Mystic Sites Used For Abolitionist Documentary

By Elizabeth Yerkes
Mystic River Press Writer

MYSTIC – The Denison Homestead on Pequotsepos Road and the Mystic Whaler have been many things, but not until recently had they been film sets.

A partnership among Docere Palace Studios, Connecticut Public Television (CPTV), Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and others brought a cast and crew to town to film "Frederick Douglass, Pathway to Freedom," a documentary about the life of the best known African American abolitionist, journalist, escaped slave and public servant.

Set designers Susan Byrnes and Lisa Kliener (sp) bustled about the circa. 1830 parlor of the centuries-old Denison Homestead last week, hanging muslin curtains, tacking down a hand-hooked rug and shifting tables again and again.

And again.

"This one was too small," said Kleiner, pointing to a highly polished, drop-leaf table.

"The young Frederick has to be able to fit under it. You see, Frederick had expressed an interest in reading and was just being taught by the mistress, when the master of the house storms in, furious, and grabs the newspaper out of her hand and throws it into the fire," said Kleiner.

Kleiner worked in the 1970s as curator for Gracie Mansion, New York City's official mayoral residence. For this film she researched clothing, furniture and architecture of the 1830s.

"It's really a time that's glossed over," said Kleiner, "everyone studies the Colonial and Revolutionary periods then fast forwards to the Industrial Revolution. But it's an interesting and important part of our history, and not just because of people such as Frederick Douglass."

Denison Society President Jean Evans said film producers rented the house, barn and outbuilding for the week.

"We really need the money for our restoration and are glad to help out," she said. The Denison Society faces an expensive restoration of its 1700s house this year.

The Homestead is the film's middleclass Maryland home, where the young Douglass, played by 13-yearold Kendall Jones of Hamden is put to work.

Douglass was born a slave in 1818 Maryland to a black mother and white father. Serving as a houseboy in the 1830s, Douglass witnessed brutality and domestic violence, and envisioned a better life for himself.

Teaching himself to read and write, Douglass eventually married, escaped slavery, wrote for newspapers, became an abolitionist and served in (New York?) state government.

Twenty years after Lincoln had emancipated slaves, Douglass delivered "The Color Line in America", a speech that praised the spirit of the Constitution and Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, yet clarified that pernicious lynch-laws and racial prejudice persisted. A hundred years later, the Civil Rights movement confronted the same prejudices in areas where Jim Crow laws malingered.

The television documentary is part of the "Young American Heroes" series. Creators aimed the content and approach at middleschool aged viewers.

"We tell real stories about young people from the past using primary documents and diaries to show ordinary kids doing extraordinary things during seminal moments in American history," said director Chris Campbell.

Also planned in the CPTV series are "Mohawk Princess, The Eunice Williams Story (1704)", "Night Rider, Sybil Ludington (1777)", "Westward Ho! The John Sager Story (1844)," and "Soldier Boy, The Elisha Stockwell Story (1861)."

The Frederick Douglass documentary is slated to air on CPTV in February 2009, Black History Month. The Denison Homestead is open to the public beginning May 30. For more information call (860) 536-9248.

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