About

Bearing Witness: Restoring forgotten history in Madison

Growing up in New England, the stories we hear about slavery in our region tend to focus on abolitionists and the Underground Railroad. At the start of the 2019-2020 school year, Country School 8th Graders and their teachers set out to tell a more complete narrative, one that would restore the history and honor the humanity and contributions of an enslaved individual who lived in and helped build the town of Madison, Connecticut.  

Working with Dennis Culliton co-founder of the Witness Stones Project, they researched the history of enslavement in Madison, scouring 200-year-old primary and secondary source documents found in local archives to learn about Lettuce Bailey, who was owned and later emancipated by Jonathan Todd, minister of the First Congregational Church of East Guilford (now Madison). Through their efforts to research, write about, and install a Witness Stones memorial to commemorate and one enslaved individual, students sought to tell a much larger story on a human scale. Eighth Graders at The Country School have continued to do the project each year since.