City: Canterbury, CT

Category: Tours & Attractions

Telephone: (860) 546-7800

Address: 1 S. Canterbury Rd.

Description: Connecticut’s official state heroine, Prudence Crandall, was a schoolteacher who took a stand for racial equality when she admitted a girl named Sarah Harris into her private academy. When some local residents yanked their children out, she admitted more African-American girls as boarding students. A law was passed, then struck down, but meanwhile a mob attacked the academy. Today this historic 1805 house includes period rooms to tour, changing exhibits, and a gift shop. Ninety-five percent of this National Historic Landmark had been unaltered since Crandall took her stand here. The town green here is a National Historic District, with 32 architecturally or historically significant buildings. Stop at the First Parsonage, the oldest of them, where Connecticut’s disgraceful native son Benedict Arnold was a student as a lad.