Prudence Crandall: The State Heroine

Residents of Canterbury, Conn., were in an uproar. Once urged by “prominent lawyers, businessmen, and religious leaders” to form a school due to her expertise, Prudence Crandall — the principal of the Canterbury Female Boarding School — had quickly become the village pariah within a year. 

Why? By the fall of 1832, Crandall had enrolled an African American student, Sarah Harris: a 20-year-old woman and the daughter of a local farmer. In response, “families and supporters vowed to remove their daughters from the school in protest,” according to Connecticut History. Not easily intimidated, the schoolmistress held firm; moreover, the following spring, the abolitionist transformed her school entirely, only admitting black students who came from New York, Boston, Providence and Philadelphia, much to the horror of many Canterbury citizens.  

Spurred on by her religious beliefs, Crandall — who had never been prone to controversy or one who vied for the limelight — admitted in a public letter, dated May 7, 1833: 

“I contemplated for a while the manner in which I might best serve the people of color. As wealth was not mine, I saw no other means of benefiting them, than by imparting to those of my own sex that were anxious to learn, all the instruction I might be able to give, however small the amount.” 

Opponents of integration, both in Canterbury and statewide, did not take the defiance lightly, enacting the ‘Black Law’ on May 24, 1833, with the specific intent of targeting and closing Crandall’s school. The measure prohibited “out-of-state African American students to attend a Connecticut school without local permission,” according to Connecticut History, which led to Crandall’s multiple arrests and trials that proved consequential in future civil rights cases, such as Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) and Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka (1954). 

For nearly two years, Crandall and her students endured much persecution, from eggings, poisoned wells, vandalism, arson to lawfare. While she had her supporters, especially William Lloyd Garrison, founder of The Liberator and one of the most eminent abolitionists in the United States at the time, she eventually shuttered the school in September 1834 and left Connecticut for her students’ safety.  

Though once maligned by her own state, Crandall eventually garnered a “groundswell of public support” by the late 19th century, and was named ‘State Heroine’ by the Connecticut General Assembly in 1995.  

This is the story of her courageous perseverance for equality. 

The ‘Comforter’ 

Prudence Crandall was born on Sept. 3, 1803, to Quaker parents — Pardon and Esther — in Hopkinton, R.I., where she “learned early to value peace and tolerance,” according to Connecticut History. These beliefs were intrinsic to Quakerism, so much so that the Christian denomination was the “first religious movement to condemn slavery and would not allow their members to own slaves,” as noted by the University of York; members even formed the first abolitionist society, The Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery, in Philadelphia, which included Benjamin Franklin, who petitioned the U.S. Congress in 1790 to end the horrific industry on the basis that “mankind are all formed by the same Almighty being.”  

By 1813, her family moved to Canterbury “because good farmland was cheap and Connecticut seemed to be quite tolerant of Quakers,” according to The New York Times. As a teenager, however, she moved back to Rhode Island, attending a Quaker boarding school administered by Moses Brown, also an abolitionist, who co-founded Brown University. For the atypical Quakers, Crandall “studied arithmetic, Latin and science” since the sect, unlike other groups in early America, “believed in equal educational opportunities” for women, as described by the National Women’s History Museum. Undoubtedly, Quakerism undergirded Crandall’s upbringing and worldview, and led her to founding the first all-African American school (though she later became a Baptist in 1830). 

A well-educated woman, a 27-year-old Crandall decided to go into the teaching profession, taking a job in Plainfield, Conn., in 1830. Less than a year later, by the summer of 1831, a “group of the most influential gentlemen” of Canterbury approached Crandall to establish “a private academy for young ladies, many of whom were their daughters,” according to The New York Times. Many of them provided financial assistance and served on the Board of Visitors, including Rev. Dennis Platt, Rufus Adams, William Kinne, Dr. Andrew Harris, Daniel Packer, Daniel Frost, Jr., Samuel Hough and Andrew Judson. (Judson, the Canterbury town clerk, and future U.S. Representative and U.S. District Court Judge would soon lead the opposition against Crandall integrating the school.) 

For the school, Prudence and her sister Almira bought the Elisha Payne House, an estate built in 1805, situated on three-fourths of an acre, for $2,000. It had 10 large rooms in the main part, and each main room had a fireplace. The headmistress furnished the new school with the necessities, especially books from the Friends’ School of Providence. The subjects she taught were “comparable to that of prominent schools for boys,” argues the National Women’s History Museum, like reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, history, philosophy, chemistry and astronomy. 

