TRINITY COLLEGE, HARTFORD.
BY SAMUEL HART, D.D., PROFESSOR OF LATIN.
trinity college in 1869.
The plan for the establishment of a second college in Connecticut was not carried into effect until after the time of the political and religious revolution which secured the adoption of a State Constitution in 1818. Probably no such plan was seriously entertained till after the close of the war of Independence. The Episcopal church in Connecticut had, one may almost say, been born in the library of Yale College; and though Episcopalians, with other dissenters from the “standing order,” had been excluded from taking any part in the government or the instruction of the institution, they did not forget how much they owed to it as the place where so many of their clergy had received their education. In fact, when judged by the standards of that day, it would appear that they had at first little cause to complain of illiberal treatment, while on the other hand they did their best to assist the college in the important work which it had in hand. But Yale College, under the presidency of Dr. Clap, assumed a more decidedly theological character than before, and set itself decidedly in opposition to those who dissented from the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Saybrook Platform of Discipline. Besides, King’s College, which had been lately founded in New York, drew away some Episcopal students from Connecticut and made others dissatisfied; and had not the war with the mother country rudely put a stop to the growth of Episcopacy in the colony, it would seem that steps might have been soon taken for the establishment of some institution of learning, at least a school of theology, under the care of the clergy of the Church of England.
trinity college in 1828.
At any rate no sooner was it known that the war was ended than the churchmen of Connecticut sent the Rev. Dr. Seabury across the ocean to seek consecration as a bishop; and it was not long after his return that the diocese, now fully organized, set on foot a plan for the establishment of an institution of sound learning, and in 1795 the Episcopal Academy of Connecticut was founded at Cheshire. It was sometimes called Seabury College, and, under its learned principals, it fitted many young men for entrance upon their theological studies, and gave them part at least of their professional training. But its charter, which was granted by the General Assembly of the State in 1801, did not give it the power of conferring degrees, and the frequent petitions for an extension of charter rights, so as to make of the academy a collegiate institution, were refused. For a time, owing to determined opposition in the State, to the vacancy in the episcopate, and to other causes, the project was postponed. But a combination of events, social, political, and religious, led at length to the great revolution in Connecticut, in which all dissenters from the standing order united in opposition to it, and secured in 1818, though it was by a small majority, the adoption of a State Constitution containing a clause which admitted of “secession” from any ecclesiastical society and secured perfect religious equality before the law.
statue of bishop brownell,
on the campus.
In the following year, while the enthusiasm of the victory was still felt, the vacant episcopate was filled by the election of the Rev. Dr. Thomas Church Brownell, who had been for ten years tutor and professor in Union College, a man of learning, profoundly interested in education, and qualified for the varied duties which lay upon him as Bishop of Connecticut. He soon availed himself of this favorable opportunity for renewing the plans for the establishment of a college. There was much strong opposition to be encountered, and the student of the pamphlet literature of the day finds much to excite his interest and his wonder in the attacks upon the proposed “Second College in Connecticut”—“Seabury College,” as it was sometimes called. The whole matter was curiously complicated with discussions as to political and financial matters, the many questions between the recently disestablished order and its opponents not having been fully settled as yet. At last, on the 13th day of May, 1823, a petition for a college charter was presented to the General Assembly, and the act of incorporation of Washington College passed the lower house three days later, and soon received the assent of the senate and the approval of the governor. The name selected for the institution was not that which its friends would have preferred; but the honored name of Washington was adopted partly, as it would appear, because others than Episcopalians united in the establishment of the college, and partly that there could be no ground of opposition to it on account of its name. Among the corporators associated with Bishop Brownell were some of the prominent clergy and laity of the diocese, such as the Rev. Drs. Harry Croswell and N. S. Wheaton, Gov. John S. Peters, the Hon. Nathan Smith, the Hon. Elijah Boardman, the Hon. Asa Chapman, Com. McDonough, and Mr. Charles Sigourney; and there were added to them representatives of the other opponents of the old establishment, among them the Rev. Samuel Merwin and the Rev. Elisha Cushman. It was expressly provided in the charter that no religious test whatever should be required of any president, professor, or other officer, and that the religious tenets of no person should be made a condition of admission to any privilege in the college. Even before the charter containing this clause was granted, it produced a most important effect; for, on the 12th day of May, 1823,—it was believed, as a last effort of opposition,—the corporation of Yale College met in Hartford, and repealed the test act which required of all its officers, even of professors in the medical school, a subscription to the Saybrook Platform.
proposed new college buildings.
