By Alec Lurie
Most histories of race in Antebellum Connecticut tend to focus on nationally familiar stories of heroism like the enslaved rebels of La Amistad or Prudence Crandall’s integration of a Connecticut schoolhouse. These moments, while important, have been told and told again, burnishing an image of the state as a socially progressive sanctuary. The issue of slavery, however, was less settled in some parts than one might assume. Few incidents exemplify this better than the explosive experiences of one minister in Redding, Connecticut.
Slavery and Abolition in Fairfield County

Gradual Emancipation Act of 1784 from the Acts and Laws of the State of Connecticut – From Western Connecticut State University Archives. Used through Public Domain.
From the early 1600s through to the middle of the 1800s, thousands of people in Fairfield County were enslaved. They were separated from their families, bought and sold as property, and forced to work for a growing white elite. From the start, Fairfield County had some of the largest populations of enslaved people in Connecticut.
The colony’s earliest enslaved laborers were Indigenous people taken captive during conflicts with white settlers. Most notable was the enslavement of Pequots after the Pequot War in the late 1630s. With family close by and an extensive knowledge of the land, Indigenous people often found ways to escape slavery and return to their home communities. White enslavers, looking to replace these workers, imported more enslaved Black people from Africa and the Caribbean.
Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, enslaved and free Black people in Connecticut fought and advocated for abolition. After the American Revolution, some in Connecticut’s white elite started expressing their discomfort with the immorality of slavery. In 1784, the state of Connecticut passed the Gradual Emancipation Act which freed any enslaved person born after March 1, 1784 at the age of 25.
Despite this, abolition on a national scale became quite unpopular in the state. Many white people in Connecticut preferred that slavery remain a decision for state governments and viewed the activists in the abolition movement as provocateurs leading the country into chaos and war. Many merchants and industrialists whose livelihoods depended on southern cotton and other products of enslaved labor also opposed abolition. Ultimately, a mix of racist beliefs, political ideology, and economic concerns made Connecticut generally unfriendly to abolition, even as it slowly abolished slavery within its own borders.
Nathaniel Colver Comes to Georgetown

Reverend Nathaniel Colver from Memoir of Rev. Nathaniel Colver, D.D., with lectures, plans of sermons, etc. by Justin Almerin Smith – From the Library of Congress. Used through Public Domain.
In the mid-1830s, Christian religious experimentation was at a fever pitch during the Second Great Awakening. Traveling preachers roamed the country looking for crowds to convert. Often attendees of evangelical revivals were simply there to taste the newest flavor of Christianity. But while these preachers were clerics, they were also entertainers. Their sermons came loaded with provocative new visions for American life and often overlapped with growing reform movements.
In November 1838, a Baptist preacher named Nathaniel Colver arrived in the Georgetown area of Redding, Connecticut. Reverend Colver was a Vermont native and an ardent supporter of the abolitionist movement. He was quite aware of the tensions coming to a boil across the United States. It is unlikely, however, that he expected the reception he received in Redding.
Just days prior, Colver had felt the fury of angry parishioners in Danbury who threw rocks, hurled insults, and even burned a likeness of the minister in effigy. But Redding was prepared to go much further. By December, there was no mistaking what some of Southwestern Connecticut thought of Nathaniel Colver and his abolitionist ideas.
Explosive Sermons
Things got off to a bad start. On November 26th, Reverend Colver preached, as expected, on the topic of slavery. He was interrupted several times by shouts from the pews, but otherwise, the service was able to proceed. On the 27th, Colver continued his assault on slavery. And once again, he was jeered and insulted.
But on the 28th, things took an ugly turn. The evening before, some unknown person or group of people snuck inside the Baptist Meeting House. They pried up the floorboards at the base of the altar and laid down a keg of gunpowder. At about 2AM on November 28, 1838, the Redding Baptist Meeting House exploded. The pulpit was blown apart. Windows shattered. Walls collapsed. Neighboring houses shook. Thankfully no one was hurt. But in a flash, the Baptist Meeting House was no more.
What could Nathaniel Colver have said to make Redding erupt? Though reports differ on Colver’s words, it seems that the minister spoke of enslavers in the highest offices of the federal government fathering children with enslaved women and subsequently selling them as chattel. Parishioners charged that Colver had made these claims about then-Vice President Richard M. Johnson. Colver denied it, insinuating that he was instead referencing former President and Founding Father Thomas Jefferson. Whatever was said is in many ways immaterial—both Jefferson and Johnson fathered children with women whom they enslaved. Some in Redding, however, could not ignore the allegations and insults to the character of Vice President Johnson.
The Aftermath of the Bombing

Reporting on the Meeting House’s explosion printed in The Daily Courant, December 4, 1838 – From ProQuest. Used through Public Domain.
Newspapers quickly reported on the explosion. While most papers condemned the way in which the people of Redding made their voices heard, the church’s obliteration was considered secondary to the greater crime committed by Nathaniel Colver. One writer for The Hartford Times, summed up the incident, writing, “Such are the fruits of abolitionism… Their tirades and denunciations are destitute of reason and enlightened argument, their object and purport is, not to promote truth, virtue, humanity, or the principles of civil liberty and freedom, but like this Culver, to make men hate one another.” A writer for The Connecticut Courant, meanwhile, joked that the church’s parishioners were “determined to abolish the walls which had echoed this libel.”
No one was ever charged for this act of terrorism. While newspapers were often quick to capitalize on dramatic acts of violence and encourage the community to apprehend the perpetrators, it would appear as though most Connecticut publications were content to watch things explode from afar.
Nathaniel Colver quickly left town, but the abolition debate was far from over. Colver went on to become the first minister of Boston’s integrated Tremont Temple and later served in the 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee to protect freedom seekers on the Underground Railroad. In Connecticut, anti-slavery societies continued to operate around the state while others made their pro-slavery views known.
Missing in the Story
But notably absent from the newspaper coverage of this story of explosive politics are the voices of Redding’s Black community. At the time of the Baptist Church explosion, there were between 55 and 70 free Black people living in Redding, roughly 3.7% percent of the town’s population. Perhaps some of these individuals were in the pews that day when Colver ignited Redding’s anger.
Even though Connecticut began gradual emancipation in 1784, people were still legally enslaved in the state until 1848. The conventional narrative of North and South often veils a reality in which the individuals in a community are rarely in total agreement with one another and certain perspectives of a historical event are prioritized over others. The bombing of Redding’s Baptist Meeting House provides a glimpse of the various conversations, arguments, opinions, and conflicts about slavery swirling in one community before the Civil War.
Alec Lurie is the Research Project Lead for the Fairfield Slavery Project, as well as a PhD student at Stony Brook University.