Her school had an excellent reputation, which sparked Sarah Harris’ attention. Her family had moved 15 miles north of Canterbury in early 1832, and she attended a local district school. However, Harris had “visited [Crandall] from time to time and realized how rewarding she found her association with the school,” according to Prudence Crandall: A Biography by Marvis Olive Welch. After receiving permission from her father, Harris — who longed to improve her education — asked Crandall to be admitted. The question stunned Crandall. The headmistress had been sympathetic to the suffering of African Americans from reading The Liberator, shared with her by Harris’ future sister-in-law, Maria Davis, who worked at the school; but this was different: she would risk her reputation, financial stability and freedom, since schools were segregated in Connecticut. 

Nevertheless, she did not reject the request outright. While contemplating Harris’ admittance, Crandall turned to her Bible, opening to a passage from Ecclesiastes, 4:1: 

“So I returned and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter: and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.” 

According to Welch’s biography, the passage persuaded her to admit Harris to the school. Yet the new student did not go unnoticed; soon enough, parents demanded Harris be expelled, lest they “withdraw their daughters in protest of integration,” as noted by Connecticut History. 

But Crandall refused. True to their threats, parents did remove their daughters from Crandall’s school, and she was forced to close due to too few students.  

However, between the fall of 1832 and spring of 1833, Crandall sought William Lloyd Garrison’s advice, even meeting with him while he was “on business with the New England Anti-Slavery Society,” according to Connecticut History. Garrison gravitated toward Crandall’s work and mission to open a school for black girls and promised to connect her with “prominent African American families interested in sending their daughters to her school,” as the National Women’s History Museum describes. He also promoted the new venture in The Liberator with an advertisement, announcing the Canterbury school would reopen for “young ladies and little misses of color.” Meanwhile, Crandall had a nearly entirely new Board of Visitors, stocked with abolitionists. The only remaining original board member was Daniel Packer.  

On April 1, 1833, Crandall opened the “first boarding and teacher-training school for young black women,” as noted by the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame, cementing herself as a civil rights leader in American history. Canterbury residents did not welcome the moment. Instead, their ire ran rampant, as the townsfolk passed resolutions citing the “injurious effects and incalculable evils” she inflicted on the village because of the school.  

Yet Crandall and her students experienced the brunt of “injurious effects.” Ann Elizabeth Hammond — a 16-year-old student from Providence — was served a legal writ and fined $1.67. If Hammond “refused to pay the fine and refused to leave, she would be ‘whipped on the naked body not exceeding ten stripes,’” according to Prudence Crandall’s Legacy: The Fight for Equality in the 1830s, Dred Scott, and Brown v. Board of Education by Donald Williams Jr. To delay any reprimand, Crandall paid the fine for Hammond. 

Apart from the vandalism, townsfolk even refused to sell Crandall any goods. In a letter to Simeon Jocelyn, an abolitionist and Connecticut minister, she shared her steadfast determination that, even in “the midst of tribulation,” she hoped “better days will yet be mine, [which] gives tranquility to my feelings while surrounded by those whose enmity and bitterness of feeling can hardly be contemplated.” 

Even with the “tranquility,” she also confessed her fears to Jocelyn about the school failing, and questioned the incessant harassment by her Canterbury neighbors, writing in a letter dated April 17, 1833: 

“This is the day of trial. …The thought that such opposition as has been raised in the minds of the people of Canterbury and the adjoining towns never once entered into my mind while contemplating the change I am now endeavoring to effect in my school. Very true I thought many of the high-minded, worldly men would oppose the plan but that no Christian would act so unwisely and conduct in a manner so outrageously was a thought distant from my view. I have put my hand to the plough and I will never look back — I trust that God will help me to keep this resolution for ‘in him only is safety for mine own arm never brought salvation.’” 

Still, vehement opponents, like Andrew Judson, persisted, successfully lobbying the Connecticut General Assembly to pass the ‘Black Law’ in May 1833. Judson’s racial prejudice had a malevolent sweep of vision: he viewed the ‘Black Law’ as a model for other states to enact, asserting “there shall not be such a school set up anywhere in our state,” and “The colored people can never rise from their menial condition in our country.”  

With the new law, Crandall not only confronted the challenge of keeping her school open, but also a constitutional battle, whose ramifications would impact U.S. legal precedents for a century.  

‘Are Free Blacks Citizens?’ 

The evitable arrived by June 27, 1833, when Crandall and Almira were arrested for violating the ‘Black Law.’ Their writ of arrest stated, in part, that the schoolmistress “willfully and knowingly did instruct and teach and assist in instructing and teaching, certain colored persons, who at the time when so taught and instructed were not inhabitants of any town in this state.” 