The trustees of the new college were authorized to locate it in any town in the State as soon as $30,000 should be secured for its support; and when it was found that more than three-fourths of the sum of $50,000, which was soon subscribed, was the gift of citizens of Hartford, who thus manifested in a substantial way the interest which they had previously expressed, it was decided to establish Washington College in that city. A site of fourteen acres on an elevation, then described as about half a mile from the city, was secured for the buildings, and in June, 1824, Seabury Hall and Jarvis Hall (as they were afterwards called) were begun. They were of brown stone, following the Ionic order of architecture, well proportioned, and well adapted to the purposes for which they were designed. The former, containing rooms for the chapel, the library, the cabinet, and for recitations, was designed by Prof. S. F. B. Morse, and the latter, having lodging-rooms for nearly a hundred students, was designed by Mr. Solomon Millard, the architect of Bunker Hill Monument. The buildings were not completed when, on the 23d of September, 1824, one senior, one sophomore, six freshmen, and one partial student were admitted members of the college; and work was begun in rooms in the city. The faculty had been organized by the election of Bishop Brownell as president, the Rev. George W. Doane (afterwards Bishop of New Jersey), as professor of belles-lettres and oratory, Mr. Frederick Hall as professor of chemistry and mineralogy, Mr. Horatio Hickok as professor of agriculture and political economy (he was, by the way, the first professor of this latter science in this country), and Dr. Charles Sumner as professor of botany. The instruction in the ancient languages was intrusted to the Rev. Hector Humphreys, who was soon elected professor, and who left the college in 1830 to become President of St. John’s College, Maryland. The chair of mathematics and natural philosophy was filled in 1828 by the election of the Rev. Horatio Potter, now the venerable Bishop of New York. The learned Rev. Dr. S. F. Jarvis soon began his work in and for the college, under the title of Professor of Oriental Literature; and the Hon. W. W. Ellsworth was chosen professor of law. The provision which was announced in the first statement published by the trustees, that students would be allowed to enter in partial courses without becoming candidates for a degree, was a new feature in collegiate education, and a considerable number of young men were found who were glad to avail themselves of it. It is believed, also, that practical instruction in the natural sciences was given here to a larger extent than in most other colleges.
james williams,
forty years janitor
of trinity college;
died 1878.
bishop seabury’s mitre,
in the library.
In 1826 there were fifty undergraduates. A library had been obtained which, in connection with Dr. Jarvis’s, was called second in magnitude and first in value of all in the country. The professor of mineralogy had collected a good cabinet. There was a greenhouse and an arboretum; and, besides gifts from friends at home, the Rev. Dr. Wheaton had been successful in securing books and apparatus in England for the use of the college.
chair of gov. wanton,
of rhode island,
in the library.
A doctor’s degree was conferred in 1826 upon Bishop Jolly (“Saint Jolly” he was called), of Scotland, but the first commencement was held in 1827, when ten young men were graduated. Of these, three died in early life, and but one, the Rev. Oliver Hopson, survives. To a member of this class, the Hon. Isaac E. Crary, the first president of the alumni, is due no small share of the credit of organizing the educational system of Michigan, which he represented both as a territory and as a State in the Federal Congress. The Athenæum Literary Society was organized in 1825, and the Parthenon, the first president of which was the poet Park Benjamin, in 1827. The Missionary Society, still in successful operation, was founded in 1831, its first president being George Benton, afterwards missionary to Greece and Crete, and from it, primarily through the efforts of Augustus F. Lyde, of the class of 1830, came the establishment of the foreign missions of the Episcopal Church of this country.
trinity college in 1885.
