Jonathan Trumbull, governor of Connecticut, 1769-1784

Prefatory Note

THIS life of his great-great-grandfather was completed by my father before ill health prevented his attending to its final publication, and his death in May of this year made it impossible to consult him while reading the proof.

E. M. T.

September, 1919

Preface

SINCE the year 1849, when Isaac W. Stuart completed his "Life of Jonathan Trumbull, sen.", no attempt has been made to retell the story of that busy, useful and significant life. During the half century and more which has elapsed since Stuart's day, the history of the men and events of the American Revolution has been clarified by the lapse of time and by the labors of many able and scholarly historians, so that new views of the period have been adopted, leading to juster estimates of the times in which Governor Trumbull served his country and of the men of those times. Many documents which Stuart was obliged to consult in manuscript are now accessible in the form of well edited print; and some important documents which were unknown in his day have since come to light. Such a family history, too, as the recent genealogy of the Higley family by Mrs. Johnston throws new and important light on the family and personal traits of Governor Trumbull's mother; and the Reverend Edward Robinson's sketch of the descendants of William Robinson does equally important service in the case of Governor Trumbull's wife. The statements which have recently appeared in print regarding Trumbull's connection with the Conway cabal, and regarding his feelings viii PREFACE

towards Schuyler require, of course, careful investigation and treatment for which there was no necessity half a century ago.

These, and many similar considerations constitute an apology for a new life of Connecticut's revolutionary governor. The apology would not be complete, however, if the writer should fail to confess that his undertaking is prompted, to a great degree, by a spirit of reverence for the memory of a worthy ancestor. Just for this reason, it has been the aim of the writer to avoid the extravagant eulogy which abounds in Stuart's work; to tell the story simply and impartially, and to search diligently for the truth in this long period of public service. The attempt has been made to let the life-story speak for the man, in the full conviction that in no other way can justice be done him. Reverence for his memory leads to the belief that in no other way would the man himself allow the story to be told if the telling were within his control.

Contents

PAGE

Preface v

Chapter I. Ancestry — Early Surroundings — At Harvard College I

Chapter II. Harvard Graduate — Classmates and College Mates — Licensed Clergyman — Call to Church at Colchester — ■ Loss of his Elder Brother — Call Declined — • Beginning of Mercantile Career 15

Chapter III. Home Affairs — Delegate to the General Assembly — Marriage — The Robinsons 23

Chapter IV. Apprenticeship in Politics — Deputy — Speaker of the House of Representatives — Assistant — New and Stirring Times — Lieutenant-Colonel — Judge — Man of Business 3^

Chapter V. Public Duties — Ecclesiastical and Minor Matters — • Financial and Judicial Affairs — Capture of Louisburg — Massachusetts Boundary — Important Conferences 42

Chapter VI. The Case of the Spanish Treasure Ship — Declines Appointment as Agent to London — Family and Home Affairs 55

Chapter VII. Mercantile Affairs — Son Joseph in London — Difficulties there — New Firm — Continued Difficulties — Mercantile Failure 64

X CONTENTS

PAGE

Chapter VIII. The Stamp Act — Letters of Joseph Trumbull from London — Connecticut's Opposition to the Act — Ingersoll Compelled to Resign — Stamp Act Congress — Governor Fitch takes the Oath — Trumbull and Others Refuse to Witness the Ceremony — Trumbull Elected Deputy Governor — Pitkin Succeeds Fitch as Governor 73

Chapter IX. Trumbull Elected Governor — The Political Parties in Connecticut — His Course Regarding Writs of Assistance — The Contest for Governorship — Campaign Literature 81

Chapter X. Death of Trumbull's Mother — The Mohegan Case — Susquehanna Case — Embassy of William Samuel Johnson — His Correspondence with the Governors of Connecticut — Johnson's Action in the Susquehanna Case in London — Trumbull's Share in this Case 91

