Petition is submitted to abolish the Abiel Smith School.

Circulated by William Cooper Nell and others, it is rejected by the School Committee, which argues it is their duty to separate the races that “the All-Wise Creator had seen fit to establish,” which leads to a boycott of the school in 1844.* The school committee ignores subsequent petitions in 1844, 1845, and 1846. Despite Thomas Paul Jr. being named the first African-American principal of the school, the boycott continues until 1855.*