Edward A. Jones
The Reverend Edward A. Jones was the first Black person to receive a degree from Trinity College, then known as Washington College, and one of the first Black college graduates in the United States. He was also one of the first recipients of an honorary degree from Trinity.
Jones was the son of a freedman from Charleston, South Carolina. With the help of his father, who was a hotel keeper and caterer, Jones enrolled in Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1822. Graduating from Amherst College on August 23, 1826, he was among the first Black Americans to receive a college degree.
After his graduation, Jones went on to study at the Andover Theological Seminary and the African Mission School in Hartford. On August 4, 1830, he received an honorary M.A. degree from Washington College, now Trinity, becoming one of the College's first honorary degree holders. A few months later, in September, he was admitted to the Holy Order of Priests by the Rt. Rev. Thomas C. Brownell in Christ Church, Hartford.
Jones went on to become a missionary in Liberia and worked among the village congregations for a short time before being appointed as the principal of Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone in January 1841. During his time as principal, Jones was very involved in improving the school, often taking trips to England to raise money, and enlisting a reputable curriculum on mathematics, languages, and theology.
Later on, Jones moved to Freetown to serve as a minister to one of the parish churches in the town. During this time, he also worked as the accountant and secretary of the Sierra Leone Mission. He was married twice and fathered two children during his lifetime. He was considered an extremely intelligent man and was well-liked by all whom he encountered.
Jones died in Chatham, England in 1864 after a short battle with an illness.