Welcome to your free bi-weekly newsletter from Connecticut Explored with the latest stories, the newest Grating the Nutmeg podcast, programs and exhibitions from our partners to see/watch this month, and more! In this issue, we bring you the story behind the creation of the New London Black Heritage Trail, a new CT history podcast you might enjoy, and GTN podcast on the fascinating Chinese Educational Mission.
Game Changer: The New London Black Heritage Trail
Did you know Sarah Harris Fayerweather, the first Black student at Prudence Crandall’s School in Canterbury, was active in the education, abolition, and civil rights movements in New London? Did you know ten years after his self-emancipation from slavery, Frederick Douglass gave a series of four lectures in New London at Dart’s Hall?
The New London Black Heritage Trail brings this history to life, commemorating unsung activists alongside well-known figures. Each of the 16 sites on the Heritage Trail is marked by a bronze plaque featuring a facet of the history of New London’s Black community along with audio narrations and some video accessed via QR codes.
The Winter issue featured an article co-authored by two citizen-historians who were instrumental in creating The New London Black Heritage Trail: City Councilman Curtis K. Goodwin and historical researcher Tom Schuch.
The Trail owes its existence to two serendipitous incidents: the accidental discovery in 2018 of the Ichabod Pease story by Schuch and encouragement from another New London historian, Nicole Thomas, to her friend Curtis K. Goodwin to attend an upcoming local lecture about Mr. Pease in summer 2019.
Who was Ichabod Pease? In 1837, fifty years following his emancipation from slavery, Pease opened a school for Black children. He was 89 years old at the time. Goodwin and Schuch were shocked at how little recognition this story had received. They write, “Here was what appeared to be a remarkable story of courage, community, and resilience in the face of bigotry and oppression, one that had occurred at a critical moment in the nation’s history and yet it was virtually unknown in New London.” The need to tell Pease’s story and to uncover even more stories of “Black strength, resilience, and accomplishment” inspired the year-long effort to establish The New London Black Heritage Trail.
Read the full story of how this “Game-Changing” Trail was created.
Explore the New London Black Heritage Trail and learn more about Ichabod Pease.
Mike Allen’s Amazing Tales from On and Off the Beaten Path
Mike Allen has that radio voice. The kind that makes you want to listen. That lets you know you’re in the hands of a real storyteller.
That’s hardly surprising for someone who’s recently retired after a long career in broadcasting and other forms of communication. Today he’s using that voice and experience to showcase Connecticut history in a new medium. His weekly Amazing Tales podcast features Connecticut-centered stories that are meant to illuminate interesting but sometimes overlooked corners of state and local history.
Allen starts with what he thinks sounds like an intriguing or little-known incident, person, or event originating in a Connecticut town. He records interviews with an expert or experts on the topic, then adds research of his own to round out the short pieces, which usually run about 15-30 minutes. His subjects have ranged from P.T. Barnum and Mark Twain to the Hartford Circus Fire, the Rochambeau Trail, and Danbury’s Sandemanian religious sect. The format intersperses quotes from experts he’s interviewed with Allen’s engaging narration.
“I’ve always felt in my bones that people like history,” he says. “It’s storytelling. People love good stories that bring history to life. That’s the kind of history that people like and want to listen to.” Amazing Tales From Off and On Connecticut’s Beaten Path debuted on Podbean in September 2021.
Amazing Tales From Off and On Connecticut’s Beaten Path appears weekly on https://AmazingTalesCT.Podbean.com. It’s also available on Spotify, Amazon, Apple I-Tunes, and Google.
Read the rest of this story with your print subscription (CTExplored.org/Shop).
Or, subscribe now to CTExplored/Inbox PREMIUM for to read full texts of stories online only, just $30/year.
The Latest from Grating the Nutmeg
157. Journeys: Boys of the Chinese Educational Mission
Journeys 旅途: Boys of the Chinese Educational Mission is on view at the Connecticut Historical Society (CHS) through July 2023. This exhibition honors the 150th anniversary of the Chinese Educational Mission (CEM), a cultural and educational exchange program from 1872 – 1881. Headquartered in Hartford, the CEM enabled 120 Chinese boys, most of whom were barely teenagers, to study in New England with the goal of modernizing China by educating its future leaders abroad. It is a story of hopes, dreams, sacrifice, and the life-changing experience of international exchange.
In this episode of Grating the Nutmeg, Museum Educator Natalie Belanger talks to Karen Li Miller and Henry Qu about their work on Journeys. The CEM collection at the CHS was a well-known resource, but contained Chinese-language materials that had never been translated....until Henry Qu, himself an international student, made an unexpected stop at CHS on his way from New Jersey to Massachusetts. Three years later, Henry's detour resulted in a fresh telling of the Mission's story, using the boys' newly-translated first-person accounts of their experience in Connecticut. What was it like to be uprooted as a teenager to live in a place that your language didn't even have a word for? What did these teens in the 1870s have in common with teenagers today? And what motivated Henry Qu to make that serendipitous stop at CHS? Listen to find out!
