Theodore Wright, the pastor who succeeded Cornish at the First Colored Presbyterian Church, James Hayborn, pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church,19 Theodore Raymond, and George Bourne, the white minister credited with being the first to call for immediate emancipation,20 all lived in New York City and knew Garrison. These ministers helped Crandall schedule introductions with potential students and their families; they all agreed to provide references for Crandall and have their names appear in advertisements as supporters of Crandall’s school.21
Garrison also provided Crandall with a letter of introduction to Arthur Tappan. Tappan was well known as one of the wealthiest merchants in America. An early supporter of William Lloyd Garrison—he paid his libel fines and bailed him out of jail in Baltimore—Tappan committed his time and fortune to the cause of abolition. Tappan’s brother Lewis described Arthur as the first man in the United States to “make use of money in large sums for benevolent objects. … the great lesson of his life was courage to do right whatever the consequences.”22 When asked by business associates to refrain from abolitionist activities so as not to offend customers, Tappan replied, “You demand that I shall cease my anti-slavery labors, give up my connection with the Anti-Slavery Society, or make some apology or recantation—I will be hung first!”23 Prudence Crandall received encouragement from Tappan; he agreed to join the black ministers in support of her school. He also told her he hoped to accompany the black students from New York to her school in Canterbury.24
The trip to New York reassured Crandall. She received help from key leaders of the black community and was confident of enrolling many students. She also believed that Arthur Tappan’s endorsement would alleviate the fears of her friends and neighbors in Canterbury. After meeting with Crandall, Tappan escorted her on a steamboat ride between New York and Crandall’s next stop, New Haven.
The failure of the proposed college for black men in New Haven had occurred one year and six months earlier, and it was fresh in the mind of Simeon S. Jocelyn when he and his wife met Prudence Crandall in New Haven in February 1833. Jocelyn, a founding member of New Haven’s Third Church, became the first pastor of a black church, known as the Temple Street Church, in 1829.25 Jocelyn’s white skin did not prevent the black congregation from accepting him as their minister. Religion and social reform were his passions but not his full-time profession. Jocelyn and his brother Nathaniel were partners in a printing and engraving business between 1818 and 1843.26 Simeon converted his brother’s oil paintings into engravings. When Nathaniel painted the portrait of William Lloyd Garrison in April 1833, Garrison wrote, “I think he has succeeded in making a very tolerable likeness.”27 As to Simeon’s engraving of the portrait, Garrison said, “All who have seen it agree with me in the opinion that it is a total failure.”28
The press reported extensively on Simeon S. Jocelyn’s unsuccessful attempt to create a black college in New Haven. Jocelyn told Crandall about the obstacles he encountered but did not discourage her. Instead, he pledged support and agreed to serve as a reference for her school. His optimism impressed Crandall, and she later turned to him for advice and help.
When Crandall returned to Canterbury on Friday, February 22, she knew she owed her family and friends an explanation about her extended travels. She had traveled to Boston supposedly for the purpose of observing other schools and buying supplies. Her subsequent journeys to three other cities—all at a time when controversy raged in Canterbury—demanded further explanation. The time had come for Prudence to reveal her bold ideas.
“I called my family together and laid before them the object of my journey and endeavored to convince them of the propriety of the pursuit,” Prudence later wrote. She told her family she intended to create a new school for black women. She hoped to make the change in the near future, perhaps as early as April. Her trip to Boston had been for the purpose of meeting with William Lloyd Garrison, publisher of the Liberator, to enlist his help in securing contacts in the black communities of the Northeast. In order to recruit students for her new school, she had made subsequent trips to Providence, New York, and New Haven.
Prudence’s family knew she had to make a decision regarding her school and the controversy surrounding Sarah Harris. Nevertheless, Crandall’s announcement that she intended to dismiss her white students and replace them with black students must have come as a shock to her family. When Prudence finished presenting her vision for the new school, she received a cautiously supportive response. “My views by them were pretty cordially received,” Crandall wrote.29
Crandall decided to visit her neighbors the next day and tell them directly about her plans for the school: “Saturday morning I called on several of the neighbors and to my astonishment they exhibited but little opposition.”30 On Monday, February 25, 1833, buoyed by the lack of hostility if not support from her family and neighbors, Crandall gathered her students together at the Canterbury Female Boarding School. Her pupils were well aware of the controversy regarding Sarah Harris; nonetheless, they were stunned when Crandall announced the closure of her school. The school was as busy as ever; parents had not yet begun to withdraw their daughters from the school, and it was full to capacity with twenty-four students.31 In subsequent accounts, writers often claimed that many or all of the white students had withdrawn from Crandall’s school. In 1833, however, Samuel May wrote that Prudence “informed her pupils, then twenty-four in number, that, at the commencement of the next term, her school would be open for the reception of colored girls; and that twenty had engaged to come to her at that time. This annunciation caused a great excitement.”32 Crandall’s announcement was met with confusion and sadness. Most if not all of the white students never objected to Sarah Harris joining their ranks. They could not continue as students at Crandall’s school because adults—in some cases their own parents—opposed the idea of a black student attending their classes.
As the students relayed the news to their families, the reality of Crandall’s plan took hold. The indifferent reaction she initially received when she told a few neighbors changed dramatically. One citizen of Canterbury called her idea to educate black women “reprehensible” and described the thought of young black women living in the center of town as “utterly intolerable.”33 Another said her decision showed a reckless, “stiff necked” and stubborn streak.34 Others viewed Crandall as ungrateful and vengeful. As one local historian later said, “The people of Canterbury saw to their supreme horror and consternation that this popular school in which they had taken so much pride, was to be superseded by something so anomalous and phenomenal that it could hardly be comprehended.”35
9. Canterbury, Connecticut, in the 1830s. The Canterbury Congregational Church is in the foreground; Crandall’s school is on the far left.
Canterbury, Connecticut, in the 1830s. From John Warner Barber, Connecticut Historical Collections (New Haven, Conn.: B. L. Hamlen, 1836), 423. Collection of the Prudence Crandall Museum, Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, State of Connecticut.
Critics doubted the “philanthropy” of her decision and attributed it to financial self-interest.36 Some claimed she stood to profit more from a school for black women. That assertion ignored the obvious fact that Crandall’s school was already thriving; dismissing Sarah Harris would have preserved a surer path to continued financial success. William Jay wrote, “Whatever may have been her motives, and pecuniary ones would not have been unlawful, she had a perfect right to open a school for pupils of any color whatever.”37 Crandall summed up her decision with a question: “Shall I be inactive and permit prejudice … or shall I venture to enlist in the ranks of those who with the Sword of Truth dare hold combat with prevailing iniquity?”38
On Monday night, February 25, 1833, a group of men who had supported Crandall’s original school gathered to discuss the
