Interviewees:
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Damien Cregeau
- Independent Scholar, Author of Portraits of Patriots
Connecticut's most important Revolutionary leader was Governor Jonathan Trumbull Sr. He was the only colonial governor to serve on the Patriot side continuously before, during, and after the Revolution. A devout Congregationalist from Lebanon, elected in 1769, he remained in office through the war's end. Connecticut sent four signers to Philadelphia—Roger Sherman of New Haven, Oliver Wolcott Sr. of Litchfield, Samuel Huntington of Norwich, and William Williams of Lebanon—all from rural backgrounds and largely self-taught. Sherman stands alone as the only founder to sign all four foundational documents: the Continental Association, the Declaration, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution. He opposed slavery on religious grounds while accepting that southern states had to be kept in the union, and at the Constitutional Convention he devised the Connecticut Compromise protecting smaller states' representation. Trumbull's son John, a colonel turned painter, created the iconic image of the Declaration's presentation.
