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CONNECTICUT

A GUIDE TO ITS ROADS, LORE, AND PEOPLE

AMERICAN GUIDE SERIES

CONNECTICUT

A GUIDE TO ITS ROADS, LORE, AND PEOPLE

Written by Workers of the Federal Writers' Project of the
Works Progress Administration for the State of Connecticut

SPONSORED BY WILBUR L. CROSS, GOVERNOR OF CONNECTICUT

Illustrated

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY - BOSTON

Vfce Kiberiibe $re ambrib B e

1938

fcbc fc.ucrfiibc $re

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION

MAMMY I- HOPKINS

1734 NEW YORK AVENUE NW.
WASHINGTON. O. C.

One of the most fortunate results of the
American Guide Series is the opportunity it is
giving us to understand the contrasting character
of the forty-eight States and to realize how the
contributions of each hare brought about the unity
of the -whole.

This book on Connecticut illustrates the
point* The third smallest State in the Union, it
has sent out more people than it has kept at hone.
Connecticut blood is the basis of much that is
prised in many States. It is democratic, zealous
for education, mechanically inventive, and, being
strongly individual, has furnished leadership in
every field.

Hftrry L. Hopkins
Administrator

FOREWORD

CONNECTICUT has a wealth of interest and beauty for the traveler,
be he a resident or a visitor. Our countryside, with its villages of old
houses and churches; our forests, rivers, lakes, parks, and beaches; our
modern cities all present a varied scene which has been steadily de-
veloping ever since the first settlers took possession of these beautiful
lands more than three hundred years ago.

This Guidebook will help its readers not only to find their way
through valleys and over hills, but also to understand what lies back of
all they see. It is in itself a most valuable contribution to Connecticut
history.

WILBUR L. CROSS

Governor

PREFACE

THIS book is the result of the collaboration of many hands and many
minds, and it would perhaps be strange to expect it to lie quietly be-
tween covers and compose a picture of its subject. Indeed, it would be
a brave man who would sit down, alone or with company, and attempt a
portrait of this State. Present-day Connecticut is too diversified and
restless to yield an easy likeness. Besides, a guidebook should not be
overambitious. At best it can hope to provide a few thumbnail sketches,
some directions to help the visitor, and a modicum of more or less relevant
information to enlarge his understanding of what he will see. It must be
forever pointing and turning from one thing to the next. The section,
Notations on the Use of the Book, will explain the method of assembling
this material. In the end, it must properly be left to the visitor to shape
his own impressions into an individual whole.

A hundred years ago this would have been a vastly simpler process. In
1836 John Warner Barber was driving from town to town in his horse and
buggy, gathering material for his * Historical Collections,' 'relating to the
History and Antiquities of Every Town in Connecticut with Geographical
Descriptions/ and making a 'general collection of interesting facts, tradi-
tions, biographical sketches, anecdotes, etc/ The prospectus-like title of
his book is a promise of variety amply justified by the contents, but the
modern reader or imitator is more impressed by the appealing unity of
the subject. Barber was fortunate in the time at which he wrote. Con-
necticut was nearing the end of its formative period. The eighteenth-
century pattern persisted, the industrial revolution was only about to
begin.

As he went about among the 136 towns, his engravings reveal more
tellingly than any camera the pleasing sameness of his view. Sometimes
we find him seated on Round Hill taking a northwest view of Farmington,
or looking down on the south view of Tariffville with its flourishing carpet
factory, while he discusses local affairs with a villager. When the smoke
of commerce rises over some of the larger cities, it comes from steamboats
along the river front or in the harbor, rather than from factory chimneys.
The centers of the towns show the courthouse, a school, perhaps a jail,
and always the church or churches, for Barber was traveling just after
the finest period of church-building. The buildings, somewhat sparsely

x Preface

grouped even in the centers of population, are delineated with a certain
homely veracity, a little pinched in their perspective, and the elongated
steeples of the churches rise toward Heaven rather higher than a modern
eye allows.

