Stevens Hall

Stevens Hall. . , The residence hall straight ahead of you is named after Thaddeus Stevens, a trustee of Pennsylvania College (now Gettysburg College) from 1834 to 1868. During the Civil War, Stevens was a powerful abolitionist Congressman. He led efforts to pass the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution, ending slavery, defining citizenship, extending equal protection under the law to all citizens, and granting all male citizens the right to vote regardless of race. An early advocate of the Emancipation Proclamation, Stevens was one of the chief architects of both Reconstruction and President Johnson's impeachment., After beginning his legal career in Gettysburg, Stevens became a state legislator and was responsible for the institution of free public education in Pennsylvania a generation earlier than other states. David Wills, an 1851 graduate of Pennsylvania College and a prominent local attorney, apprenticed with Thaddeus Stevens., Instrumental in gaining 1832's state charter for what became Gettysburg College, Stevens also provided land for the central area of campus where Pennsylvania Hall stands (the building is visible in his portrait). Stevens hall opened in 1868, the year of its namesake's death, when "The Great Commoner" followed President Lincoln as only the third national figure to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol. Stevens was buried in an interracial cemetery in Lancaster, where he had lived and practiced law.