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Josh Billings
Overview
Josh Billings was the pen name of Henry Wheeler Shaw (1818–1885), a 19th-century American humorist, lecturer, and author who attended Hamilton College as a member of the Class of 1837 (entered ca. 1835) before being expelled in his sophomore year. He is widely remembered as one of Lincoln’s favorite humorists, the creator of the popular “Farmer’s Allminax” series, and a leading practitioner of comic phonetic spelling in the tradition of Artemus Ward. Although he never completed his degree, Hamilton claimed him proudly as one of its most distinctive alumni; the “Billings’ Spikes” driven into the chapel lightning rod to deter climbers following his famous prank became a lasting campus landmark. All corpus references to Billings are retrospective — he died in 1885, decades before the earliest Hamilton Life issues in this corpus.
Relevance to Research
Because Billings died in 1885, every mention of him in the corpus is retrospective, invoked to illustrate Hamilton’s tradition of producing notable literary figures, humorists, and unconventional alumni. Mentions span the full range of corpus sources from 1915 through 1975. In the Hamilton Life archive (1915–1935), he appears frequently in “notable alumni” lists alongside Charles Dudley Warner and Alexander Woollcott, and as the subject of two feature articles: a 1930 piece profiling his “unlettered philosopher” persona and his departure from Hamilton, and a 1933 article prompted by a new biography by Cyril Clemens that describes his famous chapel lightning rod prank (the act that led to his expulsion), his friendship with fellow student-turned-artist Dan Huntington, and his reported attendance at a New York alumni banquet where he praised Hamilton warmly despite his expulsion. A 1931 Hamilton Life alumni survey lists him among the college’s most prominent literary men. The January 1935 Hamilton Life cites his grave among Hamilton-connected burial sites. By the Spectator era (1951–1975) he had become a standard touchstone for Hamilton identity: invoked in an editorial debate about coeducation (1955), quoted as an epigraph with a class-year attribution (1955), referenced in a history of campus pranks (1957 and 1963), and given a full biographical sketch in the October 30, 1959 Spectator under the headline “Lincoln’s Favorite Humorist.” The 1975 Spectator Magazine also includes a brief account of his Chapel-wall scaling, describing it as a student first. The 1945 Hamiltonews records a building erected after him. A 1951 Spectator article about the Alumni Collection notes that visitors to the library often know Root and Woollcott but “rarely know that Charles Dudley Warner and Josh Billings were also students on the Hill.”
Notes
Role: Alumnus (expelled); humorist, author, lecturer Hamilton connection: Class of 1837 (entered ca. 1835, expelled sophomore year); also referenced as “ex-‘37” and “ex-1837” throughout the corpus Key events: - ca. 1835–1836: Attended Hamilton College; studied under Edward North (“Old Greek”); made friends with fellow student and later portraitist Dan Huntington - 1836 (sophomore year): Expelled after climbing the chapel lightning rod; the faculty subsequently drove iron spikes (“Billings’ Spikes”) into the cornice to prevent recurrence; the spikes remained visible through at least 1957 - 1818–1885: Life; born in Lanesboro, Mass.; died in Monterey, California - Post-Hamilton career: Worked as a farmer and laborer before achieving literary fame in his 40s; published “Josh Billings, His Sayings” (1865); created the annual “Farmer’s Allminax” series; lectured nationally and was sought in England and Canada - Reported to have said at a New York alumni banquet that Hamilton “had turned out many famous men” despite expelling him (Hamilton Life, 1933) - 1930: Hamilton Life feature article (“Josh Billings, Hamilton’s Philosopher”) profiles him as the college’s most celebrated “unlettered philosopher” - 1933: Hamilton Life article by James A. Rockwell reviews new biography by Cyril Clemens; headline reads “Josh Billings, Humorist, Was Expelled”; recounts lightning rod prank and expulsion - November 1935: Cited in Hamilton Life with the characterization “Next to William Shakespeare Josh Billings was the greatest judge of human nature the world has ever seen” (attributed to Abraham Lincoln) - March 1957: Spectator reprints a historical anecdote about Billings and the chapel lightning rod; notes his portrait hangs in Commons - October 1959: Spectator publishes a full biographical sketch headlined “Lincoln’s Favorite Humorist”; describes his phonetic spelling style, lecture career, and Hamilton connection - May 1963: Referenced in a Spectator account of historical campus pranks; O’Donnell notes he was “reportedly dismissed from Hamilton in his sophomore year for removing the clapper from the Chapel bell” (a variant tradition) - January 1975: Spectator Magazine describes him as “a master of dialect, and President Lincoln’s favorite humorist”; notes he was the first man to scale the Chapel wall and reach the tower without rope or ladder