Sti: Stickney through Stillwell

See below for annotated biographies of American abolitionists and anti-slavery activists. Sources include: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography and Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.


STICKNEY, Angeline, 1830-1892, suffragist, mathematician, abolitionist.  Wife of astronomer Asaph Hall.


STICKNEY, Hannah J., abolitionist, member of the New England Non-Resistance Society.

(Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, pp. 87, 289)


STILES, Ezra, 1727-1795, clergyman, educator, anti-slavery activist.  President of Yale College and President of the Connecticut Society for the Promotion of Freedom.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 687-688; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936; pt. 23 pp. 18-21; Bruns, Roger, ed. Am I Not a Man and a Brother: The Antislavery Crusade of Revolutionary America, 1688-1788. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1977, pp. 290, 293; Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 47, 57; Locke, Mary Stoughton. Anti-Slavery in America from the Introduction of African Slaves to the Prohibition of the Slave Trade (1619-1808). Boston: Ginn & Co., 1901, pp. 40, 90, 91, 192; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 20, 481). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 2, pp. 18-21:

STILES, EZRA (November 29, 1727 o.s.-May 12, 1795), scholar, Congregational clergyman, president of Yale College, was born in North Haven, Connecticut, then a part of New Haven, where his father, Isaac, was for more than thirty-five years pastor of the Congregational church. He was a descendant of John Stiles who emigrated from England and settled in Windsor, Connecticut, in 1635. Ezra's mother, Kezia, daughter of the Reverend Edward Taylor of Westfield, Massachusetts, died five days after the child's birth, and the following year his father married Esther, daughter of Samuel Hooker, Jr., of Hartford. Prepared at home, Ezra was ready for college at the age of twelve, but did not enter until 1742, when he enrolled at Yale College. Here he distinguished himself in all branches of learning but showed special fondness for mathematics, astronomy, and Biblical history. After his graduation, in 1746, he remained in New Haven, devoting himself to intellectual pursuits, particularly to the study of theology, and on May 30, 1749, was licensed to preach by the New Haven Association of Ministers. The week before, he had been appointed tutor at Yale.

For six years he filled this position with more than ordinary acceptability, but his time and thought were by no means confined solely to its duties. His mental equipment and abilities as a speaker were such that he was the natural choice for orator on important public occasions. In 1750 he delivered the funeral oration in honor of Governor Jonathan Law [q.v.]; in 1753, an oration in memory of Bishop Berkeley; and in 1755, one in compliment of Benjamin Franklin during his visit to New Haven. All these were in Latin. Franklin, in 1749, had sent an electrical apparatus to Yale, and Stiles had engaged in some of the first electrical experiments carried on in New England. The two became friends and corresponded for the remainder of Franklin's lifetime. During his tutorship Stiles had doubts as to the advisability of his entering the active ministry. From childhood he had been of frail constitution, but an even more important reason for his hesitation was uncertainty of mind as to some of the dogmas of the Christian religion. Accordingly, he studied law and in November 1753 was admitted to the bar. His attitude toward religion at this time was not due to disbelief, but rather to an intellectual honesty which would not permit him to accept anything as true until thorough investigation had convinced him of its verity. A long and patient study of the Scriptures, carried on with every help available, at length brought him to a firm belief in the truth of revelation. His openness of mind is evinced by the fact that during visits to Newport, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia in 1754, he attended Quaker meetings and Episcopal, Reformed Dutch, and Roman Catholic services, in order to acquaint himself at first hand with the merits of different forms of worship. Several invitations to settle in the ministry came to him, and attempts were made to draw him into the Anglican communion, the Episcopalians of Stratford, Connecticut, urging him in January 1755 to succeed Dr. Samuel Johnson [q.v.] as their rector. He was disposed to continue the practice of law, but when in the early summer of 1755 the Second Congregational Church of Newport, Rhode Island, called him to become its pastor, the attractiveness of that town with its foreign contacts-it was then a shipping center of importance--its Redwood Library, the prospect of leisure for study, his love of preaching, and the advice of his father and friends led him to accept. Resigning his tutorship, he was ordained and installed there on October 22, 1755. On February 10, 1757, he married Elizabeth, daughter of Colonel John Hubbard of New Haven.

