Random Thoughts: A man named Twilight

 

January 17, 2020



One of the ways of learning about our past is to study biographies of people who accomplished extraordinary things in their lives. This article is about Alexander Lucius Twilight, an American who lived from 1795 to 1857.

Twilight was born in Vermont. As a poor youngster less than 10 years old, he got a job working for a neighboring farmer. He saved his money and was finally able to afford to attend a local high school when he was 20.

Over the next six years Twilight completed high school and two years of college-level courses. This allowed him to transfer to prestigious Middlebury College, from which he graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in 1823.

Thereafter, he taught school in a small town in New York for four years. While there, he got married and studied to become an ordained minister in the Congregational Church.

Twilight then returned to Vermont and landed a job as a high school principal in the small town of Brownington. Many students lived several miles from town and had to board with local families in order to attend school.

Twilight asked the institution’s board of trustees to build a dormitory for these students but the trustees refused. So Twilight raised the money from private sources and built a four-story granite building that still stands.

The dorm was completed in 1836 and Twilight (who was well known and respected in the community) ran for a seat in the Vermont House of Representatives that year. He won the election and served a one-year term.

So, Alexander Twilight had a successful and remarkable life. From humble beginnings, he rose to become a college graduate, a dedicated teacher, an ordained minister, and a state legislator.

The American dream certainly came true for him. What makes his accomplishments even more remarkable is that Twilight was an African American.

He was the first black person in U.S. history known to have graduated from college, and he was the only African American elected to a state legislature until after the Civil War.

 

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