II.

Early Life

Chester Alan Arthur was born on October 5, 1829, in Fairfield, Vermont. He was the oldest son of William Arthur, an Irish-born Baptist minister and schoolteacher, and Malvina Stone Arthur. The family lived in several towns in Vermont and northern New York before they moved to Saratoga County, New York, in 1839. Young Arthur attended an academy at Union Village (now Greenwich), New York. At the academy and later in college, he was not considered an outstanding student. He was described as “genial in disposition” and “not an unusual member of his class ... an average boy.”

After Arthur graduated from Union College in Schenectady, New York, in 1848, he studied law and taught in a local school. In 1852 he was appointed principal of an academy near Albany, New York, and a year later he moved to New York City to work in the law office of Erastus D. Culver, a friend of his father. In 1854 Arthur passed the bar exam and received his license to practice law. He quickly gained a reputation as a supporter of civil rights for blacks, and in 1855 won a case that guaranteed the rights of blacks to ride any streetcar in New York City. In 1856 he opened his own law practice.