It is significant in the history of this State and even for the Connecticut
of today that for a period of about sixty years, from 1780 to 1840, the
homogeneous population remained comparatively static. While the other
New England States increased from two to nine times, Connecticut could
not quite achieve a fifty per cent gain in numbers. Never was Connecticut
more independent nor its towns more sturdily conservative than during
this first half century and more of the Republic. Hartford and New
Haven, the two capitals, did not unduly dominate in 1800; they were
merely two of the six towns with a population of over 5000. The largest,
Stonington, had 5437 inhabitants; four towns had 4000 or more; there
were fifteen over 3000; the other eighty- three were closely ranged, with
three exceptions, between one and three thousand. Under the Consti-
tution of 1818, this equality of the towns was perpetuated and local
particularism maintained.

Constant emigration threatened to overbalance immigration and a
high birth-rate. In this way, the more heady and adventurous elements
were continually drawn off from the body politic and a conservative,
stable base remained. The glacial soil of Connecticut, unimproved by
fertilizers and new techniques of farming, was unfitted to support a large
population. It was necessary to call upon Yankee ingenuity. This was
first applied in commerce, in shipping, in shrewd marketing and hard
bargaining. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the Yankee Pedlar
had made his appearance; in the period 1780 to 1840 he flourished. The
Sam Slicks went forth with their tinware and their wooden nutmegs,
and a market was created along the Atlantic Seaboard and over the
Appalachians to Detroit, St. Louis, even New Orleans. Small fortunes
accumulated to furnish fresh capital, and the invention of the manu-
facturer was called upon to match the skill of the salesmen.

Long before the close of this period, the Yankee inventors had out-
stripped the Yankee pedlars. From the time the Patent Office opened
in 1790, Connecticut inventors have led those of other States in number
of patents in proportion to population. Hats, combs, cigars, seeds, clocks,
silk thread, plows, axes, carpets, pins, kettles, brass pipe, tacks, hooks
and eyes, vulcanized rubber, shaving soap, friction matches, spoons,
engine lathes, threaded bolts, furniture, firearms: in all these fields and
more, important patents gave Connecticut inventors and manufacturers

Preface xi

a leading position. Every town had its local industry and the way was
prepared for the transition from handicraft to mass production. Inventors
in near-by towns would perfect the same invention: Simeon North of
Berlin and Eli Whitney of New Haven can share the credit for introduc-
ing the system of interchangeable parts and standardized production into
the manufacture of firearms. The seeds of the industrial revolution were
scattered far and wide through the State and the Nation.

It was also the period of Noah Webster, of Timothy Dwight, of the
Hartford Wits, of Oliver Wolcott, the moderator. When the Hartford
Wits looked across the border into Rhode Island or Massachusetts, they
were perturbed: 'There Chaos, Anarch old, asserts his sway/ they told
the inhabitants of Connecticut. Timothy Dwight became President of
Yale and drew the students back down the sawdust trail to the old-time
Congregationalism. 'Pope Dwight,' they called him, 'a walking reposi-
tory of the venerable Connecticut status quo. 1 Noah Webster, who
helped the country achieve a measure of linguistic independence and
whose spelling became more and more American, was a stout Federalist
and defender of the established order. Even the moderate Oliver Wolcott,
who presided at the making of the liberalizing Constitution of 1818, was
no great radical of post-Jeffersonian days.

Looked back upon, it is an age of almost paradoxical contrast, with
its conservatism politically and socially, and the radical changes pre-
paring in its factories and workshops, a strange mixture of the past and
future working together in a harmonious present, which seemed likely
to prolong itself indefinitely. The visitor in search of a portrait of Con-
necticut might well keep in mind these years of growth and stability
when the balance shifted slowly from a long colonial age of agriculture
and commerce toward the industrial age of railroads, immigration, and
mass production. Then, for a protracted period, the pattern of Connecti-
cut living was stamped deep into the character of its people and its
civilization. Successive waves of immigration have altered it surprisingly
little. Perhaps this civilization, an epitome of many deeply rooted Amer-
ican characteristics, may be able to assimilate new elements and still
maintain its finest qualities as a tradition and a guide to future genera-
tions. ( Qui transtulit sustinet'

It remains to express our indebtedness to the citizens of Connecticut
who have contributed materially to this work; so large is their number
that we can thank only a few of our benefactors. We are especially
indebted to Mr. Edgar L. Heermance, whose 'Connecticut Guide' was our
predecessor and inspiration, and who graciously allowed us the use of his

Xll

Preface

files containing valuable field notes and historical information. The
librarians of the Yale University Library, the New Haven Public Library,
the Hartford Public Library, and Miss Scofield of the New Haven Colony
Historical Society have generously given us their trained assistance.

