would be offered, including reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, history, philosophy, chemistry, astronomy, art, piano, and French.
References for Crandall’s school no longer included the local Board of Visitors, Canterbury men of good standing. Instead, her new list of supporters consisted of leading abolitionists from Boston, New York City, Providence, and Philadelphia. They included Arthur Tappan; George Bourne; Samuel Cornish and the other ministers she met in New York;66 Joseph Cassey, a black banker from Philadelphia who was “the architect of his own fortune”;67 James Forten, a black businessman who owned a sail-making factory in Philadelphia;68 George W. Benson of Providence; Arnold Buffum of Boston; and William Lloyd Garrison. There were three men from Connecticut: Simeon S. Jocelyn; Jehiel C. Beman, a black minister of the Cross Street AME Zion Church in Middletown and an agent for the Liberator;69 and Prudence’s new friend and ally, Samuel May of Brooklyn. The references included no one from Canterbury. Crandall submitted the advertisement on February 25, 1833, the same day she informed her students of their dismissal.
Garrison wrote a separate article about Prudence Crandall’s new school in the same issue of the Liberator. He told his readers that she “richly deserves the patronage and confidence of the people of color” and promoted her diverse curriculum and schoolhouse—“she has a large and commodious house.” Tuition was affordable, Garrison said, and “her terms are very low.”70 He recommended the village of Canterbury as a “central and pleasant” location for a school.
Garrison acknowledged that Crandall’s new school faced challenges and opposition. “In making the alteration in her school, Miss C. runs a great risk; but let her manifest inflexible courage and perseverance, and she will be sustained triumphantly. Reproach and persecution may assail her at the commencement, but they will soon expire.”71 The Liberator carried the news to leading advocates of emancipation, both black and white, throughout the northeastern states and beyond. With Garrison’s promotion in the Liberator, Prudence Crandall’s school became a cause for the national abolitionist movement. The town fathers of Canterbury were stunned.
Andrew T. Judson was one of Prudence Crandall’s earliest supporters, a member of the school’s Board of Visitors, and her neighbor—he lived directly across the street from her schoolhouse. He was an early and strong supporter of the American Colonization Society, a well-known local attorney and public servant, and a director of both the Windham County Bank and the Windham County Mutual Fire Insurance Company.72 He also served as the state’s attorney for Windham County and had done so since 1819, prosecuting criminal cases on behalf of the state.
Judson had worked hard to become a leading citizen of Canterbury. He was born in the nearby town of Ashford on November 29, 1784. His father, also named Andrew, graduated from Dartmouth College in 1775—only the fifth graduating class for that institution—and served as a Congregational minister of a small church in Eastford, Connecticut. His father’s college degree and religious calling did not provide a guarantee of a comfortable life. When Andrew was only six weeks old his mother Elizabeth died, leaving Andrew, his father, and two older brothers. His father remarried and had four additional children, a girl and three boys. The family struggled through financial hard times and personal tragedy. One Judson child died in infancy, and a son, John, was described as an “invalid.”73 Perhaps as a result of the personal and financial stress, Judson’s father was “afflicted with a hypochondriac melancholy that at times incapacitated him for public service.”74
Andrew T. Judson received his education at the local Eastford Common School that met a few months per year and provided only the basics. Judson knew this minimal schooling would “limit in a great degree my prospects and hopes for the future.”75 In 1802, when Judson was eighteen years old, his father’s Dartmouth connections helped put him on a life-changing path. He met attorney Sylvester Gilbert of Hebron—a Dartmouth classmate of his father’s—and Gilbert agreed to take Andrew under his wing and tutor him in the law. In addition to his law practice, Gilbert served as a state representative in the Connecticut Legislature and as the state’s attorney for Tolland County. Gilbert later served in the U.S. Congress, the Connecticut State Senate, and as a judge.76
After four years of study and apprenticeship, Andrew Judson qualified to practice law in 1806.77 His father did not live to see his son become a lawyer; he died one year earlier. Through his father’s Dartmouth connection, however, Judson’s life changed. In his career in politics and the law, Andrew Judson almost precisely followed in the footsteps of Sylvester Gilbert, including election to both houses in the state legislature and to the U.S. Congress. In addition to serving as a state’s attorney, Judson also became a judge. Judson, however, faced the challenges of different times that more than once placed him in the center of great controversy.
Initially, Judson declined to pursue a legal career in Connecticut and left his native state “to seek a new home, and a field for business.”78 He went to Vermont to live among Judson family relatives and stayed for about one year; he returned to Connecticut “homesick and discontented.”79 He decided to settle in Canterbury to begin a law practice and start a political career. He aligned himself with the Federalist Party, the dominant political party in Connecticut.
When the United States went to war with Great Britain in the War of 1812, Andrew Judson and the Federalists strongly opposed the war. The New England economy depended on trade with Great Britain, and the war threatened local jobs. Governors from New England withheld state militia support; some in the Federalist Party even discussed the possibility of secession from the Union.80 Many Federalists believed the war would destroy the country. Instead, it destroyed the Federalists.81 In 1813, as U.S. ships attempted to leave the Connecticut harbor of New London in an effort to break through a British blockade, someone on shore reportedly alerted the British warships by signaling with blue lanterns. The American ships were forced to turn around and remain in the harbor. The press blamed the Federalists, and the phrase “blue light Federalist” was born, equating Federalists with treachery and treason.82 An investigation raised many questions as to whether a British or American spy gave the “blue light” signal, or whether there was any signal at all. The Republican Party, however, succeeded in portraying the Federalists—who opposed the war—as unpatriotic and responsible for “the blackest treason.”83
Andrew Judson never served his country in the War of 1812. In hindsight he viewed his failure to enlist as a terrible mistake even though the Federalists opposed the war and many refused to serve. Public support for the war increased as it progressed. Judson later claimed that he tried to enlist and was rejected because he was not a political friend of the officials who processed new recruits.84 His explanation did not make sense, however, as recruits were hard to come by and the national goal of fifty thousand volunteers was never met.85 Judson realized he had miscalculated badly by siding with the Federalists in their opposition to the war. He found himself on the wrong side of public opinion and resolved not to make that mistake again.
With a newfound appreciation for the unpredictable nature of politics, Judson ran for office and won election to the State House of Representatives in 1813. The tradition in the House at that time, Judson wrote, was for new members to be seen and not heard. Judson behaved accordingly. “I made no speeches,” Judson wrote. “Once or twice an opportunity offered, but the idea alone gave me the palpitation to such a degree, that it was well my seat was retained.”86
There were two significant changes in Judson’s life in 1816. On March 20, when he was thirty-one years old, he married Rebecca W. Warren of Windham. He said they “trudged along together, harmonizing in our views, and mode of life, as well and perhaps better than most others.”87 Judson also changed political parties and no longer associated with the “blue light Federalists.” He joined the new Toleration Party.88 The Toleration Party replaced the Federalist Party as the dominant force in Connecticut politics, and Judson’s