During the many years Stiles resided in Newport his interests and activities were amazingly varied. In 1756 he became librarian of the Redwood Library and continued as such as long as he remained in the town. He sought information on all manner of subjects, and his correspondence with prominent people at home and abroad was voluminous. Visitors to Newport of any importance inevitably found their way to his door. In 1765, upon the recommendation of Franklin, the University of Edinburgh conferred on him the degree of doctor of divinity. Although he was an ardent antiquarian, his interest in contemporary conditions was almost equally keen, and he gathered and recorded a great variety of statistics. His taste for scientific inquiry remained; he made observations of the comet of 1759 and of the transit of Venus ten years later, studied other natural phenomena, and carried on experiments in chemistry. Recognized as probably the most learned man in New England, he was made a member of the American Philosophical Society on January 26, 1768, and in 1781 was elected a councilor. Having neglected Hebrew in college, in 1767, when forty years old, he set to work acquiring a thorough knowledge of that language; he also studied Arabic, Syriac, and Armenian, becoming for his day a very competent orientalist. Subsequently, he took a few lessons in French and was soon perusing works by French authors. When he began his. diary, January 1769, he was working on an ecclesiastical history of New England and British America, which he left incomplete. He was much interested in promoting the manufacture of silk and recorded in his diary, June 4, 1771: "I have now Three Thousand Silkworms hatched." Based on his experiments and investigations in this field, he wrote "Observations on Silk Worms," a sizable manuscript which has been preserved. He found time, also, to supervise the early education of his children: "Ezra," he records in his diary, January 9, 1769, "began to learn Hebrew about this time, AEt. 10." He did not neglect the Bible or permit any of his family to do so. Reviewing his fidelity in this respect at a much later date, July 21, 1793, he wrote: " Besides reading in course privately in my Study, I read thro' the Bible in my Family at Morning Prayers from 1760 to 1791, Eight time s, or once in 4 years. My Family have had full support of being acquainted with the sacred Contents of the Bible."

In spite of his varied intellectual pursuits and the hours spent in writing, he performed his ministerial duties with the utmost conscientiousness. In 1771 he made 926 pastoral calls and the following year, 1030. He gave much attention, also, to catechising the children. The spiritual welfare of the many slaves in Newport-Stiles himself owned one whom he later set free-was a matter of concern to him. On February 24, 1772, he wrote:  "In the Evening a very full and serious Meeting of Negroes at my House, perhaps 80 or 90: I discoursed to them on Luke xiv, 16, 17, 18, ... They sang well. They appeared attentive and much affected." He was on intimate terms with the Jews of Newport, frequently attending their synagogue, and had friendly relations with Christian denominations other than his own. With Reverend Samuel Hopkins [q.v.], pastor of the First Congregational Church, he cooperated cordially, though he was not in sympathy with many of the views of that noted theologian. To President Clap of Yale he wrote protesting against the removal of deistical books from the college library, urging the vanity of trying to suppress such writings and the danger of suppressing truth. "The only way is," he maintained, " to come forth into the open field and dispute the matter on an even footing" (Holmes, post, p. 79). For the Church of England in America, however, he had no liking. "It is grievous to think," he complained, "that when our Pious Ancestors came over into this Land when an howling wilderness, to enjoy ye Gospel in ye purity & simplicity of it yt the Church of England should thrust it self in among us" (Diary, I, 125). Later, he declared that as he had observed it in New England, it was "inspired with a secular principle, unanimated with the Love of Jesus so much as with the Love of Dignities & Preeminence, making the Church an asylum for polite Vice & Irreligion" (Ibid., II, 113).

While in Newport he had an important part in the founding of Rhode Island College (Brown University). As early as January 1762 he had been considering the possibility of a third New England college, and when James Manning [q.v.] came to Rhode Island in the summer of 1763 with a project for establishing a Baptist institution of learning, Stiles gave it his support. It was agreed that the new college should be under Baptist control but that representatives of other denominations should have a share in its management. The work of drawing up a charter was committed to Stiles, since he was regarded by the Baptists as better fitted for that task than any of their own members. Accordingly, he prepared a document which provided for a board of thirty-five trustees, nineteen of whom were to be Baptists, seven Congregationalists, five Friends, and four Episcopalians; and a board of twelve Fellows, eight of whom were to be Congregationalists. The trustees were to elect the president, but practically all other control of the institution was left to the Fellows, subject to the sanction of the trustees. The charter was approved by the committee in charge of the project, but Providence Baptists in the Rhode Island Assembly objected to it on the ground that it provided for an essentially Congregational college, and Stiles was charged with playing a trick on the Baptists, though, as a matter of fact, they were given the final decision in all matters. Before the charter was granted by the Assembly, however, it was so changed as to insure a majority of Baptists on both the board of trustees and the board of Fellows. Stiles was named as one of the original Fellows but declined the office. In 1765 he was again elected and again he declined.

