Trumbull, Jonathan, Sr.

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Trumbull, Jonathan, Sr.

TRUMBULL, JONATHAN, SR. (1710–1785). Governor of Connecticut. The great-grandson of the founder of the Trumbull Family in Connecticut, Jonathan changed the spelling of his name from Trumble in 1766. Having graduated from Harvard College in 1727, he was preparing for the ministry when his elder brother, Joseph, died in 1731. Joseph had been their father's associate in a large mercantile business in Lebanon, Connecticut, and Jonathan felt it was his duty to succeed him in this responsibility. By 1760 he was a major figure in the commerce of the colony, but a credit crisis during the depression that followed the final French and Indian war left him virtually bankrupt in 1762. His economic travails did not affect his standing with the voters of Connecticut, however. He rose steadily in politics, and in 1766 he became deputy governor and chief justice. On the death of Governor William Pitkin in October 1769, Trumbull succeeded to the governorship, an office to which he was re-elected annually until his voluntary retirement in 1784, the year before his death.

A strong supporter of colonial rights and an early advocate for independence, Trumbull was a pillar of the Patriot cause. He was the only colonial governor to retain his office even after the colony gained its independence and became a state, and the only governor to serve throughout the war. Connecticut was a major source of war materiel, especially during the first two years of the conflict. Trumbull's main contribution to the war effort was organizing its resources of food, clothing, and munitions for use by General George Washington's army, a job for which his experience and connections as a merchant prepared him well. He was such an important figure that he received an average of three letters a month from Washington during this period. (Washington's first commissary general was the governor's son, Joseph Trumbull, and the second was another Connecticut man, Jeremiah Wadsworth. The Connecticut Coast Raid of July 1779 was prompted by a desire of the British to end the state's contributions to the rebel army.)

Trumbull had to cope with political opposition at home, where his policies seemed to favor mercantile and commercial groups over farmers and artisans. It was also rumored that he was secretly trading with the enemy. In the gubernatorial elections of 1780 through 1783 his popular majority was reduced to a mere plurality, but the General Assembly voted to retain him in office each year. In January 1782 he demanded a legislative investigation. He was completely vindicated, and the investigation found evidence that the rumors were enemy-inspired. He was about 5 feet 7 inches in height, austere in dress and manner, and very much what the French traveler, the Marquis de Chastellux, called "the great magistrate of a little republic."

Writing in the Dictionary of National Biography, historian Bruce C. Daniels notes the following:

Instead of courting voters and listening to their opinions, he expected the deference he felt he had earned through a lifetime of service. More dignified and reserved than haughty, Trumbull nevertheless appeared remote and cold to the new type of participatory voter who emerged during the revolutionary era-a great leader of a movement whose inner vitality tragically escaped his knowledge.

Trumbull retired in May 1784 in the face of certain electoral defeat. He spent his last fifteen months straightening out his long-neglected personal affairs.

In the nineteenth century, several biographers erroneously claimed that Trumbull was the prototype for "Brother Jonathan," the name invented by whig historians to describe their ideal of the simple citizen of the fledgling republic. Few images of Trumbull could be further from the truth.