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Abner Jackson
Born in Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1811, Abner Jackson graduated from Trinity College (Hartford, CT) in 1837, when 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 teaching popular courses about philosophy, chemistry, and mineralogy.
In 1858, he moved to Geneva, New York, to become the President of Hobart College. During the Civil War, he helped with the raising of St. John's Chapel at Hobart, where he remained until February 1867, when the Board of Trustees decided to woo him back to Trinity College. In that year, Jackson returned to Trinity College (Hartford, CT) to assume the role of President.
During his time as President of Trinity College, which lasted from 1867 until his death in 1874, Jackson publicly contradicted a controversy 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.
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.