In its early days, Trinity College employed immigrants and men of Color to work as janitors, groundskeepers, and staff. Several of these men worked for Trinity for nearly half a century. They are listed as “sub-professors” in albums and publications, a term which may have meant “faculty assistants” or more literally, “below professors.”

This article explores the lives of men who were specifically known and mentioned by students during their time working at the College. As some students and alumni misremembered different men all as “Professor Jim,” efforts are being made to identify and biography the individual men. Students knew and named them one way. However, their lives were faceted and rich beyond occupations which marginalized them.

Portrait of James Williams, taken ca. 1875. Photo credit: Trinity College Archives

James H. Williams (called “Professor Jim”) was the general factotum who worked in service of the College from about 1825 until his retirement in 1874. Outside of Trinity, Williams became a respected elder and was active in supporting the growth of the Hartford Black community.

Williams was born on August 3, 1787. His mother was Creole, enslaved by Col. John F. Robert in Yonkers, New York, and his father was a freedman “of Mr. Pugh” who worked in nearby stone quarries. ¹⁾ Robert was a friend of Aaron Burr's, and Williams would often recollect Burr's visits to the estate. Upon Robert's death in 1804, Williams was willed to the slave owner's daughter, who lived at 10 Dey Street, New York City. Williams' mother had been freed some years earlier and lived with her husband in Nyack. Williams' sister was a “maid” in the household who traveled with the family, and Williams was sent in the summers to work on a farm. ²⁾

About a year into this enslavement, Williams found an opportunity to escape when Miss Robert sent him to work at a grocery store on Broadway. As shoppers moved in and out, Williams slipped away with a bundle of clothes and enough money to board a steamer. ³⁾

After self-emancipating, Williams boarded a ship bound for England, but was impressed into the British Navy on the Shepherdess. He escaped this ship and joined the crew of the USS Hornet, serving in the War of 1812, then a pirate vessel, The True-Blooded Yankee, from which he escaped in Brazil and returned to New York. He boarded the Harrison which made several trips to France, and finally landed ashore in Long Island Sound. In about 1817, the same year that slavery was abolished in New York state, Williams found work for two years in the Portland brownstone quarries and also worked as gardener, hostler, and servant in Middletown. ⁴⁾ Eventually, he found employment as a waiter in the old City Hotel, located nearly opposite the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford.

Bishop Thomas Church Brownell and his wife met Williams in 1821 while boarding at the City Hotel, and employed him as “coachman and steward. In fact, Jim held the place of a residential servant, having the care of many of the temporal masters of the household, and being much respected and honored by all the members of the family.” ⁵⁾ When the fledgling Washington College (now Trinity College) opened, located where Bushnell Park and the State Capitol building is today, Williams “began an informal connection with the College which soon became official. He had already acted as private janitor to some of the students when, about the beginning of 1831, he was appointed a janitor with charge of the bell.” ⁶⁾

Williams met an enslaved woman from Barbados named Maria A. who lived on nearby Trumbull street; they married and took up residence in a house “about midway between Hungerford Street and Oak Street and on the south side of Capitol Avenue (Sharp's Lane).” ⁷⁾ During their lifetimes, the couple boarded their house to other People of Color. In the 1870 Hartford census, when Williams was 80 and Maria 65, their household was valued at $500 and was occupied by Alice A. Gobel, age 13, Henry W. Jones, 44, from Virginia; Anna L. Jones, 35, and Ida Jones, 1 year old.

Williams said that “during the earlier days of his career he was facetiously dubbed Professor, though when and by whom he does not recollect.” ⁸⁾ When referred to by students, he was almost exclusively called “Professor Jim” or “Prof. Jim.” There are no records to show what Williams thought or felt about this subject aside from some comments from students, such as: “He has borne the title of Professor for a very long time. To what it really applies is not positively certain, but according to the venerable Professor's own explanation, he is 'Professor of Secrets.'” ⁹⁾ Williams was not fully literate, ¹⁰⁾ but he was able to work around his shortcomings when he could not read hymns or addresses on letters, without divulging the fact. ¹¹⁾

The first African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, ca. 1852. James H. Williams is listed among the Trustees. Photo Credit: Watkinson Library Special Collections

