wednesday, um you midterm is a week wednesday bring your scantron your own pencils. let's hope we can i want to review next monday i'll take the class period maybe and we can review on monday if you have something to review. if not, yes,yeah.

good evening, ladies and gentlemen. i'm tom ryan, president, ceo of lancaster history. and i'm delighted to welcome our visitors here as well as those online and the future c-span

audience. we have c-span in the room tonight recording this for wider distribution. lancaster history's regional colloquium is very proud to introduce mark kelly, the author of the highly anticipated autobiography of lydia hamilton smith, entitled, an uncommon woman the life of lydia hamilton smith co-published by lancaster history and penn state press. i would like to ask of you to silence your cell phones if you haven't done so so far. i will do the same in woman explores the life of lydia hamilton smith a prominent mixed race business woman in lancaster, pennsylvania, a figure of rising science and progressive action. smith was instrumental to stephen's success as. he led the drive to end slavery,

impeach andrew and push the ratification of the 13th, 14th and 15 amendments to the constitution. in this biography, mark kelley reveals how smith's served the cause of abolition managed stevens household acquired property in her own right, eventually running to boarding houses and cross racialized social boundaries. as many of you are aware, lancaster history engaged in the planning and fundraising to create the thaddeus stevens and lydia hamilton smith center for history and democracy in, the house on south queen street, where mr. stevens law office was located, where stevens and smith lived with her two sons and his two adopted nephews. i hope you will visit our

website and click on the link to the stevenson smith's for additional information. the project tonight, dr. kelley will discuss some of the negative forces arrayed against mrs. smith, as well as the middle ground people who can sintered her a little more than a housekeeper, but then also a third group who look upon her as a heroic woman who accomplished too much as a businesswoman, supported stevens in his elaborate and dangerous underground railroad activity and risked her own health caring for him and frankly, keeping him alive to complete his work on the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments. dr. kelley holds a ph.d. in journal from syracuse university. he worked for 25 years as a broadcast journalist and has taught journalism and mass

communication at several institutions of higher learning, an uncommon woman is his fourth book, kelley currently serves on the scholarly advisory committee for the stevens and smith center history and democracy. the museum under development by lancaster history. he design resides here in lancaster. his wife marti, who i believe is in the audience tonight. hello marty, it's my pleasure to give you mark kelly. thank you. let me add my welcome to tom's, which was excellent. just so happy that you had time to come here and be with us tonight because nobody i enjoy talking about more than lydia hamilton smith. let me just offer a couple of initial thoughts and disclaimer hours before we begin.

my talk tonight, which is which i have entitled defining lydia hamilton smith is based largely this book through a shs plug right here, an un woman and tom's already giving you the rest of the title the goal of my book was to capture thedimensions of mrs. smith. and i think just from tom's brief introduction, you, you ize that she had a lot of dimensions. and the book received, i'happy to say, has received some very favorable reviews. one local review wasn't so favorable, but pretty much everybse was. and in my favorite one so far is is from barry olmsted. he writes, he did a review for library journal and he says, among other things, kelly seeks

to do for smith. what annette gordon-reed did for the hemings family in the hemings is a month slow, which is to provide a biography of a figure given only glancing attention in the annals of history that captures it. that's what i to do. and it took it took some work to get it all done. the challenge was really that nobody took it upon themselves when when she was first gone from us to preserve her papers, you know, thaddeus stevens there's somebody transcribed all of his oh scratch scratchy written documents, his was even worse than mine i think. and, and they published a two volume set of thaddeus stevens papers. there's, there's no two volume set of lydia hamilton smith's papers. she did write she wrote a lot of letters, but nobody i mean as

tom suggested, a lot of people said, oh she's just a house housekeeper. you know, you know, preserve the papers of the housekeeper. i think i hope by the time i'm finished here tonight, you'll know that that was a mistake. to think that. in fact and and it's not an accident that nobody preserved her memories john hope franklin, the distinguished black historian had this to suggest about why people like lydia hamilton smith and and thaddeus stevens have not been remembered. and he says that defenders of the lost cause is familiar with that. there's lot of talk about that today. intimidation and lynching of black voters, reprisals against white civil rights activists, revision of civil war and reconstruction history. there's been a lot of that and paul and nikki haley get caught

