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Benjamin Trumbull, The Years at Yale 1755-1759

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Sheldon S. Cohen
Sheldon S. Cohen*
Affiliation:
Hunter College
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Extract

The reverend Benjamin Trumbull has generally been overshadowed by his more renowned relatives. His father's first cousin was Jonathan Trumbull, the Revolutionary War governor of Connecticut whose son, John, became one of America's most distinguished artists. Yet, notwithstanding such illustrious kinsmen, Benjamin Trumbull's long and diversified career also formed a prominent part of New England's past. He was born in Hebron, Connecticut, on December 19, 1735, and in his adult years served as both a chaplain and a soldier during the American Revolution, wrote a noteworthy history of colonial Connecticut, and, for sixty years prior to his death in 1820, he often influenced the religious atmosphere in his native state from his Congregational pulpit in North Haven. In all these differing roles, Benjamin Trumbull, like many of his well-known contemporaries, felt the durable effects of a colonial higher education.

Type
Tradition and Change in the Ivy League
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 6 , Issue 4 , Winter 1966 , pp. 33 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © 1967 by New York University 

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References

Notes

1. Dumas, Malone (ed.), Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936), XIX, 7–8; Benjamin Trumbull's Yale Diary, The Benjamin Trumbull Papers, Box 1, Yale University Library. (The Trumbull diary is the library's most lengthy personal account of undergraduate life in the period before the beginning of the American Revolution.) Google Scholar

2. Morgan, Edmund S., The Gentle Puritan, A Life of Ezra Stiles, 1727-1795 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962), pp. 22–42; Tucker, Louis L., Puritan Protagonist, President Thomas Clap of Yale College (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1962), pp. 114-32.Google Scholar

3. Dexter, Franklin B., Biographical Sketches of the Graduate of Yale College, with Annals of the College History (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1896), II, pp. 2–18.Google Scholar

4. Hoadly, Charles J. (ed.), The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut (Hartford, 1850-1890), IX, 113–19; Dexter, Franklin B., “An Historical Study of the Powers and Duties of the Presidency in Yale College,” American Antiquarian Society, Proceedings, XII, No.1, (1903), pp. 34 ff.; Tucker, , op. cit., pp. 73-74.Google Scholar

5. Clap, Thomas, A Catalogue of the Library of Yale-College in New Haven (New London, 1743), pp. 1–44; Clap, Thomas, A Catalogue of the Most Valuable Books in the Library of Yale-College in New Haven (New Haven, 1755), pp. 1-40; Tucker, , op. cit., pp. 88-90.Google Scholar

6. Clap, Thomas, The Annals or History of Yale-College in New Haven in the Colony of Connecticut (New Haven, 1766), pp. 54–55; see also, Dexter, , Yale Graduates, II, pp. 71-566.Google Scholar

7. Tucker, , op. cit. , pp. 175–200.Google Scholar

8. Dexter, Franklin B. (ed.), Extracts from the Itineraries and Other Miscellanies of Ezra Stiles 1755-1794 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1916), p. 492; Dexter, , Yale Graduates, II, 357.Google Scholar

9. Dexter, Franklin B., “Student Life at Yale in the Early Days of Connecticut Hall,” New Haven Colony Historical Society, Transactions , VII (1907), 297.Google Scholar

10. Dexter, Franklin B., “On Some Social Distinctions at Harvard and Yale Before the Revolution,” American Antiquarian Society, Proceedings , IX, Part 1, (1894); Dexter, , Yale Graduates, II, 567-68. Trumbull's class was the largest to attend Yale College before the American Revolution.Google Scholar

11. Trumbull, Benjamin to Trumbull, Benoni, November 24, 1755, Benjamin Trumbull Papers, Box 1, Yale University Library.Google Scholar

12. Cowie, Alexander, “Educational Problems at Yale College in the Eighteenth Century,” Tercentenary Commission of the State of Connecticut, Publications , LV, (1936), 18–20; Dexter, , Student Life at Yale, pp. 6-7; Morgan, , The Gentle Puritan, p. 43; see also, Morgan, Edmund S., “Ezra Stiles, the Education of a Yale Man 1742-46,” Huntington Library Quarterly, XVII (May 1954), pp. 254-55; Tucker, , op. cit., pp. 232-36.Google Scholar

13. Clap, , Annals of Yale College , pp. 81–82; Morgan, , The Gentle Puritan, p. 47; Cowie, , op. cit., pp. 24-26.Google Scholar

