from A Modern History of New London Connecticut
editor in chief Benjamin Tinkham Marshall
volume 2
Lewis Historical Publishing Company
1922
TRUMBULL — Seven generations of the Trumbull family have resided in what is now New London county. The first of the name residing within these limits was Joseph Trumbull, who was a grandson of John, the emigrant ancestor of his line, a cooper, whocame to New England from Newcastle-on-Tyne, and settled in 1640 at Rowley, Massachusetts, where he held the position of town clerk and schoolmaster. He brought with him his wife, Ellinor, whose maiden name was Chandler, and a son John. The family line runs as follows: (II) Children of John and Ellinor (Chandler) Trumbull, who were married in 1635: Beriah, born in 1637. died in infancy; John, born in 1639, married Deborah Jackson, and died in 1690. (III) Children of John and Deborah (Jackson) Trumbull: John, born in 1670, died in I751, mar- ried Elizabeth Winchell (removed to Suffield, Con- nerticut); Hannah, born 1673; Mary, born 1675; mar- ried Captain Job Ellsworth; Joseph, born 1678. died June 16. 1755 (removed to Lebanon, Connecticut), married Hannah Higley, August 31, 1704. who was born at Windsor, April 22, 1683, and died November 8, 1768; Ammi, born 1681 (removed to East Wind- sor), married Ann Burnham; Benoni, born 1684 (re- moved to Hebron). (IV) Children of Joseph and Hannah (Higley) Trumbull: Joseph, born March 27, 1705, died 1732, married Sarah Bulkley, November 20, 1727. Jona- than, born October 12, 1710, died August 17, 1785, married December 9, 1735, Faith Robinson. Mary was born August 21, 1713. Hannah, born 1715, died young. Hannah (2) was born September 18, 1717. N.L.— 2-6 Abigail was born March 6, 1719. David, born Sep- tember 8, 1723, died July 9, 1740. (V) Children of Jonathan and Faith (Robinson) Trumbull: Joseph, born March II, 1737, died July 23 1778, married March, 1777, Amelia Dyer. Jona- than, born March 26, 1767, Eunice Backus. Faith, born January 25, 1743, died November 24, 1775, mar- ried Colonel (afterward General) Jedeiah Hunting- ton. Mary, born July 16, 1745, died February 9. 183!. married February 14, 1771, William Williams, signer of the Declaration of Independence. David, born February 5, 1751-52, died January 17, 1822! married December 6, 1778, Sarah Buckus, who was born February 7, 1760, died June 2, 1846. John, born June 6, 1756, died November 10, 1843, mar- ried in London. (VI) Children of Jonathan and Eunice (Backus) Trumbull: Jonathan, born December 24, 1767, died young. Faith, born February i, 1769, married Dan- iel Wadsworth, of Hartford. Mary, born Decem- ber 27, 1777, died young. Harriet, born September 2. 1783. married Professor Benjamin Silliman, of Yale College, September 17, 1809, Maria, born February 14, 1785, married Henry Hudson, of Hart- ford. (VI) Children of David and Sarah (Backus) Trumbull: Sarah, born September 6, 1779. died October 3, 1839, married William T. Williams; Abi- gail, born January 2, 1781, married Peter Lannan; Joseph, born December 7, 1782, died August 4, 1861, removed to Hartford; John, or John M., born Sep- tember 19, 1784, married (first) Ann H. Gibbons, of Savannah, Georgia, March 15, 1810; (second) Han- nah W. Tunis, of Elizabeth, New Jersey, January 17, 1819; (third) Eliza Bruen, of Belleville, New jersey, January II, 1825; Jonathan George Wash- ington, born October 31, 1787, died September 5. 1 8.-3, married Jane Eliza Lathrop, who was born July 26, 1795, died October 21, 1843. (VII) Children of John M. and Ann H. (Gib- bons) Trumbull: Thomas Gibbons, born January 30, 181 1, at Norwich; John Heyward, born Febru- ary 24, 1812, at New York; Ann Heyward, born De- cember 8, 1813, at Hartford; Sarah Backus, born June 25, 1815, at Elizabethtown; Joseph, born May 29, 1817, at Elizabethtown, died young. Children of John M. and Hannah W. (Tunis) Trumbull: David, born November 1, 1819, at Eliza- bethtown; Susan Landis, born March 21, 1821 (died young); Julia Gorham, born March 5, 1823 (died young). Children of John M. and Eliza (Bruen) Trumbull: Caroline Ward, born February 4, 1826; James Hed- den, born January 16, 1828; Jane Lathrop. born June 6, 1830; Joseph, born November 24, 1832 (died young); Harriet Silliman, born March 13, 1835. (VII) Children of Jonathan George Washington and Jane E. (Lathrop) Trumbull: Daniel Lathrop, born August 21, 1816, died March 31, 1873, married November 16, 1841, Alexandrine Navarre Wilson; Lydia Lathrop, born October 13, 1818, died October 82 NEW LONDON COUNTY 8, 1822; Joseph, born June 11, 1821, died January 23, 1826; William Williams, born March 28, 1825, died October 19, 1830. (VIII) Cliildren of Daniel Lathrop and Alexan- drine Navarre (Wilson) Trumbull: Jane Lathrop, born September 9, 1842, died March, 1869, married Lieutenant (afterward Colonel) Robert Watkinson Huntington, United States Marines; Jonathan, born January 23, 1844, married Dec. 17, 1868, Harriet Roosevelt Richards, of Poughkecpsie, New York. (IX) Children of Jonathan and Harriet Roosevelt (Richards) Trumbull: Jonathan, born November 19, 1869 (died September 26, 1871); Harriet Roose- velt, born March 19, 1871; Alexandrine Navarre, born February 