Henry Clay Trumbull was born on June 8, 1830, in Stonington, Connecticut.

He was a clergyman, author, and editor. He attended Stonington Academy and Williston Seminary. In 1851, he moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where he worked for the Hartford, Providence, and Fishkill Railroad as a clerk. In 1852, Trumbull joined the Congregational church and became the superintendent of a mission Sunday school, while working at the railroad. In 1858, he became the state Sunday school missionary for Connecticut. He was ordained in 1862 and became the chaplain of the 10th Connecticut Regiment, stationed in North Carolina. He was held by the Confederates for four months in 1863. After his release, he served in Virginia until his discharge in August 1865. He then became New England secretary for the American Sunday-school Union. In 1869, he became a companion of the Massachusetts Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. In 1875, he and his family moved to Philadelphia, where he became editor of the Sunday School Times, a position he held until his death in 1903. In 1884, he was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society. Trumbull was the Lyman Beecher Lecturer at Yale Divinity School in 1888. He wrote thirty-three books, including “Kadesh-Barnea” (1884), about a historic site he identified in Palestine, and “The Knightly Soldier” (1865), a biography of his friend Henry Ward Camp. He was awarded honorary degrees from Yale, Lafayette College, and New York University.

In 1854, he married Alice Cogswell Gallaudet (1833–1891). He died on December 8, 1903, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.