Eastern Freedom Trail Quilt Display

Randall's Ordinary

 North Stonington,

 Mary Rose DeVeau

See the Underground Railroad overview

Joshua Hempstead House

New London

Maureen Hill

The seventeenth-century Joshua Hempstead House is one of two historic houses in New London's Hempstead Historic District open to the public. Owned by the Antiquarian and Landmarks Society, it contains a family archives of early abolitionist papers. Surrounding the Hempstead House, the Hempstead Historic District includes houses that were purchased by free African Americans in the 1840s. The District is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Custom House

New London

Tamora Syphrett, Melissa Syphrett

The U.S. Custom House, built in 1833 from a design by architect Robert Mills, was where Africans were brought from the Spanish slave ship Amistad by the U. S. Coast Guard on August 27, 1839. Although the ship remained in New London for more than a year, the captives stayed for less than a week and were transferred to the New Haven jail. One African youth who died during the brief New London stay was buried in an unmarked grave in the city's Third Burying Ground. A marker on the front of the U.S. Custom House highlights a separate case in which an escaped slave won his freedom in 1850 through the legal efforts of Augustus Brandegee and the custom collector, John Mather. When asked if he wanted to be free, the man replied, "Free!" The U.S. Customs House is on the National Register of Historic Places and open to the public under the direction of the New London Maritime Society.

Vernett Lee House

Norwich

Melissa Syphrett

See the Underground Railroad overview.

Venture Smith's Grave

East Haddam

Justine Cancryn

First Church Cemetery. The cemetery, located next to the First Church, contains the graves of Venture Smith (1729-1805) and several members of his family. Smith was captured as a child in Africa and brought to Connecticut, where he was sold as a slave. He dictated a pamphlet about his experiences that can be read in the book Five Black Lives. Despite being a slave, Smith was able to work at other jobs so that he earned money to buy his freedom and that of his wife and children. One of his sons served in the American Revolution. His wife is buried next to him, and nearby is the grave of another son, Solomon, who served in the War of 1812. Venture's granddaughter, who died in 1902, is here as well. These stones are located near the wall that is next to the church, about halfway back to Route 151.

James Pharmacy

Old Saybrook

Mary Ponessa

Anna Louise James (1886-1977), licensed in Connecticut as a pharmacist in 1911, operated her pharmacy from that year until 1967, when she retired. James was the first African American woman, and one of the first women, to become a pharmacist in the state. She was also among the first women who registered to vote when women's suffrage was passed in 1920. In 1974, the Old Saybrook Veterans of Foreign Wars gave James its Citizen of the Year award. This site is also the birthplace of James' niece, Harlem Renaissance writer Ann Petry (born 1908), whose most famous work was the novel The Street. This building is on the National Register of Historic Places and is privately owned and not open to the public.

Ship Charles W. Morgan

Mystic Seaport

Tora Sterregaard

Among the displays at Mystic Seaport, renowned for its maritime village and working craftspeople, is the ship Charles W. Morgan, last of the nineteenth-century wooden whaling vessels. Connected with this ship are information and displays noting the role of Connecticut's African Americans in the state's important maritime industries . Studies have shown that in addition to African Americans, Native Americans and other diverse groups made 50 percent of whaling crews in the 1840s. The Charles W. Morgan is a National Historic Landmark, and Mystic Seaport is open to the public.

Isaac C. Glasko

Griswold

Tamora Syphrett

Isaac Glasko, a man of mixed Native American and African American heritage, purchased land in 1806 and established a blacksmith shop in what is now the center of Glasgo. He harnessed waterpower to a triphammer and produced farming and carpentry tools. When the whaling industry was at its height, Glasko specialized in whaling implements, for which he held several patents. His harpoons, lances, spades, and mining knives were well known in ports of New England. Glasko's daughter, Eliza, attended the Prudence Crandall School in Canterbury in the 1833-1834 period. His house still stands, although it has been considerably altered. The graves of Isaac Glasko and his wife are in a nearby but not easily accessible cemetery.

Lyman Trumbull

Colchester

Stephanie Cyr

Lyman Trumbull, a grandson of Benjamin Trumbull, was born and reared in this house, which is still on its original site. Later a United States senator from Illinois, Lyman Trumbull was one of the founders of the Republican Party and in 1865 helped author the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution that ended slavery in the nation. The house is included in the Colchester Village National Register Historic District.

