Episode 3: Slavery in Connecticut - The Malbone Estate and Old Trinity Church
Release Date: 12/16/2025
Hidden History of New England
In 1833, a quiet schoolteacher in rural Connecticut made a decision that would place her at the center of one of the earliest legal and moral battles over racial equality in American education. Prudence Crandall did not set out to become a symbol. Rooted in Quaker belief and guided by conscience rather than spectacle, she chose to admit a Black student into her academy—and when faced with hostility, she went further, reopening her school exclusively for African American girls. What followed was harassment, legal persecution, and state-sanctioned resistance that exposed how deeply segregation...
info_outlineHidden History of New England
Across New England, thousands of miles of stone walls, chambers, cairns, and mysterious formations dot the landscape—often dismissed as simple remnants of colonial farming. But what if that explanation only tells part of the story? This episode explores the deeper, older possibilities behind New England’s stone structures, examining evidence that some may predate European settlement and reflect Indigenous ceremonial, spiritual, and astronomical knowledge. Drawing on early colonial accounts, Native traditions, archaeological findings, and sites such as Gungywamp, the Upton Stone Chamber,...
info_outlineHidden History of New England
Slavery in New England is often overlooked, but it shaped communities in lasting ways. This episode examines the Malbone estate in colonial Connecticut, the enslaved people who built and sustained it, and the quiet legacy embedded in Old Trinity Church. Through local records and lived histories, it challenges the myth of an innocent North and asks whose stories have been left out of the past.
info_outlineHidden History of New England
In this episode of Hidden History of New England, we confront one of the most tragic and often overlooked events of King Philip’s War: the Massacre at Peskeompskut, also known as the Battle of Turners Falls. On May 19, 1676, a dawn attack on a Native fishing village at the Connecticut River’s Great Falls left hundreds of women, children, and elders dead, shattering a community that had thrived there for generations. This episode explores the broader context of King Philip’s War, Indigenous resistance, and the devastating human cost of colonial expansion. It examines how the massacre...
info_outlineHidden History of New England
Long before the Boston Tea Party, colonists in a small New Hampshire town stood up to British authority over a surprising issue: trees. The Pine Tree Riot of 1772 shows how ordinary people—mill owners and workers—challenged unfair laws, sparked resistance, and helped ignite the fight for independence. A hidden story of defiance, autonomy, and the power of community.
info_outlineSlavery in New England is often overlooked, but it shaped communities in lasting ways. This episode examines the Malbone estate in colonial Connecticut, the enslaved people who built and sustained it, and the quiet legacy embedded in Old Trinity Church. Through local records and lived histories, it challenges the myth of an innocent North and asks whose stories have been left out of the past.