conducted by the college. Most worrisome of all was the low state of the college's finances.
With characteristic vigor, Witherspoon moved immediately to find the remedy. Taking advantage of the vacation between commencement and the beginning of a new term in November, he went first to New York and then on to Boston for consultation with friends of the College. During the next fall's vacation, he visited Williamsburg, where, the Virginia Gazette reported, he "preached to a crowded audience in the Capital yard (there being no house in town capable of holding such a multitude) and gave universal satisfaction.'' The concrete measure of that satisfaction was a collection taken at the end of the sermon amounting "to upwards of fifty-six pounds.'' The following February found him again in Virginia, and this was not the last of his southern tours.
By no means the least of the advantages that accrued to the College from his itinerant preaching was an increased enrollment of students, whose tuition continued to be the major source of revenue. Enrollment had reached a peak under President Finley, with graduating classes of 31 each in 1765 and 1766, but had fallen off thereafter. There were 11 graduates at the commencement of 1768, but 29 in 1773, and 27 in 1776. Simultaneously, a change occurred in the constituencies from which the students were drawn. Now, as before, most of them came from the middle provinces, but the representation from New England, which had been substantial, declined markedly, and a significant enrollment from the southern colonies began to develop.
Not all of Witherspoon's preaching was done on the road. Indeed, when in Princeton he normally preached twice each Sunday to a mixed congregation of townspeople and students, which only recently had acquired a place of worship apart from the Prayer Room of Nassau Hall. Their church had been constructed at the front of the present campus, where stands today a Presbyterian church of much later construction. According to Benjamin Rush, Witherspoon's manner in the pulpit was "solemn and graceful,'' his voice melodious, and his sermons ``loaded with good sense and adorned'' with "elegance and beauty'' of expression. But Rush was impressed above all by the fact that Witherspoon carried no notes into the pulpit, in sharp contrast with the "too common practice of reading sermons in America.'' Other contemporary descriptions indicate that he depended upon no oratorical flourishes or gestures. The story is told of a visitor who, observing that Witherspoon's enthusiasm for gardening was confined to growing vegetables, remarked, "Doctor, I see no flowers in your garden,'' to which came the reply, "No, nor in my discourses either.''
To the day of his death, his speech revealed his Scottish birth. A man of medium height, tending toward stoutness, with bushy eybrows, a prominent nose, and large ears, he had a quality contemporaries were inclined to describe as "presence.'' One of his students, a later president of the College, recalled that Witherspoon had more presence than any other man he had known, except for General Washington. Witherspoon lived at first in the President's House (now called the John Maclean House), but after several years he moved about a mile north of the village to "Tusculum,'' a handsome residence he built that still stands on Cherry Hill Road. His route to and from the College is well enough indicated by the street that bears his name.
President Witherspoon was obviously a very busy man, for in addition to managing the College's affairs and preaching twice on Sundays, he bore the heaviest responsibility for instruction of the students. His "faculty'' normally included two or three tutors (recent graduates who may have been pursuing, in such free time as they could find, advanced studies in divinity before moving on to some vacant pulpit) and one, later two, professors. Considering himself less than an accomplished scholar in mathematics and astronomy, he secured the appointment of a Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in 1771. This left to the president the main responsibility for the instruction in moral philosophy, divinity, rhetoric, history, and chronology, and also in French, for such students as might elect to study the language.
Witherspoon's administration marks an important turning point in the life of the college, but the changes he made were mainly of method and emphasis within the broad objectives which had been originally set. Thus, he brought to Princeton a fresh emphasis upon the need of the church for a well-educated clergy, a purpose to which the college had been dedicated at the time of its founding, but by men who at the height of a stirring religious revival may well have given first place to the church's need for "converted'' ministry. There is no indication that Witherspoon discounted the importance of a conversion experience, but on balance he tended to place the primary emphasis on education. His influence in helping to bring about a final reunion of all Presbyterians, who earlier had been sharply divided, in support of the College was one of his major accomplishments.
