The Harvard Country Boys Who Shaped America

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To listen, just search Taboo Questions with Pastor Mike. And we continue with our American Stories. Amid the halls of Harvard Law, a professor of legend, James Bradley Thayer, shaped generations of students from 1874 to 1902. His devoted proteges include future Supreme Court justices Holmes, Brandeis, and Hand, just to name a few. This is the story of how two country boys rose to the highest heights of Harvard Yard.

Yet their lives would have two dramatically different fates. Here to tell the story is Andrew Porwancher. Andrew is a professor of legal history at Arizona State University.

Let's take a listen. There was little in the childhoods of James Bradley Thayer and Chauncey Wright that suggested either of them was destined for the rarefied quads of Harvard Yard. After all, in their world, the world of antebellum New England, the typical Harvard man belonged to what became known as the Boston Brahmin, the elite of society. The sons of the Brahmin grew up in the fashionable neighborhood of Beacon Hill. They attended posh private schools. They stood to inherit vast family fortunes.

By contrast, James and Chauncey were born into modest circumstances in a small town in western Massachusetts' rural countryside. Against the odds, James would earn an endowed chair at Harvard Law where he mentored future generations of Supreme Court justices. Chauncey would also come to teach at Harvard, ranking among the most innovative and influential philosophers of his generation.

This is the story of their improbable rise into the Brahmin stratosphere. And in equal measure, this is the story of their enduring friendship along the journey. James and Chauncey were adolescents when they first met in the 1840s in Northampton, Massachusetts, a village of some 4,000 souls.

Chauncey visited James' household often, sometimes staying for all three meals in a day. The two boys passed their days trekking across meadows and peeking into empty factories, and their exploration was intellectual as well. Between the ages of 11 and 22, they would school together, read together, discuss together.

When they were teenagers, Northampton experienced a strong religious revival. James later remembered how Chauncey remained relatively unaffected, showing early signs of his future philosophical vocation. In James' words, Chauncey kept throughout an attitude of amused observation, a state of mind which had in it not merely the distrust or indifference of a Unitarian, but the cool curiosity of a philosopher. Neither James nor Chauncey anticipated enrolling at the nexus of the Brahmin universe, Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. James simply lacked the funds, and Chauncey lacked the support of his father to attend college at all. But a local town matriarch named Mrs. Ann Lyman, who had a well-earned reputation for helping local youth, changed both of their lives forever. Mrs. Lyman contributed toward James' tuition, outfitted his room with furniture, and even sewed shirts for him to wear in his new life as a Harvard man. She was equally determined to see Chauncey take up a spot alongside James at Harvard. But there were obstacles for her to clear to that end. Of course, she first had to persuade Chauncey's father to let him attend college.

And Chauncey presented complications all his own. The admissions test, which emphasized classical languages, was not exactly focused on the kinds of subjects that Chauncey thrilled to. Mrs. Lyman preemptively took measures to ensure that a low exam score would not preclude Chauncey's acceptance to Harvard. When he and James appeared in Cambridge in the summer of 1848 for the entrance exam, they found that Mrs. Lyman had already arrived in Cambridge herself to petition the Harvard president on Chauncey's behalf. She told James, I have seen the president and said all I could for Chauncey, and I have no doubt he will get in.

Mrs. Lyman's confidence proved well-founded, as Chauncey would indeed join James at Harvard. Chauncey more than James could readily be termed a genius. James once recalled, with a mix of admiration and envy, it grew more and more surprising to us to see how little he read and how much he knew. James was consistently the more productive, organized, and diligent of the two. Chauncey preferred to be adrift in thought.

It turned out that assiduous work more than raw genius translated to a life of distinction. James ranked far higher than did Chauncey in their graduating class. Then, in their early adulthood, James steadily succeeded at legal practice, while Chauncey proved irregular in his work, his sleep, and his diet. James married a proper Brahmin daughter, while Chauncey never married at all. Chauncey's recurring battles with depression and alcoholism kept him from realizing his full potential. He was still brilliant, writing influential essays about philosophy for taste-making publications.

He even taught at Harvard. But in contrast to James, who was graced with a named chair on the faculty of Harvard Law, Chauncey was tasked merely with the sporadic course on a temporary basis. James had reached the center of the Brahmin circle. Chauncey only flirted with its edges. It was in 1875, when they were in their 40s, that James's journey permanently deviated from Chauncey's. That summer, James retreated to a summer home on Mount Desert Island off the coast of Maine. The island had been the site of numerous trips over the years for James and Chauncey. Under the summer skies, Chauncey would offer his characteristically eccentric musings, which James and other friends jokingly dubbed the Mount Desert philosophy.

With James rejuvenating yet again in Mount Desert that summer, he looked forward to welcoming back his old friend once more. James received a letter from Chauncey in early September indicating, If I do not get from you any discouragement, I propose to go down by the Bangor boat on Tuesday next. James went to greet the Bangor boat's arrival at Mount Desert on the appointed day, but Chauncey was nowhere to be seen. And so James awaited the subsequent boat from Bangor.

And again, Chauncey wasn't on it. James soon discovered why. He recalled, Instead of welcoming my friend, I opened the Boston paper to read of his sudden death. And the date of the paper was the day of his funeral. As it turns out, Chauncey's landlord had discovered him unconscious, collapsed over his desk, the victim of a stroke likely induced by his drinking habit.

He died within a matter of hours. James was, of course, deeply bereaved. They had forged a friendship in boyhood that took them from the meadows of rural Massachusetts to the quads of Harvard Yard.

For decades, they studied, conversed and explored together. Yet James managed to claim his stake in a Brahmin world that Chauncey never inhabited quite as fully. And now, at the age of 45, Chauncey was suddenly no more. As James poignantly mused, When his death came, it brought to me the sad reflection that I had been for many years near a wisdom and a sweetness which I had but imperfectly appreciated.

It was my oldest and most intimate friend that had gone. And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler and a special thanks to Andrew Poorwancher. And he is a Jack Miller Center Fellow. This story is adapted from his book, The Prophet of Harvard Law. The Jack Miller Center is a nationwide network of scholars and teachers dedicated to educating the next generation about America's founding principles and history. To learn more, visit Jack Miller Center dot org. The story of the Harvard's country boys here on Our American Stories. Hello, it is Ryan and I was on a flight the other day playing one of my favorite social spin slot games on Chumbacasino.com.

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