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"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
Lucian Burleigh
1817-1884
Lucian Burleigh had a long and varied career in reform movements of all kinds, including Abolition, peace, non-resistance, and most notably Temperance. He became a Baptist minister, and was the pastor at Packerville, the same church that had hosted Prudence Crandall and her students during the time when they were unwelcome in any other church in Windham County. He did much to keep the memory of the school alive. His wife, Elizabeth Morse Child (1813-1889), affectionately known as Betsey, was a distant cousin of David Lee Child, thereby connecting the Burleigh family to the Child family, and one of the most active women in the Abolitionist movement, Lydia Maria Child. At least two of Lucian and Betsey's daughters attended Plainfield Academy and went into teaching careers.
“REV. LUCIAN BURLEIGH 1817-1884. Son of Rinaldo Burleigh and brother-in-law of the late Deacon Abel Child. From daguerreotype owned by Miss Agnes Burleigh Allen, Plainfield, great-grandniece.” in Clarence Winthrop Bowen, The History of Woodstock Connecticut. Norwood, Massachusetts: The Plimpton Press, 1926, p. 377
Publications and Notices
1840
unpublished letter to Maria Weston Chapman
"Lucian Burleigh who is connected with the Connecticut Literary Institute at Suffield, Ct., wants to secure newspapers for a reading room. He has heard from brother [Oliver] Johnson that the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society has sent out 50 copies of the Liberator gratuitously. Lucian Burleigh would also be glad to see copies of the Non-Resistant in the school's reading room" from online record of the Boston Public Library
1869
Ordained as a Deacon in the Packerville Baptist Church (Crandall's old church) in June, 1865
Ordination
1865
unpublished letter to Maria Weston Chapman
"Lucian Burleigh who is connected with the Connecticut Literary Institute at Suffield, Ct., wants to secure newspapers for a reading room. He has heard from brother [Oliver] Johnson that the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society has sent out 50 copies of the Liberator gratuitously. Lucian Burleigh would also be glad to see copies of the Non-Resistant in the school's reading room" from online record of the Boston Public Library
ca. 1878
Commemorative poem about Rev. Levi Kneeland (1803-1834(, the Baptist preacher who was the first pastor of Packersville Baptist Church, and Prudence Crandall's minister.
“Some still survive who yet remember well
What earnest words he spoke, how sweet his life,
How prayerful was the spirit that he bore,
What love for souls, what zeal for Christ he felt.
Who of all those that ever heard his words
Can e’er forget the holy zeal he showed,
The blessed unction that he ever bore,
God’s witness evident on face and mood,
Heaven’s high approval of his honest work”
(in Ellen D. Larned, History of Windham County Connecticut, 1760-1880, v. 2, p. 416; see also my paper on Levi Kneeland, ““Be Ashamed of Nothing But Sin”: Prudence Crandall, Levi Kneeland, and Connecticut Baptists.” American Baptist Quarterly, 34:3-4 (Fall-Winter 2015): 324-342.