Found Myself in a Rabbit-Hole of Research After Finding a 2007 Children's Book with Poems by @ProfessorEA and Marilyn Nelson at Possible Futures

Dr. Alfred Tatum advised me once, "Don't be ahistorical." I was preparing work on my dissertation with 8 African-born male refugee youth from Liberia, Sudan, and Somalia and their in- and out-of school literacy practices. As a protege, his influence has been with me ever since. I also saw his influence throughout the brilliant work of Dr. Gholdy Muhammads thinking in Cultivated Genius. Inspired by them both, I realize the importance of framing culturally and historically responsive literacy in all the work I do...which is why reading more about Prudence Crandall, an inspiration left 149 years ago, had me intrigued.

A few week's ago, while picking up copies of Torrey Maldonado's Hands at Possible Futures in New Haven, Connecticut, I purchased a copy of Miss Crandall's School for Young Ladies & Little Misses of Color, which Lauren Anderson had on display. I've come across Prudence Crandall in readings over the years, and more recently, Chitunga asked if there was any relation. I knew the Crandalls had U.S. origin through Elder John, founder of Westerly, Rhode Island in 1661, but not until finding Elizabeth Alexander and Marilyn Nelson's poetry book with pictures by Floyd Cooper did I jump into more  lineage work. I wish I could do this for a living (or am I?)

Long story short, I spent a few days reading more about Prudence Crandall (1803-1890), her history in Canterbury, Connecticut, and the school she founded to educate freed women from forced, slaved migration backgrounds - an act resulting in racial violence against the school and her eventual departure to Kansas, where she continued to speak on equality, equity, and justice. Her younger brother Reuben was a doctor who labored, too, for the rights of emancipated individuals. In fact, Francis Scott Key, a slave owner and colonialist, was the prosector who went after him in D.C. to fight his stance of educating all Americans.

Francis Scott Key lost the trial. Yes,  the same individual who wrote the Star-Spangled Banner (too much here to develop for a single blog post).

Needless to say, the researcher in me hasn't been able to stop, and in the flaps of Miss Crandall's School I began tracing family lineages of both Prudence Crandall and my own last name. Prudence's line of Crandalls arrived from John Elder's son Joseph (1661-1737), whereas my Crandall line can be traced all the way through John (1649 - 1704), the eldest boy. Prudence Crandall was 7 generations down, whereas I am 11away, with bloodlines arriving from two Crandall sources (cousins) who married in 1786 and settled in Chenango County. Prudence was cousin to the same Crandalls who would eventually spread Crandall-ness to Sherburne, New York. Who knew?

I've only begun to unravel the connections and am sort of like, "Drat. Distracted again," as I didn't anticipate using Ancestry.com and a series of other digital spaces to map out as much as I did...especially, making the Waverly, Rhode Island, connection. Chitunga and I have been drawn to Providence and Newport over the years, but never had a reason to stop in Westerly, Rhode Island. I am now interested in visiting there, as well as Westerleigh, Gloucester, England where Elder John was from. 

I'm also interested in learning more about the lineages of Henrietta Bolt, Elizabeth Douglas Bustkill, M.E. Carter, Jerusha Congsdon, Mariah Davis, Theodora Degrass, Amy Jenner, Polly Freeman, Eliza Glass, Ann Eliza and Sarah Lloyd Hammond, Mary and Sarah Harris, Elizabeth Henly, J.K. Johns, Harriet Lanson, Ann Peterson, Maria Robinson, Elizabeth N. Smith, Catherine Ann Weldon, Ann Elizabeth Wilder, Julia Williams, and Emilia Wilson - the young women who attended Ms. Crandall's school. 

As an original colony with access to the sea, whaling and the barbaric slave trade are historically documented. I'm now  interested in the stances taken by Reuben and Prudence during their years, as well as the details that moved Crandalls all over the United States, including Chenango County in New York. 

I might be reaching a bit, but my lil' sister (who is most Crandall in my family) takes the features of my dad, aunt, and uncle...as do my cousin Mike and Pat). Interesting to learn, too, that Lucille Ball, Garrison Keillor, Katharine Hepburn, and President Glover Cleveland's wife, Frances Folsom Cleveland, also have bloodlines traceable to Elder John. 

For me, I knew Crandalls from Sherburne, New York (grandparents, aunt, uncle, and dad): Milford ended up in Amagansett, Bobbie in Louisville, then Northern California, and Morris (Butch) in Clay, New York. As I think about the dispersal of my father's siblings, I can easily see how quickly heritage bifurcates to new places and different spaces. 

There's so much more work needing to be one. But today, I need to get back to work.