Oliver Ellsworth, the forgotten founding father, was a lawyer, a member of the Constitutional Convention, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a U.S. senator, a chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court – and a Yale dropout.
He was born April 29, 1745 in Windsor, Conn., to Capt. David and Jemima Ellsworth. During his boyhood there was only one carriage in Windsor. His family ate from wooden trenchers. “He was doubtless accustomed to frugal fare, simple amusements, and hard, wholesome tasks,” wrote historian William Garrott Brown. In 1762, at the age of 17, he entered Yale College to prepare for the ministry. He only lasted two years.
Brown explains in The life of Oliver Ellsworth that he ‘entered at a time of undergraduate discontent:
Oliver and Abigail Ellsworth
The long administration of President Thomas Clap was drawing to a close, and his headship of the still struggling seminary, though admirable for vigor and devotion, had been growing too arbitrary to please the student body. There was much complaint also of the tutors.
Oliver Ellsworth, Prankster
And then there was the food. Breakfast for four was a loaf of bread. Dinner for four was an apple pie and a quart of beer.
Young Oliver Ellsworth was disciplined several times, according to the school records. His first offense was the curious offense of joining 10 others ‘to scrape and clean the college yard.’ He also, after evening prayers on Thursday, joined others who ‘put on their hats and ran and hallooed in the College Yard in “contempt of the Law of College.”
Reader Diane Timpson informs us that Ellsworth made wine, spiced and common, for the other sophomores. They showed up to class drunk. His final prank, Timpson writes, was ” to add a “physic” to the dough that was prepared for bread that the student body would consume at breakfast. By all accounts it caused “tremendous vomiting and purging” among all the students who boarded at the college. The physic was deemed non- poisonous. But, it did nothing to help his case.”
Yale in 1786
The Legend of the Bell
Why exactly he left Yale isn’t clear. According to family legend, at midwinter at midnight he inverted the college bell and then filled it with water, which froze. For whatever reason, he ended up at Princeton. The New Jersey college had about 100 students at the time, but it excelled at teaching the art of teaching and writing. No other college trained as many debaters for the Continental Congress or the Constitutional Convention.
About 200 years later, another politician who excelled at speaking and writing would write the biography of Oliver Ellsworth for the Encyclopedia Britannica. It was the only encyclopedia entry John F. Kennedy ever wrote.
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Coming soon from the New England Historical Society. The ebook is available for pre-order (click here to order your copy). The paperback will be released on May 5.
This story was updated in 2024.
3 comments
Interesting article.
[…] in 1704. Ipswich Minister William Hubbard relied on them for his General History of New England. Yale College President Ezra Styles accessed them and included excerpts in his planned but never published […]
Second prank: Oliver decided to make wine, both regular and spiced, for the sophomore class to consume. The sophomores showed up for classes inebriated.
Oliver’s final prank at Yale was to add a “physic” to the dough that was prepared for bread that the student body would consume at breakfast. By all accounts it caused “tremendous vomiting and purging” among all the students who boarded at the college. The physic was deemed non- poisonous. But, it did nothing to help his case.
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