In the 1830s, during a period of racial tensions, riots and uprisings, Williams participated in the founding of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and “took a leave of absence for a while from the College in order to devote some time to preaching the doctrines which had taken a strong hold upon him.” ¹²⁾ The Church was a center for Black culture and abolition, headed by Rev. Hosea Easton, who spoke out about racism, slavery, the African Colonization movement, and racial uplift. ¹³⁾ The Church relocated to Pearl Street when Bushnell Park was constructed. Beside the new Church was the Black Public School. Williams was devoted to attending Church every Sunday with his wife and was a preacher there. ¹⁴⁾ He also named his son Hosea, born in 1837, after the Reverend. ¹⁵⁾ Allegedly in 1839, when La Amistad was brought to New Haven to await trial, Williams went to visit the African men and preached to them. ¹⁶⁾

In 1859, along with Holdridge Primus, he became a charter member of the Hartford lodge of Prince Hall Masons. ¹⁷⁾ By all accounts, Williams was “always courtly and dignified in his bearing not only on public occasions, but also as he walked about the streets or attended to his regular duties at the college, bowing to his many friends and having a pleasant word for each.” ¹⁸⁾

While in service to the College for over 40 years, Williams ascended to the position of Head Janitor. His duties included bell-ringing, sweeping the students' rooms and maintaining their order, summoning students to appear before faculty members due to misbehavior, and attendance at Class Day, where he would lead the procession with the Class President, fill the students' pipes, make punch from a lemon squeezer and recite a send-off speech. The original 1857 lemon squeezer, which was passed from class to class, is said to be an oversized replica of Williams'. At Class Day, the students would hold the “Presentation to Professor Jim,” in which they gave a gift, typically a purse of money, though in other years, he was gifted a watch (1869) and a gold-headed cane. The students also annually raised money to purchase a Thanksgiving turkey for Williams, “a slight token of the kind feelings which the students still cherish toward him. It is a pension raised by the gratitude and love of the students.” ¹⁹⁾

During the late 1860s and early 1870s, as he advanced in age, the students expressed concern for Williams' health ²⁰⁾ and for memorializing him. Williams was apt to share his life's stories with students over the decades, ²¹⁾ and articles began appearing in the Trinity Tablet detailing his experiences and asking the College to support him financially. In 1870, a Tablet article appeared urging the Trustees that “a pension of ample amount should be settled upon him.” ²²⁾ When Williams received a letter from a childhood acquaintance which allowed him to determine the year he was born, students published this information. ²³⁾ The story was also published in the Hartford Courant. ²⁴⁾

Eventually, the students' wish to cement Williams in memory turned formal when Williams recounted his life to Charles Proctor, Class of 1873, and his biography was published that year. The book, published in pamphlet forms, was sold for 50 cents, “the entire profits to be given to the professor.” ²⁵⁾ Lithographs of “Prof. Jim” were also printed and sold, copies of which remain in the College Archives. Williams' financial compensation from these sales remains to be investigated.

Williams retired from his janitorial duties in 1874 with a pension, ²⁶⁾ though students recalled that he would still spend time on the College grounds and was still present at Class Day exercises. Williams also turned sod at the new campus groundbreaking in 1875, though he did not live to see it built.

James Williams died at his home on May 20, 1878, and funeral services were held by Bishop Williams at the College Chapel. The funeral was attended by students, faculty, alumni, and many members of the Black community, and one student recalled that never had he seen a funeral with “such genuine honor.” Williams is buried in the Old North Cemetery in Hartford; his grave is marked by a Portland brownstone marker donated by the College alumni. It was hewn from one of the old Chapel's column bases. The stone, designed by W.C. Brocklesby, Class of 1869, read “Faithful Over a Few Things.” In the 1930s, President Ogilby noted that the old tombstone was beginning to fall into disrepair, and the Trinity alumni raised funds for a new stone to replace it.

Maria, Williams' widow, continued living in Hartford as a boarder with two women until she passed away in about 1883, at 81 years old. ²⁷⁾ Hosea, Williams' son, does not appear in records after 1850, in which he was thirteen years old. An obituary for Williams from The Evening Post on May 21, 1878 stated that Williams left “behind a wife but no children.” ²⁸⁾ It is possible Hosea passed away at a young age.

