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Middlebury College

Emma Willard: Inventor of the Modern Woman (in 1821)

Emma Willard was one of the first people – if not the first— to believe women could have it all: career, family and happiness. Then, in 1838 at age 51, she almost proved herself wrong.

In September of that year, Willard made the biggest mistake of an otherwise remarkable life. She married Dr. Christopher Yates. It was a second marriage for both. And it was a disaster.

Despite her failed marriage, Emma Willard founded the first school of higher education for women. She also promoted the cause of women’s education in travels around the United States.

Emma Willard from The Life of Emma Willard by John Lord

Emma Willard

She was born in Berlin, Conn., on Feb. 23, 1787. She had 15 older siblings and one younger. Her father, Samuel Hart, had a successful farm, but he was far from wealthy. The Hart children had no illusions that they would inherit an easy life. Emma’s father had progressive views (to the point of unpopularity) and he encouraged his children to read and think.

Constantly reading and engaging in the dinner table debates her father encouraged, Emma advanced through grammar school. She then spent several years at academies for older children in Connecticut – not unheard of for girls, though not routine. By 17 she had started a summer school in Berlin. By the age of 20, the town of Middlebury, Vt., recruited her to set up school. Here she married her first husband, Dr. John Willard, and had a son.

Her husband’s nephew stayed with them while he attended Middlebury College, and he helped galvanize Willard’s views on education. Willard learned her nephew took classes in sciences, but girls couldn’t.

With her husband short of cash, Willard restarted her school. She also approached the president of Middlebury College and asked if she could take the science and math classes at the college. She wanted to add those subjects to the curriculum at her school for girls. His answer: No.

The Emma Willard House at Middlebury.

Undeterred, Willard taught herself advanced math and science so she could add these to her curriculum. It was hard work, but hard work was not off-putting to Emma Willard. She believed in a life of hard work. In a letter to her sister she cautioned her against being too happy. One of her sisters was falling in love, and Emma feared excess happiness would make her soft in mind and body.

“A degree of cold that would but brace the nerves of the hardy peasant, would bring distress or death to him who had been pampered by ease and indulgence,” she wrote. “This life is a life of vicissitude. A period of happiness, by softening and enervating the soul, by raising a thousand blissful images of the future, naturally prepares the mind for a greater or less degree of disappointment, and unfits us to bear it; while on the contrary, a period of adversity often strengthens the mind, and by destroying inordinate anticipation of the future gives relish to whatever pleasures may be thrown in our way.”

Willard soon began relentlessly writing to governors, congressmen and the president about a proposed plan for the “improvement of the education of females.” She would inform any who would listen about the terrible cost to society of giving a robust education to boys but steering girls toward finishing schools. While schools that educated girls were common, none offered the college level, sophisticated classes that Willard wanted.

By 1821, her efforts were rewarded. New York agreed with her point of view. In 1814, she created the Troy Female Seminary, and after some growing pains it was up and fully running by 1821. Dr. Willard encouraged his wife’s ambition, and moved with her to Troy, N.Y.

The Emma Willard School today.

But the doctor was 28 years older than Willard, and in 1825, with the school growing by leaps and bounds, he passed away. Dr. Willard handled the administration and finances for the school, and his death left Emma shorthanded. But she never missed a beat.

A prolific writer, Willard wrote more than 10 books in her life on topics as wide ranging as history, medicine and geography. It was after Dr. Willard’s death that Emma truly came into her fame.

On Her Own

She would welcome the Marquis de Lafayette when his tour of America came to Troy, and would visit him in France when she traveled there, hearing his firsthand account of the French Revolution.

All the while, she schooled her students in her vision of the perfect woman: learned and serious, not given to flighty thoughts. Though religious, Emma Willard never pushed her Episcopalian beliefs on her students. She was modest in dress and disciplined in purpose. An able administrator for her home and perfectly capable of earning her own way in the world.

Though Willard strongly believed in women’s education, she declined to put her fame behind the women’s suffrage movement. When Elizabeth Cady Stanton, one of Willard’s students, asked her to add her voice to support women’s suffrage, she declined. She wanted nothing to detract from her ability to promote education for girls, and she feared the hot-button issue of voting rights would do that.