up in that one recently so. simple question i mean to me i think it's a simple question. apparently not nikki. i don't mean to get political here. i caution that i would i would you before we get going, is that biography like the journalism that i for so many years is an invasive enterprise. you know, in the broadcast world, we take a microphone and get in people's faces when they had just suffered some horrible some horrible event like a mother who's lost her, her, you know, ten year old child to a in a gun accident, you know, that kind of thing. and i had that same and i can tell you that there maybe some don't but the i worked with we would come away from those

encounters feeling like we ought to go home, take a shower. we didn't have a lot of respect for ourselves doing that. well, i began to feel that as i pushed closer and closer to lydia hamilton smith, i thought that she want me inside her front door to shoot, that she won't be standing outside thaddeus stevens bedroom. and the first thought that i had was would she like me if i met her? i think she would have. but by all accounts was a vivacious, pleasant person. so that that that all of that said, i did, as tom suggested, break down the people who tried to define lydia hamilton smith during her lifetime and later into three groups the haters. those who say she was just a housekeeper and those who say she was really a heroic woman in her time. there's a subgroup who it completely even they know about

her when they're often this is people who are writing about thaddeus stevens and i don't know some of you have already the book how in the world could you write a book about thaddeus stevens and not talk about this woman crazy and you know, it's interesting that the people who did remember thaddeus stevens lydia hamilton smith were the people who hate of the most when they were alive. and that brings us to these two character years. that's thomas nixon, the left and d.w. griffith, who became quite famous and successful filmmaker back in the silent film days on the right, both sons of the both white and dixon was a southern baptist minister

who really thought a lot of himself, and he came north and ended up on the lecture circuit, and he, in saint louis, missouri, one night, and he had a little time on his hands. so he took in a stage performance uncle tom's cabin and lo and behold, he walked out of that theater with tears streaming down his face. this whites supremacist, because he was and said he wasn't identifying the characters in stowe's story. he was angry that she had perverted what he knew to be the real story of. the south and what what the union had done to the south and ruined down there with the civil war and reconstruction. and he vowed to write books and he was going to set the record straight. so in short order he wrote oh, and he i tried to read these books that the terrible he's not

a good writer so he tried to he he ends up coming up with a book inside old the clansman whichs really a celebration of the ku klux klan for driving union soldiers and government officials out of the south after the civil war, after reconstruction, when andrew basically shut down reconstruction and they dixon thought they were heroes. and so he writes the book and makes a ton of money. you would not believe how popular this man was in the north. i'm not talking about southern cities necessarily. he was popular in the north. and a lot of people who loved what he was doing and after he'd made tons of money on the book, he made a play out of it and he thought that was cool and made a whole bunch more money.

and then he thought, you know, i just i feel like i'm not reaching enough people. so he goes to talk. his friend d.w. griffith, they were both white supremacist of the confederacy. their families helped start the ku klux klan and in their particular home state. and and griffith is only too happy to make a movie out of the klansman. and when they started putting together, they needed some principle villains. well, that's the character austin stone and and lydia brown. that that's a's really hardly maed. he chose fatty stensnd lydia hamilton smith and proceeded to just hammer them into theround and showed them as the worst kind of people i and buthai think oh andlso lydia who was a mixed race woman but of somewhat fair mplexion. she wasn't white.

she never tried to pass for white, but she was played by that woman right there, mary den, a white actress. you see how she looks in blackface pretty disgusting. so in in this story, thaddeus is is this amazing? i won't go through all the plot twists but eventually thaddeus stevens stoneman comes to see the light when he's hanging around. these southerners finally sees the light that that that white people should be running the south. yeah. yeah, it really lydia hamilton smith on the other hand, because she the biggest threat that thomas dickson and d.w. griffith could even imagine, which was she she was already the product of race mixing and they were dedicate it to preserving the purity of the white race. so, so whereas they, they, they

let stevens the hook at the end of the story, lydia was described as but lascivious, hypersexual, animalistic mulatto woman and mulatto is a is a spanish word for an animal. right. which it's interesting that even the u.s. census would classify people mulatto in the 19th century. i don't when they start doing it, but it's pretty disgusting. and who used her sexual power to dominate the helpless stephens this white man and and allow black people to take over the south. there were other haters. george drake was a newspaper editor. please change. there we go. george drake was a newspaper from union springs, alabama, and he traveled all the way from alabama to come here in

