Day, Thomas, 1777 - 1855

Thomas Day was the son of the Rev. Jeremiah Day and Abigail Osborne of New Preston, Connecticut.  He graduated from Yale College in 1797.  After reading law under the supervision of several prominent jurists from Connecticut and Massachusetts, Day was admitted to the bar in 1799 and began a practice in Hartford. In 1809 he was appointed Assistant Secretary of State under Samuel Wyllys.  A year later, he became Secretary, a position he held until 1835.  In 1815 Day became an associate judge for Hartford County, being elevated to chief judge in 1825.  He served on committees to draw up Connecticut's statutes in 1808, 1821, and 1824.  His reports on the decisions of the Supreme Court of Errors as well as his editions of several English and American law decisions were instrumental in shaping the independence of American jurisprudence.  Day served on the boards of many charitable institutions or made significant contributions to them.  Of note, in 1811 he was a subscriber to Eleazar Wheelock's Memoirs.  Fourteen years later, he was a founder of the Connecticut Historical Society and its recording secretary (1825-1839) and president (1839-1855).  Day also served as the first president of the Wadsworth Atheneum.  Gideon H. Hollister, The History of Connecticut, from the First Settlement of the Colony, Vol. 1 (Hartford: L. Stebbins & Co., 1855),504-505. David McClure and Elijah Parish, Memoirs of the Rev. Eleazar Wheelock, D.D (Newburyport, MA: Edward Little & Co., 1811), 334.

Image: James Hammond Trumbull, The Memorial History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884, Vol. 1 (Boston, MA: Edward L. Osgood, 1886),  between 126, 127.