The founders had hoped too that the College might produce men who would be "ornaments of the State as well as the Church,'' and Witherspoon realized this hope in full measure. His students included, in addition to a president and vice-president of the United States, nine cabinet officers, twenty-one senators, thirty-nine congressmen, three justices of the Supreme Court, and twelve state governors. Five of the nine Princeton graduates among the fifty-five members of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were students of Witherspoon.
Witherspoon broadened and enriched the curriculum of the College. He was the first to introduce the new rhetoric of the eighteenth century, accomplishing his purpose by extending and intensifying instruction in English grammar and composition. He added substantially to the instructional equipment of the College, especially books for the library and "philosophical apparatus'' for instruction by demonstration in the sciences, including the famous Rittenhouse Orrery acquired in 1771. (Our family is related to David Rittenhouse through his wife, it appears. The three great scientist of the Colonial era were David Rittenhouse, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson. Unfortunately, Rittenhouse has been forgotten except for Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia.)
He was not an original thinker, but he was a product of Scotland's leading university in an age when the Scottish universities had a vitality possessed by no others in Great Britain. Although certain leniencies encouraged by the Scottish Enlightenment had offended his orthodox Presbyterianism, Witherspoon introduced to Princeton, and through it to other institutions, some of the more advanced ideas of that movement. He subscribed to John Locke's view of the role of sensory perception in the development of the mind, but vigorously rejected all esoteric interpretations of that view. He saw no conflict between faith and reason; instead, he encouraged his students to test their faith by the rule of experience. He was much inclined to apply the test of common sense to any proposition, and to reduce it to its simplest terms. In lecturing on rhetoric he advised his students of the multiple components into which a discourse traditionally had been divided, and then suggested that it was enough to say that every discourse or composition ``must have a beginning, a middle, and an end.'' His name is rightly identified with certain attitudes and assumptions, considered to be of importance in the development of our national life, that are associated with what is known as the Common Sense Philosophy.
Though a man of strong convictions, he showed no inclination to protect his students from exposure to ideas with which he disagreed. The many books he added to the library gave the undergraduate access to a wide range of contemporary literature, including authors with whom he had publicly disputed. In his famous lectures on moral philosophy, not published until after his death and then probably contrary to his wish, his method was to lay out contending points of view and to rely upon persuasive reasoning to guide the student toward a proper conclusion of his own.
Witherspoon had a helpful sense of humor. He suffered from insomnia, and his tendency to drowse, particularly after dinner, led him, during one of the two terms he served in the New Jersey legislature, to move that the daily sessions be concluded before dinner. When his motion lost, he informed his colleagues that "there are two kinds of speaking that are very interesting . . . perfect sense and perfect nonsense. When there is speaking in either of these ways I shall engage to be all attention. But when there is speaking, as there often is, halfway between sense and nonsense, you must bear with me if I fall asleep.''
In his support of the American cause there is no occasion for surprise. He subscribed to John Locke's political philosophy as wholeheartedly as to his psychology, and brought from Scotland a strong sense of "British liberty,'' which he came to see as greatly endangered by the course of British policy. When John Adams stopped over in Princeton on his way to the first meeting of the Continental Congress in 1774, he met Witherspoon and pronounced him "as high a Son of Liberty, as any Man in America.''
Through the years he served in Congress, Witherspoon's patriotism and judgment won the respect of his colleagues, as evidenced by his assignment to many committees, some of them among the most important. He struggled through these years -- not always successfully -- to keep the College in session, and he became a frequent commuter between Princeton and Philadelphia. He resigned from Congress in November 1782, when a war that had cost him the life of his son James (who graduated from the College in 1770 and was killed in Germantown) was ended, and peace, with American independence, seemed assured.
Witherspoon's later years were filled with difficulty. The college had suffered extensive damage to its building and instructional equipment, and its finances were in disarray. Two years before his death he became totally blind. His wife died in 1789, and a second marriage in 1791 to a young widow of twenty-four occasioned more than a little comment. Through these later years his son-in-law, Samuel Stanhope Smith, increasingly carried the responsibility for conduct of the College's affairs.