Chapter XL Connecticut as Viewed in London — Johnson's Call on Lord Hillsborough — Petition Against Revenue Acts — Bishops in America — The Five Per Cent. Duty and the New London Affair — - The Duty Repealed — Trumbull's Views on British Policy and Colonial Independence 104

Chapter XII. War-clouds — Committee of Correspondence — Excitement Increases — Town Meetings — Treatment of Tories — Francis Green — Abijah Willard — Captain Davis — Doctor Beebe — • Reverend Samuel Peters — The Continental Congress 116

Chapter XIII. 1775 — Trumbull at the Age of Sixty-five — Preparations for War — Extra Session of the General Assembly — Royal Measures to Prevent a Second Session of the Continental Congress — Trumbull's letter to the Earl of Dartmouth 133

CONTENTS xi

PAGE

Chapter XIV. The Lexington Alarm — Embassy to General Gage — Treatment of the Ambassadors by Massachusetts — Differences Settled — Preparations for War 142

Chapter XV. Ticonderoga — The Council of Safety — Powder for Bunker Hill — Correspondence with Washington — The First and Only Misunderstanding Between Washington and Trumbull — Sears's Raid — The Connecticut "Deserters" 153

Chapter XVI. The Children of the Family — Joseph, the Commissary General — His Early Death — Jonathan and His Distinguished Services — David, the Home Worker — ■ John, the Soldier and Artist — Faith and Her Sad Death — Mary and Her Patriotic Husband 170

Chapter XVII. Renewed Calls for Troops — The New York Expedition — ■ Washington's Acknowledgments

— More Troops — The Governor's Proclamation — Independence — Governor Franklin a Prisoner — Row-galleys Sent to New York 179

Chapter XVIII. Dark Days — Urgent Calls for Troops

— Trumbull's Active Measures — Militia Regiments Despatched to New York — Demands of the Northern Army — r Trumbull's Relations to Schuyler

— Supplies and Men Hurried Forward — Sectional Jealousies 194

Chapter XIX. "The Times that Tried Men's Souls" — Difficulties in Filling Connecticut's Quota — Tryon's Raid on Danbury — Trumbull and the Conway Cabal — The Title "His Excellency" Distasteful to the Governor 207

Chapter XX. Trumbull's Illness and Message to the General Assembly — Taxation — Regulating Acts — ■ xii CONTENTS

Confederation — Relief for Valley Forge — Correspondence with Tryon — The Errand of the "Spy" — Death of Joseph Trumbull 222

Chapter XXL The Wyoming Massacre — Battle of Rhode Island — Failure — The Governor's Comments — His Son a Volunteer — General Gates Entertained at Hartford — Naval Successes — Bushnell's Torpedo — Finances — Confederation Urged by Trumbull 235

Chapter XXH. Scarcity of Provisions — Governor Tryon Again Threatens an Invasion — He Attacks New Haven, and Burns Fairfield and Norwalk — Arrest of William Samuel Johnson — His Release — Financial Affairs — Trumbull's Correspondence with Van der Capellan — His Plans for a History of the Revolution 247

Chapter XXIII. Distressing Conditions of the Country

— Financial Affairs and Measures — Calls on Connecticut — Death of the Governor's Wife — French Hussars Quartered at Lebanon and Colchester — Governor Appointed to Supervise State Finances. . 259

Chapter XXIV. Continued Gloom — Imprisonment of Colonel John Trumbull — His Release and Return — Continued Calls for Provisions for the Army — The Wethersfield Conference — The Governor and Council go to Danbury — The Yorktown Campaign — The Groton Massacre — The Surrender of Cornwallis 272

Chapter XXV. Need of Continued War-footing

— Deane's Views — Measures for Defense — Plots Against the Governor — His Vindication — Final Decision of the Susquehanna Case — Subsequent Events in Wyoming 285

CONTENTS xiii

PAGE

Chapter XXVI. Peace Negotiations — A Critical Period for America — Anti-federalism in Connecticut — Trumbull's Federalism — The Society of the Cincinnati — Trumbull's Reply to Washington's Address — The Farewell Address of the Governor, and Its Reception by the General Assembly 298