14. Benjamin Trumbull's Yale Diary, Trumbull Papers, Box 1.Google Scholar

15. Dexter, , Yale Graduates , II, 3–5.Google Scholar

16. Trumbull, Yale Diary. For the biography of Daggett, see Dexter, , Yale Graduates , II, 153–67.Google Scholar

17. Trumbull, , Yale Diary.Google Scholar

18. Dexter, Franklin B., “New Haven in 1784,” A Selection from the Miscellaneous Papers of Fifty Years (New Haven: Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor, Co., 1918), pp. 116–22; Connecticut Colony Public Records, X, 617.Google Scholar

19. Dexter, , Yale Graduates , II, 9.Google Scholar

20. Trumbull, , Yale Diary.Google Scholar

21. Ibid. Google Scholar

22. Trumbull, , Book of Accounts, Trumbull Papers, Box 1.Google Scholar

23. Ibid. Google Scholar

24. An Oration Celebrating the Reverend Mr. Goodrich, Late Tutor of Yale College in New Haven, Trumbull Papers, Box 1; Trumbull, Yale Diary.Google Scholar

25. Benjamin Trumbull, Book of Argumentations, Trumbull Papers, Box 1; Clap, , Annals of Yale College , pp. 83–84.Google Scholar

26. Clap, , Annals of Yale College , p. 82; Morgan, , The Gentle Puritan, pp. 48-51, 54-55; Tucker, , op. cit, pp. 77-78, 119.Google Scholar

27. Trumbull, , Book of Argumentations.Google Scholar

28. Trumbull, , Book of Accounts; Trumbull, , Yale Diary.Google Scholar

29. Dexter, , Yale Graduates , II, 441.Google Scholar

30. Tucker, , op. cit. , pp. 183–87.Google Scholar

31. Dexter, , Yale Graduates , II, 442–43; Tucker, , op. cit., pp. 189-90. Noyes continued to serve on the Corporation until his death in June, 1761.Google Scholar

32. Clap, , Annals of Yale College , p. 81.Google Scholar

33. Benjamin Trumbull, Book of Astronomical Calculations, Trumbull Papers, Box 1; Tucker, , op cit. , pp. 84–91.Google Scholar

34. Morgan, , The Gentle Puritan , p. 386.Google Scholar

35. Trumbull, , Yale Diary; The Connecticut Gazette , 1756–1759.Google Scholar

36. Trumbull, , Book of Accounts.Google Scholar

37. Morgan, Edmund S., The Puritan Family (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1966), pp. 65–87; Trumbull, Benjamin, Letters to Trumbull, Benoni, Trumbull Papers, Box 1.Google Scholar

38. Trumbull, Benoni to Trumbull, Benjamin, January 22, 1758, Trumbull Papers, Box 1.Google Scholar

39. Clap, , Annals of Yale College , p. 81; Morgan, , The Gentle Puritan, p. 47.Google Scholar

40. Dexter, , Yale Graduates , II, 565–66; Tucker, , op. cit., pp. 156-58.Google Scholar

41. Trumbull Papers, Box 1.Google Scholar

42. Dexter, , Yale Graduates , II, 507.Google Scholar

43. Gale, Benjamin, A Letter to a Member of the Lower House of the Assembly of the Colony of Connecticut. … (New Haven, 1759) pp. 1–23; Dexter, , Yale Graduates, II, 564-65; Tucker, , op. cit., pp. 211-13.Google Scholar

44. Trumbull, , Yale Diary.Google Scholar

45. Connecticut Gazette , September 15, 1759. Benjamin Trumbull's Yale Diploma. Trumbull Papers, Box 1.Google Scholar

46. Morgan, , The Gentle Puritan , pp. 361–64. At this time, because of the dispute between President Clap and Noyes, the commencement ceremonies apparently were held on the campus rather than at the First Church on the New Haven Green.Google Scholar

47. Trumbull, , Yale Diary.Google Scholar

48. Dexter, , Yale Graduates , II, 568–634.Google Scholar

49. Records of the Mutual Improvement Society of New Haven County. Trumbull Papers, Box 4.Google Scholar

50. Sprague, William B., Annals of the American Pulpit (New York: R. Carter Bros., 1857), I, 587.Google Scholar

51. Trumbull, Book of Argumentations; Storrs Lee, W., The Yankees of Connecticut (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Inc., 1957), p. 44.Google Scholar