Crandall had prepared for this eventuality and her “supporters had already investigated the arrangements for her stay” at the jail in Brooklyn, Conn., according to Williams Jr.’s biography. Her bail was posted at $150, but since no one paid it, Crandall spent a night in jail — in the same cell where a murderer, Oliver Watkins, stayed, which only inflamed her advocates’ anger at the unjust arrest.  

With a trial imminent, her friends and fellow abolitionists, Samuel May and Arthur Tappan, hired three Connecticut attorneys — William Ellsworth, Calvin Goddard and Henry Strong — to defend Crandall on the grounds of the Black Law’s unconstitutionality. Tappan, a wealthy merchant, was the defense team’s chief financial backer, who wrote May, “Spare no necessary expense. Command the services of the ablest lawyers.”  

The case was “unlike that of any other” in American history up to that point, as the legal team would “search the Constitution of the United States for direction and clarity regarding citizenship and human rights for blacks,” according to Williams Jr. Their strategy would not “claim that Crandall was innocent as to the alleged violations of the Black Law,” Williams Jr. writes, “Instead, they intended to argue that her black students possessed all the rights and privileges afforded citizens of the United States under the Constitution.” In short, they would present the ‘Black Law’ as unconstitutional.  

Judson, along with several others, served as the prosecution.  

The first civil rights case began in the Brooklyn, Conn., courthouse on Aug. 23, 1833. In a packed room, the prosecution called witness after witness, that “provided enough evidence to prove a violation of the Black Law,” Williams Jr. notes; however, Ellsworth argued to the jury, “You may find that [Crandall] has violated an act of the state legislature, but if you also find her protected by a higher power, it will be your duty to acquit,” adding that the Constitution’s authority superseded that of Connecticut law. In the end, the trial ended in a hung jury even after Judge Joseph Eaton ordered them to deliberate three times.  

Crandall and Almira returned to teaching, but the legal troubles did not subside. On Sept. 26, 1833, she was arrested again with a bond of $150. With unusual swiftness, her second trial was held once again at the Brooklyn Courthouse on Oct.3, with Judge David Daggett — a former U.S. Senator and founder of Yale Law School — presiding. The odds were not in Crandall’s favor as Daggett blocked the establishment of a “Negro College” in New Haven a few years prior, in 1831.  

Daggett acted no differently. The case, in his estimation, “turned on whether the black students at Crandall’s school were citizens” of the United States, and guaranteed the protections therein, as Williams Jr. states. During his verdict, Daggett questioned, “Are free black citizens?” adding: 

“To my mind, it would be a perversion of terms and the well known rule of construction, to say that slaves, free blacks, or Indians, were citizens, within the meaning of that term, as used in the constitution. God forbid that I should add to the degradation of this race of men; but I am bound, by my duty, to say they are not citizens.” 

The judge found that the ‘Black Law’ did not violate the U.S. Constitution because blacks were not citizens. Therefore, the state was not legally bound to permit their education. As a result, Crandall was convicted and ordered to pay a fine of $100 and court costs. Her attorneys quickly appealed the decision to the Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors, now the Connecticut Supreme Court.  

Daggett’s decision and legal rationale (if it could be so characterized) was affirmed more than two decades later by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Taney in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) — which found “enslaved people were not citizens of the United States and, therefore, could not expect any protection from the federal government or the courts,” according to the National Archives. Taney specifically named Crandall v. State as justification for denying Scott’s freedom, saying, in part: 

“But Chief Justice Daggett, before whom the case was tried, held, that persons of that description were not citizens of a State, within the meaning of the word citizen in the Constitution of the United States, and were not therefore entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens in other States. …We have made this particular examination into the legislative and judicial action of Connecticut, because, from the early hostility it displayed to the slave trade on the coast of Africa, we may expect to find the laws of that State as lenient and favorable to the subject race as those of any other State in the Union.” 

Throughout the trials, Crandall remained quiet, but steadfast. Her supporters, on the other hand, continued battling for her reputation in the press. Ultimately, the Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors “reversed her conviction because it found the language of the charging documents to be insufficient,” but, as evidenced by the Dred Scott case, made no decision on “constitutional questions,” according to the State of Connecticut Judicial Branch. 

Thus concluded Crandall’s legal battles — but peace did not come to Canterbury. 

A Heroine for Civil Rights 

Crandall did not live in Canterbury for much longer. Despite the reversed verdict by the Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors, residents still repeatedly victimized and harassed her and the students.  

