G.B.N.F.

TARDY HONORS FOR HEROIC GIRL MARTYR

Birthday of Prudence Crandall, Jailed for Teaching Colored Girls, to Be Celebrated.

EXILED, JOINED JOHN BROWN.

Waterbury, Conn., March 8 – After a lapse of nearly seventy five years the repentant town of Canterbury has arranged to pay honor tomorrow to the memory of Miss Prudence Crandall, whom it imprisoned for teaching colored girls to write.  Tomorrow will be the seventy-fourth anniversary of Miss Crandall’s condemnation.

Born of Quaker parents, Prudence Crandall possessed a fine fighting spirit.  In 1832, when she conducted a select academy for young women at Canterbury, she admitted to membership Sarah Harris, colored.

Connecticut was at that time strong for social equality, but it wanted that equality for itself.  Miss Crandall was visited by a committee headed by Federal Judge Andrew T. Judson who insisted upon the colored girl’s expulsion.

In response Miss Crandall inserted an advertisement in the local newspaper to the effect that hereafter she would instruct only colored girls.  In a rage Canterbury held a town meeting, as a result of which Miss Crandall and Elder Kneeland, who was in the assemblage to pronounce her the only honest woman in all the township, were thrown into jail.

Capt. Daniel Packard effected their escape, after which Miss Crandall went to Kansas, where she rallied with John Brown, and died only ten years ago.  Now the town which condemned and imprisoned her seventy four years ago has decided to erect a handsome memorial in her honor. 

[Indiana County Gazette, Indiana PA, 13 Mar 1907]