He was a stanch advocate of American rights and liberties, and prophesied that British oppression would force the colonies to declare their independence. Writing to Benjamin Franklin, October 23 and November 6, 1765, he said that he disapproved of the Stamp Act, but that after it was passed he remained loyal and had nothing to do with the mob violence that resulted in the resignation of the Newport stamp officer. Charges that he encouraged violence, he ascribed to the Episcopalians, who disliked him. When the Revolution broke out, however, he gave it wholehearted support. He followed its course with intense interest, and recorded in his diary much valuable information, including accounts of movements and battles, often illustrated by maps.

The Revolution brought to an end what was probably the happiest period of his life. Fearing that Newport would fall into the hands of the British, many of the inhabitants fled elsewhere for safety. On October 10, 1775, Stiles wrote: "How does this Town sit solitary that was once full of People! I am not yet removed, altho' three quarters of my beloved Church & Congregation are broken up and dispersed" (Diary, I, 624). In March 1776 he took his family and goods to Dighton, Massachusetts, where he resided about fourteen months, supplying the church there and making occasional visits to Newport and other places. In the meantime, he was asked to take charge of churches in Taunton, Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island; Dr. Charles Chauncy, 1705-1787 [q.v.], also invited him to become his assistant in the work of the First Church, Boston. In May 1777, at the request of the First Church, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, he removed to that town, but the following September was elected president of Yale College. It was some months before he made up his mind to accept. He had no illusions about the office: "At best," he wrote, "the Diadem of a President is a Crown of Thorns" (Ibid., II, 209), and he was not disposed to occupy the seat of authority until he was sure of "sitting as easy in the Chair, as such a Cella Curulis would admit of" (Ibid.. II, 226). Finally, in March 1778 he signified his acceptance and on July 8 he was installed as president and as professor of ecclesiastical hi story. It is significant of the affection in which he was held by his Newport parishioners that they were unwilling to dismiss him and that he remained technically their pastor until May 18, 1786.

The unsettled state of the country during Stiles's presidency of Yale made his position an especially difficult one; furthermore, the funds of the college were practically exhausted. Stiles nevertheless carried the institution through the period with reasonable success. In addition to his administrative duties he bore a heavy burden of teaching, giving instruction in Hebrew, ecclesiastical history, philosophical and scientific subjects, and, for a time, in theology. He loved academic forms and ceremonies and introduced them whenever occasion permitted. An amusing incident of his New Haven career was occasioned by the support he gave to a dancing master. He permitted about seventy-five students to attend his classes and three' of his own children as well. This, he says, produced "a great Combustion" and after "Violent Proceedings" the dancing master had to leave town (Diary, III, 10-II, 15). The most notable event of his administration was a change in the college charter, whereby several of the state officials were made ex officio members of the corporation with all the rights of the original. Fellows, and certain financial aid from the state was secured. He preached often and took an active part in ecclesiastical matters; he was also the first president of the society for the abolition of slavery formed in Connecticut in 1790.

He died of "bilious fever," at his home in New Haven, in his sixty-eighth year, after a few days' illness. His first wife had died on May 29, 1775, having borne him two sons and six daughters, of whom one son, Isaac, and four daughters survived him; Isaac was lost at sea a few month s after his father's death; a daughter, Ruth, was the mother of Ezra Stiles Gannett [q.v.]. On October 17, 1782; Stiles married Mary (Cranston) Checkley, widow of William Checkley and daughter of Benjamin Cranston of Newport.

