David Watkinson by Seth Wells Cheney

David Watkinson is the namesake and posthumous founder of the Watkinson Library, a public research library, the rare book and special collections of Trinity College, and the repository of the College Archives, located within the Raether Library and Information Technology Center.

David Watkinson was born in England in 1778 and came to New England with his parents and 11 siblings in 1795, at the age of 17. Having first settled in New York in the mercantile business, Watkinson moved to Hartford in 1799 after having recovered from a bout of yellow fever. He established a general wholesale business, selling hardware, iron, and steel, and by 1801, had built a brick and mortar building at 350 Front Street. In 1803, David Watkinson married Olivia Hudson, daughter of the partner of the publishing firm Hudson and Goodwin, proprietors of the Hartford Courant.

By 1819, Watkinson had taken a partner and the firm became Watkinson & Co., where he worked until his retirement in 1841. David Watkinson was also active in other business activities in the Hartford area from the beginning of his time there, into his retirement years, and even until his death in 1857. He took a keen interest in helping new businesses or improving old ones, especially with regard to travel and river navigation. He became the director of the Hartford Bank, the Hartford Fire Insurance Company, and the Connecticut River Banking Company, as well as serving as director and president of the New Haven and Hartford Railroad. He also owned businesses with two of his brothers.

David Watkinson frequently updated his will with codicils—sixteen in all—that “reflected an affectionate concern not only for his family and friends but also for the welfare of the community where he had lived all of his adult life.” ¹⁾ In Codicil No. 11, Watkinson directed that there be “a library of Reference, to be accessible at all reasonable hours and times to all citizens and other residents and visitors in the State of Connecticut.” ²⁾ To establish this library, Watkinson willed $100,000 to nine trustees (or those remaining alive at his decease) for general endowment of the library. Of this, an amount totaling $78,000 was set aside as principal for a Library Fund, from which only income could be disbursed. The remainder was to be utilized by a board of trustees to house books, preferably in a “convenient connexion” with the Connecticut Historical Society and to hire a librarian who would select, maintain, and make available books, maps, and other library resources for non-circulating use by the general public.

David Watkinson was also an incorporator and charter trustee of Washington College (now Trinity); the Watkinson Library has been a presence in the lives of the students and faculty of Trinity College from the beginning. At the opening of its doors to patrons in August 1866, the Watkinson Library was pronounced as “the pride and honor and ornament of our city” of Hartford. ³⁾ Between 1949 and 1951, Trinity College offered to permanently house the Watkinson Library on its campus in a new library building to be constructed, and in 1952, the Watkinson became a part of the Trinity College library system. A unique feature of this union is that by charter, the Watkinson Library maintains a distinct identity as a separate, non-circulating collection available to the needs of all researchers, not just those in the Trinity College community.

David Watkinson's Library: One Hundred Years in Hartford, Connecticut, 1866-1966 (1966) by Marian G.M. Clarke, pp. 2-7, 12-13, 25.