25, 1873; Thomas Brinckerhoff, born June 1, 1877; Elizabeth Maria, born July 13, 1882. Of the first of the Trumbulls of New London county, Joseph, who was of the third generation of his line in America, we find that he removed from SufTield, then in Massachusetts, now in Connecticut, to Simsbury, Connecticut, in 1703, where in 1704, he married Hannah Higley, removing to Lebanon in the following year. At this time the town had been organized by act of the General Assembly for about four years, but the boundaries of the proprietors and of the township were not definitely established until 1705, when Lebanon sent her first delegates to the General Assembly, and commenced her career as a part of Windham county. Joseph Trumbull established himself as a mer- chant and farmer in Lebanon, buying the home- stead of Rev. Joseph Parsons, the first minister of the town, and mortgaging it for #340 at the time of purchase. He appears to have been enterprising and probably prosperous, as we find him later send- ing ships to foreign ports and sending his son to Harvard College. During his residence in Lebanon he was a lieutenant, and later a captain, in the troops of the county. Joseph, his eldest son, was, during his short career, his father's right-hand man. In June, 1732, while on a voyage to London, in the interests of his father's growing business, he was lost at sea, thus ending a promising career at the age of twenty- seven. Jonathan, the second son of the first Joseph, was destined to an important career, especially through the eventful period of the Revolution. His long, eventful life can only be sketched in outline in this connection. In 1727, at the age of seventeen, he graduated from Harvard College, with a good rec- ord for proficiency in the studies of the day, in which the dead languages, including Hebrew, were prominent. He commenced the study of divinity under Rev. Solomon Williams, of Lebanon, and in due time became a licensed clergyman. At the time of the death of his brother Joseph he had under consideration a call to become pastor of the church in Colchester. The loss of this brother, however, changed the current of his life, for his father needed the assistance of his son to take the place of the lost brother. Duty, perhaps, rather than inclina- tion, called the son Jonathan to fill this place. His business career and his public career commenced within the following year. In 1733 he was elected a delegate to the General Assembly, which position he again held continuously from 1736 to 1739. in which year, at the age of twenty-nine, he was made Speaker of the House of Representatives. In 1740 he was elected assistant, which position made him a member of the Council of the Colony. He occu- pied this position for twenty-two years. At the same time he occupied several judgeships. In 1766 he was elected deputy governor of Connecticut and in 1769 was elected Governor, to fill the unexpired term of Governor Pitkin, who died in office. From that time until 1783 he was annually re-elected, declining re-election at the close of the Revolution, thus completing a period of public service covering exactly fifty years. His mercantile career extended over a large portion of this time, proving a failure in 1766, but resumed until the outbreak of the Revo- lution, from which time to the close of his public career he devoted himself exclusively to the cause of his country. From the beginning of the oppressive measures of Great Britain which finally resulted in our inde- pendence, Jonathan Trumbull was a firm and stead- fast supporter of the rights of the Colonies. When Governor Fitch, in 1765, insisted on taking the re- quired oath to enforce the Stamp Act, Trumbull, with six of his associates, withdrew from the coun- cil, refusing to sanction this hateful ceremony by their presence. And when, in March and April, 1768, application was made to him as Chief Justice of the Superior Court to issue writs of assistance to customs officers of the Crown, he refused the application; and with this refusal the General As- sembly when appealed to, declined to interfere. From the outbreak of the Revolution to its close he was in constant correspondence with Washing- ton, who continually applied to him for men, money and materials, and never applied in vain. Of all the governors of the thirteen Colonies at the begin- ning of the war he was the only one who was not a Loyalist or Tory, as they were then called. The relations between Washington and Trumbull were of so confidential a nature that a cherished tradition of Connecticut tells us that when supplies or coun- sel were needed in the darkest days of the war a favorite remark of Washington's was: "We must consult Brother Jonathan," From this, it is said, originated the popular name of the American people. The War Office at Lebanon, now preserved and owned by the Connecticut Society of Sons of the American Revolution, was during the Revolution the customary place of meeting of the Council of Safety- — a council appointed to assist the Governor when the General Assembly was not in session. Within the walls of this little building more than eleven hundred meetings of