Early Life and Education
William was the third child born to James Monroe Trotter and Virginia Isaacs Trotter in Chillicothe, Ohio. His father James was born into slavery in Mississippi, the son of Letitia, an enslaved woman, and her white master Richard S. Trotter. Letitia took her two young sons James and Charles and escaped from Mississippi about 1850; they traveled on the Underground Railroad to Cincinnati, where James and his brother attended school. Trotter enlisted in the United States Colored Troops during the American Civil War and was the first man of color to be promoted to lieutenant with the 55th Regiment of the Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Colored. William's mother Virginia Isaacs, also of mixed race, was born free in 1842 either Ohio or Virginia. Her mother was born into slavery at Monticello, where she was a daughter of Joseph Fossett and granddaughter of Elizabeth Hemings; all owned by Thomas Jefferson. She was freed when purchased by her husband in 1837. Virginia grew up in Chillicothe, Ohio, which had a large free black community before the Civil War. This was where she met and married James Trotter.
Shortly after the war, the Trotters moved from Ohio to settle in Boston, Massachusetts. As their first two children died in infancy, they returned to rural Ohio and Virginia's parents for the birth of their third child, William. When he was seven months old, the young family moved back to Boston, where they settled in the South End. It was far from the predominately African-American west side of Beacon Hill. The family later moved to suburban Hyde Park, a white neighborhood.
The father James Trotter was a man who had broken through most racial obstacles placed before him. In Boston he was the first man of color to be employed by the US Postal Service. In 1886 he was appointed by President Grover Cleveland as Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia, the highest federal position filled by black men at the time; two other prominent men of color of that era, Fredrick Douglass (1881–1886) and Senator Blanche Kelso Bruce (1891–1893), served before and after Trotter. He instilled similar values in his son William, who graduated as valedictorian and was elected president of his high school class.
William Trotter went on to Harvard University to pursue a career in international banking, graduating magna cum laude in 1895. He was the first man of color to be awarded a Phi Beta Kappa key. He earned his Masters from Harvard in 1896.
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