Prudence Crandall’s Legacy. Donald E. Williams
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and dry goods. Tappan stayed for two years and during that time lived with the family of Joseph May, Samuel’s father. Samuel was very young—he was five years old when Tappan finished his apprenticeship—but he knew that Tappan had started his successful business career while living with May and his family.90
The paths of these two men had not crossed often since that time. When May received Tappan’s letter, he recalled that he last saw Tappan ten years earlier in 1823.91 May had followed Tappan’s career and noted that they had significant “theological differences,” most likely regarding Tappan’s interest in the evangelical movement.92 While May did not consider himself “personally acquainted” with Tappan in 1833, he had great respect for his generosity and his willingness to engage in the fight to end slavery in America.93
In his letter, Tappan thanked May for his courageous work on behalf of Crandall’s “benevolent enterprise” and the right of colored people to obtain an education.94 “This contest, in which you have been providentially called to engage, will be a serious, perhaps a violent one,” Tappan wrote. “It may be prolonged and very expensive. Nevertheless, it ought to be persisted in to the last.”95
Tappan knew that neither Crandall nor her supporters could afford the expense of a first-rate legal defense. The cause of equality in education, however, must be sustained, Tappan said. “Consider me your banker,” Tappan told May. “Spare no necessary expense. Command the services of the ablest lawyers. See to it that this great case shall be thoroughly tried … I will cheerfully honor your drafts to enable you to defray that cost.”96 Tappan’s latest act of generosity had a dramatic effect not only on May’s state of mind that day—he was elated—but also on the quality of legal firepower that Prudence Crandall would have on her side. May moved immediately to retain “the three most distinguished members of the Connecticut Bar”: William W. Ellsworth, Calvin Goddard, and Henry Strong.97
The good news from Arthur Tappan was tempered by a series of incidents that threatened to break the spirit of Crandall and the young women at her school. Crandall called the summer of 1833 the “weary, weary days.”98 The excitement of planning and launching the school had transformed into a seemingly endless string of obstacles and grinding opposition. The simple act of buying supplies from a local vendor constituted a violation of the Black Law. The harassment and vandalism that increased after the passage of the law continued. Students worried for their safety.
The court scheduled Prudence Crandall’s trial for August. If convicted of violating the Black Law, Crandall knew that in a few weeks she might face the possibility of large fines that would close her school and destroy her financial future. In early July she came down with a fever. The Liberator attributed her sickness to her stay in prison, but more likely it was related to the stress of the enormous challenge she had undertaken and the responsibility she felt to her students and her family.99 She did not recover quickly and rested for most of the month of July.
During this time, Crandall wrote a song for her students to sing. Crandall later recalled, “Four little colored girls dressed in white sang beautifully the following lines which I composed for them.”100
Four little children here you see
In modest dress appear
Come listen to our song so sweet
And our complaints you’ll hear
’Tis here we come to learn to read
And write and cipher too
But some in this enlightened Land
Declare ’twill never do
The morals of this favored town
Will be corrupted soon
Therefore they strive with all their might
To drive us to our homes
Some time when we have walked the street
Saluted we have been
By guns and drums and cow bells too
And horns of polished tin
With warnings threatened words severe
They visit us at times
And gladly would they send us off
To Afric’s burning climes
Our teacher too they put in jail
Trust held by bars and locks
Did e’re such persecution reign
Since Paul was in the stocks
But we forgive, forgive the men
That persecute us so
May God in mercy save their souls
From everlasting woe101
Throughout the summer, the Liberator published letters from Crandall’s students. Crandall and her fellow teachers likely read and reviewed the letters prior to their delivery to the Liberator. The letters provide an important window into the life of the embattled school. On July 6, 1833, a student wrote of her appreciation for the opportunity to receive an education, but noted that prejudice born in selfishness and ignorance had overshadowed the “bright ray” of knowledge. The student had a pessimistic view of the school’s future.
“From our land Justice seems to have taken her flight … Go tell the people that pride is coiling round their hearts … their tender hearts are growing cold and hardened, the path in which they walk is laid across human beings, and they are crushing them to the earth, beings like themselves, guilty of no other crime than wearing a complexion, ‘not colored like their own.’ If the unrighteous law which has lately been made in this state compels us to be separated, let us submit to it, my dear associates, with no other feelings towards those that so deal with us, than love and pity.”102
Prudence Crandall and her students prepared for the intense challenges that loomed in the weeks and months ahead.
6 : Sanctuary Denied
The ongoing acts of vandalism against Prudence Crandall’s school took a more serious turn in July 1833.
Almira Crandall managed the school as Prudence continued to recuperate from the sickness she suffered in the wake of her arrest. After a particularly long day, Almira sent the students to bed, paused to rest in the first-floor parlor room, and then went upstairs. Moments later a crash on the first floor resounded throughout the school. Almira rushed downstairs to investigate—an enormous impact had shattered the panes in the parlor window, and shards of broken glass covered the floor. Almira saw a rock in the middle of the floor “about the size of my hand and about an inch and a half in thickness.”1
The students came downstairs to see what happened; they were frightened but relieved that no one was hurt. Later that night Almira heard a loud thud of a rock hitting the clapboard wall of the schoolhouse. The following morning, Almira checked the outside of the school and noticed stains and dents from eggs and rocks that had smashed against the front of the school.2
An anonymous author published a fresh attack on Prudence Crandall in the Windham County Advertiser in July. “In her reckless disregard of the rights and feelings of all her neighbors, in her obstinate adherence to her plan of defiance of the entreaties of her friends and of the laws of the land, in her attempts to excite public sympathy by ridiculously spending a night in prison without the smallest necessity of it, she has stepped out of the hallowed precincts of female propriety … With all her complaints of persecution, I suspect she is pleased with the sudden notoriety she has gained.”3 The writer claimed he did not live in Canterbury and had no other interest in the school; however, the writer’s prose and point of view was consistent with that of Andrew Judson, the leader of the local colonization society.
“Let all things be done decently and in order,” the writer said. “If such an institution is to be established, let it be done