NATURE PHILOSOPHY MUSIC HISTORY FEMINISM
& sometimes puny puns
Jennifer Rycenga's Website
for various and sundry idiosyncrasies, observations, research projects & more
"Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to the mind when it has once seized on it like a lichen on the rock." - Mary Shelly, Frankenstein, ch. XIII


The Unionist, Unified:
Connecticut's
First Abolitionist Newspaper
The Unionist was a short-run newspaper, established by Samuel J. May and Arthur Tappan in 1833, and edited by Charles C. Burleigh and William H. Burleigh from 1833 to 1834. Based in Brooklyn, Connecticut (Windham County) it was intended to be a local voice in support of Abolitionism, Prudence Crandall, and the Canterbury Female Academy for Black Women. It started publication in the summer of 1833, in time for the first trial of Crandall under Connecticut's infamous Black Law. The Unionist was the first Abolitionist newspaper in Connecticut.
​
Unfortunately, at this time no full run of this newspaper has been uncovered. However, there are five complete issues, and numerous reprints of Unionist material from other newspapers of the day. This website will, for the first time, bring together all extant material from The Unionist. This website will also feature an extensive content analysis of The Unionist. All original material here is © Jennifer Rycenga, 2022-2023.
​
1856 Map of Windham County, Connecticut, showing town boundaries. Gerrish, E. P., Eaton, W. C., Osborn, H. C. & Woodford, E. M. (1856) Map of Windham County, Connecticut. [S.l] [Map] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2001620487/.
Basic Facts about The Unionist
The Unionist was a combative, revolutionary paper during the early years of the Immediate Abolitionist movement. While it served an important local purpose in northeastern Connecticut, in full-throated support of the anti-racist and proto-feminist Canterbury Female Academy, it also reported on aligned reform movements in politics, abolition, peace, anti-Masonry, and temperance. Its editors, Charles and William Burleigh, were intimately involved with Prudence Crandall's school, and both went on to long-lasting fame in the struggle to end slavery, as documented elsewhere on this website.
​
The Unionist was a weekly newspaper, published every Thursday. In addition to original material, it carried reprinted material from other newspapers, engaged in lively debate with other local newspaper editors, and ran advertisements and legal notices. The funds for the machinery were provided by Arthur Tappan, in response to a request by Samuel J. May. The latter's account of The Unionist's founding and the calling of its editor can be found here on this website.
​
There is some confusion about both the starting and the end dates of the brief life of The Unionist. Some sources say it had published by the end of July 1833, but by its own numbering, issue 1:1 would have been dated August 1, 1833. The final issues of The Unionist are shrouded in an even deeper mystery. By July of 1834 Charles Burleigh had grown restless in the editorial chair (see the letter of William Lloyd Garrison to Samuel J. May about this). But there is strong evidence that the paper continued to publish through that month. There is one story from the close of the Canterbury Academy, in September of 1834, but there was also a publication that claimed the Unionist had been taken over by a non-abolitionist editor. In the absence of more evidence, for now we cannot be certain if The Unionist in its Abolitionist form was publishing in August and September of 1834. In any case, after September 1834 its function as a mouthpiece for pro-Abolitionist perspectives in northeastern Connecticut had become moot. I have been unable to find any scrap of evidence of the paper's existence from October 1834 forward.
​
There are five extant complete issues of The Unionist, in three storied archives, as listed below:
​
-
August 8, 1833, 1:2 – New-York Historical Society Library
-
September 5, 1833, 1:6 – American Antiquarian Society
-
December 9, 1833, 1:20 – Library of Congress
-
March 13, 1834, 1:32 – New-York Historical Society Library
-
April 10, 1834, 1:36 – Library of Congress
​
Additionally, reprinted articles provide direct content from nineteen additional issues.
6. August 29, 1833, 1:5 content and First Trial Transcript (1:5 content, too)
7. September 12, 1833, 1:7 content
8. October 3, 1833, 1:10 content
9. October 10, 1833, 1:11 content
10. October 17, 1833, 1:12 content
11. October 31, 1833, 1:14 content
12. November 7 or November 14, 1833, 1:15 or 1:16 content
13. December 12, 1833, 1:19 content
14. January 30, 1834, 1:26 content
15. March 6, 1834, 1:31 content
16. March 20, 1834, 1:33 content
17. April 3, 1834, 1:34 content
18. April 17, 1834, 1:37 content
19. June 12, 1834, 1:45 content
20. June 19, 1834, 1:46 content
21. July 10, 1834, 1:49 content
22. July 17, 1834, 1:50 content
23. July 24, 1834, 1:51 content
24. September ??, 1834, 2:7 or 8? content
​
As more issues and/or reprints are found, I will add them to the archive, to better unify The Unionist. However, I will color-code later discoveries for when they were located and entered into this log.
​
​


👉 Have You Found Additional Unionist Content? 😮 😊
I live for those moments. I am convinced that all twenty-first century scholarship is collaborative! I will acknowledge your perspicacity and sleuthing techniques herein. Thank you for looking and sharing!
650-440-0063 for text messages