Chapter XXVII. Governor Griswold Elected — Trumbull in Private Life — Settlement for Eight Years' Services — His Own Retrospect • — His Pursuits in Private Life — Honors Bestowed upon Him — "Brother Jonathan" 317

Chapter XXVIII. Continued Good Health — Sudden Illness — Death — His Pastor's Estimate of His Personal Character — Washington's Tribute — The Trumbull Tomb and Epitaph 333

Bibliography 341

Index 347

Chapter I Ancestry Early Surroundings At

HARVARD COLLEGE

THE surnames Turnbull and Trumbull can only be presumptively traced to a Scotch peasant who appears on the official record in the year 13 15 as "Willielmo dicto TumebuU", to whom King Robert the Bruce grants "a reddendo of one broad arrow at the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary." This appears to have been a grant of land in Philiphaugh, a short distance west of Rule Water, as a reward for saving the king from the attack of an infuriated bull in the forest of Callender, near Sterling. Together with this estate, a coat of arms was granted this peasant, with the device of three bulls' heads and a motto which in the hands of various branches of the family reads either Audaces fortuna juavt, Audaci fauet fortuna, or Fortuna favet audaci.

It is interesting to read the story as Doctor John Leyden tells it with a poet's license, in his "Scenes of Infancy" after nearly five centuries had thrown their glamour over it:

"Between red ezlarbanks, that frightful scowl,

Where Turnbulls once, a race no power could awe,

Bold was the chief from whom their line they drew.

The bison, fiercest race of Scotia's breed,

Whose bounding course outstripped the red deer's speed.

By hunters chafed, encircled on the plain,

He frowning shook his yellow lion mane.

On Scotia's lord he rush'd with lightning speed.

Bent his strong neck to toss the startled steed;

With writhing force his neck retorted round,

And roll'd the panting monster on the ground.

And courtiers hailed the man who turned the bull."

Thus the peasant becomes enrolled among the heroes of a nondescript mythology, of so recent a date that he has also been made the butt of ridicule. There is no doubt, however, that from him the once powerful Scottish clan of Turnbull took its origin, becoming famed for legitimate warfare, and later for border reiving and ruffianry in the days when the cry was steal or starve, with a strong preference for the former, in which the Turnbulls kept such good company as the Murrays, Jardines, Bells, Lindsays and others. As the clan grew more lawless it was found necessary to send armed forces to subdue it, by which summary process the Turnbulls, weakened by the attacks of rival clans, were finally

ANCESTRT 3

dispersed and broken up, their extinction as a clan probably dating from 1545, when twelve of their castles and two of their towns were destroyed by the English. Some of the survivors were scattered through England, and some remained on their native heath to the close of the seventeenth century, or longer.

It is hardly probable that a distinct pedigree of Jonathan Trumbull will ever be traced showing his descent through all the generations from "the man who turned the bull" in or about the year 13 15. It can only be said, in the absence of all other clues to his origin, that the theory of his descent from the originator of the clan Turnbull is plausible. The corrupted spelling of the name is accounted for by the late Doctor J. Hammond Trumbull with the surmise that the Scotch pronunciation gave such prominence to the letter r that it first caught the ear of the scrivener, who in pursuance of the usual phonetic spelling of the surnames of the day wrote Trumbull for Turnbull, and even went further by spelling the last syllable b-l-e, as it is usually found in the English and American records of the sixteenth, seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth centuries. Scotchmen tell us that the name is spelled Turnbull and pronounced Trumbull to this day.

