The Great Commoner

Vol. 7 No. 1                         A Publication of the Thaddeus Stevens Society                        Spring 2005

Meeting on March 19 To Hear About Stevens Play

The next meeting of the Thaddeus Stevens Society will be on Saturday, March 19, at 11 a.m. at the Jones Conference Room at the Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology in Lancaster, PA. We will be hearing from Donald Rhoads, a professor at Stevens Tech, who is writing a play about Stevens. The college is graciously providing lunch.    We will also be electing officers for the next year and discussing a new web site and other matters. If  you need a ride to the meeting, please call Ross Hetrick at 717-334-5227.

Stevens Descendant Step Up

Joshua Stevens

Margaret Sarah McBride Stevens

The Thaddeus Stevens Society recently made contact with descendants of Thaddeus Stevens's older brother, Joshua Stevens. They have provided many details of their family tree. Thaddeus Stevens was a life-long bachelor and never had children. But Joshua's family was fruitful and there are more than a dozen descendants. The family has also continued to use the name Thaddeus and there are two Thaddeus Stevens alive today who are related to the Great Commoner.    Sally Nungesser, one of the descendants who lives in Virginia, sent the society a photo of two oil paintings of Joshua Stevens and his wife, Margaret Sarah McBride Stevens, who lived in Indianapolis, IN

Stevens Presentations

Two speeches about Stevens will be given at the Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology on March 30 and April 4 as part of the college's hundredth anniversary. Ross Hetrick, president of the Stevens Society, will be talking on "Creating a New Constitution - Thaddeus Stevens and the Fourteenth Amendment." That speech will be at noon on Wednesday, March 30.    The second speech is by Stevens scholar Beverly Wilson Palmer, whose talk is entitled, "Thaddeus Stevens, Persuasive Writer and Orator." She will be talking at noon on Monday, April 4.    April 4 also marks the 213th anniversary of Steven's birth and there will be a ceremony at his grave at 4 p.m. that day. He is buried at the Shreiner-Concord Cemetery at the corner of North Mulberry and West Chestnut Streets in Lancaster. The Jack and Helen Gorelick Award will be presented to an outstanding student at the college during the ceremony.

Shreiner-Concord Cemetery

Improvements are being made to the cemetery where Thaddeus Stevens is buried. In the last year, a brick walk was installed by students at the Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology and the cemetery's foundation has received a $10,000 grant from Lancaster Investment in a Vibrant Economy (LIVE). Proposals include removing old trees and planting new ones, building another brick walkway, planting bulbs that would bloom around Stevens birthday and installing informational signs about Stevens and the cemetery.    There is also discussion about spreading people's ashes in the cemetery for a fee. In exchange, there would be small marker with their name and birth/death dates placed in the cemetery indicating their ashes were spread there.    It's a lovely little cemetery that is getting lovelier. It is worth a visit to see it.

Stevens Quote    "I wish I were the owner of every southern slave, that I might cast off the shackles from their limbs, and witness the rapture which would excite them in the first dance of their freedom" 1837, from Thaddeus Stevens, Scourge of the South, by Frawn M. Brodie, page 63.

New Address: Thaddeus Stevens Society P.O. Box 3484 Gettysburg, PA 17325 Phone: 717-334-5227 Email: contact@thaddeusstevenssociety.com