Education
Chavis arrived at the Liberty Hall Academy in Lexington, Virginia in 1795, one year prior to George Washington's gift of 100 shares of James River Company Stock. He was still a student when the institution changed its name to Washington Academy. (Washington Academy would change its name a third time long after Chavis left the school, becoming Washington and Lee University.)
Prior to 1795, Chavis had resided in New Jersey, where he had taken private classes under John Witherspoon in preparation for entering the Presbyterian ministry. In the recorded minutes of the meeting of the trustees of the College of New Jersey (later to become Princeton University) dated September 26, 1792, there is a recommendation by Reverend John Blair that "Mr. Todd Henry, a Virginian, and John Chavis, a free black man of that state, ... be received" on the school's Leslie Fund. Chavis transferred to Liberty Hall Academy after Witherspoon's death in 1794.
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