We have received valuable aid and criticism from Mr. Norbert Lacy,
and Dr. Nelson Burr of the Historical Records Survey; Professor Leon-
ard Labaree, and Mr. Gerald M. Capers of Yale University; Professor
George Matthew Dutcher of Wesleyan University; Mr. J. Frederick
Kelly, and Mr. George Dudley Seymour of New Haven; Mr. A. Everett
Austin of the Avery Memorial, Hartford; Mr. John Phillips of the Yale
Gallery of Fine Arts; Mr. William L. Warren of the American Index of
Design; Mr. Edward H. Rogers, Principal of the Devon High School; Mr.
Arthur W. Brockway, ornithologist, of Hadlyme; Mr. John J. Stevens,
Principal of the Ansonia High School; Mr. Goodrich K. Murphy, as-
sistant to passenger traffic manager, of the New York, New Haven and
Hartford Railroad; and Mr. Joseph Tone, State Commissioner of Labor.

Professor C. R. Longwell of Yale University has contributed the essay
on Geology. Mr. Wayland Wells Williams, State Director of the Federal
Art Project, has helped us in innumerable ways, besides contributing the
essay on Connecticut Art, and much of the material on Yale University.

Mr. Samuel R. Chamberlain has kindly allowed us to use several
photographs from his notable Connecticut series; the Scovill Manu-
facturing Company, the American Brass Company, the Chase Brass and
Copper Company, Inc., the Pratt and Whitney Company, the Sikorsky
Aviation Corporation, the ytna Life Insurance Company, the Travelers'
Insurance Company, and the New York, New Haven and Hartford
Railroad have contributed photographs.

In administering and carrying out this Project we have had the con-
stant co-operation of Miss Mary M. Hughart, State Director of Women's
and Professional Projects, and Administrators Vincent J. Sullivan,
Robert A. Hurley, and Matthew A. Daly. We owe a special debt of
gratitude to Senator Daly, in whose administration this book was begun,
for his friendly advice and counsel.

Finally, we are under great obligations to His Excellency, the Governor
of this State, Wilbur L. Cross, for his distinguished sponsorship and fore-
word, and to Mr. Philip Hewes, the Governor's Executive Secretary,
who gave freely of his time to offer most useful criticism.

This volume was prepared under the editorial direction of Mr. Joseph
Gaer, Editor-in-Chief of the New England Guides and Chief Field Su-
pervisor of the Federal Writers' Project.

JOHN B. DERBY, State Director

CO NTENTS

FOREWORD Photostat

By Harry L. Hopkins, Federal Administrator, Works Progress
Administration

FOREWORD vii

By Wilbur L. Cross, Governor of Connecticut

PREFACE ix

By John B. Derby, State Director, Federal Writers' Project

NOTATIONS ON THE USE OF THE BOOK xxiii

GENERAL INFORMATION xxv

Recreational Facilities

CALENDAR OF ANNUAL EVENTS xxxi

L CONNECTICUT: THE GENERAL
BACKGROUND

GENERAL DESCRIPTION 3

NATURAL RESOURCES AND CONSERVATION 8

PLANT AND ANIMAL LIFE 1 1

GEOLOGY 17

THE INDIANS OF CONNECTICUT 22

HISTORY 26

GOVERNMENT 36

THE RACIAL MAKE-UP OF CONNECTICUT 43

TRANSPORTATION 48

INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE 54

LABOR 64

xiv Contents

AGRICULTURE 7 1

EDUCATION 75

ARCHITECTURE 80

NOTES ON CONNECTICUT ART 95

LITERATURE I0 3

CONNECTICUT FIRSTS m

II. MAIN STREET AND VILLAGE GREEN

(City and Town Descriptions and City Tours)
Bridgeport
D anbury
Fairfield

Farmington I44

Greenwich I49

Groton j^,-

Guilford I( 5

Hartford j55

Litchfield I0 .

Meriden 2OO

Middletown 20

Milford aio
New Britain

New Haven 222

New London 2 -

Norwalk 26 .