But through these later years, too, Witherspoon remained remarkably active and influential. He was a member of the ratifying convention that brought to New Jersey the honor of being the third state to ratify the Constitution of the United States. He contributed greatly to the organization of a newly independent and national Presbyterian Church and in 1789 opened its first General Assembly with a sermon and presided until the election of the first moderator. Above all, the name he had won as a divine, an educator, and a patriot brought returning strength to the College. He is rightly remembered as one of the great presidents of Princeton.
W. Frank Craven
From Alexander Leitch, A Princeton Companion, copyright Princeton University Press (1978).
Go to Search A Princeton Companion
* Dr. John Witherspoon, who wrote, "I entreat you in the most earnest manner to believe in Jesus Christ, for there is no salvation in any other [Acts 4:12]...."
* Dr. Benjamin Rush, an innovator of mass-produced Bible printing, initiator of the Sunday school movement in America and founder of the first Bible society in our nation.
* John Dickinson, also a signer of the U.S. Constitution, who wrote in his will: "Rendering thanks to my Creator for my existence and station among His works, for my birth in a country enlightened by the Gospel and enjoying freedom, and for all His other kindnesses, to Him I resign myself, humbly confiding in His goodness and in His mercy through Jesus Christ for the events of eternity."
On this 4th of July I am proud to be associated with Signer of the Declaration of Independence, John Witherspoon. We share the same ancestors, James Witherspoon (b. 1640 Scotland) and Helen Welch. I descend from their daughter, Janet and he from their son, James. The Witherspoons are descended from the Scottish Reformer Rev. John Knox and his second wife, Lady Margaret Stewart. The Stewart line takes the family back to Charlemagne, as royal lines are well documented.
"The Rev. John Witherspoon was from a branch of a very respectable family, which had long possessed considerable landed property in the East of Scotland. He was descended from John Knox. His father was eminent, not only for piety, but for literature and for a habit of extreme accuracy in all his writings and discourses. His father a minister of Ester, about 18 miles from Edinburgh.
He went to school at Haddington and was a distinguished scholar. He entered the University of Edinburgh when he was 14. At 21, he was licensed to preach the gospel. His first church was at Beith, he them went to a large, flourishing congregation at Paisley. He was a profound scholar, he held two degrees, Doctor of Divinity and L. L. D. He was a great theologian who organized the spirit of Presbyterianism in this country.
He came to America in 1769 to be the President of the College of New Jersey, now called Princeton University, from 1769 to 1794. His wife had to be convinced by Benjamin Rush who was studying medicine in Scotland and Richard Stockton to come to the U.S. John brought 33 valuable books with him as a gift to the College. (Benjamin Rush is another signer of the Declaration of Independence and an outstanding father of America. I will blog about him soon. It is fun that our excellent neighbor and friend of decades, Ralph Stevens, is his descendant.)
John preached two sermons each Sunday, taught mathematics, natural philosophy, divinity, rhetoric, history, chronology, and French.
He was elected as a member of the Congress of the United States and served for 7 years from 1776 to 1779 and from 1781 to 1782. He taught them the importance of basing any form of government on the recognition that our true rights come directly from the hand of God. His life work is a powerful example of the impact one person can have on the renewal of our nation's religious, moral and constitutional roots.
John Witherspoon was the Signer of the Declaration of Independence. He said, "There is a tide in the affairs of men - a nick of time. We perceive it now before us. To hesitate is to consent to our own slavery. That noble instrument upon your table should be subscribed this very morning by every pen in this house. He that will not respond to its accents and strain every nerve to carry into effect its provisions is unworthy of the name of freeman."
"Although these grey hairs must soon descend into the sepulcher, I would infinitely rather that they should descend thither by the hand of the public executioner than desert at this crisis the sacred cause of my country."
"Sir, in my judgment the country is not only ripe for the measure (Declaration of Independence) but in danger of rotting for the want on it." When the British burned his library, a colleague reported, 'He would lay aside the cloth to take revenge on them, I believe he would send them to the devil if he could."
He was described as of medium height, tended to stoutness, bushy eyebrows, prominent nose, large eyes and a commanding presence.
Dr. Witherspoon was a dedicated patriot who held one of the most responsible positions in Congress as the trusted financial counselor for the new republic. He was an affectionate husband, a tender parent to his twelve children, a kind master and a sincere friend. He was a good companion full of amusing and instructive stories. He was a powerful minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ using his melodious voice, good sense, elegant and beautiful expression to give sermons without notes or oratorical flourishes and gestures. He was called by John Adams, "as high a Son of Liberty, as any Man in America."
