Trumbull was born on March 26, 1740 in Lebanon, Connecticut. He was the second son of Jonathan Trumbull Sr. (the eventual Governor of Connecticut) and his wife Faith Robinson, daughter of Rev. John Robinson.
His brother John Trumbull was a noted painter of the Revolution.
At the age of fifteen he entered Harvard College and was graduated in 1759 as salutatorian of his class.
Three years later he was awarded the degree of M. A. and delivered the valedictory oration at the commencement exercises.
His political career began with his election in 1770 as selectman of Lebanon, an office which he held during the succeeding five years.
He also represented Lebanon in the state legislature at various times--in 1774, 1775, 1779, 1780, 1788. In May of the last-mentioned year he was elected speaker of the House.
On July 28, 1775, the Continental Congress unanimously chose him "Pay master of the forces for the New York department, " an office which he occupied, in the face of grave difficulties arising from an impoverished treasury, until July 29, 1778, when he retired in order to undertake the task of settling the accounts of his brother Joseph, commissary-general of the army, who had recently died.
He was the first person to serve as comptroller of the treasury, a position to which he was unanimously elected by Congress on November 3, 1778.
He resigned in April 1779, and on Nov. 9 was chosen commissioner of the board of treasury but declined the office. On June 8, 1781, he was appointed secretary to Washington and remained a member of the latter's military family until the close of the war, when he retired for a period from public life in order to look after his private affairs.
Upon the erection of the new government under the Constitution, he was elected to the First, Second, and Third congresses.
The esteem in which he was held by his fellow legislators is attested by the fact that in October 1791 he was chosen speaker of the House.
In October 1794 he was elected to succeed Stephen Mix Mitchell in the Senate of the United States. After serving from March 4, 1795, to June 10, 1796, he resigned in order to become deputy governor of Connecticut.
Upon the death of Oliver Wolcott in December 1797, he succeeded to the governorship, an office which he held by annual election during the remainder of his life.
Trumbull died of dropsy of the heart and was buried at Lebanon.
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Ever a staunch Federalist, he viewed the policies of Jefferson and his followers with repugnance.
When Henry Dearborn, the secretary of war, requested the use of the militia in conformity with the act passed by Congress on Jan. 9, 1809, for the enforcement of the Embargo, Trumbull refused on the ground that the measure in question was an unconstitutional invasion of the rights of the states.
On Febuary 23, in an address (published in the Connecticut Courant, Mar. 1, 1809) to the legislature which had been called into special session to consider the situation, he justified the opposition of Connecticut to the Embargo by ironically employing the language of the Virginia Resolves of 1798, of which James Madison, president-elect and heir to Jefferson's policies, was the author.
He was one the original members of the board of trustees of Bacon Academy.
After the war, he became an original member of the Connecticut Society of the Cincinnati.
He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1804.
In the transaction of business he was orderly and unhurried. A man of cheerful spirit and affable manners, he possessed the gift of easy intercourse with all ranks of society.
In March 1767 he married Eunice Backus of Norwich, Connecticut, by whom he had a son and four daughters. As a wedding present, his father built the Jonathan Trumbull House for him and his bride.
(October 12, 1710 – August 17, 1785) He was one of the few Americans who served as governor in both a pre-Revolutionary colony and a post-Revolutionary state.
(1718–1780)
(1749–1826)
(March 11, 1737 – July 23, 1778)
(June 6, 1756 – November 10, 1843) He was an American artist during the period of the American Revolutionary War and was notable for his historical paintings.
(1751–1822)
(1746–1831)
(b. February 14, 1785)
(b. September 2, 1783, d. January 1850) She married Benjamin Silliman (1779–1864), a scientist.
(b. December 27, 1777)
(b. February 1, 1769) She married Daniel Wadsworth (1771–1848), an artist and architect.
(b. December 24, 1767, d. January 14, 1768)