To add to the plausibility of our theory, we shall find as his career develops that Governor Trumbull was possessed of traits of character which are distinctively Scotch. His tenacity of purpose, his indomitable perseverance, his keen sense of duty, and the deeply devotional and religious spirit which animated and informed his whole career are so conspicuous and so Scottish that they seem to mark the man and his race. In his diplomacy, too, there is much that the Scotch would call "canny," though there is in his self-forgetfulness and in the breadth of his views much that emancipates him from the narrow significance of this term which it is so difficult to acclimate in our own country. These leading traits, so plainly marked in his life, were, of course, modified and adapted to conditions quite different from those in which they first took root in their native soil. Then, too, there were, no doubt, hereditary traits from the maternal side which modified the more stolid, hard-headed racial characteristics in a way to fit him for a career which called for alertness and promptness of action, in which he was never found lacking.

Passing over the long hiatus in his pedigree from "Willielmo dicto Turnebull", we come to the year 1635, at which time it is established by the researches of Mr. J. Henry Lea that one John Trumble, a cooper of Newcastle-on-Tyne, married Ellinor Chandler, and came to this country in 1639 with his wife and only surviving child John, an infant in arms. Cooper though he was, the first American Trumbull was town clerk and schoolmaster at Rowley, Massachusetts, where he settled upon his arrival. "The hurrying pen of the stripling", John Alden the pilgrim, also a cooper, showed a no more clerkly hand than did the pen of the cooper John Trumbull. By a singular chance it happened

ANCESTRT 5

some generations later that the Alden and Trumbull blood mingled in the marriage of Governor Jonathan Trumbull and Faith Robinson.

With a father who, besides being a cooper, was a schoolmaster and town clerk, we may infer that the educational advantages of the son John were unusual for the time. In due course of events, he married Deborah Jackson, and removed to Suffield, Connecticut, where four sons, named John, Joseph, Ammi and Benoni, were born to him. John was the grandfather of the lawyer-poet John Trumbull, now chiefly remembered as the author of "McFingal"; Joseph was the father of Governor Jonathan Trumbull, whose life forms the subject of this biography; and Benoni was the grandfather of the Reverend Benjamin Trumbull, whose colonial history of Connecticut in two large volumes is still the standard for that period.

Joseph, in whom as the father of Jonathan Trumbull our interest centers, was born in 1678 at Suffield, where he passed the first twenty-five years of his life. Like the young men of his day he learned farming, and developed a tendency to trade which stood him in good stead later in life. In 1703 he removed to Simsbury, attracted thither, no doubt, by Mistress Hannah Higley, whom he married on August 31, 1704. Her lineage, passing as it does into that of Jonathan Trumbull, deserves at least passing notice.

She was the daughter of John and Hannah (Drake) Higley, and was born at Simsbury on April 22, 1684. Her grandparents were Jonathan and Katherine (Brewster) Higley, the grandmother being "clearly of the ancient Brewster family of England to which belonged 'Elder' William Brewster of the Mayflower fame." ^ The story of the early days of Hannah Higley's father reads like a romance. Apprenticed to a glover in London at the age of fifteen, he was given by his hard taskmaster two days' notice of a whipping in store for him. Determined to free himself from such thraldom, he secretly departed before the whipping fell due, and stowed himself away on board a vessel bound to America, at the risk of severe and cruel punishment under the laws then applying to apprenticeships. Upon discovering himself to the captain of the vessel, he arranged, for his passage, to sell his services during his minority to any American settler who would pay a price satisfactory to the captain. Fortunately, the vessel was bound to Windsor, Connecticut, where she arrived some time in the year 1664, and young John Higley was then and there bound to the service of John Drake for a sum satisfactory to the captain. Seven years later he married the granddaughter of his former master, and became a man of note in Simsbury, becoming a justice, a judge of the county court, a deputy to the General Assemby for many years, and captain of the Simsbury trainband. Hannah Drake, whom he married, was of the ancient and honorable Drake family of England which includes the sea-king, Sir Francis Drake. Her American ancestry dates back to Dorchester, Massa-

1 "The Higleys and Their Ancestry", by Mary Coffin Johnson. ^

ANCESTRT 7

chusetts, in 1630, and her English ancestry to the Norman conquest, or earher. Her mother was Hannah Moore, a daughter of Deacon John Moore, a man of note in Dorchester, who came to Windsor with the Reverend John Warham, probably with the ill-fated expedition of 1635.^

Thus the children of Joseph Trumbull, through the Drakes and Moores, had by inheritance an earlier claim on New England and Connecticut soil than he himself had, and through the sterling blood of the Higleys, Brewsters, Drakes and Moores took on hereditary qualities which mingled well with those of the Trumbulls.