Thomas Taylor Grave

Putnam

Iris Middleton

Grove Street Cemetery. A simple rectangular marble gravestone marks the resting place of Thomas L. Taylor, an African American sailor who served with the U.S. Navy on the Union's ironclad ship U.S.S. Monitor when it fought the Confederate ironclad Merrimac, during the Civil War. Taylor is recorded as being the last survivor of that famous battle. He died on March 7, 1932 at age 84.

Jail Hill

Norwich

Diane Daniels

In the 1830s a new county jail was built in Norwich between Cedar and Fountain Streets north of the business district, an event which made the area less appealing to wealthier families. Because of the lower property values and proximity to business and employment, a number of African Americans families built houses in what became Jail Hill. Among these families were the Williamses, Harrises, Spelmans, and Smiths. Members of these families were active in the antislavery movement in Connecticut, and after the Civil War they provided teachers in the North as well as the South. Several daughters from these families attended Prudence Crandall's school in Canterbury. The Underground Railroad was active in Norwich, although there is little information available on how Jail Hill residents worked in this endeavor. One escaped slave who resided here was James L. Smith, who wrote an autobiography in 1881 (see Five Black Lives). Two of Smith's daughters graduated from Norwich Free Academy and were teachers in Washington D.C. The black community remained in the Jail Hill area into the early 1900s.

Little Colored Schoolhouse

Colchester

Betty Falco, Cathy Russi, Martha Paty

During 1803-1804, the "Old District School House for Colored Children" was established behind the Congregational Church near Colchester's town green, predating any other attempt in Connecticut to provide educational opportunities specifically for African American youth. Although racially segregated in that white children attended a district school inside Bacon Academy, the African American school was nonetheless famous throughout the state for the uniqueness of its mission. It attracted students from outside the bounds of Colchester. One of its graduates was Amos Beman, who was later associated with Hartford's Talcott Street Congregational Church and New Haven's Temple Street Congregational Church, both of which are included on the Freedom Trail. The school closed in 1848 as its students found acceptance at Bacon Academy and other local schools. While no longer extant, the school is depicted in the sketch of Colchester's green in John Warner Barber's Connecticut Historical Collections (1835).

Stephan Peck House

Old Lyme

Marilyn Weaver

See the Underground Railroad overview.

Hempstead Historic District

New London

Sheila Yee Littlejohn

Located in the center of New London and surrounding the seventeenth-century Joshua Hempstead House, the Hempstead Historic District includes houses that were purchased by free African Americans in the 1840s. These properties were sold by Hempstead descendants, who were abolitionists, to Savillion Haley, who believed that African Americans deserved adequate housing as well as whites. African Americans of colonial New London had already lived in this area, and with these new purchases and later home building by African Americans, organizations important to the community's interests developed. One of these is Shiloh Baptist Church, which is now located on Garvin Street, named for early twentieth-century African American leader Albert Garvin. The District is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Prudence Crandall House

Canterbury

Rebecca Sipple

This imposing late Georgian-style house was purchased by Prudence Crandall in 1831 to be a private academy for local young women and men. When she admitted Sarah Harris, an African American student, Crandall found that parents of white students objected. In April 1833, she opened her house as a boarding school for young African American women, an action which led to harassment by neighbors, passage of a state law against her work, and her being jailed for one night. Through two court trials and an appeal to the state's Supreme Court of Errors, Crandall continued to operate her school. Only after a violent attack on the house on the night of September 9, 1834, did she agree to close the school and send her students home. In the United States during the years leading up to the Civil War, the Crandall incident was one of many that helped solidify attitudes against slavery. However, Crandall's effort to provide integrated and equal education in this house was a rarity for the times. In 1995, Prudence Crandall was designated as Connecticut's State Heroine. The Crandall House, a National Historic Landmark, is a museum open to the public.

Fort Griswold

Groton

Jacqueline Owens, Janice Trolin

Fort Griswold is one of the few locations in Connecticut where a Revolutionary War battle took place. The American defenders, greatly outnumbered, were local militia for the most part and included two African Americans: Jordan Freeman and Lambert Latham. During the battle, Freeman helped spear a British officer, an incident depicted on a marker inside the fort. Freeman was later killed in the fighting. When the Americans surrendered, the British began to massacre the unarmed defenders. Before the British officers could halt their troops, Latham and a number of other Americans had died. Fort Griswold is on the National Register of Historic Places and open to the public.

Lantern Block

Tora Sterregaard

The North Star and lantern are the key elements of the logo of the Connecticut Freedom Trail.