JOHN WITHERSPOON AND THE FOUNDING OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC, by Jeffry H. Morrison, Notre Dame, $22.50, was reviewed in The Washington Times Sunday, August 28, 2005. Morrison argues that any one of the Witherspoon's three careers - pastor, college president and politician - should have guaranteed him the "prominent and lasting place in American history that he has been denied." Witherspoon signed the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation, and, the author argues, only "a prior commitment to his ministerial duties" (attending to a conference to establish a national Presbyterian Church, where he was elected the first Moderator) kept him from playing a key role at the Constitutional Convention. He helped write the Presbyterians' national constitution, which "provides an interesting corollary to his pro-federal Constitution stand." Five of his students including James Madison were delegates to the Constitutional Convention.
Witherspoon was a man of many achievements in religion, education and politics.
Benjamin Rush decided to propose to his future wife partly because of her high opinion of Witherspoon's preaching.
Morrison states, "Even in his day some Americans were made uneasy by the idea of clergymen as legislators," and Witherspoon didn't make it easier for those Americans by insisting on wearing his clerical garb to the Continental Congress and composing religious proclamations in the name of that Congress. He was also accused of favoring "A general establishment of Protestantism," although the author argues that Witherspoon advocated nonestablishment.
Witherspoon, John (1723-1794), was the sixth president of Princeton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and from 1776 to 1782 a leading member of the Continental Congress. He came from Scotland in 1768 to assume the presidency of the college and held office until his death a quarter of a century later.
A graduate of the University of Edinburgh, who received an honorary doctorate from St. Andrews in 1764, Witherspoon had become widely known as a leader of the evangelical or "Popular Party'' in the established Church of Scotland, of which he was an ordained minister. The trustees of the College first elected him president in 1766, after Samuel Finley's death; but Mrs. Witherspoon was reluctant to leave Scotland, and he declined. Thanks very largely to the efforts of Benjamin Rush 1760, then a medical student at Edinburgh, she was persuaded to reconsider. Informed that Witherspoon would now accept the call if renewed, the trustees again elected him to the presidency in December of 1767.
With their five surviving children (five others had died in early childhood), and 300 books for the college library, the Witherspoons reached Philadelphia early in August 1768. When a few days later they moved on to Princeton, they were greeted a mile out of town by tutors and students, who escorted them to Morven, home of Richard Stockton. That evening the students celebrated the occasion by 'illuminating' Nassau Hall with a lighted tallow dip in each window.
Witherspoon had arrived in time to provide the highlight for commencement, which in those days was held in September. Early in October, he wrote Rush that on the preceding 28th he had delivered "an inaugural Oration in Latin'' before "a vast Concourse of People.'' He was obviously heartened by the warmth of his reception, but he also reported a number of disturbing conditions in the state of the college. He found far too many of the students inadequately prepared for college work, a complaint frequently heard since, and one that explains the close attention he subsequently gave to the grammar school conducted by the college. Most worrisome of all was the low state of the college's finances.
With characteristic vigor, Witherspoon moved immediately to find the remedy. Taking advantage of the vacation between commencement and the beginning of a new term in November, he went first to New York and then on to Boston for consultation with friends of the College. During the next fall's vacation, he visited Williamsburg, where, the Virginia Gazette reported, he "preached to a crowded audience in the Capital yard (there being no house in town capable of holding such a multitude) and gave universal satisfaction.'' The concrete measure of that satisfaction was a collection taken at the end of the sermon amounting "to upwards of fifty-six pounds.'' The following February found him again in Virginia, and this was not the last of his southern tours.
By no means the least of the advantages that accrued to the College from his itinerant preaching was an increased enrollment of students, whose tuition continued to be the major source of revenue. Enrollment had reached a peak under President Finley, with graduating classes of 31 each in 1765 and 1766, but had fallen off thereafter. There were 11 graduates at the commencement of 1768, but 29 in 1773, and 27 in 1776. Simultaneously, a change occurred in the constituencies from which the students were drawn. Now, as before, most of them came from the middle provinces, but the representation from New England, which had been substantial, declined markedly, and a significant enrollment from the southern colonies began to develop.
