New London County CT Archives History - Schools .....School For African American  Children, Colchester 
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Barbara W. Brown buwbrown@comcast.net August 17, 2008, 9:17 am

                                Negro School
     Unfortunately no records of this school have been handed down and 
accordingly little or nothing is actually known about it.  It seems that the 
(Bacon) Academy  building was erected on the site of the old district 
schoolhouse that had stood on the old academy site since about 1720.  This 
building was removed to make room for the academy building and was set up 
behind the church to the west.  Upon the completion of the academy building all 
the scholars of the first district went into the new building, leaving the old 
one vacant.
     At the close of the 18th century there was a large number of slave 
children in Colchester, who, agreeable to a state law, were to be automatically 
emancipated when they reached the age of 21.  It was imperative, therefore, 
that these future citizens should be given at least the rudiments of the 3 R's 
to prepare them, in a way, for their future freedom.  To that end a special 
school for the instruction of these colored children was established and 
maintained in this old schoolhouse back of the church.
     About 1803 a colored man by the name of Prince Saunders was the teacher at 
this school with 30 or 40 scholars.  He further said that while teaching he was 
receiving instruction in the classics from some of the teachers at the 
acedemy.  He finally attended Dartmouth College as an irregular student and 
eventually found his way to Santo Domingo, where he was made ambassador to 
England.  Later he became Attorney General of Santo Domingo, which office he 
held until his death.  Here is a man who might logically be classed with the 
big shots who received their preliminary education at Bacon Academy.  While 
Saunders could not be classed as an academy student, he was, at least, 
instructed by the teachers of the academy, which amounts to the same thing.
     The second teacher was a local colored man named James Quash, who taught 
from at least 1820 to 1840.  The presumption is that Quash was an early pupil 
of Saunders and succeeded him as master when he left.  The records of the First 
School District show that Quash was paid $40. annually for teaching the school 
four months during the winter session.  Outside his teaching, Quash followed 
the trade of stone mason, specializing in foundations, dams, cisterns, etc.  He 
is said to have been a man of good conversation - a man of honor and 
integrity.  He resided on the Norwich Road in the house now owned by Lucius 
Chapman.  He died in 1886 at the age of 92.
     This is practically all that is known about our famous school for colored 
children - famous from the fact that it was the only school of its kind in the 
state, and famous from the fact that it enjoyed something of a nationwide 
reputation.  Israel F. Loomis, in his historical sketch of Bacon Academy, 
published in the Connecticut Quarterly in 1896, recalls a story told by Gen. 
Epaphroditus Champion, a Trustee of Bacon Academy, to the effect that while he 
was serving as congressman in Washington, gentlemen of color would frequently 
approach him and inquire about the school, where Colchester was and how to get 
there.

Additional Comments:
This is taken from an unpublished essay by Dr. Cyrus E. Pendleton, Colchester 
Town Clerk and Town Historian for many years before his death in 1950.

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