a cannon belonging to General Ebenezer Mattoon and shot it at their school. Taft entered Yale College in 1829 and he graduated four years later in 1833. Taft helped create the secret society known as Skull and Bones in 1832 with William Huntington Russell.

Upon graduation, again to earn money, Taft was an instructor at Ellington, Connecticut, from 1835 to 1837. He subsequently studied law at the Yale Law School