The enterprising young couple did not remain long in Simsbury; for within a year from the time of their marriage, we find them at Lebanon, a town which had been recognized by the General Assembly just five years before, and which in the same year of their arrival, 1705, had for the first time reached the dignity of taxation and representation in the General Assembly. If Joseph Trumbull cannot strictly be called one of the pioneers of Lebanon, he comes so near that distinction that it is safe to say that he shared in the inconveniences, hardships and privations of the first settlers, and doubtless found work enough for his stalwart young arms in clearing the land of his first grant for cultivation. He made no mistake, however, in casting his lot with this new little community, for the soil proved rich and productive, and the location among the peaceful hills and valleys was charming and attractive.

^ " The Higleys and Their Ancestry", by Mary Coffin Johnson.

Here, in this same year, was born his eldest son Joseph, destined to a short career with a sad ending; for at the age of twenty-seven, on a foreign voyage in the interest of his father's growing business, he was lost at sea, leaving a widow with two daughters. Doubtless he had become, at this time, his father's right-hand man, and doubtless, too, much of the father's success and prosperity were due to this son.

But the father's energy and confidence in his location and in his power to win his way laid the sure foundation of this success and prosperity. Some three years after settling in Lebanon he bought the homestead of the Reverend Joseph Parsons, the first minister of the town, mortgaging it — as an indication of small means and large faith for the time — for £340. Here, no doubt, in the first Lebanon parsonage, Jonathan Trumbull, with whose career we are chiefly concerned, was born, on October 12, 1710. He appeared on the stage at the beginning of a peaceful and prosperous time for the little colony of Connecticut and for the new and fast growing town of his birth. England, with Queen Anne on the throne, had so busied and satiated and sickened herself with war and conquest in the brilliant campaigns of Marlborough that the American colonies appear to have been forgotten for the time ; at least, no such interference as had been the rule during the last half of the previous century occurred. For fifty years this little colony had been engaged in a struggle to establish her rights under the charter of 1662;

BIRTH — EARLT SURROUNDINGS 9

and those rights, with some wrongs, were at last estabHshed by the absorption of New Haven, the downfall of Andros, the discomfiture of Fletcher, and something like a final decision regarding Connecticut's boundaries, if we leave the South Sea out of the question. With the absorbing interest in home affairs diverting the Mother Country from active interference in the affairs of the American colonies at this time, the little communities of trading farmers composing the towns of Connecticut were left free, for the time being, to direct their own affairs in frequent town meetings, proprietors' meetings and patentees' meetings, with representation in, and appeal to, the General Court or Assembly when needed.

One of the most active of these little communities was Trumbull's native town and lifelong home. As a boy, in the intervals of study, .hoeing and feeding chickens and cattle, he heard, no doubt, much talk of boundary disputes, of church matters, of prices of farm produce and live stock, of the news, some months old, from England; and tried in a boy's way to understand it all. Here in Lebanon, too, the meetinghouse war was brewing; and here, too, as well as elsewhere, the Mohegan case was brewing, to cause him infinite labor and solicitude in the days of his governorship some sixty years later.

Of schools, either public or private, we find no trace in Lebanon in the days of Trumbull's boyhood. It is safe to say that the traditions of three generations on his father's side, and four generations lo JONATHAN TRUMBULL

on his mother's side, made them both deeply conscious of the importance of a good education for their son. And a good education they certainly gave him — as good as American facilities of the time afforded. After a course of such elementary studies as his parents could bestow, there is little or no doubt that he was grounded in sufficient Latin and Greek to fit him for college by the Reverend Samuel Welles. Welles was then pastor of the village, and his house, fine for the times, with its quaint frescoes and handmade woodwork, still stands on Lebanon Green.