Plus, Willard believed a strong man should, and could, shape a good home through sensible leadership. Her father had accomplished this, as had John Willard, her first husband.

Big Mistake

It’s not clear what attracted Willard to her second husband, Christopher Yates, a physician in the Albany, N.Y. area. She enjoyed the company of men and liked to socialize and attend dances. But whatever the attraction, she consented to marry him.

Friends warned her off. He was not what he seemed, they said. For a time she broke off the engagement. But in 1838, her qualms resolved, the two married. Willard turned the school and its funds over to her son before the wedding. The newlyweds then moved to Boston—fashionable Louisburg Square— to make a home.

The two stayed together less than a year, but it took a bitter five-year battle for Willard extricate herself from the unhappy marriage. In the process, she destroyed Yates’ reputation. He only wanted her money, she said. The newspapers reported on his refusal to leave the house they had bought and about him giving Willard’s jewelry to his daughter. They also reported that he gambled away thousands of her dollars.

Narrow Escape

Willard petitioned the Connecticut Legislature for a divorce, and in 1843 she got it. Yates would die just five years later. Willard, meanwhile, returned to her school, somewhat chastened but not depressed. She considered herself fortunate to have escaped the marriage and retain family, friends and her reputation.

Later in life, still independent

Willard continued to write and teach at the seminary. Her travels again took her to Europe, and she supported a school for girls in Greece with the royalties from her work. And her legacy remains alive today in the form of her school, renamed the Emma Willard School, and in the lives of many of the girls who graduated there.

Indeed, Willard’s views on womanhood took strong hold on her students. A 1979 analysis of her early students found them far more independent than the population in general. They had fewer children, less likelihood of getting married and far more likely to have a job outside the home. Graduates include Jane Fonda, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Much thanks to The Life of Emma Willard by John Lord. The Willard House in Middlebury By PenelopeIsMe – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4363690. The Emma Willard School By UpstateNYer – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7029000. This story was updated in 2022.

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Vermont’s Alexander Twilight: The First Black College Graduate in America

One day at the Brownington school in Orleans County, Vt., a youngster approached the front of the class to answer an arithmetic question. His classmates, as a joke, pinned a handkerchief to his back and he unknowingly proceeded to the front of the class with it trailing behind, leaving a ripple of giggles in its wake. The school’s principal, Alexander Twilight, was not pleased.

Alexander Twilight

The year would have been around 1853, and Twilight, no stranger to schoolboy pranks, sat silent for a bit before he spoke up: “It is a fool that laughs at the folly of a fool,” he said. The words were calculated to silence the classroom, and they did. They made such an impression that at least one student carried the lesson his whole life.

The man who delivered the lesson was the first black man in America ever to receive a college degree.

Alexander Twilight

Twilight was a Vermonter from birth. Researchers believe his father was Ichabod Twilight, a soldier who served in the Revolutionary War representing Warner, N.H. Perhaps the chance to earn his freedom as reward for his service as a soldier drew Ichabod into the New Hampshire militia.

Following the war, Ichabod established a family in Corinth, Vt., where Alexander was born on Sept. 23, 1795. As a young man, Alexander worked on a farm as an indentured servant early in his life. But then Middlebury College accepted him as a student on the strength of his strong mind and schooling at Randolph Academy.

Though census records identified him as black, his racial heritage was mixed and he might well have appeared to be white at first glance. It’s not clear whether Middlebury knew it was educating a black man or not. Nevertheless, he graduated and went on to be a minister and teacher.

Brownington

The Brownington grammar school was established in 1823 when the citizens of Orleans County threw open the doors of their newly built schoolhouse and welcomed the first class. The school survived mainly on the funds raised by renting out land that it had been granted for the purposes of supporting education.

In 1829, the school’s trustees reached out to hire Twilight. He was by then a seasoned teacher, with several years’ experience following his graduation in 1823. The school itself was in dire need of new leadership, and Twilight began immediately making improvements.

But without a dormitory-style boarding house, students had to board with local farmers. The environment that Twilight wanted for the school required a more formal dormitory and classrooms. When the trustees declined to fund it, he insisted. Relations grew very tense for several years, but the trustees refused to fund the larger facility.