The almost incredible amount of work that Stiles accomplished was carried on in spite of physical handicaps. His son-in-law, Abiel Holmes [q.v.], de scribes him as "a man of low and small stature; of a very delicate structure; and of a well proportioned form .... The delicacy of his frame requiring a special care of his health, he was prudently attentive ... to its preservation; ... Having carefully studied his own constitution, he was generally his own physician. By regulating his diet, exercising daily in the open air, and using occasionally a few simple medicines, he was, by the divine blessing, enabled, with but very small interruptions, to apply himself assiduously to study, and to discharge the various duties of public and of domestic life" (Life, post, pp. 349, 350). Although he wrote much, he published little. A few of his sermons appeared in printed form, among them The United States Elevated to Glory and Honor. (1783), an election sermon preached at Hartford, May 8, 1783; and his History of Three of the Judges of King Charles I was issued in 1794. Stiles bequeathed some of his manuscripts to Abiel Holmes, who in 1798 published, with many extracts from them, The Life of Ezra Stiles. D.D., LL.D. To his successor in the presidency of Yale College he al so bequeathed a large number of manuscripts. From these have been printed The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, D.D., LL..D. (3 volumes, 1901), and Extracts from the Itineraries and Other Miscellanies of Ezra Stiles ... with Selections from His Correspondence (1916), both edited by franklin B. Dexter [q.v.], and both of much historical value. Manuscripts more recently presented to Yale College are published in Letters & Papers of Ezra Stiles (1933), edited by Isabel M. Calder.

[Besides sources mentioned, see J. L. Kingsley, "Life of Ezra Stiles," in Jared Sparks, The Library of American Biography, volume XVI (1847); F. B. Dexter, Biographical Sketches Graduates Yale College, volume II (1896); W. B. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, volume I (1857); H. R. Stiles, The Stiles Family in America (1895); W. E. Channing, A Discourse Delivered at the Dedication of the Unitarian Congregational Church in Newport, July 27, 1836 (1836); G. A. Kohut, Ezra Stiles and the Jews (1902); W. C. Bronson, The History of Brown University (1914); Ebenezer Baldwin, Annals of Yale College (1831); T. D. Woolsey, An Historical Discourse (1850); A. P. Stokes, Memorials of Eminent Yale Men (1914), volume I; Atlantic Monthly, August 1844. Constance Rourke, in Trumpets of Jubilee (1927), pp. 5-11, gives a gay and not too reverent appreciation; C. D. Ebeling, in Amerikanisches Magazin (Hamburg), I (1795), 17 2-7 3, publishes an obituary and tells of Stiles's kindness in sending him an account of early Connecticut history.]

H. E. s.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 687-688:

STILES, Ezra, clergyman and educator, born in North Haven, Connecticut, 29 November, 1727; died in New Haven, Connecticut, 12 May, 1795. His ancestor, John, came from Bedfordshire, England, and settled in Windsor Connecticut, in 1635, and John's grandson, Isaac, the father of Ezra, was graduated at Yale in 1722 and ordained pastor of the church in North Haven, then a part of New Haven, which charge he held until his death, 14 May, 1760. He published the “Prospect of the City of Jerusalem” (New London, 1742); “Looking-Glass for Changelings” (1743); “The Declaration of the Association of the County of New Haven concerning the Reverend George Whitefield” (Boston, 1745); and “The Character and Duty of Soldiers” (New London, 1755). Ezra was graduated at Yale in 1746, and in 1749 was chosen tutor there. About this time Benjamin Franklin sent an electric apparatus to Yale, and, becoming interested in the new science, Mr. Stiles made some of the first experiments in electricity in New England. Having studied theology, he was licensed in 1749, and in April, 1750, preached to the Housatonic Indians in Stockbridge Massachusetts, but, owing to religious doubt, resolved to abandon the ministry for the law, and, being admitted to the bar in 1753, practised for two years in New Haven. In February, 1755, he delivered a Latin oration in honor of Dr. Franklin on the occasion of his visit to Yale, and formed a friendship with Franklin that lasted until death. In 1756 he became pastor of the 2d church in Newport, Rhode Island, and during his residence there, in addition to his professional duties, devoted himself to literary and scientific research, corresponding with learned men in almost every part of the world. In 1767 he began the study of Hebrew and other Oriental languages. His congregation having been scattered by the occupation of Newport by the British, he removed in 1777 to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to become pastor of the North church, and thence to New Haven, to accept the presidency of Yale college, which post he held from 23 June, 1778, until his death, serving also as professor of ecclesiastical history, and after the death of Prof. Naphtali Daggett as professor of divinity, also lecturing on philosophy and astronomy. He was accounted, both at home and abroad, as the most learned and accomplished divine of his clay in this country. He received the degrees of A. M. from Harvard in 1754, and that of S. T. D. from Edinburgh in 1765, Dartmouth in 1780, and Princeton in 1784. Princeton also gave him the degree of LL. D. in the last-named year. His publications are “Oratio Funebris pro Exequis Jonathan Law”, (New London, 1751); “Discourse on the Christian Union” (Boston, 1761; 2d ed., 1791); “Discourse on Saving Knowledge” (Newport, 1770); “The United States Elevated to Glory and Honor," a sermon before the legislature (Hartford, 1783); “Account of the Settlement of Bristol, Rhode Island” (Providence, 1785); and “History of Three of the Judges of Charles I., Major-General Whalley, Major-General Goffe, and Colonel Dixwell, etc., with an Account of Mr. Theophilus Whale, of Narragansett,” who was supposed to have been also one of the judges (Hartford, 1794). Dr. Stiles left unfinished an “Ecclesiastical History of New England.” His diary and forty-five volumes of manuscripts are preserved in the library of Yale. His daughter, Mary, married Dr. Abiel Holmes, who wrote his “Life” (Boston, 1798). See also the “Life of Ezra Stiles,” by James Luce Kingsley, in Sparks’s “American Biography.” Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 687-688.


