I do hereby earnestly recommend it to all ... to meet together for social prayer to Almighty God ... that He would ... preserve our precious Rights and Liberties ... and make us a People of his praise, and blessed of the Lord, as long as the sun and the moon shall endure.
Jonathan Trumbull,
to the People of Connecticut, June 18, 1776
Patriotic and plucky was Connecticut, the State of the Charter Oak. It had been a liberty-loving Colony from the days when its first settlers, with their wives, children, household goods, and cattle, came through the howling Wilderness—literally howling with savage Pequot Indians—and settled on the banks of the beautiful Connecticut River, whose name in the Indian language means Long River.
Those brave settlers came into the Wilderness so that they might have religious and civil Liberty. Almost, their first act was to frame in 1639, a Constitution for their own government. It was the first Constitution in America to make no mention of allegiance to King or Great Britain. It breathed the free spirit of American Independence over a hundred years before the Declaration of Independence.
Is it strange, then, that Jonathan Trumbull, Governor of Connecticut under King George, should have been a Patriot?
He was more than loyal to American freedom. He was Washington’s friend and supporter. He supplied Washington with soldiers and ammunition. He supplied more than half the powder used at Bunker Hill.
There is a tale, that once when Washington was hard put to it for ammunition, and it looked as though the campaign would fail for lack of powder and shot, Washington said to his officers, “We must consult Brother Jonathan.”
Then Washington consulted Governor Trumbull, and got his powder and shot.
After that, whenever a difficulty arose in the Army, the men would say, “We must consult Brother Jonathan.” So the saying became a byword.
Later, people nicknamed the United States, “Brother Jonathan,” just as England is called “John Bull.”