If there were any exceptions to the rule of social equality which existed in the town at this time, one exception might be found in the case of this same Reverend Samuel Welles, whose aristocratic Boston connections had enabled him to build the handsomest house in Lebanon. After his tutorship to the boy Trumbull, he removed to Boston, where he occasionally met his former townsman, Joseph Trumbull, the father of his pupil, whose business as farmer and drover sometimes called him to that city. His recognition of the elder Trumbull was sometimes cold and sometimes altogether lacking, as, in his farmer's garb, the latter seemed an unfit acquaintance to introduce among the pastor's city friends. Pastor Welles made occasional visits to Lebanon, where he still retained some landed interests, and on one of these visits he met the elder Trumbull and cordially extended his hand to him. Retaliation then and there ensued, for Trumbull, refusing the proffered hand, said simply, "No,

HARVARD COLLEGE ii

sir; if you don't know me in Boston, I don't know you in Lebanon." ^

This story, said to be authentic, illustrates, too, the independence and social equality which existed in Lebanon in the days of Jonathan Trumbull's boyhood. The inhabitants were at this time practically all freeholders and all farmers; they had possessed the land on equal terms, and each man felt himself as good as his neighbor; every inhabitant was well — perhaps sometimes too well — - acquainted with every other inhabitant, and social distinctions were practically unknown. It should be remembered that the formative period of Trumbull's life was passed in the influence of such a community. Beyond the inspiring sight of the frequent evolutions of the trainband on Lebanon Green, the boy had little diversion in the midst of the practical, puritanical, and quietly strenuous life of the day.

At the age of thirteen, he entered Harvard College, where his enrollment, according to the custom of the time, placed him twenty-eighth in social rank among the thirty-seven graduates of his class. ^ This order was established during the Freshman year, and there is little doubt that it was during this year that he got a taste, at least, of the social distinction which was so foreign to his native soil. This custom of enrolling, and probably of granting privileges to the students, according to rank, prevailed at Harvard for the first century and a quarter

^ Hines, "Early Lebanon", p. 21.

' Quinquennial Catalogue of Harvard University, 1900; p. 83, footnote.

12 JONATHAN rkilMHlILL

of its existence, :is it prevailed at Yale for sixty-five years, hut at last caused so much c()mi)laint, as the democratic sentiment of the country grew, that it gave place in 1772 to enrollment in alphaheti(al order. A system, also, (|uite similar to the fagging system o( the higher I'aiglish schools, had nol altogether died out when 'IVumhuH entered JIarvard as a TVeshman. i'liere can he no douht thai I he spirit of this lad ol tiiirteen, reared in the free air ol Lc'hanon's soc iai t'(|ua!ity, rehelled against this lagging system and against the social distinctions which the |)lan ol enrollment created. M<>gging was si ill |)ul)li(ly administered to students,' imd was ])erhaps still preceded and followed hy prayer from the president of the college in Trumhull's day, as in earlier ones. 'I'hese austerities and the formalities whi(h ruled at the time may liave given lo ihe young lad a lou(h ol homesickness, hii'd of disgust. Wi' have it on the authority of his son John, however, that he diligently pursued the studies of his course, and a((|uiie(l "a sound knowledge of ihe I lehrc^w, as well as ihe (irecrk and T.alin languages, and ol all the other studies ol the day", and hecame, "a dislinguished scholar."'-

JMom tlu^ diaries of President heverett and of President Wadsworth, who siuHceded him (hiring Trumhull's couise at Harvard, we get some idea of ihi- studies |)uisued al ihe time. At morning prayiMs, each studenl of the three up|)er classes

' ()iiiiiiiv's " History orii.iivaid University", vol. i, i). K/J. ■'' Colonel Jolin I'limibiiirs " Aiitohiogiiipliy, Kiiniiiisccuccs and Letters", 1841; |). 1.