STILL, William, 1821-1902, African American, abolitionist, writer.  “Conductor” on the Underground Railroad in Philadelphia area, 1851-1861.  Member of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society.  Wrote fugitive slave narratives. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, p. 689; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 2, p. 22; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 108, 270, 273, 275, 279, 287, 288, 289, 292, 338, 339, 414n3, 415n18; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 53, 74, 204, 307, 464, 482, 489; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 20, p. 775; The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume II. New York: James T. White, 1892, pp. 313-314; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Volume 10, p. 536). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 2, pp. 22-23:

STILL, WILLIAM (October 7, 1821-July 14, 1902), reformer, negro leader, was the son of Levin Steel, a former Maryland slave, who had gone North after purchasing his freedom. Subsequently, Levin was joined by his wife Sidney and their children, who had been recaptured by slave-hunters upon their first attempt to escape. To thwart further pursuit the family changed its name to Still- the mother also discarding the name Sidney for that of Charity-and settled among the sparsely inhabited pine lands at Shamong, Burlington County, New Jersey. Here William was born, the youngest of eighteen children. From an early age he worked on his father's farm, and his educational opportunities were few. In 1841 he left home and three years later moved to Philadelphia. In 1847 he married Letitia George by whom he had two sons and two daughters. The same year he became a clerk in the office of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery.

Deeply impressed by his own family's experience. Still as clerk did all that lay in his power to help runaway slaves to freedom. Nineteen out of every twenty escaped slaves that passed through Philadelphia stopped at his house. In the decade 1851-61 he was the chairman and corresponding secretary of the Philadelphia branch of the Underground Railroad. The experiences of all those who had successfully fled from bondage he jotted down carefully, and in 1855 he made an extended tour through Canada to ascertain how the slaves that had made their way were faring. His The Underground Railroad, published in 1872, is one of the best accounts of how runaway slaves made their way to freedom. In 1859 he sheltered John Brown's widow and daughter when they passed through Philadelphia on their way to visit the leader of the Harpers Ferry raid before his execution. After the outbreak of the Civil War Still resigned as clerk and embarked first in the stove and then in the coal business. In February 1864 he was appointed post sutler at Camp William Penn for colored soldiers near Philadelphia. Methodical in his habits, he prospered in his business ventures.