lancaster so he could eyeball these people. thaddeus stevens of they were some of the most renowned people in the country in their time. lydia was as well. no matter anybody locally would try to, say. and after he seen them, i think he went to the house. south queen street and and after he'd been here he decided i think he wrote this before he ev home to alabama. he said in the city of lancaster, thaddeus steas for years lived an open adultery from her husband, a full blooded --. this mulatto manages h household both in lancaster and in washington, receives the rejectisitors that will speaks of mr. stephens and hersel as we add in, all things comports herself as if she enjoy rights owful wif she is a neat, tidy housekeeper,

appears to be polite and well trained as. -- generally are. i only mention the fact th stephens is doing this, that the ultra godly superstar defied saints of the african ascendancy own eye because stephens had condemned white plan owners for for forcing themselves on their enslaved women in the south. the demon of their own before the gouge so mercilessly at the moody and hours, other haters. imagine now this is this is our lydia hamilton smith and we're she she had to deal with this and so did thaddeus stevens. in the 19th century pennsylvania democrats, you know, just reverse. i see letters in the paper all the time say, oh, you know, it's the democrats who are racist. or, you know, it's like, well, yeah, they were, but the republican party gave them room. they just drifted there.

i'm sorry. sorry. tomtom's going to. give me the hook. anyway, one stevens biographer said the whole democratic press, a pennsylvania was in the of assailing mr. stevens on account of his association with this woman and charged it was illicit stevens mind was as crippled as is clubfoot. they said, and ty made sneering allusions to his housekeeper as though no other white man employ -- servants. and in 197there was still that kind of think he was still going around jamesell he wrote stories peist that stevens was informed directly or indirectly by a- mistress and he jolly traces it back to dixon and the klansman. well, a lesser hater. and i'm not going to dwell on this too much. oj dickey came to lancaster and i don't remember the exact year at the moment, but he shared a

space in stephen's law office at one time and when stevens died or and so stevens knew him pretty well, and stevens even made him one of the executors of his estate. when stevens died and he died in washington washington, lydia and the family arranged for youan see them there. it's not a great picture. there aren't many great pictures of tseuys, the butlers wives. they were a special military un tt worked out of out of washington, dand lydia asked and they were black. an lydia ask tm to come stand, honor guard for stevens, who was allowed to lie in state in the rotundaf e capitol. tells you something about his status in his own time, at least according to som ppl and when they were done in the

capital, they they put sve on train, his casket on the train, and lydia and the family asked theiv to accompany him to lancaster and to to process through the street with the with the casket over to shriner cemetery where he would be buried and so they a telegram to oj dickey who was heading the funeral prep operations and he immediately wrote back arrangements in lancaster would admit of no military display of colored men at the funeral. this is a guy i mean, these these black soldiers were were glad to do it because they really respected and thaddeus stevens had done things for them over years and was continuing to work for them to have the same rights as everybody else. so but by the time they sent the

telegram telegram. these wives were already the train. and they got here. dickey let him get off the train and stay overnight and immediately put him back on the train in the morning. and they were they were chagrined least to be treated in that fashion. also, mr. dickey, of when lydia and i get maybe into more of this in a moment, but when lydia was to get back wages, thaddeus stevens dearly wanted her have after he died, dickey not only tried to prevent her from those wages, but he pulled a trick to make sure that she couldn't get them. i mean, deceitful if you want to read the book, it's all there.

and i was i read this stuff down in the basement of the the county office building where they have the archives. and i think they thought i was going nuts because i just shaking my fist and i couldn't believe that she was treated like that. but she was and then said times stevens, two of his nephews, came to live with them when she had first come to lancaster to be his ostensibly housekeeper. and and he distinguished thad junior, the younger of the two nephews from distinguished himself bit. i think during the civil war. and then afterwards but but all that time actually beginning i think and when he was in prep school over limits he had an alcohol problem and he came home from the war and and when his

when his died he instead of practicing law in lancaster, which is what he had been doing, he took himself out to stevens ironworks, where i think nobody could see him get drunk and every so often he'd show up in lancaster and he'd he'd want to be cleaned. i mean, really filthy and and he would he say, i want mrs. smith send for mrs. smith. she was in washington dc by this time running a boarding house. this was after died and dickey gets involved because thad junior went to dickey and said, get mrs. smith and. and dickey says, you know, i remember that when she first came to lancaster, fattiest even told everybody in their circles, when you talk to her, this is a black woman, when you talk to her, you call her mrs. smith.