William C. Adams, ca. 1875. Photo Credit: Trinity College Archives

William C. Adams was born in Maryland in 1831 and arrived in Hartford in about 1841. He joined the College staff to assist James Williams in 1849. As Williams aged and his physical health declined, Adams took over the Class Day duties of serving punch. He also cared for some of the students' rooms, and did “general outside work.”

In 1850, Adams lived with his mother, Sarah, and Rachel, possibly a sister. ²⁹⁾ In 1860, Adams was still living with his mother and another woman close to his age, Julia, who may or may not have been his wife at the time. His estate was valued at $400. ³⁰⁾

Adams married a woman named Martha in about 1867. They had eight children, only two of whom survived by 1900: Edward (1874) and Fannie (1888). In 1881, Adams is listed as living at 242 Zion Street in Hartford in 1896, at 827 Broad Street, in 1897, at 23 Sanford, and in 1899, 162 Ward Street. ³¹⁾ In 1900, Adams and family were renting a home on Wolcott Street that included 20-year-old boarder Mary and her younger brother, three-year-old Asby. ³²⁾

Adams worked for the College for over 50 years, like Williams, until his death in 1902 at the age of 74. Upon his death, Adams was eulogized in the Tablet and students “ proposed that a fund be started for the purpose of procuring a memorial to the deceased, which shall be placed somewhere within the college.”

In College publications, Adams was called “Uncle Billy” and “Old Adams.” His middle name may have been either Courtney ³³⁾ or Charles. ³⁴⁾

Benjamin Franklin Anderson, ca. 1875. Photo Credit: Trinity College Archives

Benjamin Franklin Anderson, called “Franklin” in College publications, was purportedly born in the South in 1838. He was hired to assist Williams and Adams in 1867, as Williams was in failing health. “A large part of the Janitor’s duties–-in fact, nearly all except the ringing of the bell and the care of the chapel–fell to his lot at once.” When Williams died in 1878, Anderson was made Head Janitor. He was married to a woman named Eliza Jane.

Anderson retired in 1882 but remained a “faithful member of the college community and true friend of the institution.” He is described as taking great pride in the grounds and public rooms, and “in having everything, for which he was in any way responsible, in the best of order.“ He also religiously attended chapel services and even studied Latin at the College when he had time.

Anderson, after being ill for “six or seven weeks” and absent from the College, died on December 21, 1887. The Tablet that month notes that at the time of his death, President George Smith was with him.

He is buried in Zion Hill Cemetery, Section D Lot 577. Eliza, his wife, died in 1891 and is buried with him.

Adolphus A. Hall, ca. 1875. Photo Credit: Trinity College Archives

Adolphus A. Hall was born between 1846 and 1848 in Washington D.C. to William W and Minty Jane Keys [it is unknown whether he was enslaved]. He appears in a student's 1873-1875 photograph album, labeled in handwriting as “Adolphus.” He was a member of the Trinity College staff between about 1873 and 1883.

In 1870, Adolphus was 22 years old, living and working as a Hostler for Moses Weld Terrill in Middlefield, Connecticut. ³⁵⁾ By 1877, he was a “janitor” for Trinity College and living at 10 Gold Street. ³⁶⁾ By 1880-1881, Hall was working as a “waiter” and lived with his wife, Jennie, and nine-year-old daughter, Florence, at 299 Allyn Street. ³⁷⁾ An 1880 census, taken of “Summit Street,” lists Adolphus Hall (34) among other men of color working as “waiters” beneath a list of student names. ³⁸⁾ By 1883, Adolphus and Jennie were separated, and Jennie was living at Ann Street.

At some point, Adolphus removed to Massachusetts. He met Mary or “Nellie” Molineaux, who had immigrated to the United States from Prince Edward Island in 1885; they married in 1889 ³⁹⁾ (Adolphus is described as “col'd” and Mary/Nellie as “white.”). Adolphus held occupations as coachman, stable keeper, and janitor at this time. In 1900, The household included Adolphus, Mary and her mother, Elizabeth Molineaux (both of whom are listed as “white”), along with five living children: Gertrude (Jan. 1889), Fred (Sept. 1891, born Adolphus Hall II), ⁴⁰⁾ Charles (July 1893), Marion (Dec. 1895) and Edna Mae (July 1898), all of whom are described as Black. ⁴¹⁾ The census implies that a sixth child was born but by 1900 is deceased. In January 1909, Edna Mae would die at the age of 10 from “tubercular meningitis;” she is buried in Bellevue Cemetery in Lawrence, MA. ⁴²⁾ The family home at this time was 5 School Street, Lawrence, MA.