When Bishop Brownell retired from the presidency of the college in 1831, in order to devote all his time to the work of the diocese, he was succeeded by the Rev. Dr. N. S. Wheaton, an early, steadfast, and liberal friend of the institution. He secured the endowment of two professorships, and among the many good things which he planned and did for the college should not be forgotten the taste with which he laid out and beautified its grounds. To him succeeded, in 1837, the Rev. Dr. Silas Totten, professor of mathematics. During his presidency of eleven years, additions were made to the scholarship fund, and the foundation of a library fund was laid; and in 1845 a third building, Brownell Hall, was built, corresponding in appearance to Jarvis Hall, and, like it, designed for occupation by students. In the same year, on the petition of the corporation, who acted in the matter at the desire of the alumni, the General Assembly of the State changed the name of the college to Trinity College. The change was intended in part to prevent the confusion which arose from the use of a name which the college had in common with other institutions, in part to attest the faith of those who had founded and who maintained the college, and in part to secure a name which (especially at Cambridge in England) had been long associated with sound learning. At the same time the alumni were organized into a convocation as a constituent part of the academic body.
In 1848 the Rev. Dr. John Williams, a graduate in the class of 1835, who, though he was less than thirty-one years of age, had given ample promise of extraordinary abilities, was chosen president, and he held the office until 1854, when the duties of assistant bishop, to which he had been consecrated in 1851, forced him to resign. He did much to increase the library funds and to develop the course of academic instruction. He also began instruction in theology, and an informal theological department grew up, which was organized in 1854 as the Berkeley Divinity School and located in Middletown. He was succeeded by the Rev. Dr. D. R. Goodwin. In 1860 Prof. Samuel Eliot was chosen president, and in 1864, the Rev. Dr. J. B. Kerfoot, who was called in 1866 to the bishopric of Pittsburgh. Under the care of these scholarly men the college maintained and strengthened its position as a seat of learning (though in the time of the civil war it suffered from depletion in numbers), additions were made to the funds, and a new professorship was founded. Among those whom the college gave to the war were Generals G. A. Stedman and Strong Vincent, and the “battle-laureate of America,” Henry H. Brownell.
In June, 1867, the Rev. Dr. Abner Jackson, of the class of 1837, formerly professor here, then President of Hobart College, was elected president. Under his administration, in 1871-72, the number of undergraduates, for the first time, reached a hundred. In 1871 the legacy of Mr. Chester Adams, of Hartford, brought to the college some $65,000, the largest gift thus far from any individual. In 1872, after much discussion and hesitation, the trustees decided to accept the offer of the city of Hartford, which desired to purchase the college campus for a liberal sum, that it might be offered to the State as a site for the new capitol, the college reserving the right to occupy for five or six years so much of the buildings as it should not be necessary to remove. In 1873 a site of about eighty acres, on a bluff of trap-rock in the southern part of the city, commanding a magnificent view in every direction, was purchased for the college, and President Jackson secured elaborate plans for extensive ranges of buildings in great quadrangles. The work, to which he devoted much time and thought, was deferred by his death in April, 1874, but the Rev. Dr. T. R. Pynchon, of the class of 1841, who succeeded him in the presidency, entered vigorously upon the labor of providing the college with a new home. Ground was broken in 1875, and in the autumn of 1878 two blocks of buildings, each three hundred feet long, bearing the old names of Seabury and Jarvis Halls, were completed. They stand on the brow of the cliff, having a broad plateau before them on the east, and, with the central tower, erected in 1882 by the munificence of Col. C. H. Northam, they form the west side of the proposed great quadrangle. Under Dr. Pynchon’s direction the former plans had been much modified, in order that this one range of buildings might suffice for the urgent needs of the college, provision being made for suitable rooms for the chapel, the library, and the cabinet, as well as for lecture-rooms and for suites of students’ apartments. During his presidency the endowments were largely increased by the generous legacies of Col. and Mrs. Northam, whose gifts to the college amount to nearly a quarter of a million of dollars; large and valuable additions were made to the library and the cabinet, and the number of students was, in 1877-80, greater than ever before. By a change in the charter, made in 1883, the election of three of the trustees was put into the hands of the alumni.
In 1883 the Rev. Dr. George Williamson Smith was elected to the presidency, and was welcomed to his duties with much enthusiasm. In the following year considerable changes were made in the course of instruction, including arrangements for four distinct schemes of study, introducing elective studies into the work of the junior and senior years, and providing for practical work in the applied sciences. An observatory has been built, for which a telescope and other apparatus have been presented; and the funds have been secured for the erection of an ample gymnasium, with a theatre or lecture-hall.
