Soon after their failure to get a decision from the Court of Errors,
an attempt was made to set her house on fire. Fortunately the match
was applied to combustibles tucked under a corner where the sills
were somewhat decayed. They burnt like a slow match. Some time before
daylight the inmates perceived the smell of fire, but not until nearly
nine o’clock did any blaze appear. It was quickly quenched; and I was
sent for to advise whether, if her enemies were so malignant as this
attempt showed them to be, it was safe and right for her to expose her
pupils’ and her own life any longer to their wicked devices. It was
concluded that she should hold on and bear yet a little longer. Perhaps
the atrocity of this attempt to fire her house, and at the same time
endanger the dwellings of her neighbors would frighten the leaders and
instigators of the persecution to put more restraint upon “the baser
sort.” But a few nights afterwards it was made only too plain that the
enemies of the school were bent upon its destruction. About twelve
o’clock, on the night of the 9th of September, Miss Crandall’s house
was assaulted by a number of persons with heavy clubs and iron bars;
five window-sashes were demolished and ninety panes of glass dashed to
pieces.
I was summoned next morning to the scene of destruction and the
terror-stricken family. Never before had Miss Crandall seemed to
quail, and her pupils had become afraid to remain another night under
her roof. The front rooms of the house were hardly tenantable; and it
seemed foolish to repair them only to be destroyed again. After due
consideration, therefore, it was determined that the school should
be abandoned. The pupils were called together, and I was requested
to announce to them our decision. Never before had I felt so deeply
sensible of the cruelty of the persecution which had been carried on
for eighteen months, in that New England village against a family of
defenceless females. Twenty harmless, well-behaved girls, whose only
offence against the peace of the community was that they had come
together there to obtain useful knowledge and moral culture, were to
be told that they had better go away, because, forsooth, the house
in which they dwelt would not be protected by the guardians of the
town, the conservators of the peace, the officers of justice, the men
of influence in the village where it was situated. The words almost
blistered my lips. My bosom glowed with indignation. I felt ashamed
of Canterbury, ashamed of Connecticut, ashamed of my country, ashamed
of my color. Thus ended the generous, disinterested, philanthropic,
Christian enterprise of Prudence Crandall.
This was the second attempt made in Connecticut to establish a school
for the education of colored youth. The other was in New Haven, two
years before. So prevalent and malignant was our national prejudice
against the most injured of our fellow-men!