Hartford Wits

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The Hartford Wits (also called the Connecticut Wits) were a group of American writers centered around Yale University and flourished in the 1780s and 1790s. Mostly graduates of Yale, they were conservative federalists who attacked their political opponents with satirical verse. Members included Joel Barlow, Timothy Dwight IV, David Humphreys, John Trumbull, Lemuel Hopkins, Richard Alsop, and Theodore Dwight. Works produced by the group include The Anarchiad (published in the New Haven Gazette from 1786–1787), The Political Greenhouse (Connecticut Courant, 1799), and The Echo (American Mercury, 1791–1805).