Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/23

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TRUMBULL TRUMPET FLOWER 15 of Connecticut, of which in 1739 he became speaker. He was chosen an assistant in 1740, and was reflected 22 times. He became af- terward judge of the county court, assistant judge of the superior court, and from 1766 to 1769 was chief judge of the superior court. In 1767 and 1768 he was elected deputy gov- ernor, and in 1769 governor of the colony, which office he held till 1783, when he re- signed. He was one of the first to espouse the popular cause in the troubles preceding the revolution, and in 1765 refused to take the oath required of all officials to support the provisions of the stamp act ; and he cooperated with vigor in securing the independence of the colonies. "Washington relied on him, says Sparks, " as one of his main pillars of support," and was accustomed to consult him in emer- gencies. The personification humorously ap- plied to the United States is said to have had its origin in a phrase sometimes used by Wash- ington : "Let us hear what brother Jonathan says." See I. W. Stuart's " Life of Jonathan Trumbull, sen." (8vo, Boston, 1859). II. Jona- than, son of the preceding, born in Lebanon, Conn., March 26, 1740, died there, Aug. 7, 1809. He graduated at Harvard college in 1759, and was for several years a member of the legislature and speaker of the house. At the outbreak of the revolution he was appointed paymaster to the northern department of the army, which post he held till 1780, when he became secretary and first aide-de-camp of Washington, with whom he remained until the close of the war. He was a representative in congress from 1789 to 1795, and presided as speaker during the last four years. In 1795 he was elected United States senator, and in 1796 lieutenant governor of Connecticut. He became governor in 1797, and held the office until his death. III. John, an American paint- er, brother of the preceding, born in Lebanon, Conn., June 6, 1756, died in New York, Nov. 10, 1843. He graduated at Harvard college in 1773, and afterward studied painting in Boston. In the spring of 1775 he joined the first Con- necticut regiment as adjutant, and in August became second aide-de-camp to Washington, and soon after major of brigade. In 1776 he was appointed by Gen. Gates adjutant general with the rank of colonel, which office he re- signed in the spring of 1777. In 1780 he went to London and became a pupil of Benjamin West, but was arrested soon after, during the excitement occasioned by the execution of Major Andre", and imprisoned for eight months. He was finally admitted to bail on condition of quitting the kingdom within 30 days, and re- turned home in January, 1782; but on the conclusion of peace he again went to England and resumed his studies under West. In 1786 he produced his first modern historical picture, the " Battle of Bunker Hill," and soon after his " Death of Montgomery before Quebec," the former of which was engraved by J. G. Miiller of Stuttgart, and the latter by F. Clem- 798 VOL. xvi. 2 ens of London. His next picture, the " Sortie of the Garrison from Gibraltar," one of the repetitions of which is in the Boston Athe- naeum, is widely known through Sharp's en- graving. In 1789 Trumbull returned to Amer- ica to procure likenesses of revolutionary offi- cers for his contemplated series of national pictures. He painted several portraits of Wash- ington, one of which belongs to the city of New York. In 1794 he went again to England as secretary to Mr. Jay, the American minister, and in 1796 was appointed fifth commissioner for the execution of the seventh article of Mr. Jay's treaty of 1794. The duties of this office occupied him till 1804, when he returned to the United States. From 1808 to 1815 he resided in England, painting with indifferent success ; and from 1817 to 1824 he was em- ployed in executing for congress four pictures to fill compartments in the rotunda of the capi- tol, each 18 by 12 ft. For these works, which represent respectively the "Declaration of In- dependence," the " Surrender of Burgoyne," the " Surrender of Cornwallis," and the " Res- ignation of Washington at Annapolis," he re- ceived $32,000. Subsequently for many years he was engaged in finishing former sketches and in painting copies of his national pictures on a uniform scale of 9 by 6 ft. Many of these, together with portraits and several copies of the old masters, 54 pictures in all, he finally gave to Yale college in consideration of a life annuity of $1,000. The collection was at first deposited in the " Trumbull gallery," a build- ing erected especially for it, but in 1867 it was transferred to the new art building. Col. Trumbull passed the latter part of his life in New York, and was president of the American academy of fine arts from its foundation in 1816 until the formation of the national acad- emy of design in 1825. TRUMPET, a musical wind instrument of brass or other metal, which under one form or another has been known in all ages and among all races having any claim to civilization. The trumpet, so called in modern use, is generally understood as a tube 8 ft. in length, expanding at the end whence the sound issues into a bell- like shape, and doubled up in a parabolic form. It is played through a mouthpiece, and has a natural compass from G below the staff to E above. Trumpets with pistons and cylinders have the advantage of being able to give all the intervals of the chromatic scale. TRUMPETER, in ornithology. See AGAMI. TRUMPET FISH. See PIPE FISH. TRUMPET FLOWER, a popular name espe- cially for tecoma radicans, used with a prefix for other related plants. The genus tecoma (from the Mexican name), separated from Big- nonia on account of a structural difference in the pods, consists of about 50 species, mostly trees and natives of tropical America. The trumpet flower, T. radicans, is a woody vine, climbing to a great height by abundant rootlets produced along the stem ; the pinnate leaves