Not all of Witherspoon's preaching was done on the road. Indeed, when in Princeton he normally preached twice each Sunday to a mixed congregation of townspeople and students, which only recently had acquired a place of worship apart from the Prayer Room of Nassau Hall. Their church had been constructed at the front of the present campus, where stands today a Presbyterian church of much later construction. According to Benjamin Rush, Witherspoon's manner in the pulpit was "solemn and graceful,'' his voice melodious, and his sermons ``loaded with good sense and adorned'' with "elegance and beauty'' of expression. But Rush was impressed above all by the fact that Witherspoon carried no notes into the pulpit, in sharp contrast with the "too common practice of reading sermons in America.'' Other contemporary descriptions indicate that he depended upon no oratorical flourishes or gestures. The story is told of a visitor who, observing that Witherspoon's enthusiasm for gardening was confined to growing vegetables, remarked, "Doctor, I see no flowers in your garden,'' to which came the reply, "No, nor in my discourses either.''
To the day of his death, his speech revealed his Scottish birth. A man of medium height, tending toward stoutness, with bushy eybrows, a prominent nose, and large ears, he had a quality contemporaries were inclined to describe as "presence.'' One of his students, a later president of the College, recalled that Witherspoon had more presence than any other man he had known, except for General Washington. Witherspoon lived at first in the President's House (now called the John Maclean House), but after several years he moved about a mile north of the village to "Tusculum,'' a handsome residence he built that still stands on Cherry Hill Road. His route to and from the College is well enough indicated by the street that bears his name.
President Witherspoon was obviously a very busy man, for in addition to managing the College's affairs and preaching twice on Sundays, he bore the heaviest responsibility for instruction of the students. His "faculty'' normally included two or three tutors (recent graduates who may have been pursuing, in such free time as they could find, advanced studies in divinity before moving on to some vacant pulpit) and one, later two, professors. Considering himself less than an accomplished scholar in mathematics and astronomy, he secured the appointment of a Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in 1771. This left to the president the main responsibility for the instruction in moral philosophy, divinity, rhetoric, history, and chronology, and also in French, for such students as might elect to study the language.
Witherspoon's administration marks an important turning point in the life of the college, but the changes he made were mainly of method and emphasis within the broad objectives which had been originally set. Thus, he brought to Princeton a fresh emphasis upon the need of the church for a well-educated clergy, a purpose to which the college had been dedicated at the time of its founding, but by men who at the height of a stirring religious revival may well have given first place to the church's need for "converted'' ministry. There is no indication that Witherspoon discounted the importance of a conversion experience, but on balance he tended to place the primary emphasis on education. His influence in helping to bring about a final reunion of all Presbyterians, who earlier had been sharply divided, in support of the College was one of his major accomplishments.
The founders had hoped too that the College might produce men who would be "ornaments of the State as well as the Church,'' and Witherspoon realized this hope in full measure. His students included, in addition to a president and vice-president of the United States, nine cabinet officers, twenty-one senators, thirty-nine congressmen, three justices of the Supreme Court, and twelve state governors. Five of the nine Princeton graduates among the fifty-five members of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were students of Witherspoon.
Witherspoon broadened and enriched the curriculum of the College. He was the first to introduce the new rhetoric of the eighteenth century, accomplishing his purpose by extending and intensifying instruction in English grammar and composition. He added substantially to the instructional equipment of the College, especially books for the library and "philosophical apparatus'' for instruction by demonstration in the sciences, including the famous Rittenhouse Orrery acquired in 1771. (Our family is related to David Rittenhouse through his wife, it appears. The three great scientist of the Colonial era were David Rittenhouse, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson. Unfortunately, Rittenhouse has been forgotten except for Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia.)
