At age eleven, an already fiercely independent John Tyler led a school house rebellion against his headmaster, an abusive tyrant by the name of Mr. McMurdo. Tyler and his classmates, fed up with Mr. McMurdo's rather annoying habit of hitting them with a birch stick every time one of them gave a wrong answer, overpowered the headmaster, tied his hands and feet together, and locked him in the schoolhouse. The cries of the headmaster were eventually heard by a passer-by, and the old man was freed.
