New Haven Independent

The tellers of the tale were church Pastor Reverend John H. Scott III (upper left in the photo) Dr. Curtis Patton, a retired Yale professor of epidemiology and public health.

The listeners were kids and a congregation gathered at the historic African-American Church to honor a remarkable man with an unusual name: Dr. Cortlandt Van Rensselaer Creed, who became the first African-American to receive a degree from Yale, and the first medical doctor to graduate as well. This weekend was the sesquicentennial of the event.

Take yourself back to New Haven, the story goes, in the 1830s. There is a young man named John Creed, an immigrant to New Haven, probably from the Caribbean island of St. Croix. He is a janitor working at Yale at this time who was very bright and eventually sought admission to Yale College. He waits for the answer, and it doesn’t take long: he is turned down cold.

Twenty or so years go by, during which time John Creed has developed a catering business and married a remarkable woman, Vashti Duplex, the first African-American school teacher in New Haven. They have a bright son, Cortlandt, for whom the father now seeks admission to Yale College.

Although abolitionists are percolating, the college will still not accept blacks. However, the medical department, which at the time is not the same as the college, will. The son, Cortland Van Rensselaer Creed, goes on to distinguish himself by setting his mind on a goal and, against all racial odds, becoming the first African American to be granted any degree byYale when he receives his M.D. in 1857. He goes on to have a career of professional achievement and public service and have many descendents.

So what would skin color mean when, 150 years later — many of those descendents, now both “white” and “black” and various shades in between through marriage, yet who are profoundly related through descent from the same remarkable relative — meet for the first time?

Many of those descendents in multi-generational clusters, including (left to right in photo) Janet, Patricia, and Melissa Langella, also attended the unveiling of a new monument to Dr. Creed (with Reverend Scott), set at the base of the long-standing obelisk to his father John Creed near the entryway to the Grove Street Cemetery.

“For years,” said Janet Langella, now of Wallingford, “I was brought here to look at the monument to John Creed. We stared at it through the iron fence. That was as close as I got. He was my grandfather, and I assumed he was white. My parents never said otherwise, but I sensed they were hiding things, so much that was felt but unsaid for the social reasons of the time, especially when they told me, ‘Don’t judge people by their skin but by what’s inside them.’ As I got older, I noticed things: some of my relatives had flat noses, thicker lips, and big rumps. I knew something was being hidden, so I and some relatives began some genealogical research, and we made the discovery.”

Meanwhile, across the country, the mother of Tracey Archer Lawson (pictured with her husband Troy trying to figure out how many “greats” they shared with Patricia Langella) began some research of her own in their hometown of Aldie, Virginia. Their work was centered on Dr. Creed’s role as the surgeon to the 31st Regiment of Connecticut colored soldiers in the Civil War. An article published in the local paper got the attention of the Yale archivists.

A Creed award and scholarship evolved at Yale and through the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven. But until this weekend, the 150th anniversary of the historic graduation, families like the Lawsons, Archers, and the Langellas had never met. More than 50 descendents gathered, from eight states — all the ones that could be tracked down. With Creed having been married twice and sired ten children, future reunions could be larger.

Because Vashti Duplex, Creed’s wife, was also the daughter of Prince Duplex, a Revolutionary War soldier, who gained freedom from slavery upon service in the Continental army, there were also many descendents of Duplexes peering at name tags to meet Creeds for the first time, across at least three generations. Here, (left to right), for example: Miranda Lawson, a great great great granddaughter of Creed, Gwendolyn Creed Washington, a great granddaughter, and Stephanie Archer of Huntington, Long Island, who, like many at the festive gathering, were going over the mental kinship charts, and said, “my father’s brother married a Creed.”

At the church, which was co-founded by Cortlandt Creed’s uncle (along with a white abolitionist named Simeon Jocelyn), Reverend Scott sermonized that lessons of the reunion were for the entire African-American family and beyond. “If Dr. Creed could make it back in 1857,” he said, “what’s wrong with us?

“The answer is that nothing is wrong with us. That we can do anything if we get our bearings and are inspired by belief in God, by knowledge of the achievements of those who came before us, and we utilize these blessings.”

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