this council were held during the war. BIOGRAPHICAL 83 The wife of Governor Trumbull, Faith Robinson, was a daughter of Rev. John Robinson, of Dux- bury, Massachusetts. It is stated by Stuart that she was a lineal descendant of John Robinson, of Leyden, the Puritan leader, but this statement lacks proof, though much research has been made to es- tablish it. She was, however, a lineal descendant of John Alden, the pilgrim; and such memorials as are left of her show that she was a patriotic and devoted wife and mother, and was held in the high- est esteem in the community. Governor Trumbull lived but two years after retiring from public life. These two years were passed in study, and in carrying out the intention expressed in his farewell address, where he says: • • "that at the evening of my days, I may sweeten their decline, by devoting myself with less avocation, and more attention to the duties of re- ligion, the service of my God, and preparation for a future happier state of existence." The children of Governor Trumbull were, as might be expected, all ardent patriots. Joseph, the eldest son, was destined to a career which, if less distinguished than that of his father and two of his brothers, was no less important. A Harvard graduate, like his father, he also in close imitation of his father's early career engaged in business, be- coming a partner in his father's firm at the age of twenty-seven, and losing his all in the subsequent failure of the firm. From 1767 he was for six years a deputy from Lebanon in the General Assembly, and during this time was a captain in the First Company of the Twelfth Regiment of Connecticut militia. He was a member of the "Committee of Correspondence and Enquiry" in 1773, and in 1774 was appointed as an additional or substitute dele- gate to the Continental Congress. It does not ap- pear, however, that he was a member of this Con- gress. In April, 1775, he was appointed by the General Assembly Commissary-General of Connec- ticut. This position sent him at once to the seat of war. On the arrival of Washington at Cam- bridge, in July, 1775, to assume command of the army, he commends especially, in a letter to Con- gress, the commissariat of Connecticut, and recom- mends the appointment of Joseph Trumbull as Com- missary-General of the Continental Army. This appointment was immediately made. The duties of this newly created office were of a most perplexing and exacting kind. The lack of money, the diffi- culties of transportation and the dissatisfaction oc- casioned by jealousies between men of different Colonies, were some of the burdens of the situation. The conflict of authority with commissaries ap- pointed by their own Colonies and by Congress formed still another burden. At last, in June, 1777, the Continental Congress, which had already ham- pered the department by orders and commissions which constantly interfered with its usefulness, undertook a complete reorganization of the com- missary department, which rendered the position of Commissary-General so ineffective that Joseph Trumbull at once resigned his office. This crimin- ally foolish piece of legislation resulted in the ter- rible winter at Valley Forge, and with this lesson before it Congress practically reinstated the formerorganization of the commissary department. On the 27th of November following his resigna- tion, Joseph Trumbull was elected a member of the Board of War, but failing health prevented him from active service in this capacity, and he was obliged, for this reason, to resign in the following April. From this time his health continued to fail until his death, on the 23d of July, 1778. The inces- sant care and overwhelming difficulties of the posi- tion in which he was placed undermined his natur- ally vigorous constitution, and brought him to a comparatively early grave. His services were fre- quently commended by Washington. A portion of the inscription on his tombstone at Lebanon, reads as follows: "Sacred to the memory of Joseph Trumbull, eld- est son of Governor Trumbull, and first Commis- sary-General of the United States of America, a service to whose perpetual cares and fatigues he fell a sacrifice, A. D. 1778, aetat 42." Jonathan Trumbull, Jr., the second son of Gov- ernor Trumbull, was more distinguished in his pub- lic services and offices than any of his brothers. Like his father and elder brother, he was a graduate of Harvard College, in which institution he com- pleted his course with honor in 1759. The opening of the Revolution finds him a deputy from Lebanon to the General Assembly of Connecticut. In 1775 he was appointed Deputy Paymaster-General for the Northern Department of the army, a position which he held until the close of the northern campaign of 1778. Upon the death of his brother Joseph, it was necessary that his accounts should be settled, and this duty devolved upon his brother Jonathan, necessitating his retirement from the army, for the time being. During this interval he was re-elected as a deputy to the General Assembly. During the presentation of his brother's accounts to the Con- tinental Congress at Philadelphia he became ac- quainted with the leading