you don't call her by her first name. she ain't lydia to you. and and dickey when when he when he sent for her, he would just refer as smith. he said, sir smith should fix him up and send him off that night. meaning, dear gettysburg. oh yeah. we have some. other 20th century haters. woodrow wilson who said the -- were exalted. how they doing on time were exalted. the states from his governance ed in their name until the ites who wereeal citizens got control again. he actually screened the birth the natione whitese this horrific celebrating the ku klux klan. and how did they manage to work that out? well, it turns out thomas dixon and woodrow wilson went to school together at johns hopkins

university in baltimore. so ugly birds, a feather stick together. another columbia university historian sayliam, dunning. he promoted the view that black governing themselves and reconstruction would have been a lossal error, reversing reconstruction was reversion natural order, the same fact of racial inequality that slavery onceoded the natural order, is black people to be enslaved. that's from this vantage point. it's kind of hard to get in touch with the okay, so let's go the next group, just the housekeeper, you know, and then, you know, tear her down or anything but but they also they didn't want to give her a whole lot of credit for anything. judge charles landis, a noted jurist in lancaster county back in the 19th century, wrote a

defense of stephens and smith, a very detailed defense. in fact, he says at the beginning of it, i've researched this, so don't you dare question anything i say. and here he did make a couple of mistakes. but anyway, he wanted to defend against the scurrilous attacks that that thomas dixon, d.w. had said. and he talks about lydia. he said she was a decent, respectable, kept hequite within her station. she was warmly welcomed by lars leading families. and you know, that same concept carried over to the most recent ns biography that i aware of was by dr. bruce levine. and in 2022 and he said lydia cawork for stephens, a housekeeper, and the two developed a close friendship and working relationship. they were not intimate, he said. the idea idea that they

were came from those hoping to tarnish stephens image. there is no firm evido substantiate it. i beg to differ. there were those who wanted to far.nd her memory, but only so they insist she would neve had a sexual with thaddeus stevens because she was devout ish cc woman all her life. avestone.er think of it on her and we're not sure who wrote this epitaph, but it says, other things. i mean, the fact that she was married to jacob smith before she left him in harg is in smaller font at the top the big letters are reserved for this expression and for many years the trust in the housekeeper of honorable thaddeus stevens. oh yeah i don't have to read all

these to you. just the housekeeper. yes. thomas. frederick woodley and i received his biographer. and these guys, you know, they they really that lost cause crowd really managed to bear the memory of these people. these people mean in their day, they were widely known. stephens was probably during the civil war with the most powerful member of congress. he chaired the house ways and means committee means he held the purse strings for the civil. and he really dearly wanted to put an end to slavery. and when civil rights for the newly freed people and for all people of color for that matter. frederick woodley stephens biographer that lydia was a woman of poise and personal dignity. she was unusually attractive. some of these guys think they really had a crush on her. they they just go on and on and and, you know, what can i say?

i was so pleased when like when penn state decided to put her on the cover. she's a looker. what can you say? but she never traded on that from what i could tell, she was unusually attractive. neat in appearance. well above average intelligence. she was very intelligent, didn't have a lot of formal, but she was very intelligent. she was a small woman. she was light complected with almost caucasian features, and stevens grew more and more to rely on her. she was just a housekeeper. woodley talks about her packing all of steen's stuff when he goesff his unmatched shoes. people have focused on his. the fact that thaddeus stevens had a clubfoot. some people explain in s whole personality and the things that he did because, he resented having ts clubfoot. you know, he was lucky his brother was born with two club

fe. and i found i information that suggested that in his prime when stephen's younger he was very athletic and he's a good loong guy. so he's gotten bad rap by many people. more about lydia she conducted his home quietly and efficiently an supervised the other servants. so she was a servant. she wasn't anythi else. i'll get back to that when. he did entertain. she serv the food, freshments personally. well, really put herself out for the old thaddeus tddeus. where am i? here am i? am i one? one behind? yes. here we go. others the lancaster new era. after she died in her obituary, speaking to her generous addie and her other abilities. she was a magnificent caterer as

