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