The royal blue field of the Connecticut state flag flies curiously over a Kansas state historical marker at the west edge of Elk Falls, Kan., along Highway 160. The blue field is emblazoned with a white baroque shield, overlaid with three grapevines. Below the shield a banner displays the motto “He Who Transplanted Sustains.”

Connecticut State Librarian Charles J.

Hoadly further explained in 1889: “The vines symbolize the colony brought over and planted here in the wilderness.

We read in the 80th Psalm: ‘Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: Thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it.’” The subject of the historic marker is Prudence Crandall, one of many immigrants to the new state of Kansas in the 19th century. Just why a Connecticut flag is flying over a Kansas Historical marker is clarified by an additional plaque placed with the flag at the site by the citizens of Connecticut. Her story is one of sacrifice and accomplishment with national significance.

Crandall’s character was fixed early in life by her Quaker faith. Born in Hopkington, R.I., Sept.

3, 1803. She spent her formative years on the farm of her parents, Pardon and Esther (Carpenter) Crandall.

When 17 years of age, her family moved to Canterbury, Conn.

Quakers held that women should have equal educational opportunity, leading her father to enroll her in the New England Friends Boarding School in Providence. There, she was taught arithmetic, Latin and science.

In 1831, she and her sister Almira bought a mansion house on the Canterbury green and opened the Canterbury Female Boarding School.

They initially taught daughters from the town’s wealthiest families. The school immediately acquired a reputation for excellence, equal to that of the foremost schools for young men.

In the fall of 1832, Sarah Harris, the daughter of a free African-American farmer, asked to enroll and was accepted, initiating the first integrated school in the United States.

White parents were scandalized, and removed their daughters from the school. Crandall was forced to close her doors, but only temporarily.

Within months she reopened Miss Crandall’s School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color.

According to the Litchfield Connecticut Enquirer, “This came as an earthquake upon the good people of Canterbury ... The citizens assembled, and sent one committee after another, requesting Miss Crandall to give up the project, but she remained inflexible.”

By the spring of 1833, African-American girls from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Providence and other parts of Connecticut filled her enrollment. Canterbury residents succeeded in bringing legislation into law to outlaw her school.

Called the “Black Law,” out-of-state African-Americans were banned from enrolling in her school.

She was arrested, jailed and released. She withstood legal challenges to the school, while Canterbury businesses shunned Crandall and her students. Doctors refused to treat them, the school well was poisoned and students were pelted with spoiled eggs and feces.

On July 26, 1834, the Supreme Court of Errors (Today’s Connecticut Supreme Court) dismissed all action against Crandall, ruling that her action did not constitute a crime. Twenty-four days later, Crandall was married Aug. 19, 1834, to the Rev. Calvin Philleo, a Baptist minister 16 years her senior, with three children from a previous marriage.

The people of Canterbury stormed the school the night of Sept. 9, 1834, in a final effort to rid themselves of “the little Misses of color” within their venerable village. The mob threatened the students with clubs and iron bars, smashed the doors and windows and rendered the place “uninhabitable.” Shocked at the aggressive act of violence, Crandall closed the school the next day out of concern for the safety of the students and her family.

Although now Mrs. Philleo, Crandall’s name had become so famous, newspapers always referenced their stories with her maiden name. She and her new family left Canterbury, living in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York and Illinois.

After her husband passed away, Crandall followed her widowed brother, Hezekiah, to Elk Falls, Kan., in 1877.

Mercifully, the folks in Connecticut suffered several attacks of conscience. Within a few years of closing the school in Canterbury, the Black Law was repealed. The Connecticut Legislature awarded Prudence (Crandall) Philleo a $400 annual pension in 1886 as an act of reparation for the suffering she had endured. She was given the opportunity to retire in her Canterbury home, but chose to remain in Kansas.

In 1984, the restored school was opened as a museum, designated in 1991 as a National Historic Site. Crandall was recognized by the Connecticut General Assembly as the state’s official heroine in 1995. A bronze statue of Crandall with a young black student was placed in the Connecticut Capitol building in 1996. And, of course, there is the memorial marker and flag accompanying the Kansas Historical Marker at Elk Falls.

In 1885, Professor James H. Canfield of the University of Kansas wrote of Crandall for the Topeka Daily Capital. A portion of a letter written by Crandall was reproduced in the article, in which she spoke fondly of her Kansas home.

“I like Kansas very much. My humble dwelling is situated in one of the most beautiful spots on earth,” Crandall said.

Prudence (Crandall) Philleo passed away at 10:30 a.m. Jan. 23, 1890. Having changed the course of history, she happily transplanted her vine deep into the sod of Kansas on The Way West.

“The Cowboy” Jim Gray can be reached at 220 21st Rd., Geneseo, KS 67444, (785) 531-2058 or kansascowboy@kans.com.