the managing head of stephens households also came in contact with the great men of this country of whom she conversed intelligently and entertainingly. she's kind of little. little, little music box there. whenever people came to visit, you know, just turn lydia on. she bounced around through the house and and just, you know, beam and she was pretty song, you know. sure that the guests didn't being around her and she came in contact with the great men of this country whom she conversed. judge landis would say at one point, mrs. smith was often at the houses of those gentlemen. that is the leading of lancaster like thomas burroughs, the father of public education, who in pennsylvania, dr. henry carpenter, who was stephen's physician, as well as lydia's, and of others of the social persona, you know, they moved in, in the best social circles. and she was on terms of intimacy with their families, so intimate

that she left legacies to some of their children in her will, her place owing to. stephen's having no female relatives in his home at one of their parties. you can't the housekeeper sitting at dinner with you can you. so according to this. at one time when needed a a hostess for entertaining this is according to judge landis. i'm not sure if i totally agree with it, but. because stephens had no female of his own, at least not formally, maybe at one of the parties, his friend and neighbor, mrs. susan brinton, received for him at another, it was the wife of oliver j. dickey, who performed the same service. hope she was nicer than he was. okay.

so enough of that. let's get to what we really need to be saying about her. the lanctenew era wou ao say about her eventually that having become possessed of nserable means which she mostly through through real estate. but she also she had aivy serve en they were then he when he was in congress and she was she was living with him down there in whiton, dc. i mean, the woman just stopped coming up with ideas for things to do in business, which, you know and i know women of any kind were not supposed to be doing in 19 centurymeca. they were supposed to be putting on an apron, cooking food for the old man and rainghe kids. well, she wasn't satisfiedit that. well, i keep getting behind me. forgive me. i'll go back. oh, yeah area. okay. another indatn of her being

heroic there's a story of o.c. gilbert that. i think mef you know, randy harris has a l owork on digging out the o.c. gilbert story. gilbert was of a grp fugitives who were on the railroad, and eyot to columbia, and somebody said you need to go to this house i lancaster is on south queen street and is thaddeus stevens house while lydia was the. i mean, she increasingly became she was aom in a hoe. and so i think that o.c. gilbert, although he mentioned hebyame in anything that he ter he have known that lydia smith because e s there and she cared all those people who were passing through lancaster were looking forreedom. stevens insisted that she was. mrs. smithot just was that just respect? was it something more.

and quoting from my own book here, taking her into his life, mrs. smith, t mply as lydia rving girl and including her in every aspect of that life ght have been as close as they ulcome publicly to telling the world how deeply invoed they were. you know, the restrictions of 19th century america. she's black, he's white. they couldn't marry, you know. i mean, when she she left her husband in harrisburg to come to lancaster. but didn't divorce him. and that sounds like a good catholic woman. but eventually he died so she could have married, except nobody was really up for that at that point in time. so. and she endured. i mean this is incredible to me. i mean you would not believe the things that people said about

these two people here in as well as from across the country. they just southerner is especially just hated. steven and they hated her too. and some of them thought that she she was the reason stephens was pushing for the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments because she was black and she wanted her people to run the south. i mean, just unbelievable and but this goes on for years and years and years and she never said thing and he never said a thing. i mean this is i cannot imagine keeping that in. i would have been all over somebody at some point expressing my displeasure with their with their comments, their behavior. well, okay she did actually she fired her had had enough in 1847. there's really only years after she got here to lancaster was a democrat aligned newspaper here.

so they were particularly vitriolic, stephens and smith, they just have much time for abolition and trying to put an end to slavery. so. lydia and so they published all kinds, really ugly things. and lydia finally, finally said, that's and and she, she was, she would actually tell when she got there she'd tell them my my friends told me i should come call you out on this and the newspaper editor henry smith at the time. proceeded he called his buddy over in the newsroom and they taunted her for the whole that she was there and then wrote it up and i think really enjoyed showing people, can you believe this uppity black woman coming up in here and giving us grief. and she so angry that she ended up when when he wouldn't say he

would stop, she turned to him and said, i will, you don't. the next time you run something like that, i will cow hide the editor. good for her. for her. he deserved. where i here. okay. she was also i think this is heroic. she had two boys. they were almost when she came to lancaster and she no sooner had gotten here. she was 34 years old when. stephens brother died up in vermont, leaving two sons orphaned and so the family decided. stevens was from vermont originally. the family decided, well, let's all send them down to uncle, uncle thaddeus. and, you know, he's a lawyer. he can because he was already training of people to the law. let's just have him train allinson and thad junior to the