He was not an original thinker, but he was a product of Scotland's leading university in an age when the Scottish universities had a vitality possessed by no others in Great Britain. Although certain leniencies encouraged by the Scottish Enlightenment had offended his orthodox Presbyterianism, Witherspoon introduced to Princeton, and through it to other institutions, some of the more advanced ideas of that movement. He subscribed to John Locke's view of the role of sensory perception in the development of the mind, but vigorously rejected all esoteric interpretations of that view. He saw no conflict between faith and reason; instead, he encouraged his students to test their faith by the rule of experience. He was much inclined to apply the test of common sense to any proposition, and to reduce it to its simplest terms. In lecturing on rhetoric he advised his students of the multiple components into which a discourse traditionally had been divided, and then suggested that it was enough to say that every discourse or composition ``must have a beginning, a middle, and an end.'' His name is rightly identified with certain attitudes and assumptions, considered to be of importance in the development of our national life, that are associated with what is known as the Common Sense Philosophy.
Though a man of strong convictions, he showed no inclination to protect his students from exposure to ideas with which he disagreed. The many books he added to the library gave the undergraduate access to a wide range of contemporary literature, including authors with whom he had publicly disputed. In his famous lectures on moral philosophy, not published until after his death and then probably contrary to his wish, his method was to lay out contending points of view and to rely upon persuasive reasoning to guide the student toward a proper conclusion of his own.
Witherspoon had a helpful sense of humor. He suffered from insomnia, and his tendency to drowse, particularly after dinner, led him, during one of the two terms he served in the New Jersey legislature, to move that the daily sessions be concluded before dinner. When his motion lost, he informed his colleagues that "there are two kinds of speaking that are very interesting . . . perfect sense and perfect nonsense. When there is speaking in either of these ways I shall engage to be all attention. But when there is speaking, as there often is, halfway between sense and nonsense, you must bear with me if I fall asleep.''
In his support of the American cause there is no occasion for surprise. He subscribed to John Locke's political philosophy as wholeheartedly as to his psychology, and brought from Scotland a strong sense of "British liberty,'' which he came to see as greatly endangered by the course of British policy. When John Adams stopped over in Princeton on his way to the first meeting of the Continental Congress in 1774, he met Witherspoon and pronounced him "as high a Son of Liberty, as any Man in America.''
Through the years he served in Congress, Witherspoon's patriotism and judgment won the respect of his colleagues, as evidenced by his assignment to many committees, some of them among the most important. He struggled through these years -- not always successfully -- to keep the College in session, and he became a frequent commuter between Princeton and Philadelphia. He resigned from Congress in November 1782, when a war that had cost him the life of his son James (who graduated from the College in 1770 and was killed in Germantown) was ended, and peace, with American independence, seemed assured.
Witherspoon's later years were filled with difficulty. The college had suffered extensive damage to its building and instructional equipment, and its finances were in disarray. Two years before his death he became totally blind. His wife died in 1789, and a second marriage in 1791 to a young widow of twenty-four occasioned more than a little comment. Through these later years his son-in-law, Samuel Stanhope Smith, increasingly carried the responsibility for conduct of the College's affairs.
But through these later years, too, Witherspoon remained remarkably active and influential. He was a member of the ratifying convention that brought to New Jersey the honor of being the third state to ratify the Constitution of the United States. He contributed greatly to the organization of a newly independent and national Presbyterian Church and in 1789 opened its first General Assembly with a sermon and presided until the election of the first moderator. Above all, the name he had won as a divine, an educator, and a patriot brought returning strength to the College. He is rightly remembered as one of the great presidents of Princeton.
W. Frank Craven
From Alexander Leitch, A Princeton Companion, copyright Princeton University Press (1978).
Go to Search A Princeton Companion
* Dr. John Witherspoon, who wrote, "I entreat you in the most earnest manner to believe in Jesus Christ, for there is no salvation in any other [Acts 4:12]...."
* Dr. Benjamin Rush, an innovator of mass-produced Bible printing, initiator of the Sunday school movement in America and founder of the first Bible society in our nation.
* John Dickinson, also a signer of the U.S. Constitution, who wrote in his will: "Rendering thanks to my Creator for my existence and station among His works, for my birth in a country enlightened by the Gospel and enjoying freedom, and for all His other kindnesses, to Him I resign myself, humbly confiding in His goodness and in His mercy through Jesus Christ for the events of eternity."
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