The first draft of the College Charter, April 22, 1823. Image credit: Trinity College Archives

Trinity's Charter, the document that allowed the college to be officially established, was approved by the Connecticut General Assembly in May, 1823. At the time, the name of the institution was Washington College. May 16th, the date generally accepted as the day the Charter was granted, is celebrated annually as Charter Day.

Trinity's origins begin with Samuel Seabury, Jr., the first Episcopal Bishop of Connecticut, who supported establishing an Episcopal College in Connecticut. Yale, the only college in the state at the time, was Congregationalist, the predominate sect in New England. Seabury and others supported the creation of the Episcopal Academy in Cheshire, but attempts to transition the Academy to a College failed. It was not until decades later that new attempts would be made to establish an Episcopal College in Connecticut.

Thomas Church Brownell, the third Episcopal Bishop of Connecticut, led the push for Washington College's establishment. Brownell and 18 colleagues gathered in 1822 to begin drafting the petition to establish an Episcopal college in Connecticut. By March, the petition was ready, and was sent to the General Assembly on May 7. The Charter was granted on May 16 or 22. May 16 is the generally accepted date, expressed by Bishop John Williams to the Trinity students during the unveiling of the Brownell Statue in 1869. Eben Edwards Beardsley, Class of 1832, also notes May 16 in his History of the Episcopal Church (1868).

The original Charter is brief; it establishes the Trustees, the Fellows, and President, how they are selected and what they are allowed to do, such as “have full power and authority to direct and manage the funds for the benefit of the institution” and “grant all literary honors and degrees, as are usually granted by any University, College, or Seminary of learning in this State,” and to “make all ordinances and by-laws which to them shall seem expedient for carrying into effect the designs of the institution.” The Charter also states that “the funds which may at any time belong to the institution now incorporated, shall enjoy the like exemption from taxation,” and finally, “whenever funds shall be contributed or secured to the said college to the amount of thirty thousand dollars, and not before, the trustees may proceed to organize and establish the said college in such town in this State, as they shall judge most expedient.”

Throughout the centuries, the Charter has been amended through petitions to the General Assembly. Its first major revisions occurred in 1845, in which the College's name was changed to Trinity, and several amendments to detail the Board of Fellows' and Board of Trustees' allowances were proposed.

The original Charter's text can be found in the Trinity College Trustees Minutes, Vol. 1 (1823) and the Resolves and Private Laws of the State of Connecticut, Vol. 1 (1837), pg. 468.

The text of the Petition can be found in the Trinity College Trustees Minutes, Vol. 1 (1823).

The Trinity Tripod, 05/25/2020.

Trinity College in the Twentieth Century (2000) by Peter and Anne Knapp, p. 2.

The History of Trinity College (1967) by Glenn Weaver, p. 6.

Charter of Washington College (1824).