law. that would be neat. so suddenly, lydia finds herself with her two sons, william and isaac, and these two guys from vermont, allinson and thad junior. she's 34 years old. i don't know how much fun that would have been, but but she did it and she related to them, she never, never stepped away from them. in fact, when when they would get crosswise with sometimes especially his nephews. well the other guys her sons got crosswise stevens too on occasion but lydia, they would end up writing to lydia and saying, can you can you tell uncle thaddeus that, you know, i don't think as bad as he thinks it is and some very touching, touching letters that she writes, these people, these guys, guys and, they didn't end up doing well either. but let's see, william got

involved with a the daughter of 14 year old daughter of a of an ironworks employee over in franklin county. he got her pregnant, had ultimately to children to her eyes a nurse and then he off to war and he died. the battle of chickamauga and lydia's with this her older son boy, get ready for this one. william got himself caught up in some kind of a love triangle right here in lancaster. and he was engaged to be married to this one woman. but ends up having a child to well, the first woman writes him a letter and says, i'm not married you, jack. i'm that's terrible that you did that. so william takes a gun, shoots

himself over the heart. some people in the newspaper and otherwise to this day say that it's just a just a gun handling accident like fun he. he had himself in a like and he just couldn't see way to get out of it then then the younger younger boys said junior he an alcohol problem from very very early on and and when stephens his will he it because that junior was the last of the line he didn't have any other direct relatives to leave things to if said junior had gotten dry for three years running, he would have inherited stephen's estate, which was probably millions of dollars in those days because he bought real estate land all over the place thousands of acres fed couldn't do it.

they couldn't do it really, i said. and lydia, you know, i already told you she would have to come over washington to clean this kid up so old enough to know better. but he didn't didn't. so she was front and center as wealth. oh, and her son isaac, who was. judge landis, liked to refer to him as his little isaac smith. he was four feet, 11 inches tall, and she had terrible time with him because he got into drinking early on, like when he was, again, about 15, 16, 17. and she met various times. she would she would when she came home one time. and then when he was he was getting all messed up and she swore out an arrest warrant for him, put him in jail for drunk

and disorderly, and he did 30 days of hard labor, i think. you know, she was progressive, little tough love. that's right. a little tough love. so again, she was just really just a really sharp person. and she was being here in lancaster in those that mid 19th century period, she. she was front and center. some of the most important in american history. you know, she she was here for when the the fugitive slave act was passed in 1850. and that had a big impact on the elaborate underground railroad system that. i know she was already supporting stephens with here in lancaster. she was here. the dred scott decision was passed, can you imagine how she felt about that she know the dred scott?

yeah the roger b taney, the chief justice of the u.s. supreme, wrote one and he said basically, black people will never citizens of the united states. and i don't see that they have they have accruing to them any rights under the constitution. i mean, she's living with one of the best lawyers in the country i got a feeling they talked that over anyway she faced dangers delights anguish exhaustion and it wasn't until pretty late in her life after she had been running the boardinghouse in washington for a while that she wrote to a friend of hers and said you know sometimes i just get pretty tired especially in the summer keeping this this going that's the first time i found that she ever said anything being tired this woman

was she was beyond the energizer bunny. she was just she really was was driven. i partly because she was she born into pretty impoverished circumstances and i think she was bound and determined to get ahead. she was generous almost to a fault in her will. she left all kinds of money to people. she had a half sister, jane cooper, who actually was sent as a child to baltimore or was indentured to one of the wealthiest families in the city of baltimore, maryland and she kept in touch with, i do believe, because her will she left jane, sizable amount of money. she also left money for jane's children. they could get educated and that would have been if they used it properly.

she would have had a better education than she had. i'm sure she left money. go to goodrich. i don't know if you know the goodrich from york county they were i mean one of their claims to fame is that that one of the members of the goodrich family was a pioneer in photography. this country did some amazing things, but they got into the underground railroad. they got so far into it that when the fugitive slave act was passed, they had to think about getting out of town. and some of them did, too, just to survive. they went north to get out of it. out of here and is actually a goodrich museum in new york today, if you ever want to go and take a look at it. she was the court's frequently to address problems. she had personal financial. and i think, again, as with her investments in real estate, she was advised by thaddeus stevens. why would you advise housekeeper to to help build up an estate.

