The four men, who later recalled the “kind and affecting manner” in which Frost addressed Crandall, made it clear that they intended to argue to the public that her school promoted “the amalgamation of the whites and blacks.”59 Crandall allegedly responded to Frost’s assertion by pointing out that “Moses had a black wife.”60 The source of the “Moses” quote may well have been Crandall herself, but during the controversy it was cited only in accounts that were hostile to her and for the purpose of changing the subject from equality in education to “amalgamation” and interracial marriage. Many years later, historian Ellen D. Larned included the “Moses” quote in her account of Crandall’s school, after she had corresponded with Crandall.
Crandall likely delivered the thoughtful “Moses” retort—she never denied it—and Frost and his committee made sure it was widely publicized as it helped them in their goal of discrediting the school. Fanning the flames of racial fear and prejudice by promoting the specter of “amalgamation” and interracial marriage promised to transform an already divisive issue into a broader panic. As a local publication soon confirmed, the inference that Crandall’s opponents promoted through repeating the “Moses had a black wife” quote was irresistible for local newspapers.
“Her reply to the committee seems to have been made in justification of the course she adopted,” one published account noted. “The public must decide whether the amalgamation of the whites and blacks is a profitable or safe doctrine.”61 Another reference to the “Moses” quote appeared in the Norwich Republican, submitted by Andrew T. Judson. “When she justified her proceedings and principles on the ground that Moses married a ‘colored woman,’ it was suggested that she might as well advocate polygamy now, because it was lawful in the days of antiquity.”62 The controversy escalated to a point where Crandall replied publicly to deny that her school promoted interracial marriage.63
After their second meeting, Frost and his companions left Crandall’s school believing they had made progress toward changing her mind and acknowledged that “she had gone on with a firmness of design, and a decision of action, worthy the holiest cause.”64 Crandall did not, however, yield to the committee’s request that she abandon her idea of an academy for black women. On the next day, March 2nd, an issue of the Liberator appeared containing both an article and an advertisement promoting Crandall’s “High School for Young Colored Ladies and Misses.”65 The advertisement contained Crandall’s thanks to those who had previously patronized her school and announced that the school would reopen for “young ladies and Misses of color” on Monday, April 1, 1833. Many courses 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