J. Hammond (James Hammond) Trumbull

Born in Stonington, Connecticut, in 1821, James Hammond Trumbull grew into a remarkably wide-ranging man of letters: historian, philologist, bibliographer, and public servant. He studied at Yale but left before graduating because of poor health; years later, the university awarded him an honorary law degree.

Trumbull is best remembered for his scholarship on Native American languages, especially those of southern New England. He earned lasting respect for the care he brought to colonial records, early printing, and regional history, and he also served as Connecticut’s first State Librarian in 1854 and as the state’s secretary of state during the Civil War era.

For readers who enjoy authors with deep archival curiosity, Trumbull stands out as a patient, exacting scholar whose books helped preserve early American and Indigenous historical materials that might otherwise have been overlooked.