Norwich 2 _

Old Lyme 2 g

Old Say brook

Stamford

Stonington

Waterbury

Wethersfield 3IO

Windsor 8

Contents xv

III. HIGH ROADS AND LOW ROADS (lOURS)

(Mile-by-Mile Description of the State's Highways)

TOUR 1 From New York Line (New York City) to Rhode
Island Line (Westerly). US 1 and US 1A

Sec. a. Greenwich to New Haven 329

Sec. b. New Haven to Rhode Island Line (West-
erly) 337
1A From Darien to Fairfield. State 136, West Way
and Harbor Rds. 348

IB From Bridgeport to Junction with US 202. State
58 352

1C From New Haven to Naugatuck. State 67 and
State 63 354

ID From New Haven to Rhode Island Line (Provi-
dence). State 15, 80, 9, 82, 165, and 138 355

IE From Junction with US 1 to Junction with State
82. State 86 361

IF From Junction with US 1 to Junction with US 1.

State 156 363

1G From Groton to Norwich. State 12 364

1H From Junction with US 1 to Rhode Island Line.
State 84 368

1J From Pawcatuck to Colchester. State 2 369

2 From New York Line (Brewster) to Rhode Island
Line (Providence). US 6 and 6A

Sec. a. New York Line to Junction with State 14 374
Sec. b. Junction with State 14 to Hartford 382

Sec. c. Hartford to Junction with State 14 389

Sec. d. From Junction with State 14 to Rhode

Island State Line (Providence) 391

2 ALTERNATE From Junction with US 6 to Junc-
tion with US 6A. State 14 397

2A From Woodbury to Junction with State 25. State
47 409

2B From Watertown to Litchfield. State 63 and
State 61 411

xvi Contents

2C From Columbia to Junction with State 32. State
87 412

3 From New York Line (Poughkeepsie) to Rhode
Island Line (Providence). US 44

Sec. a. New York Line to Hartford 416

Sec. b. Hartford to Bolton Notch 428

Sec. c. Bolton Notch to Rhode Island Line 430

3A From East Hart ford to New London. State2and85 439

4 From Norwalk to Massachusetts Line (Sheffield).

US 7 448

4A From Danbury to Junction with US 7. State 37 458

4B From New Milford to Junction with US 7. State

25 and 133 462

4C From New Milford to Torrington. State 25 466

4D From Junction with US 7 (Cornwall Bridge) to
South Canaan. State 4 and 43 468

5 From Stratford to Massachusetts Line (New Bos-
ton). StateS 47I

5A From Torrington to Collinsville. State 117, State
116, and State 4 484

5B From Junction with State 8 (north of Winsted) to

Granby. State 20 485

6 From New Haven to Massachusetts Line (North-
ampton). State 10 and 10A (College Highway) 488

7 From New Haven to Massachusetts Line (Spring-
field). US 5

Sec. a. New Haven to Hartford 501

Sec. b. Hartford to Massachusetts Line 505

7A From New Haven to Middletown. State 15 511

7B From Hartford to Meriden. State 175 and State "

8 From Old Saybrook to Massachusetts Line
(Springfield). State 9 and US 5A

Sec. a. Old Saybrook to Hartford. State 9 516

Sec. b. Hartford to Massachusetts Line. US 5A 526

9 From New London to Massachusetts Line
(Worcester). State 32 and State 12 529

Contents xvii

9A From Norwich to Massachusetts Line (South

Monson). State 32 538

9B From Central Village to Rhode Island Line

(Providence). State 14 543

9C From Plainfield to Willimantic. State 14 544

10 From East Hartford to Massachusetts Line

(Worcester). State 15 549

CHRONOLOGY 557

SELECTED READING LIST 562

GENERAL INDEX 567

INDEX OF OLD AND HISTORIC HOUSES 587

ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS

HOMES OF PATRIOT AND MERCHANT PRINCE between 28 and 29

Jabez Huntington House, Norwich
Gov. Trumbull House, Lebanon
Webb House, Wethersfield

Chamberlain

Oliver Ellsworth House, Windsor
Glebe House, Woodbury
Gay Manse, Suffield
West Front of the Governor Smith

