The Initial Version of the Canterbury Female Academy

In that same year of 1831, the town of Canterbury Connecticut, in Windham County (the northeastern part of the state), sought to build the prestige of the town by opening a Female Academy. These schools were all the rage in the late 1820s and 1830s. Somewhere between a finishing school course and serious academic rigor, these academies were intended for young women who had completed the District school’s elementary level work. Academies were meant for respectable young women, those who might be addressed with a title like “Lady.” The Canterbury selectmen turned to a young woman named Prudence Crandall. A birthright Quaker, she had attended the academically strong New England Yearly Meeting Boarding School in Providence. Upon her return to her family homestead in Canterbury, she taught in local District schools. Leading her own Academy was a wonderful opportunity. She undertook the organization of her new school, and received accolades from the Board of Visitors in early 1832. Her academy was situated in a beautiful large house, at the intersection of the two main roads in Canterbury, directly across from the seat of spiritual power in any Connecticut town of the time – the Congregational Church. But Crandall would always be a religious dissenter; around the same time as her school opening, she had joined a local Baptist congregation.

For Further Reference

• Barber, John Warner. Connecticut historical collections, containing a general collection of interesting facts, traditions biographical sketches, anecdotes, etc., relating to the history and antiquities of every town in Connecticut, with geographical descriptions. New Haven: Durrie and Peck, 1837.
• Kelsey, Rayner Wickersham. Centennial History of Moses Brown School 1819-1919. Providence: Moses Brown School, 1919.
• Rycenga, Jennifer. ““Be Ashamed of Nothing But Sin”: Prudence Crandall, Levi Kneeland, and Connecticut Baptists.” American Baptist Quarterly, 34:3-4 (Fall-Winter 2015): 324-342
• Sklar, Katherine Kish. Catharine Beecher: A Study in American Domesticity. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1976.
• Strane, Susan. A Whole-Souled Woman: Prudence Crandall and the Education of Black Women. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1990.

Above: Map of Windham County. Note proximity of Canterbury (location of the school), Brooklyn (location of The Unionist and the courthouse and jail), and Plainfield (home of the Burleigh family).