In 1829, Alexander Twilight was appointed to the position of principal of Orleans County Grammar School. Later called Brownington Academy, this school was a prestigious educational institute which offered schooling for both men and women. In 1834, the school became so successful that there was no more room for students to board with the townspeople. So, Alexander Twilight, suggested that they build a dormitory to house the incoming students. He asked the board of trustees for funding, but they said no. We believe that they turned down providing funds to build the dormitory because they suspected that he was African American. Many people would have given up on their dream at this point, but Alexander Twilight decided that having no funding was no problem. So, he built a four story, stone building with his own two hands and an ox. It was finished in 1836. The building would be used to house over 30 people. He named it Athenian Hall, but people later on did not care for the grand name: Athenian Hall. They instead chose to call it: The Old Stone House. We visited the museum last winter and would recommend our readers to check out their website as follows. Go check out our Photo Gallery for pictures from the Old Stone House. Thank you for reading! The Alexander Twilight Girls
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Middlebury College is a Vermont college located in Middlebury, Vermont. Middlebury is about 70 miles Northwest of Dartmouth. It was founded in 1800 by Gamaliel Painter. Middlebury became the first operating college in Vermont and it is now educating over 2,500 undergraduates. Middlebury’s claim to fame is that they graduated the first African American: Alexander Twilight.
Alexander Twilight was accepted into Middlebury in 1821 but, since Middlebury had a policy against African Americans, he had to pretend he was a white man. We believe the reason he graduated was because they thought he was white. Years later, they claimed they graduated the first black man in America, even though they probably had no idea that he was African American at the time. Let us know how you feel about Middlebury’s claim in the comments. Alexander Twilight Girls Hello Readers! Two weeks ago, a reader, Dana Karuza, asked us: “ Do you feel skin color is less or no longer an issue for your generation?” We feel our generation has come a long way in the journey to racial equality, but to this day we still have some people who cannot embrace the fact that we are all equal. However, there are many things that we can do to prevent racism such as going to marches at the capital and in everyday life standing up for the people we love, respect, and things we feel strongly about. Everybody should have equal rights, no matter what their skin color is. So, in many ways, yes, racism is less of an issue now and there will never be a world where everyone believes in the same things- diversity makes our world interesting- but we can certainly strive for a world without racists. Thank you for reading! Alexander Twilight Girls We encourage questions and comments from our readers! Ichabod Twilight went missing when Alexander was at a very young age, putting Alexander in charge of the family. Alexander then had to work to pay off the family debts, putting off his schooling by years. Working for the local church, Alexander met the headmaster of Middlebury College who, by having had a conversation with Twilight, was probably influential in the acceptance of Twilight to Middlebury. We believe Twilight was accepted into Middlebury because he appeared to be a white man, even though his heritage was African American. But, unlike most African Americans, he had very light skin so he was able to get away with passing as white. He graduated from Middlebury in 1823, after just three years of college. Later, he moved to Peru, New York to become a school teacher and met his future wife Mercy Merrill. They got married in 1826 and moved to Brownington, Vermont, just 90 miles North of Dartmouth where he remained for most of his later years.
