William H. Burleigh

William Henry Burleigh was a co-teacher, with his sister Mary, as well as Prudence Crandall and her sister Almira, at the Canterbury Female Academy for Black Women from 1833-1834. There he was subject to prosecution under the Black Law passed by Connecticut, the aim of which was to eradicate higher education for Black women. He also worked as co-editor with his brother Charles C. Burleigh for The Unionist (1833-34). He published poems and remained active in the anti-slavery struggle, but parted ways with the Garrisonian wing of Abolition over the question of political engagement. He became an ardent supporter of the Free Soil and, later, Republican parties.

William Burleigh continued his early editorial work across the antebellum years. He left Connecticut after the Canterbury school closed, editing The Wreath, a literary journal in Schenectady, NY, in late 1834-35. He later moved to Pittsburgh, editing the Christian Witness and Temperance Banner there (1837). He then returned to Connecticut to edit the Christian Banner and The Charter Oak at Hartford in the mid-1840s. His activism in the Temperance Movement culminated in his serving as an agent of the New York State Temperance Society from 1849-1855.