well i'll tell you i am let me let me move down here. okay. kind of ruout of time. lydia hamilton smith and thaddeus stevens it was said by some observers that she kept his house like a wife, not like a housekeeper, like a wife. this is the of their relationship. she walked beside him for nearly 25 years. she got involved in that underground railroad stuff and she went he he was engaged in in in pushing through the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the the freedom and of these newly newly freed people of color from the south. stephens also experienced some

very debilitating illness. one of them was a lot of problem with the lower tract. he have these bouts of diarrhea. sorry to be distasteful here, but from time to they would lay him up for like, you know, weeks on end and. he just couldn't do anything. and he needed, according to dr. carpenter, he 24 hour nursing care because these medications to be administered in the right or he would die and who do you think took care of that lydia hamilton. oh well don't me started i, i know that they talked major issues of the time right after the civil war started when they had the first battle of bull run and it didn't go well for the union he wrote a letter to her and said we didn't do so well

on. this one. but then he also ends up telling her, i know, i know you're thinking that is by this time thaddeus jr and allanson already signed up for the war and you know, initially they could sign up for three months they thought was going to be over in three months and and he and he immediately reassured, he said that junior and allanson weren't in this battle and. i really expect them to come home soon and i hope they do. why would he tell housekeeper that. and then there's blanchard. he an abolitionist minister and journalist who traveling around came to gettysburg while stephens was still practice in law there. and i think helped stephens

actually come to the the deep, deep commitment that he had to racial equality for the rest of his and blanchard would end up he wrote about him afterwards he ran a he had his own little newspaper the christian sure and he he idolized thaddeus stevens he once him i think you have done more for the good of people here in this country than anyone else of your time. i just admire i mean just like you walked on water but he kept showing up because stephens lived with lydia and he thought they were living in sin. and he he had other people who confirmed the same thing thing. he bishop did and blanchard but actually go on to be to be president of wheaton college out in illinois and also on an ohio

church conference after stevens died, bishop payne was also there and he was a man of color. who stephens likely met in gettysburg. get the seminary there and and they were apparently sitting around talking about thaddeus stevens and what great loss it was that he had died. and the bishop said, among other things, i guess, that he lived with a colored woman as his wife, without marrying, not a good. so it wasn't wasn't a racial thing, obviously. it was just a regular old thing. they were just shacking up. people didn't like it and and so later when stephens is done that much longer to to live on this mortal coil blanchard is in conversation with stephens. he asks him who of all the great

men of your time, henry clay, daniel webster. who are you most like? do you think? and stephens says, thinks about it. and he he discounts all the other guys and tells tells plants why they were inferior or didn't measure up, in his opinion. and he finally says richard johnson. you know, richard, jim johnson was this is proof that being vice president doesn't get you much. he was he was the vice president under martin van buren. i'd never heard of him till i read this. and and okay, now, why did he pick that guy? well, richard and johnson had enslaved women. and he took one of his enslaved women as, a mistress. and had two daughters with her. and he had the daughters introduced fine society,

respectable and. then she died that that mistress died, but her he owned her sister, too. and so he tried to make her his mistress. and that sister ran off. she didn't want anything to do with him. now now, stevens said, this is the man he's most like. i mean, what in the world is he thinking? well, he quickly said, yes, i a woman of color and i love her so much that i would never part with her, but i love a free woman of color who chose me. i chose her and makes all the difference. i didn't force myself on her in any way, but. all right. so the guests often, they were

intimate when they came around. a guy named, william t hall, historian, biographer, would say that stevens and lydia were and mrs. smith were first intimate in harrisburg, pennsylvania, know she moved to harrisburg with her husband and her two sons around 40 and then she would four years later that the marriage had gone sour and she left and that's that's kind how they both would have looked about that time when first came to lancaster and anyway. so people thought at hall hall fortunately didn't give us any details how he knew that to be case. thank you mr. hall. i don't know if he meant that. i don't even know why he meant that. why would you say something like that if you don't have any evidence to support it? at any rate, there was

apparently were people who because lydia was working so hard to rise out of this impoverished beginning that she'd had. there were people who thought she was a bit avaricious of the greedy. and when was talking to his friend and colleague simons, no relation. near, i mean really near the end of his life. and stevens had told simon that he wanted to leave. $10,000 as as a legacy to to thank her for her care him over all those that they'd been together. and and. that's when simon says what you know some people say she's a little and stevens says now you tell me what this means.