Adolphus died on October 24, 1922 at the age of 73. He is buried in Elmwood Cemetery in Methuen, MA. ⁴³⁾

The November 1874 Tablet states that “Aldolphus Hall [misspelled by student writer] now renovates the spittoons et cetera in place of Benjamin Franklin Anderson.” In 1878, the Tablet identifies “Adolphus” and “Franklin” as the two men who took down a skeleton twice hung in the Chapel as a prank. ⁴⁴⁾

Image of unidentified man labled “Prof. John,” ca. 1875. Photo Credit: Trinity College Archives

An unidentified Black man appears in a student's 1873-1875 photograph album, labeled in handwriting as “Prof. John.” It is possible that this man's surname was Hollingsworth. ⁴⁵⁾

During the early- to mid-19th century in the North, “Africans and Native Americans were seen and treated as servants and inferior beings. Race prejudice was firmly in place” and these men “became a fixture in the workplace…through unfailing deference to whites.” ⁴⁶⁾ In the 1830s, Edward Abdy observed that “there is, perhaps, no city, containing the same amount of population, where the blacks meet with more contumely and unkindness than at this place [Hartford, Conn.]. Some of them told me it was hardly safe for them to be in the streets alone at night.” ⁴⁷⁾

Lithograph of “Prof. Jim,” by D.W. Kellogg & Co. Photo Credit: Connecticut Museum of Culture and History

Students nicknamed the men who worked at Trinity facetiously, “mocking their lowly status” ⁴⁸⁾ with nicknames like “Professor Jim” for James Williams and “Uncle Billy” for William Adams. This callousness was ubiquitous for the white students who viewed Williams, Adams, and others as their subordinates. As one student wrote, “Whatever were Jim's capabilities and character, his circumstances were such as to render the chance of his ever becoming the president of a college, or the chief officer of a corporation, a moral impossibility.” ⁴⁹⁾

While in life Williams had friendships and ties in the Black Church and community, depictions by the white students and faculty at Trinity often fell into the “Tom” stereotype. ⁵⁰⁾ While there are variations of the “Tom,” it is typically a simpleton, often an older man, who is a happily submissive servant to whites. Because of these depictions, it is difficult to determine Williams' personality, interests, thoughts, or feelings outside of students' biased and prejudiced descriptions. Proctor's biography, for example, was said to be written as an oral history taken directly from interviews with Williams. However, Proctor deliberately chose to interpret “Jim's” stories and, when quoting him, utilized phonetic spellings in order to reinforce “Jim's” societal status as an uneducated Black man.⁵¹⁾

Williams was professionally photographed a number of times by the College, perhaps at the request of students. ⁵²⁾ Portraits of Williams appeared alongside faculty and students in albums that students purchased as keepsakes of their time at Trinity. A lithograph of Williams was also generated and sold to alumni and others to complement the published Proctor biography. This lithograph, which appears in a 1908 Tablet ⁵³⁾ appears to be a combined image of two full-length photographic portraits of Williams; ⁵⁴⁾ it depicts a smiling Williams with a bell-rope in one hand and fistful of keys in the other, standing in front of a bucket and broom. This caricature was called a “faithful picture” of Williams. ⁵⁵⁾ Likely, this lithograph was generated as a way to invoke alumni nostalgia, as both Williams and the bell-rope were key features of the Old Campus.