members of this Congress, who recognized his financial abilities in such a way that in November, 1778, he was appointed Comp- troller of the Treasury, under Roger Sherman's plan of organization, being the first holder of this important office, a position which, as Roger Sher- man wrote his father, placed him at the head of the Treasury Department. During the following year this department was reorganized by placing it in control of a board of five commissioners, of whom he was made one. The salary of each of these com- missioners was fourteen thousand dollars in Con- tinental money; but it must be remembered that this was a very uncertain value, and that before the close of this year a dollar in "hard money," or specie, was worth forty-five Continental dollars. In the following year, 1780, he was appointed secre- 84 NEW LONDON COUNTY tary and first aid to General Washington, a position which placed him in intimate relations with that great man during the remainder of his life. He remained in the field until the close of the war, and was present at the surrender of Cornwallis. After a short interval of private life he was, in 1788, elected once more a deputy to the General Assembly, and was made Speaker of the House of Representatives. He was, in the following year, called to the more important position of a repre- sentative from Connecticut in the first Congress of the United States under the Constitution. In 179' he was made Speaker of the House of Representa- tives of that body, and in 1794 he was elected a Senator in the Congress of the United States. Upon his election as Lieutenant Governor of his native State, in 1796, he resigned his seat in the Senate of the United States, and devoted himself to the duties of the new office to which his State had called him. Upon the death of Governor Oliver Wolcott, in 1798, Trumbull was elected Governor, and held that position by continuous re-elections until his death, in 1809, a period of nearly twelve years. He bore, in a marked degree, the distinguishing traits of his father— punctuality, close and patriotic attention to duty, and fixedness of purpose when once convinced that he was in the right. His dis- position, like his father's, was benevolent, and his manners and bearing entirely free from that for- bidding dignity and pomp which were sometimes to be noticed even among his compatriots in the then budding great republic. Like his father, too, he left behind him a clean record. It is said by his contemporaries that in the times of bitter political controversy through which he passed, his personal character was never assailed, and only his public measures were criticized. David, the third son of Governor Trumbull, pur- sued a career which, while it has not enrolled him among the heroes of the Revolution, entitles him to credit for continual and active service to the cause. Of the four sons of the Governor, he was the only one who was not a Harvard graduate. At the time when he was prepared to enter college the disastrous failure of his father in business ren- dered the expense of a college course for this son impracticable. He received, however, a good educa- tion at the then famed school of Nathan Tisdale, of Lebanon. The growing cares and increasing re- sponsibilities of his father's public position at this time rendered it necessary that, at the beginning of the Revolution, one of his sons should remain at home as his father's right hand man. It fell to the lot of the son David to occupy this position. In addition to this duty he was entrusted by the Coun- cil of Safety with many important duties, conspicu- ous among which were the care and custody of arms and ammunition, the purchase of supplies for the departments both of the Commissary and the Quartermaster, and the furnishing of transportation of these supplies. He was also entrusted with large sums of money by the State and by Congress, for all of which, as for the munitions of war in his custody, he appears to have accounted with scrupu- lous exactness. His services were of such a nature that, although he never bore a military title, his widow was granted a pension by Congress after his death. Although each of his brothers attained much higher official positions than he did, none served as continuously in the inconspicuous but important duties which devolved upon him. John, the fourth and youngest son of Governor Trumbull, pursued a career which distinguished him from his brothers, and which, as it proved, was almost unique for the times in which he lived. In his boyhood his health was delicate, and he joined but little if at all in the sports of his companions. He lived, however, to the ripe old age of eighty- seven years. Although his military career is worthy of notice, he is principally remembered as a painter, and as one of the pioneers in American art. He graduated from Harvard College in 1773. having entered at the age of fifteen in the middle of the junior or third year, graduating in full standing at the age of seventeen, and having, to the surprise of his family, learned the French language by private instruction during his college course. His taste for painting developed in