One dangerous occasion occurred in late January 1834, when the school was set on fire. Frederick Olney, a black man who was the school’s handyman, noticed smoke and notified others about the blaze. Students and staff rushed outside to safety; meanwhile, Crandall “quickly brought a tub of water, and Olney poured it on the flames,” according to Williams Jr.’s biography. In time, the staff and students extinguished the fire without much damage to the building. However, after an investigation by State Attorney Chauncey Cleveland, Olney was arrested for starting the fire “feloniously, voluntarily, willfully, maliciously and with force.” As Williams Jr. suggests, those accusing Olney — who was eventually acquitted — believed the fire was a self-inflicted ploy to “elicit sympathy for the school and cast suspicion on Crandall’s critics.” 

The final nail in the coffin, however, came on Sept. 9, 1834. While the school had been targeted by individual vandals, that night “many men worked together” bringing “iron bars and large wooden clubs,” according to Williams Jr. What came next was a harrowing nightmare, as the author describes: 

“They silently positioned themselves in front of and under the five main windows of the school. All at once they violently attacked each of the windows with bars and clubs. …Two female students were sleeping in one of the rooms at the time of the attack; broken glass covered their beds, but miraculously neither girl was cut or hurt. Chaos erupted inside the school. Prudence and Almira led the crying girls to the rear of the school…The students sobbed with fear, huddled together with Prudence and Almira, while [others] kept watch, waiting for the men to return and finish off the school.”  

Crandall could not risk exposing her students to danger anymore; she, therefore, closed the school down. Although she envisioned opening a similar school in Philadelphia, that never materialized.  

After marrying a Baptist minister and abolitionist, Calvin Philleo, in 1835, Crandall moved from Connecticut across the northeast (even back to Canterbury briefly), then to Illinois and eventually settled in Elk Falls, Kan., which was then the American frontier. Her life, however, “was not a happy one,” according to The New York Times. Philleo was “more of a speculator than a preacher,” but she “never complained, judging from the scores of letters she wrote to friends and relatives.” Wherever she went, Crandall championed education, civil rights and women’s suffrage.   

She even received some vindication within her own lifetime. The ‘Black Law’ — which caused her much strife — was repealed in 1838; and the Connecticut legislature, at the behest of Mark Twain and other supporters, paid her an annual pension of $400 as an apology, starting in 1886.  

Only a few years later, however, Crandall passed away in Kansas on Jan. 28, 1890, at 86 years old.  

Her story does not end there. The legal misery she endured laid the groundwork for a landmark civil rights victory in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). The U.S. Supreme Court found that segregation in education was unconstitutional, overturning the “separate but equal” precedent established in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), while citing Crandall’s case. As Connecticut History states, “One hundred and twenty years after Crandall pursued educational equality, the principles she so highly valued and defended finally earned legal recognition.” 

Though her school was short-lived, its legacy has had a tremendous impact on American history through nearly two centuries since it opened in 1833. As Jennifer Rycenga, author of the forthcoming book Schooling the Nation: The Success of the Canterbury Female Academy for Black Women, told Yankee Institute, “Flowing from the school’s eighteen months of visible activity came many people (across generations) inspir[ing]” many to become more active abolitionists. Students, meanwhile, “went on to become educators, reformers, and leaders in their communities,” according to the Prudence Crandall Museum. Concurrently, the school “provided a public platform in which all affected groups and allies — Black men, Black women, white women and white men — could play key roles” in the abolitionist movement, Rycenga wrote to Yankee Institute.  

Essentially, Crandall’s school not only served as a lightning rod in advancing the national conversation concerning blacks’ citizenship, but also a central networking point for abolitionists. Moreover, her trials provided “the framework for the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” as suggested by the Prudence Crandall Museum. 

Today, the once maligned school still stands, now as the Prudence Crandall Museum, a U.S. National Historic Landmark. She is one of the figures who exemplifies the history of heroism that helps make Connecticut unique and worth our every effort to keep strong, prosperous and free. 

Because of Prudence Crandall’s steadfast commitment to liberty and human flourishing, Yankee Institute is proud to honor her every year at our Champions of Freedom Gala. She is a model of courage, who humbly, yet bravely fought for equality.  

Crandall deserves her title as ‘State Heroine’; she serves as an example for future generations: that no matter what trial one suffers, if you are persevering for the good — that all people should freely live to discover and achieve their God-given purpose — then good will win in the end.  

Till next time — 

Your Yankee Doodle Dandy, 

Andy Fowler 

What neat history do you have in your town? Send it to yours truly and I may end up highlighting it in a future edition of ‘Hidden in the Oak.’ Please encourage others to follow and subscribe to our newsletters and podcast, ‘Y CT Matters.’