Autobiography of Seventy Years | Page 8

added naively, "Didn't I look pretty?"
My mother, who was married in 1812, knew very intimately many of
her father's and mother's old friends who had been distinguished in the
public service in the Revolutionary period and the Administration of
Washington and John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. She knew very

well the family of John Jay. He and his wife were visitors at my
grandmother's after their return from Spain. My mother was intimate in
the household of Oliver Ellsworth as in a second home. His children
were her playmates. She was also very intimate indeed with the family
of Senator Hillhouse, whose daughter Mary was one of her dearest
friends.
Senator Hillhouse held a very high place in the public life of
Connecticut in his day. He was one of the friends of Hamilton, and one
of the group of Federal statesmen of whom Hamilton was the leader.
He was United States Senator for Connecticut from 1796 to 1810.
After she became a young lady, my mother, with Fanny Ellsworth,
afterward Mrs. Wood, and Mary Hillhouse, daughter of the Senator,
established a school to teach young colored children to read and sew.
The colored people in New Haven were in a sad condition in those days.
The law of the State made it a penal offence to teach a colored child to
read. These girls violated the law. The public authorities interfered and
threatened them with prosecution. But the young women were resolute.
They insisted that they were performing a religious duty, and declared
that they should disobey the law and take the consequences. A good
deal of sympathy was aroused in their behalf. The New Haven
authorities had to face the question whether they would imprison the
daughter of a Signer of the Declaration of Independence, who had
affixed his signature to the great affirmation that all men are created
equal, the daughters of two Framers of the Constitution, and the
daughter of James Hillhouse, then the foremost citizen of Connecticut,
for teaching little children to read the Bible. They gave up the attempt.
The school kept on and flourished. President Dwight raised a
considerable fund for it by a course of lectures, and it continued down
to within my own recollection. What became of the fund which was
raised for its support I cannot tell.
Jeremiah Evarts was born February 13, 1781. He died May 10, 1831.
He was the founder and Secretary of the American Board of
Commissioners for Foreign Missions. He was one of the thirteen men
who met in Samuel Dexter's office in 1812, to inaugurate the

Temperance Reformation. The habit of excessive drinking was then
almost universal in this country. Liquors and wines were freely used on
social occasions, at weddings and at funerals. The clergyman staggered
home from his round of pastoral calls, and the bearers partook of
brandy or gin or rum in the room adjoining that where the coffin was
placed ready for the funeral. A gentleman present said it was utterly
impracticable to try and wean the American people from the habit of
drinking. Jeremiah Evarts answered, "It is right, therefore practicable."
He was a Puritan of the old school. He made a vigorous but ineffectual
attempt in Connecticut to enforce the Sunday laws. His death was
caused by his exertions in resisting the removal of the Cherokee
Indians from Georgia, a removal accomplished in violation of the
Constitution and of public faith. The Supreme Court of the United
States declared the law of Georgia unconstitutional. But Georgia defied
the mandate of the Court, and it was never executed. The missionary
agent was imprisoned and died of his confinement. Mr. Evarts said,
"There is a court that has power to execute its judgments."
I told this story to Horace Maynard, an eminent member of Congress
and a member of the Cabinet. Mr. Maynard said, "There was never a
prophecy more terribly accomplished. The territory from which those
Indians were unlawfully removed was the scene of the Battle of
Missionary Ridge, which is not far from the grave of Worcester, the
missionary who died in prison. That land was fairly drenched with
blood and honeycombed with graves."
Mr. Evarts edited the Panoplist, a very able magazine which
powerfully defended the old theology against the Unitarian movement,
then at its height.
A well-known writer, Rev. Leonard W. Bacon, published a short time
ago a sketch entitled, "The Greater Evarts," in which he contrasted the
career of Jeremiah Evarts with that of his brilliant and delightful son.
Whether that judgment shall stand we may know when the question is
settled, which is to be answered in every generation, whether
martyrdom be a failure.

Among the inmates of my grandfather's household in my mother's
childhood and youth was Roger Minott Sherman. He was the son of