William Lowndes Yancey - Youth

Youth

Yancey’s mother, Caroline Bird, lived on the family home (nicknamed "the Aviary") located near the falls of the Ogeechee River in Warren County, Georgia. On December 8, 1808, she married Benjamin Cudworth Yancey, a lawyer in South Carolina who had served on the USS Constellation during the Quasi-War with France. Yancey was born at "the Aviary"; three years later, on October 26, 1817, his father died of yellow fever.

Yancey’s widowed mother married the Reverend Nathan Sydney Smith Beman on April 23, 1821. Beman had temporarily relocated to South Carolina to operate Mt. Zion Academy, where William was a student. In the spring of 1823, the entire family moved when Reverend Beman took a position at the First Presbyterian Church in Troy, New York. Beman worked with Reverend Charles G. Finney in the New School movement and in the 1830s became involved with abolitionism through contacts with Theodore Dwight Ward and Lyman Beecher.

Beman’s marriage was marred by domestic unrest and spousal abuse that led to serious considerations of divorce and finally a permanent separation in 1835. This atmosphere affected the children and caused William to reject many of his step-father’s teachings. Yancey’s biographer, historian Eric H. Walther, speculates the character of Yancey’s later career was a result of low self-esteem and a search for public adulation and approval that went back to his childhood experiences with Reverend Beman.

In the fall of 1830, Yancey was enrolled at Williams College in northwestern Massachusetts. The 16-year old Yancey was admitted as a sophomore based on the required entrance examinations. At Williams, he participated in the debating society and for a short time was the editor of a student newspaper. In the autumn of 1832, Yancey took his first steps as a politician by working on the campaign for Whig Ebenezer Emmons. Overall, Yancey had a successful stay at Williams academically that was marred only by frequent disciplinary problems. Despite being selected as the Senior Orator by his class, Yancey left the school in the spring of 1833, six weeks before graduation.