Winter has come
- Alisa Kline
- Nov 1, 2024
- 4 min read
The supporters of Noyes Academy had no idea what awaited them. They thought they were winning. They had gotten the proprietors’ votes to allow Black students to enroll in the new school. The town mustered only 80 out of a possible 300 votes to oppose the plan. They felt they were sitting pretty. So, they began preparing for their bright, new future
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“Canaan, Oct. 28, 1834. Mr. Currier has returned from Boston. He brings intelligence that [prominent abolitionist] David L. Child, Esq., will come on in about six weeks and take charge of the school.
The receipt of this interesting news affected each party in a different manner. There was a joyous rubbing of hands among our friends. Kimball had to holler long and loud. Old Dr. Tilton smiled all over. He has declared that the only epitaph he desires upon his tombstone is that he was ‘The Slaves’ Friend.’ Col. Isaac Towle gave a grunt of satisfaction. You know, he is a very positive man. His ‘I will’ and ‘I won’t’ settles all controversy with him.
And this is how Wallace brings those men to life. The joyous rubbing of hands. Kimball hollering long and loud. Wallace wasn’t in Canaan in October of 1834. So is this vibrant writing from a letter his brother James wrote to him? His brother was also a wonderful writer. Or did Wallace gather together diary entries and recollections and then present them as though he were present?
I’m not able to answer this, but I am pretty certain Wallace allowed himself some freedom in his writing. I’m starting to think I may allow myself the same thing going forward.
The software that underlies this blog tells me how many people read each story. The one that got the most attention was The Thunderous No! And Gary, when we visited this week, also commented that that post was somehow better than the others. I think it’s because that post concerned a human emotion that everyone can understand. Wallace fell in love. I didn’t have to do much more than I always do. I let Wallace’s words tell his story. But the story was so universal readers were able to follow the emotional arc without any help. We all know what falling in love feels like.
When I read Wallace’s account of Canaan’s early years, the people he wrote about seemed so alive because Wallace’s writing brought them to life for me. I wanted to know more about them and began trying to understand the world they lived in and the decisions they had to make. The more I knew and the more I read, the more they came alive in my imagination.
I thought that by supplying readers with context alongside Wallace’s writing, the magic that combination did for me would work for everyone. I don't think I hit that mark. In fact, I think this was saved from being the most boring blog of all time when Gary agreed to let me use his images. Through those images, the people Wallace wrote about come alive. They stare back at us from Gary's work. The images made the people Wallace wrote about real in a way my writing didn't.
I want to do more to bring these people to life. I want to do what Gary does. What Wallace did. Wallace didn’t hear George Kimball yell, but the immediacy of his writing brings Kimball to life if just for a moment. I have been scrupulous in not going beyond the bounds of what Wallace wrote or what I can document through research. And while I am always on safe ground, I’m not bringing enough of the story to life.
Going forward, in addition to Wallace’s words and my research, I want to add my understanding of what it must have felt like to be alive in those moments. It seems weirdly synchronous that this week, Gary showed me the beginning of a new series of winter landscapes. Landscapes without people. And I loved them and had to use them because we are at the point of our Noyes story when the characters Wallace writes about are themselves heading into winter.
The Noyes story will resume with a vengeance in the summer of 1835. But before we come face to face with its dramatic conclusion, I want to start over. I want to go back to Wallace’s writing about Canaan’s early residents and I want to present them as I found them in Wallace, but perhaps more fluidly.
When the blog has once again caught up with 1834, it will resume the Noyes story where we left it. But first, I want you to meet not just the Noyes protagonists, but their parents, aunts, and uncles.
Also a bit of housekeeping. Dr. Tilton got his desire. He died in 1836 at the age of 60. On his tombstone in the Canaan Street cemetery, you can still almost make out the words The Slave’s Friend.
Back to the Winter of Noyes, the school’s opponents licked their wounds and plotted.
Page 266
The hostiles were not pleased,— in fact they were mad — very mad! Trussell, Arvin, old Cobb, and Blaisdell, were hardly peaceable for some days. Their minds were much preoccupied. I am told that persons who approached them upon business matters received only such answers as ‘Abolition scum,’ ‘villains,’ ‘perjured Masons,’ ‘unconstitutional acts,’ &c. […]
As time passed on the excitement increased, until the town was a scene of bitterness, suspicion and hatred mingled in society, and all kindliness seemed to be crowded out. The friends of the school were sanguine and fearless. The opponents were sullen and thoughtful.
Old Mrs. Nichols said: “Mr. Kimball ought to ‘a-been abed and asleep before he got us into such a tarnation scrape.” Col. Daniel Pattee was greatly alarmed and threatened “extermination by fire and sword.” Mr. Wesley P. Burpee, with pugnacious gravity, bobbed his head and declared, “This thing is unconstitutional, Sir! We must put it down. Sir!” Many secret caucuses of these men were held during the winter, and it was not until after long and mature deliberation, that a positive plan was resolved upon.
TO BE CONTINUED…
If you genuinely don't know how the Noyes story goes, the three posts at the bottom of this page will give you most of the deets.
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