Henry Benson was the son of George Benson, a member of Prudence Crandall's advisory committee for her school. He was also the brother of Helen Benson, whom William Lloyd Garrison married in 1834. His letter to Garrison, originally printed in The Liberator and republished in the anti-American Colonization Society pamphlet, Fruits of Colonizationism!, provides important details to the reaction of the townspeople of Canterbury to Prudence Crandall's school. The fact that many of the most outspoken opponents to the school were members of the American Colonization Society made the Crandall case especially important to Garrison and his allies, who hoped to paint the Colonization Society as hopelessly implicated in sustaining both Southern slavery and Northern racism.