w;is called upon (o riM(l :i verse oiM of (lie Old Testaineiit lioin the I lehrew into the (IreeU, (he l^'reshmen re;idin^ IVoin i'Ji|^lish iiih) (Ireek. !*resideiU W;i(lsw()r(h s(;i(es in his (ii;ny th;i( he exponndird (he Sciiptmes (o (he sdidciUs, oiuc eleven, ;in(l someriines eigh( 01 nine times in w week. In the re^nhii eimicnhnn, Tnlly, Virgil :ind the (Ireek Testament ()eeii|)ied lonr I (Ml days ol each week in the j'reshman year; rhetoric one mornini',, and the (iicek (.Kechism anodiei mornm^, wi(h dis()n(arions on kamns's Delinitions loi two m()rninj»;s toward the end of the year.

I'he Sophomores "leeited" Loi;i( , (ontinned to "reciti" (he classical atidiois, I leeichooicrs Meletcma(a, and Wollehins's Divinity, wi(h moinin^ dispn(a(ions on Mondays and Tiiesdays.

The Seniors "reci(ed" Arithmetic ,( Jeomet ry and Astronomy, "^o ovei the Arts towards (he latter end ol {\\c yc-ar, Ames's Mednlla on Satnidays, and dis|)nte once* a week."

Ihns it will he seen that a conrse at llaivard he^iimin^ in 1723 was a nnieh !iearer ap|)roaeh {^^ a conrse iit divinity than oni picscait academical eonrses allord. h shonld he added that (he llarvarcl stndies a( (his time" comprised a s|)ecial conrse in I lehrew eondneted by Jndah Mones, a converted jc^w, whose lectnres and exercises weic attended hy those npper classes on lonr days m the week.

The atmosphere was distinctly religious, and early in his college course we find Trumbull giving indications of that deeply religious and devotional spirit which pervaded and informed his entire public and private life. In his Freshman year he became a member of a secret religious organization, whose simple Articles of Association may still be read, breathing a spirit of deep devotion and Christian charity.

Chapter II Harvard Graduate Classmates And College

MATES LICENSED CLERGYMAN — CALL TO CHURCH

AT COLCHESTER LOSS OF HIS ELDER BROTHER —

CALL DECLINED BEGINNING OF MERCANTILE

CAREER

IN 1727, at the age of seventeen, young Trumbull returned to Lebanon, a full-fledged Harvard graduate, with the then customary degree of a.m. In the still small, growing community of his native town, it is safe to say that he was, at the time, regarded as a wonder of learning; for Lebanon was then sending few, if any, of her young men to college; and a man of collegiate education had a marked distinction in such a town. He had acquired a knowledge of Latin, Greek and Hebrew, as we have seen, with finishing touches of divinity, geography, arithmetic, geometry and astronomy; and he had gained experiences and formed associations which were, perhaps, even more important than all these studies.

Notable among his classmates stands Thomas Hutchinson, destined for a career quite similar to Trumbull's in official positions, but diametrically opposite in political principles, and ending in the pathetic story of a ruined fortune and a life of exile. How far Hutchinson's rank of third in social standing by Harvard registration removed him

IS from free intercourse with Trumbull in his rank of twenty-eighth, or how congenial these two lads may have been to one another, it is impossible to say. It must be true, however, that the coterie of about one hundred and fifty undergraduates of the time should have been, during their college course, in much closer contact than the great bodies of undergraduates in our universities of to-day. Hutchinson was just a year younger than Trumbull, so it is not necessary to regard the latter as an infant prodigy because he entered college at the age of thirteen, which, as far as can be ascertained, was about the average of Freshmen at the time. Another classmate, Benjamin Church, is erroneously supposed by Stuart to have been the Doctor Benjamin Church who in 1775 was convicted of secret correspondence with the enemy, and was sent, by Washington, to Connecticut for safe keeping under the direction of the Governor and his Council of Safety. This Benjamin Church was of the class of 1754, and had probably never seen Governor Trumbull.