Twilight decided to build it himself. He paid for it with a combination of his own funds and money borrowed from others. He quarried granite blocks from the surrounding area and, working with an ox to provide pull a system of pulleys, he and anyone he could corral to help built a large stone structure from the ground up.

Athenian Hall, also known as the Old Stone House

By 1836, he finished the structure: a large four-story, granite building with dormitory, kitchen, classrooms and assembly hall. Alexander Twilight named it Athenian Hall.

Athenian Hall

The school would prosper under Twilight’s leadership. Classes cost $2 to $3 each for a term, and Twilight’s reputation kept the school full. Before he departed in 1847, more than 3,000 students would pass through the school.

Twilight would also win election to the state Legislature and represent the county in attempting to stop the state from stripping its school of its funding.

One of his students would recall Alexander Twilight later: “His peculiar gift was in the management of a school. He seldom failed to get the good will and high esteem of his pupils,. His power to stimulate and direct them in regard to their character, studies and future pursuits was very great, He governed them wholly by appeals to their honor and manliness, but could use sterner persuasives when they were called for. Sometimes, when the subject and occasion demanded it, and all other measures failed, his power of invective, sarcasm, satire and ridicule were tremendous. No sensible rogue would wish to encounter it but once.”

Departure and Return

He left in 1847 because of a falling out with the school’s trustees and the deacons of his church. After his departure, the school closed for several years. Orleans residents eventually persuaded Twilight to return from Canada, where he had moved after the dispute, and the school reopened in 1852. Twilight would only preach one more year after his return, but he ran the school through 1855, when he finally closed it for good for lack of students.

Twilight would die two years later, on June 19, 1857, at the age of 62. His wife, Mercy Ladd Merrill Twilight, would live on for 21 more years. When she perished, her body was buried next to his at the foot of the hill below the stone building.

Today, a building at Middlebury College bears Twilight’s name, and his achievements, thanks largely to his own determination and character, are still celebrated to this day. And the stone school house that he built still stands and open for visitors; its website has an interesting collection of his sermons.

This story was updated in 2023. Image of Athenian Hall CC BY-SA 3.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34745682.

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Columbus Smith Found Fortune Abroad, Sadness at Home.

Columbus Smith, a Vermont lawyer, found in 1844 he could make a fortune by researching old deeds to locate the rightful heirs of English estates. For the next two decades he pursued other peoples’ inheritances, taking a cut for himself. He married, built an eye-popping mansion in Salisbury and collected antiquities. Part I of this story is here.

Columbus Smith

Columbus Smith seemed to set his life on a safe and sedate course, returning to live in Salisbury, Vt., after years spent in New York and Europe. If there is a lesson to his story, perhaps it is to never slow down because you don’t know what may be chasing you. In Smith’s case, he was chased by a series of calamities.

His first serious setback occurred in 1881. Columbus and Harriet’s son William, then 14, died of meningitis. The couple constructed an ornate mausoleum on their property, with glass shelves to hold its residents encased in glass-topped coffins. William was the first to occupy a space in the building.

Lost Hope

The death rattled Columbus Smith. His children’s former tutor, Irving Bacheller, by then living in New York, returned to Salisbury for a visit. He found Smith’s grief over the death of his son – “the main hope of his life” – had taken a harsh toll. It aged Columbus Smith and softened his mind.

After William died, Smith remained active in business and charitable affairs. He continued investing and building. He and Harriet spent one winter in Los Angeles, and he traveled to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, the Columbian Exposition.

Mary (Smith) McDowell

But daughter Mary was a growing concern. There are hints that during this time Mary, affectionately known as Pinky, was not well. She travelled to the American desert in the Southwest for health reasons. In 1896, however, it was announced that she would be married to Dr. Alexander McDowell of Bowling Green, Va.

McDowell was the son of Gen. Irvin McDowell, who led the Union troops in their ill-fated battle of Bull Run in the Civil War. Alexander had first followed in his father’s footsteps, enrolling at the West Point military academy. He completed his education at the Medical School of Columbian College, now George Washington University, and entered the Marine Corps.

