Restore History, Educate, and Honor Humanity
By Jesse Williams in Zip06.com on July 8, 2020
MADISON — After months of research, writing, and conversations, students from The Country School (TCS) have finished up their research on one of Madison’s enslaved residents as part of the Witness Stones Project, with plans to come together and install a marker in front of the First Congregational Church next month. Continue reading.
From The Country School, published April 2020.
Eighth Graders at the School began participating in the Witness Stones Project in the fall of 2019, setting out to tell an untold story about a woman named Lettuce Bailey, who was enslaved in Madison, Connecticut, until she was freed in the late 18th century, first in 1791 and then again in 1793. By recovering and sharing Lettuce’s story and installing a brass Witness Stones memorial in her honor, students also sought to tell a broader, and largely unknown, story about our local community. Continue to the Country School website.
From The Country School website, published April 2020.
By Jesse Williams on Zip06.com on November 20, 2019
MADISON — While slavery has remained a consistent, underlying thread causing harm and affecting communities throughout the country, the realities of what slavery looked like in any given place often remains unexplored, according to Dennis Culliton, a former Guilford teacher who has made it his mission to tell those stories and honor those individuals. Due to the efforts of local students, the story of individuals who lived in slavery in Madison will soon be shared. Continue reading.
Fifth graders in the Renbrook School’s Social Studies, Language Arts, and Arts Class share their work with the Witness Stones Project.
From the Kingswood Oxford School on June 3, 2019
History teacher Katie McCarthy’s Form 5 class addressed our nation’s complicated and painful history of slavery by participating in the Witness Stones Project which “seeks to restore the history and to honor the humanity and contributions of the enslaved individuals who helped build our communities” according to the Noah Webster House website.
Over the course of several weeks, KO students learned of Prut, an enslaved man who was owned by John Whitman, Jr. of 208 North Main Street in West Hartford and who died during the Revolutionary War at Fort Tigennderoda in New York. Very little information exists about Prut, and McCarthy said that the more the students researched the man, the more questions arose about him. Continue reading.
