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Abner Jackson
Abner Jackson was the 8th president of Trinity College, from October 1867 to April 19, 1874.
Born in Washington, Pennsylvania in 1811, Abner Jackson graduated from Trinity College in 1837, after which he was appointed Tutor and Librarian of the College. In 1840, he took the dual post of Professor of Intellectual Philosophy and Lecturer in Chemistry and Mineralogy. Jackson taught theological courses at Trinity College as well as popular courses about philosophy, chemistry, and mineralogy.
In 1858, Jackson moved to Geneva, New York to become the president of Hobart College. During the Civil War, he helped to raise funds for St. John's Chapel at Hobart, where he remained until February 1867, when the Board of Trustees of Trinity College decided to woo him back. In that year, Jackson returned to Trinity College to assume the role of president.
During his time as president of Trinity College, Jackson publicly contradicted a claim that erupted over the number of Trinity students who were supporters of the Democratic Party. Jackson argued that even though the percentage of Democratic students had risen from the minority that might have been on campus during the Civil War, it was no where near the five-sixths figure that had been reported in the Hartford Courant. In addition, Jackson did well to curb student enthusiasm for pranks and hooliganism. He helped to increase the number of Episcopal students who attended the College, reversing the trend of previous years which had seen slipping numbers of such students. Soon after his return to Hartford, Jackson became a vestryman in the Church of the Incarnation, a High Church operation two blocks from the original campus.
When in March 1872, the Trinity College Board of Trustees approved, by a 12 to 4 vote, to accept the City of Hartford's offer to purchase the campus for $600,000, President Jackson was initially opposed. Yet, he finally came to approve the opportunity to expand the campus from its three buildings and construct new facilities. At the request of the Trustees, Jackson toured England and Scotland in 1872 in order to hire an architect to draw up a plan for the new campus. It was Jackson who found and engaged the services of William Burges, an architect with a London office. Unexpectedly, Abner Jackson died from pneumonia on April 19, 1874, as the ground for the current Trinity College campus was about to be broken.
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Sources
History of Trinity College (1967) by Glenn Weaver, pp. 73, 96, 104, 113, 143-150, 152-153, 174, 176-180, 182, 189.