Always intent on promoting the welfare of his race, in 1861 Still helped organize and finance a social, civil and statistical association to collect data about the colored people. Previous to this, in a remarkably well-expressed letter written on August 30, 1859, to the North American and United States Gazette, he had begun a campaign against the regulation of the Philadelphia street car lines compelling all persons of color to ride on front platforms. This resulted in the Pennsylvania legislature ending this discrimination in 1867. Still's course during this controversy was bitterly assailed in colored circles so that he defended his attitude in a public address afterwards published in pamphlet form (A Brief Narrative of the Struggle for the Rights of the Colored People of Philadelphia in the City Railway Cars, 1867). The same procedure he followed in 1874 when he became unpopular among his own people by supporting the Democratic candidate for mayor of Philadelphia, publishing An Address on Voting and Laboring. In reporting against the establishment of a colored men's bank in Philadelphia he again displayed courage and independence. He served on the Freedmen's Aid Commission and was made a member of the Philadelphia board of trade. A devout Presbyterian he became superintendent of one of the denomination's Sunday schools in 1880 and the same year he founded the first colored Young Men's Christian Association. In welfare work he' helped manage homes for aged colored persons and for destitute colored children; and also an orphan asylum for the children of negro soldiers and sailors.

[Underground Railroad Records (1886), a third edition of Still's book, contains a sketch of the author; see also Appletons' Annual Cyclopedia ... 1902 (1903); W. J. Simmons, Men of Mark (1887); J. W. Gibson and W. H. Crogman, The Colored American (1902), pp. 490- 98; Public Ledger (Philadelphia), July 15, 1902; A. S. Norwood, "Negro Welfare Work in Philadelphia as Illustrated by the Career of William Still," unpublished thesis, University of Pennsylvania]

H. G. V.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 689:

STILL, William, philanthropist, born in Shamony, Burlington county, New Jersey, 7 October, 1821. He is of African descent, and was brought up on a farm. Coming to Philadelphia in 1844, he obtained a clerkship in 1847 in the office of the Pennsylvania Anti-slavery society. He was chairman and corresponding secretary of the Philadelphia branch of the “underground railroad” in 1851-'61, and busied himself in writing out the narratives of fugitive slaves. His writings constitute the only full account of the organization with which he was connected. Mr. Still sheltered the wife, daughter, and sons of John Brown while he was awaiting execution in Charlestown, Virginia. During the civil war he was commissioned post-sutler at Camp William Penn for colored troops, and was a member of the Freedmen's aid union and commission. He is vice-president and chairman of the board of managers of the Home for aged and infirm colored persons, a member of the board of trustees of the Soldiers' and sailors' orphans' home, and of other charitable institutions. In 1885 he was sent by the presbytery of Philadelphia as a commissioner to the general assembly at Cincinnati. He was one of the original stockholders of “The Nation,” and a member of the Board of trade of Philadelphia. His writings include “The Underground Rail-Road” (Philadelphia, 1878); “Voting and Laboring”; and “Struggle for the Rights of the Colored People of Philadelphia.” Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V, pp. 689.


STILLE, Charles Janeway (September 23, 1819-August 11, 1899), educator and historian. During the Civil War he published a pamphlet entitled How a Free People Conduct a Long War (1862).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 2, pp. 24-25:

STILLE, CHARLES JANEWAY (September 23, 1819-August 11, 1899), educator and historian, brother of Alfred Stille [q.v.], was the son of John and Maria (Wagner) Stille. His father was a descendent of Oloff Stille, one of the Swedish settlers on the Delaware, who, arriving in 1641, established a home near Upland, now Chester, Pennsylvania, and later moved to Passyunk. His descendants were successful merchants in Philadelphia. Stille's mother was descended from the Reverend Tobias Wagner of Reading, Pennsylvania, member of a Lutheran family in Wurttemberg, who emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1742.

Charles prepared for Yale College at a school conducted by the Reverend Dr. Steele at Abington, Pennsylvania, and the Edge Hill School near Princeton, New Jersey. He entered Yale in 1835, and upon graduation in 1839 delivered a valedictory oration, The Social Spirit (1839), which showed the ideals and ethical standards that were to characterize his life and writings. After studying in the office of Joseph Reed Ingersoll, he was admitted to the bar. His interests led him, however, rather to develop his taste for history and literature, in pursuance of which he visited Europe repeatedly.

