Trinity College - Ivy Yearbook (Hartford, CT)

Page 31 text:

HE i934 TRI -JV. s: Q 13 lfiwc f - A lb Q5 History of the College 1 In 1822 a group of eighteen clergymengmet at the home of Bishop Brownell at Hartford to draw up a memorial in which they prayed the General Assembly of the state to grant a charter to a college with power to confer the usual literary honors. Once before, in 1810, an effort had been made to enlargethe charter of Seabury College, an Episcopal institution founded in 1801 at Cheshire, but the General Assembly had refused to grant the request. At the beginning of the nineteenth century Yale was the only college in Connecticut, and was not only closely connected with the Congregational Church in administration, but was in complete control of the legislature. Accordingly, any suggestions by the Episcopalians as to a charter for a second college were promptly discouraged. However, during the 'War of 1812 the Episcopalians in this part of the country conducted themselves with such undoubted loyalty as to win the respect of all, with the result that when Bishop Brownell and his associates made application for a charter under the name of Washington College, their petition was promptly granted by the legislature. The amount of ,money necessary for the incorporation was raised in a very short time, as well as 850,000 toward the endowment of the college. The trustees had adopted the same plan that had been used by Yale to determine the location, inviting the larger towns of the state to contribute to the funds of the college, in competition for its site. When the decision was finally 25 NITY IV

Page 33 text:

HE l934 TRINITY IV ., ..,. ,:-bl. ..-. than Connecticut were admitted and in 1883 the charter was again amended to permit the election of three of the trustees by the alumni. Dr. Totten resigned in 1848 and Rev. John Williams was elected president. He was a man of power and highly esteemed as a scholar and a dean, and was the first president from the alumni of the college itself, having been graduated in 1835. He gave theological instruction from which grew the Berkeley Divinity School. The cares of this school became so great that he resigned as president of the college in 1853 and was succeeded by D. R. Goodwin, a graduate of Bowdoin. During the Civil War, from 1860 to 1864, the college was under the presidency of Samuel Eliot, a cousin of Harvard's famous president. He was succeeded by Dr. John B. Ker- foot, a native of Dublin, Ireland, prominent in the councils of the church, who left in 1866 to become Bishop of Pittsburg. For the next year the college was in charge of Professor John Brockelsby as actingpresident. Abner Jackson, the only president of Trinity to die in oflice, assumed his duties in 1867. An alumnus of the old Washington College, he was called to the presidency of his alma mater when president of Hobart College. During his administration the enrollment reached .100 for the first time, in 1871-72. It was also during his time that the college property was sold to the city of Hartford to be used as the site of the State Capitol. A move to the outskirts of the city was decided upon and the present property acquired. The services of Mr. Thomas 27