Students described Williams as the “genial janitor,” ⁵⁶⁾ active and mirthful, never missing a day of work, keen to keep their secrets. Many others noted his infallible memory and capacity for details of all the people he had known in life. ⁵⁷⁾ They remembered his “humorous smile,” wit, and “sparkling eyes,” but also “devotion and fidelity common to his race.” ⁵⁸⁾

Like the lithograph depicts him with the tools of the janitorial job, Williams was best known as Trinity's “most faithful servitor.” Servitor, which literally means “male servant,” was a word that could refer to janitorial work, but also could reinforce societal inferiority, as “servant” was a common euphemism for slave. “Jim” was praised for the number of years he worked diligently at the College; he was “humble,” “trusty,” and “punctual,” happy to work hard and loyal to his white employers. The Trinity students said that “he is a living example of those venerable stewards…in a service of inflexible attachment to their lords, and of unswerving devotion to their interests.” It is this that the students say is “no juster claim” to a reward of comfort, repose, and financial stability, “so ought Trinity to honor Prof. Jim” at the end of his life. “In the undeviating fulfillment of his humble capacity, he has been a hero, unnoticed perhaps here, but recognized above.” ⁵⁹⁾ The use of the word “hero” mirrors Donald Bogle in his book Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, & Bucks (1994): “Always as toms are chased, harassed, hounded, flogged, enslaved, and insulted, they keep the faith, n'er turn against their white massas, and remain hearty, submissive, stoic, generous, selfless, and oh-so-very kind. Thus they endear themselves to white audiences and emerge as heroes of sorts.” (pp. 5-6).

At the time of Williams' funeral, an article appeared in the Tablet in which a student ruminates on why he, “the man of low estate,” was so revered and respected “not only by his equals, but by those who were more than his equals.” The student concluded that it was “first, the force of strong character; and, secondly, the influence of circumstances.” Williams was respected because he rose above the circumstances in which he was born: Black, enslaved, without formal education, and non-Christian. The student concluded, “it will not harm us to pause by the grave of this humble man, and ask ourselves if we ever expect to make ourselves as much greater than our fortunes as he made himself greater than his.” ⁶⁰⁾ While a sentimental statement, it is worth noting that the “Professor Jim” moniker appears throughout the twentieth and twenty-first century in regard to Williams, and that his biography is yet incomplete as little is known about his personal life, his accomplishments, and thoughts outside of Trinity College. The depictions by students in the 19th century are one-sided caricatures of a jolly, uneducated servant, whereas research by authors such as Beeching show a man who was dedicated to the betterment of his community and found meaning by being active in it.

Popular and Pervasive Stereotypes of African Americans by the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

"James Williams, More Than Trinity College's Janitor" (2021) by Elizabeth Correia.

African American Visual Culture in the 19th Century (2020) by the New York Historical Society.

Hopes and Expectations: The Origins of the Black Middle Class in Hartford (2016) by Barbara J. Beeching.

“Personal Names: Embodiment, Differentiation, Exclusion, and Belonging" (2014) by Gisli Palsson, pp. 619, 624-626.

"The Tom Caricature" (2000, 2012) by Dr. David Pilgrim, Professor of Sociology, Ferris State University. Accessed via the Jim Crow Museum.

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

History of Trinity College (1967) by Glenn Weaver.

Communications Office Files on Faculty, regarding repair of tombstone of "Professor Jim" (1939), Trinity College Archives.

“Trinity Reminisces” by W. C. Brocklesby '69 Trinity Tablet (April 1908), pp. 78-84.

“James Williams” by John B. Shearer '09 Trinity Tablet (February 1908), pp. 36-40.

Trinity Tablet (December 1902), pp. 63-64.

My College Days (1880) by Robert Tomes, pp. 54-56.

A headstone for "Professor Jim's" grave. Hartford Daily Courant (10/11/1879).

“In Memoriam” Trinity Tablet (6/8/1878), pp. 81-83.

“Editorial” Trinity Tablet (6/8/1878), pp. 73-75.

"The Late Professor Jim." Hartford Daily Courant (05/28/1878).

“PROFESSOR JIM.”: DEATH OF THE VENERABLE, JANITOR OF TRINITY COLLEGE. Hartford Daily Courant (05/21/1878).

Professor Jim Biographical Files (1878), Trinity College Archives.

Trinity Tablet, May 1874, p. 68.

The Life of James Williams, Better Known As Professor Jim, for Half a Century Janitor of Trinity College (1873) by Charles Hayden Proctor '73.

The Trinity Tablet (April 1870), pp. 50-52.

Geer's Hartford City Directory (1838, 1844, 1853, 1857)