‘Yours for the oppressed’
From Middletown, the Beman family at the center of a possible school name change helped shape the nation’s abolitionist movement
MIDDLETOWN — Middletown’s Beman family were abolitionist contemporaries of Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass and leaders of free African American communities in Connecticut, but their contributions to Connecticut and national history have largely been forgotten in modern historical consciousness.
On Wednesday, the Middletown Board of Education is expected to vote on a name for the city’s new middle school, and at least two of the three choices — Beman Middle School, Beman Douglas Middle School and Mattabesset Middle School — pay homage to the Beman family and their contributions to Connecticut history.
“Children learn about Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, which is wonderful, but they should know that here in Middletown, there were people equally involved in the struggle for freedom against slavery,” said Jesse Nasta, a visiting assistant professor of African American Studies at Wesleyan University.
The Beman family
Historian Jennifer Lee James wrote in a 1997 paper that the Bemans were members of one of the first generations of freed slaves and played a critical role bridging the gap between “their enslaved fathers and their educated and prominent sons. These African Americans laid down a foundation that paved the way
for a generation of leaders.”
Middletown’s Beman family were descended from Caesar Beman, an enslaved person in Colchester. In 1781, Caesar Beman volunteered to fight in place of his master, John Isham, and was subsequently granted his freedom. Instead of taking Isham’s last name, as was the practice for freed slaves at the time, Caesar Beman created his own name based on the words “Be a Man.”
In 1830, Caesar Beman’s son Jehiel, a shoemaker and minister in Colchester, moved his family to Middletown. He became the first regular pastor at the Cross Street AME Zion church and quickly became a cornerstone of the free African American community in Middletown, fighting tirelessly to abolish slavery. Another son, Leverett Beman, was equally involved in the abolitionist movement and is responsible for what is now known as the Beman Triangle.
“The Bemans were in Middletown from 1830 to 1916,” Nasta said. “They were at the forefront for the struggle to end Southern slavery. They were at the forefront of the underground railroad, the fight for the right to vote. They are Middletown’s most prominent and most important abolitionists and proponents for equal rights in the 19th century.”
Jehiel Beman
In 1834, Jehiel Beman founded the Middletown Anti-Slavery society. At the time, anti-slavery movements were controversial, and the first meetings of both white and black abolitionist groups were met with violence, Nasta said. That same year, Jehiel’s second wife Nancy and Leverett ’s wife Clarissa founded one of the first African American women abolitionist movements — the Colored Female AntiSlavery Society of Middletown.
“If the chains were knocked off from our enslaved brethren, and the prejudice against the man of color, what a different atmosphere would pervade our highly favored country,” Jehiel Beman said at the formation of an anti-slavery society in Glastonbury.
The Bemans wrote essays and created petitions to advocate for the end of slavery, and they also took serious risks aiding escaped slaves. The family, in collaboration with white Middletown businessmen Jesse Baldwin and Benjamin Douglas, became conductors on the underground railroad despite the fact that the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act criminalized helping escaped slaves.
“I would inform you that we have had a recent arrival from the land of chains and whips, where the image of the Divine Being is bought and sold. But, thank the good Lord! when he arrived at our office, we, at once, recognized him as a man and a brother. Some twenty summers had passed him in that heaven-cursed land. His conveyance was by the Underground Railroad,” Jehiel Bemanwrote to Frederick Douglas in 1854.
Jehiel Beman signed off on this letter with “yours for the oppressed” and asked that Douglass recommend his stop to escaped slaves searching for freedom.
For the Beman family, abolition meant creating a society where African Americans were afforded the same rights as white citizens — the ability to vote, represent themselves in court and be educated.
“To think, my father faced the cannon’s mouth for this country’s liberty and I and my brother are still bound,” Jehiel Beman wrote after a trip to Washington, D.C., where he saw slavery firsthand.
After that trip, he wrote a piece in the anti-slavery newspaper, The Emancipator, describing what he’d seen.
“But in the fields, to see my sisters toiling, pitchfork and rake in hand, under the scorching rays of the sun, with no covering on the head, and but little on the body — as this was the first scene of the kind I ever saw, my feelings were such as I cannot describe,” he wrote. “I tried to raise my cries to Heaven, but in this I was interrupted, for the flowing tear forced its way down my care-worn cheek, and with the brother that was with me, I remained in silence while the car rolled on, and I could but think of the words of the statesman, ‘I tremble for my country, when I know that God is just.’”
Jehiel Beman died in1858 and did not live long enough to witness the signing of the 13th Amendment or the Emancipation Proclamation.
Amosand Leverett
The legacy of the Beman family also had an impact on Middletown’s urban landscape. The Leverett C. Beman Historic District, colloquially known as the Beman Triangle, was part of a neighborhood once called “The Hill,” where free African Americans settled in the 19th century. The area is what is now behind the Neon Deli on Cross Street.
In 1847, Leverett Beman, Jehiel’s son, bought land on Cross Street, Vine Street and Knowles Avenue from his brother-in-law and then sold lots to other free African Americans. Some historians argue that it was one of the first planned black communities in the nation, but Nasta said it was much more than just a neighborhood.
“This was a symbol of free black independence,” Nasta said. “Free black property ownership. Free black respectability. It was also a claim to citizenship. Not only were they free, they weren’t impoverished, and they weren’t dependent on anyone.”
Just as influential, and perhaps better-known, was Leverett’s brother AmosBeman. Amos tried to enroll at Wesleyan University in 1830, but his admission was blocked by the school’s board of trustees. A Wesleyan student agreed to tutor him, but had to stop after receiving threats from his classmates. Undeterred, Amos Beman enrolled in the Oneida Institute in New York and in 1841 was appointed the pastor of the Temple African American Church in New Haven.
Through his role at the church, he became a leader in both the abolitionist and temperance movements in New England, penning many speeches published in newspapers like The Emancipator and The Bugle.
Amos Beman also was a staunch opponent of the American Colonization Society’s plan to send freed slaves and African Americans back to Africa.
“Why should we leave this land, so dearly brought by the blood, groans and tears of our fathers?” he wrote in response to the American Colonization Society’s movement. “Truly, this is our home, here let us live and here let us die.”
The decision
On Wednesday, the Middletown Board of Education will make a final choice on the new middle school’s name. Two of the three choices nod to the Beman family, and a third references the Wangunk tribe who lived on the banks of the Connecticut River.
Molly Aunger, a city resident who proposed Beman Middle School as a choice, said she was drawn to the family’s history because she felt they were relatively unknown in the city and deserve to be honored.
“I grew up in Middletown. I went to school here, but never did we talk about Middletown during the pre-Civil War days or what was really going on,” she said. “I think they’re really amazing, and I don’t know if at the time they got any accolades.”
For Nasta, naming the school after the family honors their accomplishments, but also gives students someone to admire.
“I think naming a school after them would be a wonderful step in honoring and educating the people of Middletown that our city had it’s own anti-slavery heroes,” he said. “I think the story of the Bemans is a story of having courage of conviction and the courage to fight for righteous even when it was dangerous or unpopular.”