Another Blow

The wedding would, of course, be a grand celebration. First scheduled for St. Stephen’s Church in Middlebury, the ceremony was performed at Shard Villa, and it was the talk of the county.

A little more than a year later, Mary died of tuberculosis. Seeing his last child join her brother in the family mausoleum apparently pushed the elderly Columbus Smith into depression.

Decline and Delusions

Columbus Smith grew acerbic and less attentive to details. His wife would later say that 1897 was the year she had to ‘get into harness’ and begin working to maintain their estate and wealth.

After leading a largely healthy life, Columbus Smith twice checked into sanitariums. Doctors treated him for his depression and Bright’s disease, then sent him home with medication. Harriet believed he would have avoided much misery if he had started taking his medication as soon as his daughter had died.

The decade of decline following Mary’s death was marked by paranoid delusions. Smith believed people were trying to steal his fortune, and he even made allegations against his wife. By the end, he had lost the power of speech, only able to make sounds. Smith died in November 1909.

Once Prominent

His obituaries noted that he was ‘at one time’ a prominent power in Vermont. Originally thought to have millions, he left an estate appraised at $340,000. It included far-flung properties in Illinois, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Texas and the Dakotas as well as New England.

In his will, Columbus Smith expressed the intent that Shard Villa should be converted to a nursing home for ‘old Christian women not addicted to drink.’ He stipulated the residual of his estate should fund its operation. Upon Harriet’s death in 1919, that’s what the mansion became – but not without one more legal entanglement. Would Columbus Smith have wanted it any other way?

The Final Probate Showdown

Anna Perry of Gardiner, Mass., and Fred Page of Ludlow, Vt. – a grandniece and grandnephew—challenged Smith’s will, which was written and amended from 1897 to 1903. They argued he was insane when he largely disinherited his family.

They pointed to curious details, such as a bequest of $1 to his brother-in-law ‘to buy a feather for his cap when he played soldier or a whistle and rattle to amuse himself in his declining years.’

To his wife, he left $25,000 ‘or $50,000 if she preferred.’ Such statements could be seen as whimsical, or evidence of mental decline. The Addison County Court heard from 112 witnesses, many of them friends and neighbors divided on the question of his sanity over the last decade of his life. After a hung jury couldn’t decide the matter on the first go-round, the Addison County Court declared the will valid.

Harriet Smith

Harriet, who had considerable wealth of her own apart from her husband’s, could have easily afforded to settle the case with her relatives. She declined to do so, fighting until the end to defend the will.

In 1914, the Supreme Court also upheld the will, which allowed for the establishment of the rest home at Shard Villa.

What happened next…

Shard Villa today remains an active and functioning nursing home. It entered a period of instability, and its board of trustees envisioned closing it in 2008. It has since undergone a revival, however, and is home to 15-to-18 residents.

On the grounds of the mansion, the mausoleum holds four bodies: Columbus, Harriet, William and Mary. A place for Mary’s husband Alexander B. McDowell remains empty.

In another tragic twist to the story, Alexander McDowell slit his own throat in 1908 while living in New York City. He had continued his relationship with the Smiths, traveling to Vermont to see them. And had he outlived Smith, he was to receive $2,000 from the estate, a room in perpetuity at the Shard Villa and the option to be resident physician at the facility if he wished.

Collections of haunted house stories also include Shard Villa, claiming Columbus Smith remains unsettled and still wanders the grounds from time to time.

Images: Photographer Don Shall’s Flickr Album; Middlebury College Special Collections; Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History’s Shard Villa and its People Exhibit.

This story about Columbus Smith was updated in 2022.

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Middlebury College

Emma Willard: Inventor of the Modern Woman (in 1821)

Emma Willard

On Her Own

Big Mistake

Narrow Escape

Vermont’s Alexander Twilight: The First Black College Graduate in America

Alexander Twilight

Brownington

Athenian Hall

Departure and Return

Columbus Smith Found Fortune Abroad, Sadness at Home.

Lost Hope

Another Blow

Decline and Delusions

Once Prominent

The Final Probate Showdown

What happened next…

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