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Hartford African Mission School was established at Washington College (now Trinity College ) on October 6, 1828 by the African Mission School Society on behalf of the Episcopal Church of Connecticut.

Founding
The African Mission School Society was founded under the auspice of Bishop Thomas Church Brownell of the Episcopal Church of Connecticut. Bishop Brownell also founded Trinity College. The first and only rector of the Hartford African Mission School was Reverend Nathaniel Sheldon Wheaton, who was also the second president of Trinity College. The school's mission was to train African American Episcopal clergy and laypersons for work in Africa.

Affiliation with the American Colonization Society
The African Mission School Society in Hartford was affiliated with the American Colonization Society (ACS) and its mission to colonize Africa and encourage the migration of freed African Americans to western Africa. Many of the freed African Americans were trained as Christian missionaries at various African Schools, such as the Hartford African Mission School, before they were sent to Africa. African Schools were located in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Connecticut, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Georgia and were affiliated with the American Colonization Society. The goal of the American Colonization Society was to establish colonies on the west coast of Africa where free Black Americans would emigrate to after they practiced Christianity and were educated at African Schools that would allow them to institute democratic colonies in Africa. Chartered ships to transport freed African Americans and African American missionaries to and from Africa were funded or sponsored by the American Colonization Society, the U.S. Government, or the churches that the African Schools were founded under. In 1822, the American Colonization Society founded its first colony, Liberia, located on the west coast of Africa.

Students of the Hartford African Mission School
Six students matriculated at the school: Gaylord Jackson, William Johnson, Edward Jones, Gustavus V. Caesar, James Henry Franklin, and Henry Williams. Of these six original students, Jones, Caesar, and Williams graduated. Hartford African Mission School only graduated six students while it was in existence. Hartford African Mission School did not send any students to Africa under its auspice however, two graduates and one current student of the school were sent to Africa as missionaries on trips sponsored by other colonization societies.

Edward Jones
Edward Jones was the first African American to graduate from Amherst College in Massachusetts. In February 1829, after graduating from Amherst College, Jones attended the Hartford African Mission School for a year and a half. On September 6, 1830, Jones was ordained to the Episcopal priesthood by Bishop Brownell, with the expectation that he would go to Liberia as a clergyman under the joint auspices of the Episcopal Church and the American Colonization Society. In the Fall of 1830, Jones backed out of this arrangement and went instead to England where he joined a missionary school there and traveled to one of England’s colonies in Sierra Leone and worked as a missionary educator. In 1840 Jones became the principal of Fourah Bay College, Freetown in Sierra Leone.

Gustavus V. Caesar
Gustavus V. Caesar had been ordained as deacon on August 6, 1830 by Bishop Brownell. Gustavus V. Caesar and his wife Elizabeth Caesar left for Liberia in August 1831, sponsored by Lydia Sigourney's The Charitable Society in the African Sunday School at Hartford and Philadelphia, which were auxiliaries of the American Colonization Society. Lydia Sigourney served as the secretary of the Hartford Female African Society, which formed one year after the Hartford African Mission School Society was founded. The African Repository reported that the Caesars departed for Liberia on August 2, 1831 on the ship Criterion, and arrived in Monrovia, Liberia on October 30, 1831. Gustavus served as a minister in Caldwell, Liberia, until his death in 1834. Elizabeth Caesar went on to continue teaching at an African School in Caldwell.

William Johnson
William Johnson was studying to be a teacher at Hartford African Mission School when he married Elizabeth Mars in 1830. William and Elizabeth Johnson along with their infant son, William, arrived in Monrovia on the ship Margaret Mercer in 1833 which was also sponsored by The Charitable Society in the African Sunday School at Hartford and Philadelphia. William and their infant son died of illness two weeks after arriving in Liberia. After their deaths, Elizabeth Johnson (later Elizabeth Mars Johnson Thomson) stayed in Africa and continued teaching at African schools that were established under the Philadelphia's Ladies' Liberia School Association that took over financial responsibility for the women. She continued to be listed among the staff list at a school in Cape Palmas in 1842.