Of the nearly nine hundred men who have received the bachelor’s degree from Trinity College no small number have attained eminence in their respective walks in life. The class of 1829 gave a governor to Michigan and a judge to Illinois; the class of 1830, a member of Congress to Tennessee, a judge to Louisiana, and two prominent divines to Ohio; the class of 1831, a bishop to Kansas; the class of 1832, three members of Congress, one to North Carolina, one to Missouri (who has also been governor of the State), and one to New York, a distinguished clergyman to Connecticut, and a chaplain to West Point; the class of 1835, an archbishop to the Roman Catholic Church, and a chairman to the house of bishops of the American Episcopal Church; the class of 1840, a president to St. Stephen’s College and a supreme-court judge to Connecticut; the class of 1846, a member of Congress to New York, another (also lieutenant-governor) to Minnesota, and a president to Norwich University; the class of 1848, a bishop to Massachusetts, a lecturer, a tutor, and three trustees to the college; and this list seems as a sample of what the college has done and is doing, in the spirit of her motto, for the Church and the country. The bishops of Connecticut, Kansas, Georgia, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Washington Territory, and Indiana are among her alumni; with them some three hundred others have entered the ministry of the Christian Church; and representatives of the college are found holding honored positions in the State, in institutions of learning, in the professions of law and medicine, and in the business of life. Her course of instruction unites the conservatism of experience with adaptation to the needs of modern scholarship, all under the acknowledged influence of religious nurture; her well-stocked library and ample museum, with her unrivalled accommodations for students, furnish her for her work, so that she is, in reality as well as in name, in the affections of her members as well as in her profession, a home of sound learning. And as her needs are supplied by the generosity of alumni and friends, she will be still better qualified for her work and will draw still closer to herself those who are entrusted to her care.
The elaborate plans for the new buildings, prepared by the eminent English architect the late Mr. Burgess, were such as to provide for all the present and prospective needs of the college. As finally arranged they included a large quadrangle six hundred feet by three hundred, at either end of which should be a quadrangle three hundred feet square. It was not expected that all of the great pile could be built at once, and, in fact, all that has been erected as yet is the west side of the great “quad.” This includes, as has been said above, two long blocks of buildings connected by a large tower some seventy feet square. The style of architecture is that known as French secular Gothic; the buildings are of brown Portland stone, liberally trimmed with white sandstone from Ohio. Jarvis Hall contains forty-four suites of rooms for the students and the junior professors, unsurpassed for beauty and convenience by students’ quarters elsewhere; they are so arranged that each suite of rooms runs through the buildings, and that there is plenty of sunlight and air in every study and bedroom. The Northam tower is also fitted for students’ apartments. In Seabury Hall, the plan of which was modified under Mr. Kimball, the American architect, are the spacious lecture-rooms, finished, as is all the rest of the buildings, in ash and with massive Ohio stone mantel-pieces; and also the other public rooms. The chapel is arranged choir-wise, after the English custom, and will accommodate about two hundred people; the wood-work here is particularly handsome. It is provided with a fine organ, the gift of a recent graduate. The museum contains a full set of Ward’s casts of famous fossils, including the huge megatherium, a large collection of mounted skeletons, and cases filled with minerals and shells; while the galleries afford room for other collections. The library extends through three stories, and is overrunning with its twenty-six thousand books and thirteen thousand pamphlets; large and valuable additions have been made to its shelves within a few years. The erection of a separate library building, probably at the south end of the great quadrangle, will be a necessity before many years. The laboratories for practical work in physics and chemistry are at present in Seabury Hall; but there is a demand for larger accommodations. The St. John observatory is a small, but well-furnished building on the south campus. The present gymnasium is a plain structure on the north campus, between the dormitories and the president’s house; but the funds have already been obtained for a handsome and spacious gymnasium, and the generous gift of Mr. J. S. Morgan, of London, has provided for the erection of an “annex,” under cover of which base-ball and other games may be practised in the winter. As new buildings rise from time to time, the spacious grounds will doubtless be laid out and beautified to correspond with the lawn in front of the present buildings. Mention should also be made of the halls of the college fraternities, three of which are already erected.
the new gymnasium
Thus the college, though it needs an increase in its funds for various purposes, is well fitted for its work. In its courses of instruction it provides for those who wish to secure degrees in arts and in science, and also for special students. The prizes offered in the several departments and the honors which may be attained by excellence in the work of the curriculum serve as incentives to scholarship. Nor is it least among the attractions of Trinity College that it stands in the city of Hartford.
[Webster Historical Society Papers.]