During the Civil War he published a pamphlet entitled How a Free People Conduct a Long War (1862), drawing a comparison between the current conflict and the long struggle of Great Britain against the French Revolution and Napoleon; unusually free from harshness, it was pervaded with enlightened patriotism, and half a million copies of it were distributed. He was asked to serve as a member of the United States Sanitary Commission and as corresponding secretary of its Executive Committee, and had much to do with the success of the great "Sanitary Fair" held in Philadelphia in 1864, at which $1,000,000 was raised for the work of the Commission. After the war he published History of the United States Sanitary Commission (1866). These activities taught him, he said, "to look upon important public questions in a large and liberal way" (Reminiscences of a Provost, p. 4) and thus prepared him for the responsibilities that soon came to him. Without having had previous experience in teaching, he was appointed in 1866 to the professorship of English literature and belles-lettres in the University of Pennsylvania. When he assumed his duties, the course of study in the college was substantially that of a century before, and the only gift of money the institution had received in over eighty years was one of $5,000. With characteristic zeal Stille began at once to advocate the establishment of elective courses of study, which in 1867 were introduced into the upper classes of the college.

In 1868 he became the tenth provost of the University of Pennsylvania. His inaugural address, The Claims of Liberal Culture in Philadelphia (1868), presented the needs of the University as the center of the higher education of the community. The twelve years of his administration proved his unusual qualities as an educational leader and a practical executive. It was not easy to find support for his projects in the self-perpetuating Board of Trustees, long established in set grooves of action, yet he succeeded in obtaining their approval for marked changes. He aroused the interest of the community, enlisted the cordial cooperation of the faculty, and won the devoted affection of the students. New departments-of science (1872), music (1877), and dentistry (1878)-were created. Through the Provost's. persistent efforts the city was induced in 1870 to sell on reasonable terms ten acres of land in West Philadelphia, where adequate facilities could be provided for the expansion of the University. There the cornerstone of College Hall, the first of the new buildings, was laid on June 15, 1871. The following year the city made a grant of five and a half acres for the erection of University Hospital, which was opened in 1874. Untiring in his efforts to put the University upon a sound financial basis, Stille fell short of his high aim, but nevertheless he did obtain, among other gifts, the endowment of the Towne Scientific School, th e John Welsh Chair, and the Bloomfield Moore scholarships for women, as well as a sum to found the Tobias Wagner Library. A notable means adopted for bringing the University into closer relationship with the city was the establishment of scholars hips for graduates of the Philadelphia public schools. The. extraordinary progress begun in his administration initiated the great expansion that was to continue under his immediate successors.

Stille resigned the provostship in 1880 for reasons which he set forth in Reminiscences of a Provost, 1866-1880 (n.d.); disagreeing with the board of trustees, he contended that the Provost should be a member of the board, that powers of discipline over students should be vested in the faculty, and that a great, united effort should be made to put the University finances on a stable basis. In 1881 he retired also from the John Welsh professorship, of which he was the first incumbent, and thereafter devoted him self to historical studies. In addition to a number of pamphlets, he published Studies in Mediaeval History (1882); The Life and Times of John Dickinson (1891); and Major-General Anthony Wayne and the Pennsylvania Line in the Continental Army (1893). On his second visit to Sweden, in 1888, he discovered the whereabouts of the records of the Swedish colonists on the Delaware. Abstracts of these, in translation, he afterwards presented to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, of which he was president for eight years (Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, January 1892). The Gloria Dei Church of Philadelphia, founded by Swedish Lutherans, deeply interested him and became the beneficiary of one-third of his residuary estate. On April 21, 1846, he had married Anna Dulles, who survived him. They had no children but adopted Mrs. Stille's niece as their daughter; she died in 1896. Stille's death occurred at Atlantic City, New Jersey.

[Besides Stille's Reminiscences mentioned above, see Proceedings Historical Society of Pennsylvania on the Death of Charles Janeway Stille (1900); Obituary Record Graduates Yale University, 1900; ]. W. Jordan, Colonial Families of Philadelphia (1911), volume II; J. B. McMaster, The University of Pennsylvania Illustrated (1897); G. E. Nitzsche, University of Pennsylvania (1916); H. M. Lippincott, The University of Pennsylvania (1919); Public Ledger (Philadelphia), August 12, 1899.]

A.L.L.


