The idea for The Unionist was born from a surprise visit that Arthur Tappan made to Windham county, to see how the Canterbury experiment was proceeding. He visited the school, and then spent time with Samuel J. May. When Tappan asked May what was most urgently needed, May suggested that a newspaper would help to bring out the genuine range of opinion in the area. But who would edit it?

Tappan recalled a small editorial from the Genius of Temperance. This New York City based publication, edited by William Goodell, was part of the developing evangelical wing of Abolitionism. The May 15, 1833 issue included a brief article under the title “The Canterbury Affair.” It provides the ‘official’ petition from April 1, 1833, against the Academy for Black Women. But this piece from the white elites of Canterbury is followed by a strong radical, insightful, sardonic commentary. On target against the pretended patriotism of the Canterbury cabal, it ends with the author hinting that he does not “believe a majority of the citizens of Canterbury favor such “wild schemes.”” This was Charles C. Burleigh’s first printed commentary on “The Canterbury Affair.” It typifies his two-fold approach: withering sarcastic contempt for the pretensions of white supremacist positions, and confidence in the people, broadly conceived, to demonstrate humane good sense.

Charles Burleigh’s recruitment to Abolitionism echoes the calling of Peter and James to apostleship (or, the recruitment of Odysseus to the Trojan War). Samuel J. May vaguely remembered the name of Charles Burleigh, and decided to check on this youngster as a potential editor for a pro-Crandall newspaper. Arriving at Rinaldo and Lydia Burleigh’s farm, he was informed that Charles “was in the field as busy as he could be.” But May insisted that his mission trumped the importance of haying, and so Charles came in from his manual labor. Samuel J. May described the first sight he had of Burleigh with a Biblical reference:

""At the hard, hot work of haying, he was not attired in his Sunday clothes, but in his shirt-sleeves, with pants the worse for wear; and, although he then believed in shaving, no razor had touched his beard since the first day of the week. Nevertheless, I do not believe that Samuel of old saw, in the ruddy son of Jesse, as he came up from the sheepfold, the man whom the Lord would have him anoint, more clearly that I saw C.C. Burleigh the man whom I should choose to be my assistant in that emergency. So soon as I had told him what I wanted of him, his eye kindled as if eager for the conflict.""

The effectively lucky choice of Charles Burleigh to edit a newspaper turned out to be fortuitous indeed; not only did he prove effective at this through The Unionist, but he went on to hold editorial posts throughout his life. The other theme that May drops here in the description of this initial meeting, is the humor that so many Abolitionists found in Charles’ appearance. His preference for casual clothes and long hair became increasingly more pronounced, and, in suitable abolitionist fashion, ideologically defended by him. Commentators on his career as an Abolitionist lecturer always noted his likeness to an Old Testament prophet.

This account of Charles Burleigh's ""calling"" to the editorship of The Unionist was canonical, repeated in many quarters. A letter penned by his wife, Gertrude Kimber Burleigh, in 1857, comments on both this incident and her husband's appearance:

Charles Calistrus Burleigh ""felt an “interest in the subject of Anti-Slavery” from his earliest recollections, but it first took a definite & decided form at the time of the commencement of the Liberator, of the contents of which he was a reader from the first. His first public labor in the great cause was in the spring of 1833, occasioned by the excitement growing out of the opening of Prudence Crandall’s school for colored girls, in Canterbury Ct. of which school his only sister, Mary, was an assistant teacher. At the time he was a student in Judge Eaton’s office, & occasionally gave AntiSlavery lectures in the evenings, besides now & then writing articles for the papers. In the summer of this year, he commenced editing “The Unionist,” (not the Disunionist, as he would have it now probably, if he were in that business ) an A.S. paper published in Brooklyn Ct. mainly on account of the impossibility of getting a fair hearing for Miss Crandall’s enterprise I the previously existing papers of the region. He was invited to this charge by Samuel J. May & Dr. Whitcomb of Brooklyn who visiting him for the purpose, found him busy in the hay-field, with his sleeves rolled up, looking as rough as any of the older fisherman could have looked, when called upon to work in the Lord’s vineyard. Like them he too, left all & obeyed the summons.""

Gertrude Kimber then sweetly (and a bit saucily) adds ""he is the best man that ever was, & spite of what Old Mr. Stowe says, as reported in Harper, is so good looking that my modesty will not permit me to tell all I think about that!""

For Further Reference

• Brown, Ira V. “An Antislavery Agent: C. C. Burleigh in Pennsylvania, 1836-1837.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 105:1 (January 1981), 66-84.
• May, Samuel J. Some Recollections of Our Antislavery Conflict. Miami: Mnemosyne Publishing Company, 1969 (1869).
• Rycenga, Jennifer, Nick Szydlowski, et. al. The Burleigh Family of Plainfield, Connecticut: An Anti-Racist Abolitionist Legacy. Digital Humanities project, San José State University, forthcoming 2024-2025.
• Yacovone, Donald. Samuel Joseph May and the Dilemmas of the Liberal Persuasion, 1797-1871. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991.