Mansion, Sharon
Morris House, New Haven

INDUSTRY

Burnishing Brass, Scovill Manu-
facturing Company, Waterbury
Aikins

Pratt & Whitney, Aircraft Manu-
facturers, East Hartford

Assembly Department of the Pro-
peller Division, United Aircraft
Corp., East Hartford

Final Assembly Department, Sikor-
sky Aircraft, Stratford

Sikorsky Aircraft Experimental
Department, Stratford

Inspecting Polished Copper Sheets,
American Brass Co., Ansonia
Richie

Stanton House, Clinton
Major Timothy Cowles House, Farm-
ington

Chamberlain

Noble House, New Milford
Deming House, Litchfield
Rockwell House, Winsted
Old Store, Windham
Perkins House, Windham

between 58 and 59

Forging Hot Brass, Scovill Manufac-
turing Company, Waterbury

Aikins

Casting Shop, American Brass Com-
pany, Waterbury

Richie

Withdrawing a Heated Copper Billet
from the Furnace, American Brass
Company, Waterbury

Richie
Line-up of Locomotives, New Haven

Railroad, Cedar Hill
Steam Power, Streamlined Train, New
Haven Railroad

PERCENTAGE DISTRIBUTION OF THE POPULATION
BY NATIVITY FOR CONNECTICUT, NEW ENGLAND,
AND THE UNITED STATES, 1930

CONNECTICUT'S ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE between 88 and 89

Whitfield Stone House, Guilford
Judgment Room, Thos. Lee House,

E. Lyme

Walsh

Acadian House, Guilford
Older Williams House, Wethersfield
Lyons House, Greenwich
Graves House, Madison
Framed Overhang, Whitman House,

Farmington
Hewn Overhang, Hollister House,

Glastonbury

Interior, Trinity Church, Brooklyn

Interior, House of Representatives,
Old State House

Gambrel Roofs, Plainfield
Chamberlain

Crosby Tavern, Thompson

Interior of Dwight Chapel, Yale Uni-
versity

Linonia Court, Yale University

Illustrations and Maps

EARLY CHURCHES OF CONNECTICUT between 150 and 151

Congregational Church, Farming- Congregational Church, Litchfield

ton Congregational Church, Old Lyme

Congregational Church, Wethers- Congregational Church, Killingworth

field Plymouth Church, Milford

Center Church, New Haven Congregational Church, East Granby

TOWN AND COUNTRY

^Etna Life Insurance Company,
Hartford
Courtesy of jEtna Life Insurance

Co.

The State Capitol, Hartford
Old State House, Hartford
Old Academy, Branford
Cement Kiln, Woodbridge
Ely Homestead, Killingworth
In South Britain
Town Hall, Salisbury

between 180 and 181
The New Haven Green
Hartford Sky Line
Railroad Station, Waterbury
Old Iron Furnace, Roxbury
World War Memorial, New Britain
Hart's Bridge, West Cornwall
Old Newgate Prison, East Granby
Stanton Store, Clinton
Highton

EDUCATION

Nathan Hale School, New London
Avon Old Farms School Post Office
Bullet Hill School, Southbury
Ansonia High School
Davenport Court and Pierson
Tower, Yale University

Highton
Payne Whitney Gymnasium, Yale

University

Harkness Tower, Yale University
Chamberlain

between 242 and 243
Sterling Memorial Library, Yale Uni-
versity

Chamberlain
Connecticut Hall, Yale University

Chamberlain

trinity College Chapel, Hartford
Coast Guard Academy, New London
Sterling Divinity Quadrangle, Yale
University

SCENIC AND MARINE
Housatonic Gorge
Kent Falls

Cathedral Pines, Cornwall
Pastoral, Hamden
Fences, Bethany
Bridgewater Hills

Coast Guard Patrol Boats, New
London

between 448 and 449
Submarine in New London Harbor
Oyster Docks, Milford
Fair Haven
Oyster Boats, City Point, New

Haven
Lighthouse Point, New Haven.