STILWELL, Silas Moore (June 6, 1800-May 16, 1881), lawyer and writer on financial topics, member of the Whig Party in New York. Supporter of the Union during the Civil War.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 9, Pt. 2, pp. :

STILWELL, SILAS MOORE (June 6, 1800-May 16, 1881), lawyer and writer on financial topics, was born in New York City, the fifth of six children of Stephen and Nancy (Moore) Stilwell. He was descended from Nicholas Stillwell [sic], who was in Manhattan as early as 1645 and may have been in Virginia previously. Stephen Stilwell, a merchant and veteran of the Revolution, moved his family in 1804 to Glasco, Ulster County, New York, where he bought a glass factory and iron foundry. After investing heavily in Western lands, he went bankrupt in 1810. Silas entered Woodstock Free Academy, but left at the age of twelve to become a clerk in a New York hardware store. Two years later he went West to work with land surveyors. At twenty-two he was a member of the Tennessee legislature, soon afterward moved to Virginia, and in 1824 was admitted to the bar. He practised successfully for several years and served as member of the House of Burgesses. In 1828 he returned to New York where he continued his political activities. Elected in 1829 to the Assembly on the National Republican ticket, he served three terms, 1830-33. The demands of the new Workingman's Party enlisted his sympathy, particularly the abolition of imprisonment for debt. On this issue, says Thurlow Weed (post), Stilwell staked his political future, and as a result of his efforts the Stilwell Act, abolishing the penalty, was passed in 1831. In 1834 he ran, unsuccessfully, for lieutenant-governor on the ticket headed by William H. Seward [q.v.]. Two years later, as candidate for alderman in New York City he was successful and as chairman of an evenly divided board he exercised great authority in appointments.

Banking reform next attracted him. Disapproval of Jackson's withdrawal of government deposits from the Bank of the United States caused Stilwell to break with his party and join the Whigs. On his interest in the revision of banking laws in New York State has been based the claim that he was the author of the Free Banking Law of 1838. A pamphlet which he published at this time, however, A System of Credit for a Republic, and the Plan of a Bank for the State of New-York (1838), shows that what he had in mind was radically different from the plan adopted. The election of Harrison to the presidency brought Stilwell into touch with national politics. He is said to have refused a cabinet post because of his large losses in the panic of 1837, but President Tyler appointed him United States marshal for the southern district of New York in 1841 and sent him on a special mission to The Hague.

Stilwell's claim to authorship of the National Banking Act is not recognized by historians of American banking. During 1861 and 1862 he was in Washington, where he was in close contact with Secretary Salmon P. Chase [q.v.] and with Edward Jordan, solicitor of the treasury. He prepared a pamphlet, published by the government, A System of National Finance: Notes Explanatory of Mr. Chase's Plan of National Finance (1861), and worked with Jordan on a preliminary draft of the banking bill, but his contribution to the Act as it finally emerged seems to have been less important than that of Elbridge Gerry Spaulding [q.v.] and Samuel Hooper (Helderman, post, pp. 136-42). From 1861 to 1872 he wrote articles on financial topics for the New York Herald under the pseudonym Jonathan Oldbuck. He published in 1866 a lecture, National Finances: A Philosophical Examination of Credit, and in 1879, Private History of the Origin and Purpose of the National Banking Law. In later life he changed parties a second time, becoming again a stanch Democrat. A romantic episode in his career was his courtship of Caroline Norsworthy, the daughter of a rich New York merchant and landowner, whom he married in defiance of parental wishes. She brought him a considerable fortune and with what he had himself acquired he was regarded at one time as a rich man. He had four children, three of whom survived him. After his wife's death he became deeply interested in Spiritualism and prepared the manuscript of a book in its defense, He died in New York City.

[Dewitt and Lamont Stilwell, Historical and Genealogical Record of One Branch of the Stilwell Family (1914); J. E. Stillwell, The History of Lieut. Nicholas Stillwell (1929) and The History of Captain Nicholas Stillwell and His Descendants (1930); D. S. Alexander, A Political History of the State of New York, volume I (1906); F. W. Seward, Autobiography of Wm. H. Seward ... with a Memoir of His Life (1877); Autobiography of Thurlow Weed (1883), ed. by H. A. Weed; A Report of Two Interviews with the Hon. Silas M. Stilwell (1874); A. M. Davis, "The Origin of the National Banking System," in Reports of the National Monetary Commission, volume XXXV (1910), being Senate Document 582, 61 Congress, 2 Session; L. C. Helderman, National and State Banks (1931); New York Herald, May 17, 1881.]

P. W. B.


Sources:
Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volumes I-VI, Edited by James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888-1889.