Prudence Crandall

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prudence_Crandall

Prudence Crandall was the leader of the first racially-integrated school for girls in America and is the Connecticut State Heroine.

In 1831, Crandall opened an academy on the Canterbury Green to educate daughters of wealthy local families. The school was extremely successful -- until the following fall, when she admitted Sarah Harris, a 20-year-old black woman. Harris had hoped to become a teacher with the help of the education the academy could provide. Reflecting the attitudes of the times, Harris's admittance to the academy led parents to withdraw their daughters.

Crandall made contacts throughout New England's free black communities to attract young black women students. They came from as far away as Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia. The Connecticut State Legislature responded by passing the "Black Law," which made it illegal for Crandall to operate her school. Crandall was arrested, spent a night in jail, and faced three court trials, including in front of the Supreme Court of Errors (the original state supreme court) at Hartford. The case was dismissed in July of 1834; it would later be repealed, in 1838. Two months later, a mob attacked the school, forcing Crandall to close it.

The courage shown by Crandall, Connecticut's official heroine, features prominently in civil rights history.

This profile is a work in progress.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Crandall-1634
Prudence Crandall (1803 - 1890)

Prudence Crandall aka Philleo
Born 3 Sep 1803 in Hopkinton, Washington, Rhode Island, United Statesmap
ANCESTORS ancestors
Daughter of Pardon Crandall and Esther (Carpenter) Crandall
[sibling%28s%29 unknown]
Wife of Calvin Philleo — married Aug 1834 in Canterbury, Windham, Connecticut, United Statesmap
[children unknown]
Died 28 Jan 1890 at age 86 in Elk Falls, Elk, Kansas, United Statesmap
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Profile last modified 27 Jul 2021 | Created 24 Apr 2017
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Prudence's Full Portrait as painted by Francis Alexander
Biography

Notables Project
Prudence Crandall is Notable.
Prudence Crandall was born September 3, 1803 in Hopkinton, Washington County, Rhode Island, USA.[1] She was the daughter of Pardon Crandall and Esther Carpenter.[1]

Prudence Crandall attended Friends School in Providence and afterward moved to Canterbury Green, Connecticut, near where he father , Pardon Crandall , lived.

Around 1820-1830, she began a boarding school academy teaching young girls, and everything went very well, as many families sent their daughters to receive an education. Prudence was white, the town leaders were white, and the students were white, and it is reported that everything went well.

You are probably wondering why I mentioned race? But race is the crux upon which this story turns.

After establishing this successful academy, Prudence made a choice of allowing one girl of color to attend. This girl, Sarah Harris, had some association with Prudence's household, and she wished to become a teacher. Soon there was an uproar, and in time Prudence decided to teach only girls of color since the white families were adamant that even one girl of color was unacceptable. The conversion of the school in 1833 [2] to an academy for girls of color did not end well. You can read all about the complicated story in the sources, see Prudence's account, and learn about the legislature's notorious Black Law .

I will say this. It ended one night in the shattering of glass, the shattering of dreams, and the restoration of a certain type of order that the town of the time felt was so essential they would jail and terrorize to attain it. They had come with iron bars to teach a bitter lesson.

Prudence's school exposed dangerous racial faultlines of her time and became a "cause celebre" among abolitionists. Being raised a Quaker, she abhorred slavery and idealized equality. She was said to be kind-hearted, and a reader of "The Liberator," an abolitionist paper. The historians at the Prudence Crandall Museum indicate she, her supporters, and the girls' families were fully aware that they were testing the dangerous and uncharted limits of what her community would tolerate. Her academy had quickly attracted girls of color from upper middle class families throughout New England.

Racism bears such strange fruit and this situation escalated rapidly. Liberation and equality were not forthcoming, but the record of what happened in Canterbury endures and demonstrates how deeply people felt on both sides and how the governmental institutions of the time, such as local law enforcement and the State Legislature, combined to reinforce racism and redefine Prudence's efforts as criminal. The Honorable Calvin Goddard was one of her defense lawyers when she was charged.

Later there was much recanting, some very heartfelt. The State of Connecticut which passed the Black Law forbidding the education of colored persons from other states, much later granted Prudence a small pension at Mark Twain's suggestion. Much later still, the State deemed Prudence the "State Heroine" and assisted in preserving her story by helping purchase the school to become a museum and honoring her with a statue of her and Sarah Harris, her first student of color.

So after that night of broken glass, Prudence left town and that same summer in August 1834 married the Abolitionist Baptist Reverend Calvin Wheeler Philleo in Connecticut.[3] They moved to La Salle County, Illinois, where Prudence ran a school and participated in the women’s suffrage movement. When Calvin died in 1894, she then moved to Elk Falls, Kansas, with her brother Hezekiah. There she died at age 86.

Note: Francis Alexander's radiant oil painting of Prudence was painted in 1834 around the time of greatest trial. It was commissioned by her supporters. It is the property of Cornell University and is said to be on display there in the Kroch Library’s Elizabeth Reed Reading Room. There exists a similar portrait, which was a reproduction commissioned in the 1970s and is in the Prudence Crandall Museum. It, too, glows.

Also, John Crandall, an early settler of Westerly, Rhode Island, is a direct ancestor to Prudence.

Sources

↑ 1.0 1.1 Birth: Arnold, James Newell. Rhode Island Vital Extracts, 1636–1850. 21 volumes. Providence, R.I.: Narragansett Historical Publishing Company, 1891–1912. Digitized images from New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Massachusetts. Available on Ancestry.
↑ Stonington Chronology
↑ "Connecticut Marriages, 1630-1997", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F7PH-1PT : 11 January 2020), Calvin Philleo, 1834.
The Connecticut Quarterly (Hartford, Conn., 1908) Vol. 12, Page 225-32: "Trial of Prudence Crandall for Crime of Educating Negroes in Connecticut"
Prudence's birth at Hopkinton recorded by Narragansett Friends, relation at Canterbury noted, page 145
"Prudence Crandall's Legacy: "The Fight for Equality in the 1830's, Dred Scott, and Brown v. Board of Education" by Donald E. Williams, JR.
Elisha C. Stillman, Records and papers, the Westerly historical society ... 1913/15 Page 51
Additional History at this Find a Grave Memorial
National Women's History Museum Biography
How the Portrait Came to Cornell
You-Tube Tour of Prudence Crandall Museum- Former Academy
Account of the court case against Prudence
Yale document packet including Crandall correspondence