FIELD

Canal Piers, Farmington
Old Canal, Windsor Locks
Nineveh Falls, Killingworth
Knife Shop Dam, South Meriden
Hydroelectric Plant, Bulls Bridge
Buttery's Mill (1688), Silvermine
Devon Cattle, Old Lyme

between 494 and 495
Goats, Avon Old Farms
Sheep, Avon Old Farms
Summer Sky, Mount Carmel
Holsteins, Southbury
Haying, Roxbury
At the End of the Day, Woodbury
Bark Mill, Bethany

Illustrations and Maps xxi

MAPS

State Map Back Pocket

Reverse side: Transportation Map

State Parks, Forest, and Historic Sites

Bridgeport 122-123

Danbury 134

Fairfield 140

Greenwich 153

Guilford 163

Hartford 175

Hartford Tour Map 176-177

Meriden 203

Middletown 207

Milford 213

New Britain 219

New Haven 231

New Haven Tour Map 232-233

New London 258-259

Norwalk 268

Norwich 275

Norwichtown 279

Stamford 295

Stonington 301

Waterbury 309

Wethersfield 315

Windsor 322

Key to Connecticut Tours 35o~35i

NOTATIONS ON THE USE
OF THE BOOK

General Information on the State contains practical information for the
State as a whole; the introduction to each city and tour description also
contains specific information of a practical sort.

The Essay Section of the Guide is designed to give a brief survey of the
State's natural setting, history, and social, economic, and cultural
development. Limitations of space forbid elaborately detailed treat-
ments of these subjects, but a classified bibliography is included in the
book. A great many persons, places, and events mentioned in the essays
are treated at some length in the city and tour descriptions; these are
found by reference to the index. The State Guide is not only a practical
travel book; it will also serve as a valuable reference work.

The Guide is built on a framework of Tour Descriptions, written in
general to follow the principal highways from south to north and from
west to east, though they are easily followed in the reverse direction.

As a matter of convenience, lengthy descriptions of cities and towns
are removed from the tour sections of the book and separately grouped
in alphabetical order.

Each tour description contains cross-references to other tours crossing
or branching from the route described; it also contains cross-references
to all descriptions of cities and towns removed from the tour descriptions.

Readers can find the descriptions of important routes by examining
the tour index or the tour key map. As far as possible, each tour descrip-
tion follows a single main route; descriptions of minor routes branching
from, or crossing, the main routes are in smaller type. The newer and
better highway usually carries the ' Alternate' highway number, such as
US 6A, while the older route retains its original number.

Cumulative mileage is used on main and side tours, the mileage being
counted from the beginning of each main tour or, on side tours, from the
junction with the main route; mileage is started afresh on side routes
branching from side routes. The mileage notations are at best relative,
since totals depend to some extent on the manner in which cars are
driven whether they cut around other cars, round curves on the

xxiv Notations on the Use of the Book

inside or outside of the road, and so forth. Then, too, the totals will in
the future vary from those in the book because of road building in which
curves will be eliminated and routes will by-pass cities and villages
formerly on the routes.

Inter-State routes are described from and to the State Lines; in the
Index to Tours and in the tour headings the names of the nearest out-of-
State cities of importance on the routes are listed in parentheses so that
travelers may readily identify the routes.

Descriptions of points of interest in the larger towns and cities are
numbered and arranged in the order in which they can conveniently be
visited.

Points of interest in cities, towns, and villages have been indexed
separately rather than under the names of such communities, because
many persons know the name of a point of interest, but are doubtful as
to the name of the community in which it is situated.

GENERAL INFORMATION

Railroads: New York, New Haven & Hartford (N.Y., N.H. & H.),
Central Vermont (C.V.), Central New England (C.N.E.).

Highways: Six Federal highways; State police highway patrol with oc-
casional inspection of operator licenses and registration. State highways
cleared and sanded during winter. Gasoline filling stations numerous on
all main highways. Federal gas tax iff, State gas tax 3$. (total tax 4ff).

Bus Lines: New England Transportation Co. ; Greyhound Lines (national
coverage) ; [Short Lines (Springfield, Portland, New York, Waterbury,
Worcester, and Boston) ; Arrow Line (New Haven, Hartford, Pittsfield,
Mass., Albany, N.Y., Montreal, Canada); Blue Way Lines (Portland,
Me., and Boston to New York, via Springfield and Worcester); National
Trail ways System ; and several smaller lines.

Airlines: American Airlines Inc. (between Newark, N.J., and Boston,
Mass.) stop at Hartford (see Transportation Map).

