History of Canaan - Chapter XVIII
NOYES ACADEMY.

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power to give a copy of the resolution which amounts to what you desired, I believe.

   It is in evidence that Canaan would not furnish the requisite team, so that cattle were invited from the neighboring towns, some volunteering, others being impressed. It is safe to say that had this same “public sentiment,” out of Canaan, stayed at home, and refrained from intermeddling, the school might have been in successful operation to this day.

   Among the colored people were four youths, whose names deserve record in the story of the school, and some of them have made names that will be illustrious in all future time, when the names and lives of those weak mortals who opposed them, shall only be recorded upon obscure tombstones. These youths were Henry Highland Garnet, Thomas Paul, Thomas S. Sidney and Alexander Crummell.

   Garnet was 19, coal black, and until ten years of age was a slave. His father, by hard toil, had ransomed himself, his wife and children from American slavery. A year before he came to Canaan young Garnet became a Christian and united himself with the Presbyterian Church. He was afflicted with a knee disease which threatened his life. This had been much aggravated on his way through New England by exposure in bad weather on the outside of the stage, the place allotted “all niggers” by “public sentiment.” He reached Canaan exhausted and enfeebled by his hard journey, and with his crutch under his arm, hobbled up to the school, tidings of which had reached his ears; with all his discouragements he flew to the fountain of knowledge opened to him at “Noyes Academy,” where he was distinguished for his modest, exemplary conduct, and won the respect of everybody that knew him. But the human wild beasts set themselves upon his track. He escaped like a startled deer, and lived eminent for his learning, revered and beloved for his sincerity and Christian benevolence, and when he spoke his eloquence filled his audience like a current of electricity. He became a doctor of divinity, and was appointed United States Minister to Liberia, where he spent many years of his life in the discharge of duties for which he was well fitted among his people. He died and was buried in Liberia.

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