had held the office of secretary of state two years when his resignation was requested by Governor Carlin's successor in office, Thomas Ford, author of a History of Illinois from 1814 to 1847. In his book Ford tells his reasons for asking Trumbull's resignation. They had formed different opinions respecting an important question of public policy, and Trumbull, although holding a subordinate office, had made a public speech in opposition to the governor's views.[10] Of course he did this on his own responsibility as a citizen and a member of the same party as the governor. He acknowledged the governor's right to remove him, and he made no complaint against the exercise of it.
The question of public policy at issue between Ford and Trumbull related to the State Bank, which had failed in February, 1842, and whose circulating notes, amounting to nearly $3,000,000, had fallen to a discount of fifty cents on the dollar. Acts legalizing the bank's suspension had been passed from time to time and things had gone from bad to worse. At this juncture a new bill legalizing the suspension for six months longer was prepared by the governor and at his instance was reported favorably by the finance committee of the House. Trumbull opposed this measure, and made a public speech against it. He maintained that it was disgraceful and futile to prolong the life of this bankrupt concern. He demanded that the bank be put in liquidation without further delay.
When Trumbull's resignation as secretary became known, the Democratic party at the state capital was rent in twain. Thirty-two of its most prominent members, including Virgil Hickox, Samuel H. Treat, Ebenezer Peck, Mason Brayman, and Robert Allen, took this occasion to tender him a public dinner in a letter expressing their deep regret at his removal and their desire to show the respect in which they held him for his conduct of the office, and for his social and gentlemanly qualities. A copy of this invitation was sent to the State Register, the party organ, for publication. The publishers refused to insert it, on the ground that it "would lead to a controversy out of which no good could possibly arise, and probably much evil to the cause." Thereupon the signers of the invitation started a new paper under the watchword "Fiat Justitia, Ruat Cœlum," entitled the Independent Democrat, of which Number 1, Volume 1, was a broadside containing the correspondence between Trumbull and the intending diners, together with sarcastic reflections on the time-serving publishers of the State Register. Trumbull's reply to the invitation, however, expressed his sincere regret that he had made arrangements, which could not be changed, to depart from Springfield before the time fixed for the dinner. He returned to Belleville and resumed the practice of his profession.
Charles Dickens was then making his first visit to the United States, and he happened to pass through Belleville while making an excursion from St. Louis to Looking Glass Prairie. His party had arranged beforehand for a noonday meal at Belleville, of which place, as it presented itself to the eye of a stranger in 1842, he gives the following glimpse:
Belleville was a small collection of wooden houses huddled together in the very heart of the bush and swamp. Many of them had singularly bright doors of red and yellow, for the place had lately been visited by a traveling painter "who got along," as I was told, "by eating his way." The criminal court was sitting and was at that moment trying some criminals for horse-stealing, with whom it would most likely go hard; for live stock of all kinds, being necessarily much exposed in the woods, is held by the community in rather higher value than human life; and for this reason juries generally make a point of finding all men indicted for cattle-stealing, guilty, whether or no. The horses belonging to the bar, the judge and witnesses, were tied to temporary racks set roughly in the road, by which is to be understood a forest path nearly knee-deep in mud and slime.
There was an hotel in this place which, like all hotels in America, had its large dining-room for a public table. It was an odd, shambling, low-roofed outhouse, half cow-shed and half kitchen, with a coarse brown canvas tablecloth, and tin sconces stuck against the walls, to hold candles at supper-time. The horseman had gone forward to have coffee and some eatables prepared and they were by this time nearly ready. He had ordered "wheat bread and chicken fixings" in preference to "corn bread and common doings." The latter kind of refection includes only pork and bacon. The former comprehends broiled ham, sausages, veal cutlets, steaks, and such other viands of that nature as may be supposed by a tolerably wide poetical construction "to fix" a chicken comfortably in the digestive organs of any lady or gentleman.[11]
A few months later, Trumbull made another journey to Springfield to be joined in marriage to Miss Julia M. Jayne, a daughter of Dr. Gershom Jayne, a physician of that city—a young lady who had received her education at Monticello Seminary, with whom he passed twenty-five years of unalloyed happiness. The marriage took place on the 21st of June, 1843, and Norman B. Judd served as groomsman. Miss Jayne had served in the capacity of bridesmaid to Mary Todd at her marriage to Abraham Lincoln on the 4th of November preceding. There was a wedding journey to Trumbull's old home in Connecticut, by steamboat from St. Louis to Wheeling, Virginia, by stage over the mountains to Cumberland, Maryland, and thence by rail via Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. After visiting his own family, a journey was made to Mrs. Trumbull's relatives at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, including her great-grandfather, a marvel of industry and longevity, ninety-two years of age, a cooper by trade, who was still making barrels with his own hands. This fact is mentioned in a letter from Trumbull to his father, dated Barry, Michigan, August 20, 1843, at which place he had stopped on his homeward journey to visit his brothers. One page of this letter is given up to glowing accounts of the infant children of these brothers. And here it is fitting to say that all these faded and time-stained epistles to his father and his brothers and sisters, from first to last, are marked by tender consideration and unvarying love and generosity. Not a shadow passed between them.
The return journey from Michigan to Belleville was made by stage-coach. October 12, 1843, Mrs. Trumbull writes to her husband's sisters in Colchester that she has arrived in her new home. "We are boarding in a private family," she says, "have two rooms which Mrs. Blackwell, the landlady, has furnished neatly, and for my part, I am anticipating a very delightful winter. Lyman is now at court, which keeps him very much engaged, and I am left to enjoy myself as best I may until G. comes around this afternoon to play chess with me."
May 4, 1844, the first child was born to Lyman and Julia Trumbull, a son, who took the name of his father, but died in infancy. July 2, 1844, Trumbull writes to his father that the most disastrous flood ever known, since the settlement of the country by the whites, has devastated the bottom lands of the Mississippi, Missouri, and Illinois Rivers. He also gives an account of the killing of Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet, who was murdered by a mob in the jail at Carthage, Hancock County, after he had surrendered himself to the civil authorities on promise of a fair trial and protection against violence; and says that he has rented a house which he shall occupy soon, and invites his sister Julia to come to Belleville and make her home in his family.
In 1845, Benjamin Trumbull, Sr., sold his place in Colchester and removed with his two daughters to Henrietta, Michigan, where three of his sons were already settled as farmers. It appears from letters that passed between the families that none of the brothers in Michigan kept horses, the farm work being done by oxen exclusively. The nearest church was in the town of Jackson, but the sisters were not able to attend the services for want of a conveyance. They were prevented by the same difficulty from forming acquaintances in their new habitat. In a letter to his father, dated October 26, Trumbull delicately alludes to the defect in the housekeeping arrangements in Michigan, and says that anything needed to make his father and sisters comfortable and contented, that he can supply, will never be withheld. His brother George writes a few days later offering a contribution of fifty dollars to buy a horse, saying that good ones can be bought in Illinois at that price. George adds: "Our papers say considerable about running Lyman for governor. No time is fixed for the convention yet, and I don't think he has made up his mind whether to be a candidate or not."
The greatest drawback of the Trumbull family at this time, and, indeed, of all the inhabitants roundabout, was sickness. Almost every letter opened tells either of a recovery from a fever, or of sufferings during a recent one, or apprehensions of a new one and from these