this is thaddeus, one of the most intelligent people ever to serve in congress. no doubt he said to his friend simon, no matter what her love of money is, she has never neglected me, my household or we were in health or in sickness. is that sounds awfully i think wedding vows to me, but i'll let you decide anyway. he tried to double the original $5,000 legacy didn't get done. they didn't get their will rewritten so he told simon stevens, i really want her to have this. this is his. it's like his last real wish on earth is that lydia be given in the end $10,000. so if you if you can't add the

5000 as a legacy and we don't that will signed then you simon stevens make sure that that she gets paid good wages for the last six years of my life and if you have if you multiply that out in of what a good wage monthly wage would have been in that time period comes out to about $5,000. so she would have gotten 10,000 altogether. but oj pulled some stunts and she didn't get it. john coyle was or was a fellow with lydia at st mary's irish catholic church in lancaster and he said that lydia told him that that. oh no, he yes she told him that stevens turned toward religion. he was accused of being a just a pagan and and the two end.

but toward the end of his life, she told coyle that lydia had had told him that he was turning around a little bit, then blanchard said there's he's had more of religion and on stevens, get this lydia set this up. i know she did you know there are these stories of stevens deathbed and they just happened to have to a black catholic nun and nurses tending to him he really liked that preferred them to to the white hospitals wherever else were and so there there there and and as he's about to shuffle off the mortal coil, the say, would you like to baptize you now? i think lydia engaged them in

the first place. that's why were there and stevens and says sure that's i i it was it's what she said later that made me think she set the whole thing up because when she was to somebody about it to jonathan blanchard she said i believe he is safe in heaven today. i think these two had a very special relation ship. you don't have to believe me, but read the before you decide. which definition of lydia hamilton smith fits best. i vote for the heroic. i think this woman endured some incredible struggles and challenges and just i mean, i can't being condemned like that for many, many years just keep on keeping on and get things done. so i vote heroic and that's really pretty much what i have

to say if if i have done my job right right now and find yourselves tempted to applaud. yeah. i hope you'll be applauding at least as much for the lydia hamilton smith as you are for me. thank you. i think those extra long applause were for lydia. i really. now some of you may have other engaged agents and might have to leave, so feel free to do so if you need to. but we do want to take a few questions if you have a question raise your hand, i'll come to you with. the microphone that was easy. how did mrs. and thaddeus stevens meet? how did they meet? briefly. okay, i. i think, you know, i think her

mother worked for him in gettysburg as a housekeeper i know she had access to his house. i can't imagine how that would have happened otherwise excuse. so i think he saw her there and i from early on, she was a good looking and and stevens had an eye for a good looking ladies. a couple of times lydia tells people, i mr. stevens about that you were there and he said, oh, that kasia. she's the she's one of the prettiest girls i've ever seen. so i think they met. i in gettysburg, and i think they may have stayed in touch in harrisburg and then she came to lancaster. oh, you've got a question from zoom. and the question is.

just so everybody can hear. so we have a question from zoom tonight. did stevens customarily introduce people by their first names or mr. mrs. ms. without regard to their race? so did he do that generally for everyone regardless of their race. i'm not the expert on that. i. but i think the fact that he did it with regard to a woman of is is what we need to focus on. and i think, i mean because that people didn't do that i mean when i was a kid growing up in new holland pennsylvania and my neighbor kids family had a black housekeeper. i went in the house one day and she was there and said, oh, mark, this is alice she was a middle aged woman with several children. and i said, well, where do you live? and and said, they said, well,

she she doesn't live in new holland. they can't they live out on welsh mountain. so that's i think that's the significance of stevens saying to people and i'm not sure. okay. dickie was real thrilled about doing that calling or other question and the other hands on up here. all right. well, mark, want to thank you so much for your work to this. for helping to fill in the gaps of the life of a remarkable woman, although not in lancaster, we're happy to clamor. oh, yeah, yeah. she'll never get away from us now. and i think we should all be delighted that you came back to lancaster after a career elsewhere, and this is what you stumbled into. so thank you very much for your. thank you and thank you all for coming safe home. be careful. there might be a few spots out there, so just tread carefully.

great. oh,