Thank you, Esme and Gabby Thank you Old Stone House Museum for pictures and information. This portrait was painted of Theda Grout Wellman who lived from 1798-1839, and painted by Walter Ingalls. Theda was the wife of a well known minister, Reverend Jubilee Wellman. Jubilee was the first minister in Lowell, Vermont. Lowell, Vermont is located about 20 miles West of Brownington, Vermont, where Alexander Twilight lived at the time. There is some evidence that suggests that the Wellmans had a daughter named Theodocia. Theda had a portrait painted of her and a baby, who we suspect was Theodocia. At some point the baby was painted out of the portrait. If you look at it from the right angle you can see the shadow of the “ghost baby”. Nobody knows why the baby was painted out but we have many theories. There are some records of Theda having a baby, though we don’t know if this was Theodocia who died at 24. Maybe Theda was so sad about Theodocia that she couldn't bare to have to look at a portrait of her and her deceased baby that she hired someone to paint her out. Another theory is that it was a pre-used canvas- many canvases back then had something already painted on it, since they were hard to acquire, so the artist might have painted over someone else's prior painting. This simply could have been an accident, but this does not explain the fact that Theda certainly seems to be holding the baby. Photos and info courtesy of the Old Stone House Museum In 1827, a woman named Lydia Baxter’s husband William died. She was left widowed at the age of 48 and attempted to commit suicide when the life without her dear husband became too much to bear. Due to that failed attempt, she was not allowed to attend her public church anymore. Lydia’s public church happened to be run by Alexander Twilight at the time. Twilight agreed that suicide was not an acceptable concept at that time and signed the meeting minutes that declared Lydia to be ex-communicated. After being thrown out of her own community, she went to live with one of her children and she, eventually, passed away. To this day forward, she comes to Athenian Hall, Alexander Twilight’s dormitory* for the students at his school, and haunts the upper floors, where her husband’s painting is hung. *We will talk about this in future blog posts Subscribe to our newsletter! Happy Halloween! Esme and Gabby Hello Readers!
We welcome you to our third blog post this year! We decided to base this post off a comment that one of our readers asked us.* Jen Manwell was wondering if we could tell our readers a little bit about Twilight’s parents, Ichabod and Mary, and if there was any evidence of their activity in Corinth/Bradford. There is little we know about Mary because there was nothing recorded on her, since she was a woman in the 1700s and only showed up in census records. We don’t even know her maiden name. We do know a little about Ichabod, though, due to an article called The Life of Ichabod Twilight and the Early Life of Alexander Twilight 1765-1821, by John M. Lovejoy. It gave us great insight and depth on Ichabod and allowed us to get a better idea on how Alexander was raised. Ichabod was born in July, 1765 in Boston, Massachusetts. In Hebrew, ‘Ichabod’ meant “the glory has departed”. He was given the last name Twilight, as we mentioned before, by his friends because his skin was between light and dark. When he was older he joined the army, and soon after got married to a woman named Mary. In 1791, the first child, Aaron Twilight was born. In 1793, the second child, Thomas Twilight was born and shortly after, the family moved to Bradford/Corinth, Vermont, where they quickly got themselves involved in the town’s community. In 1795 Alexander Twilight was born. When Alexander was eight years old, Ichabod went missing and left him to care for the household. Nobody knows what happened to Ichabod. *Again, please feel free to reach out and ask us any questions at [email protected], or in the comments below. Resources:
Alexander Twilight was born September 23, 1795 in East Corinth, Vermont to Ichabod and Mary Twilight, both African American. When he was younger, there was no record that Ichabod had a last name or a family, so Ichabod's friends called him Ichabod Twilight. Our reasoning for that last name was because his skin color was between black and white. When he was older, Alexander, too, was described as “bronzed" or "swarthy”, which was not how you usually described a white man.
Alexander went to school when he was younger but dropped out because he was old enough to work. At age eight he was indentured to his neighbor, William Bowen, due to his family's financial situation and the fact that his father, Ichabod, had recently gone missing. The census records listed them as “Other” which meant they were not white. Soon after Ichabod left, censuses started listing Alexander and his family as white which, when we dug deeper, led us to believe that Alexander wanted to hide his African American ethnicity to chase his dream job as an educator. Hello Reader!
Welcome to the Alexander Twilight blog! This blog is dedicated to all things related to Twilight; his life and legacy. We hope you will spread the word about Alexander Twilight. It is a shame not everyone knows about him even though he played such a big role in history. On this blog you will find new, interesting facts on Twilight posted every other Wednesday. Thank you! Gabby and Esme |
AuthorsGabrielle and Esme have been researching Twilight thoroughly for three years. They started off working on their Vermont History presentation and eventually ended up, more recently, presenting at Boston History Camp in Boston, Mass. Archives
December 2019
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