his boyhood, and he pursued the study and practice of the art at his home in Lebanon, soon after his graduation, though he was interrupted by being called to take charge of Mr. Tisdale's then celebrated school during the illness of the schoolmaster, which continued for nearly six months. In 1774 he became intensely interested in the impending struggle with the Mother Country, and made careful studies of military science to pre- pare himself for the life which seemed to open before him. In the following year he joined the army, as an aid to General Spencer. Learning, soon after the arrival of Washington at Cambridge, that he was anxious to procure a plan of the enemy's works, Trumbull stealthily approached the works, and being skilled in drawing, made a plan which proved to be so accurate that Washington's atten- tion was called to the young draughtsman, -who was soon made second aid-de-camp to the Commander- in-Chief. This position was not congenial to Trum- bull, owing to the formalities, both social and mili- tary, which it involved. He was soon appointed to the more congenial office of major of brigade, and became a favorite officer of Genera! Gates, by whose authority he was appointed adjutant and quartermaster-general, with the rank of colonel. The Continental Congress was slow in recogniz- ing such appointments, and when, at least, Trum- bull's commission arrived, it bore a date several months later than the date of the .appointment, at which he took great offense, returning his commis- sion to Congress, accompanied by a letter, written February 22, 1777, which was rather more spirited than respectful. This terminated his official con- BIOGRAPHICAL 85 nection with the army. It was during his service in the Northern army that he made a discovery, which had his advice been followed, would have made a great difference in the campaign. In Au- gust, 1776, when the army was posted at Fort Ticon- deroga and in its vicinity, Trumbull insisted that the position would be untenable if the enemy should occupy Mount Defiance, bringing artillery to bear from that commanding point. He was laughed to scorn by his seniors, who claimed that the point was out of range and that it would be impossible to carry even light artillery to the summit. Both these statements Trumbull had the satisfaction of controverting by actual experiment, but the position remained unoccupied by the Americans. Burgoyne later advanced upon the position, "established a battery of heavy guns on the summit of Mount De- fiance, the shot from which plunged into the old French fort and lines, so that, as I (Trumbull) had predicted, the whole position became unten- able, and was immediately abandoned. In this year, 1777, he went to Boston for the purpose of resuming his studies in art, but finding no suitable instructor, he was at last persuaded to go to London, with letters of introduction to Ben- jamin West, under whose auspices he was much helped and encouraged in the pursuit of his chosen profession. While in London, on the 15th of No- vember, 1780, when the news of the capture and execution of Andre was received, Trumbull was arrested on the charge of being in the military serv- ice of the Americans, and was kept in prison for seven months, still practicing painting, and finally released on bail, West and Copley being his sureties. His release was upon the condition of his leaving the kingdom within thirty days, not to return until peace should be declared between Great Britain and America. After a trip to Holland and a perilous voyage to America he remained at or near his home, engaged principally in assisting his brother in carrying out a contract for supplies for the army. He passed a part of this time at headquarters on the North river, where he renewed his acquaintance with Washing- ton, who received him kindly. Upon the declaration of peace, and contrary to the advice of his father and the previous advice of the President of Har- vard College, he resumed his career as an artist, continuing it uninterruptedly to the time of his death, passing much of his time in London and in Continental Europe. He married, rather mysteri- ously, an English lady, in London, a woman of rare beauty and of noble birth. Trumbull is principally known as an historical painter, who, far more than any other American artist, has commemorated the important events of his times by paintings familiar to every schoolboy of today. Principal among these are: The Battle of Bunker Hill, The Death of Montgomery, The Sortie from Gibraltar, The Declaration of Independ- ance. The Surrender of Cornwallis, Capture of the Hessians at Trenton, The Battle of Princeton, The Surrender of Burgoyne, The Resignation of Gen- eral Washington. He was also noted as a portrait painter. The largest collection of his works, which is in the Yale School of Fine Arts, was given to Vale University during his life, under an agreement for an annuity, at a lime when he had reached ad- vanced age. (See Autobiography, Reminiscences and Letters, by John Trumbull, 1841; John Trum- bull: a brief sketch of his life, to which is added a catalogue of his works; by John F Weir, N. A., M. A., 1901.)