The Exhibition Journeys: Boys of the Chinese Educational Mission will be on view at the Connecticut Historical Society through July, or you can take a 3D tour online at chs.org. Keep an eye on upcoming programming related to this topic at the CHS in spring of 2023!
Support CT History podcast Grating the Nutmeg
We’re putting all the Grating the Nutmeg episodes into the Connecticut Digital Archive to preserve them for posterity. Help us with a donation if you can.
Programs and Exhibitions to Enjoy This Month
One-Woman Show About Harriet Tubman
The Lyman Allyn Art Museum invites the public to attend a live performance of Harriet Tubman: A Woman with a Railroad by New London resident Adwoa Bandele-Asante on Saturday, Feb. 4 at 1 p.m. This program, part of the Museum’s Free First Saturday programming, is free and open to all.
Lyman Allyn Art Museum, 625 Williams St, New London.
‘My Story, Our Future’ Exhibit to Celebrate South Asian American Youth Heritage
The Greenwich Historical Society presents a student-curated exhibit highlighting personal family stories and artifacts gathered as part of the My Story, Our Future project. A collaborative initiative organized by the India Cultural Center and the Asia and Asian American Studies Institute at UConn, the project aims to collect and contribute stories about South Asian American youth identity in Connecticut in support of the state’s mandated K-12 Asian American/Pacific Islander curriculum. Student participants spent the fall of 2022 learning to interview family members on their experiences as immigrants to North America from South Asia. The exhibit will be on view in the Historical Society Museum Lobby from February 13-26.
Greenwich Historical Society, 47 Strickland Road, Cos Cob.
Final Week of The Lure of the Garden: The Enduring Desire to Work & Shape the Land at the Pequot Library
Gardening is a universal activity that unites people around the world. Whether for pleasure or practicality, humanity’s relationship with the soil has sustained since we quite literally planted roots as a species more than 6,000 years ago. The Lure of the Garden at the Pequot Library invites visitors to explore the enduring desire to shape and cultivate the land, from the propagation of the “three sisters” — corn, beans, and squash — by Native Americans, to garden clubs, war-era Victory Gardens, and community and pollinator gardens. The exhibition will be on view in the Pequot Library’s Perkin Gallery through February 5, 2023.
Pequot Library, 720 Pequot Avenue, Southport.
Polaroid Portraits Exhibition
“Instants: Linda Lindroth’s Polaroid Portraits,” is on view at the New Haven Museum. In the 1980s and 1990s, working with a rare Polaroid 20 x 24 camera, Linda Lindroth captured figures in visual art, education, architecture, and theatrical performance who contributed to the city of New Haven. As an art form, the Polaroid photographs differ from anything else in the New Haven Museum collection. But in terms of style, subject, and artistry, there are many parallels between the Polaroids and other works in NHM’s collection, so each Lindroth portrait is paired with an analogous work in the NHM Online Collection that visitors can access by QR code.
New Haven Museum, 114 Whitney Avenue, New Haven.
Editor’s Picks
Want to explore the topics featured in this edition of the e-Newsletter? Check out these stories from back issues.
"Frederick Douglass in New London," Connecticut Explored, Summer 2022.
"Site Lines: Connecticut's Freedom Trail," Connecticut Explored, Winter 2012.
"Chinese Exchange Students in 1880s Connecticut," Connecticut Explored, Summer 2007.
"Wong Kai Kah Comes of Age in Connecticut," Connecticut Explored, Fall 2021.
Help Endow Connecticut Explored through Endow Hartford 21!
Thanks to the vision and leadership of the Zachs Family Foundation and the other matching donors, we have an opportunity like no other to begin that journey. We hope you will join us.
WHY IS ENDOWMENT IMPORTANT?
Organizations need endowments to secure their future. An endowment creates a long-term resource that helps them sustain their missions during periods of revenue fluctuations.
MAKE YOUR ENDOWMENT GIFT
Any gift between $250 to $10,000 to Connecticut Explored will be matched 1:2 by Endow Hartford 21. For example, a gift of $1,000 will yield a $500 match.
STEP UP NOW, HELP GENERATIONS TO COME
The match is available between September 1, 2022 and August 31, 2023 – but its impact will last forever.
CLICK HERE TO DONATE ONLINE TOWARDS OUR ENDOW HARTFORD 21 FUND
If you prefer to send a check towards the endowment, matching funds are still available. Just follow the instructions here. Don’t forget to put “CT Explored” in the memo!
Subscribe to the print magazine and get the full beauty of Connecticut Explored!
The quarterly magazine in print: CTExplored.org/Shop
To Your Inbox
Just enough, not too much. The entire issue bit by bit every two weeks to your inbox or the Substack app: one or two stories from the latest issue, the latest Grating the Nutmeg, and more! Want to read the whole issue at your convenience? Your premium subscription gives you online access to the entire issue!
CTExplored/Inbox Premium To receive new posts and get access to the online magazine, consider becoming a paid subscriber. $30 per year.