Waterways: Summer day excursions, Bridgeport to New York. Ferries
from New London, Bridgeport, and Stamford to Long Island (see General
Information under those cities).

Traffic Regulations: Motorists from States that do not require operator
licenses must take out a Connecticut operator's license except when
driving a vehicle registered in their own jurisdiction.

Speed: Maximum speed on Federal and State highways is indicated
on roadside signs. In general, the rate of speed should at all times be
'reasonable,' with regard to the width, traffic, and use of the high-
ways, intersections, and weather conditions. At no time is a maxi-
mum of more than 50 miles per hour permitted. White center lines
are painted at all dangerous curves and hills. Drivers must keep to
the right of these lines, and refrain from passing on stretches so
marked, or at any intersection. Stops must be made not less than
10 feet behind trolley cars stopping to take on or let off passengers.
On wide streets it is permissible to pass a stopped trolley at a dis-
tance of 10 feet or more. Hand signals required. No parking allowed
within 10 feet of any fire hydrant, within 50 feet of any vehicle al-
ready parked on the opposite side of the highway, or with right-
hand wheels more than i foot from curb.

Lights: Make full stop before entering or crossing * through ways'
indicated by STOP signs. Slowing down and shifting gears are not
sufficient; make complete stop. No right turns on red lights, except
where indicated.

xx vi General Information

Report at once all accidents involving any personal injury, or any

property damage in excess of $25.

Specific traffic regulations noted in General Information of large

cities. Reciprocal privileges extended visitors in regard to licenses

and registration.

Reflectors, for safeguard when taillight fails, required on all visiting

cars after September i, 1937.

Accommodations: Tourist accommodations of every type are available
in practically any part of the State. Inns, hotels, tourist houses, and
cabins will be found within short distances on any mam highway, rates
ranging from 75^ up. Trailer stops are not yet numerous, but are provided
by many cabin owners. State-regulated tourist and trailer camps are
maintained at Hammonasset Beach State Park (see MADISON, Tour 1),
and at Rocky Neck State Park (see EAST LYME, Tour IF).
Climate and Equipment: Summer travelers to Connecticut should be pre-
pared for moderately warm weather, with infrequent hot and muggy
days; nights are generally cool. Winter visitors should be prepared for
sub-freezing to near zero weather, occasional snow storms and dangerous
ice storms which make driving hazardous until the highway crews sand
the roadways.

Poisonous Plants and Reptiles: Poison ivy, or three-leafed mercury, is
common throughout the State, growing on stone walls, roadside trees,
banks, and over old barns and buildings. After the first frost its leaves
turn a deep scarlet, inviting the uninformed to pick it and become miser-
able within a few hours. Poison sumac is not as common, but is perhaps
more irritating; this shrub is also found throughout the State but seldom
beside the State highways.

Rattlesnakes are plentiful around Kent, Canaan Mountain, Glastonbury,
and in sections of Salem. All these ' snake dens,' however, are off the
beaten track, usually far from the highway, and are dangerous only to
the hiker through rocky woodland or mountain area. Snake dens along
hiking trails are marked, and there is usually a glass jar handy containing
first aid treatment for snake bites. Copperheads are found in the swampy
lowlands of Connecticut, and are dangerous because they strike without
warning. It is therefore advisable to wear boots when walking through
swamplands in the copperhead country.

Plant Regulations: Laurel, the Connecticut State Flower, which blossoms
in woods and along the highways of the State during the month of June,
must not be picked under penalty of the law.

Information Bureaus: State of Connecticut Publicity Commission, State
Capitol, Hartford. Connecticut Chamber of Commerce, Dept. SN 35,
410 Asylum St., Hartford, Conn.

General Information xxvii

RECREATIONAL FACILITIES

Beaches and Camping Grounds: Three State parks (Sherwood Island,
Hammonasset Beach, and Rocky Neck) bordering Long Island Sound
provide clean, safe, properly protected bathing facilities. Camping
grounds are open to the public, space is set aside for trailer parking, and
the mosquito menace is reduced to the minimum. Pavilions and bath-
houses are open during the summer and early autumn.

Inland waters also offer recreational opportunities. Lake Candlewood
is the State's largest inland body of water, but Waramaug, Twin Lakes,
or any one of the several larger lakes afford equally fine facilities for
fishing, boating, or skating in season. Almost every one of the 169 towns
has at least one good spot for the enjoyment of water or ice sports.

Fishing: Fishermen find ample opportunity for their sport in the 7619
miles of rivers and streams, or in the thousand lakes and ponds covering
a total area of 43,597 acres. The 245 miles of shore line on Long Island
Sound and the Atlantic Ocean are dotted with boat liveries, where quali-
fied skippers personally conduct fishing parties or rent boats to the salt-
water angler. Commercial swordfishermen often take paying guests, usu-
ally from the Stonington docks, to enjoy a sport as exciting as whaling.

Hunting: Shooting alongshore and on the Connecticut River is excellent.
Migratory wildfowl pay their autumn call after a summer of fattening in
the rice beds of northern lakes. Upland game birds have suffered from
the encroachment of industrial and residential areas into their natural
cover; but pheasants have partially replaced the native ruffed grouse
and quail. Better control of shooting promises a gradual improvement
in this sport. No eastern State offers better rabbit hunting; raccoons
still frequent the heavy timber and swamplands; and squirrels are
abundant, except when the nut crop fails and they are forced to migrate
to other areas. Deer are protected in Connecticut, and have become so
plentiful that the farmers often secure special permits for their destruc-
tion to save crops and young orchards.

Fish and Game Laws: (Digest) Licenses required of persons 16 years old
and over. Issued by Town Clerks or by State Board of Fisheries and Game.
Hunting license, resident $3.35; non-resident $10.35. Fishing license,
resident $3.35; non-resident $5.35 minimum (residents of a State having
a non-resident fee in excess of $5.35 are charged the same fee in Connecti-
cut). Combination hunting and fishing licenses, residents $5.35; non-
residents $14.35. For regulations and permits, write State Board of
Fisheries and Game, State Office Building, Hartford, Conn., or apply to
patrolmen on streams.

Boating: Yachtsmen will find safe anchorage and good service in numerous
harbors, or quiet waters in the lee of green islands on Long Island Sound.

xxviii General Information

Motorboat enthusiasts can cross the State from the Sound to the Massa-
chusetts State Line, via the Connecticut River, with only one short trip
through locks at the Enfield Rapids. Canoe trips are possible on any one
of Connecticut's three larger rivers. Trains take sportsfolk from the
metropolitan area to Falls Village where, after assembling their portable
craft, they embark on the Housatonic to enjoy the European sport of
1 f alt bootpaddeln ' over a ly-mile course strewn with rapids and boulders.

Hiking: Hiking trails are well marked and never far from civilization.
The great Appalachian Trail crosses the State, and many feeder trails,
or short trails of local importance, thread their way through woodland
and hill-country of entrancing beauty. Trail maps can be secured (for
2$fy from the Connecticut Forest & Park Association, 215 Church St.,
New Haven.

Riding: Riding has grown in popularity in Connecticut and many excel-
lent stables rent saddle horses and riding togs. Although all of the main
highways are hard-surfaced, there are many hundreds of miles of gravel
or dirt roads where motor traffic is light and where riders can explore the
back-country in perfect comfort and safety. Private property rights are
carefully respected in this State, and wire fencing is the rule; but almost
any farmer allows a rider to cross pastureland or other terrain not actually
under a crop, if the request is properly made and if gates or barways are
closed to prevent stock from roaming.

Hunt Clubs and Horse Shows: Hunt clubs are few and exclusive in Con-
necticut. The best pack of hounds in the State is at Watertown, but hunts
at Durham, Fairneld, and Norfolk attract riders in season. As farm folk
do not approve of fox hunting, most hunters either own or lease their own
acreage. Horse shows of local importance are held at many widely sepa-
rated points in the State. Harness racing is a feature at Danbury Fair
(first week in October), and a few local tracks have their quota of lovers
of * silks and sulkies.' No running races are held within the State, but flat
races and the occasional rather easy steeplechase of the amateur hunts-
folk are staged in season. Four troops of National Guard cavalry, polo
at Yale, Farmington Polo Association, and at Avon Old Farms, and an
annual indoor horse show at the New Haven Arena complete the more
serious side of the mounted sports card in Connecticut.

Climbing: Mountain climbing is not a popular pastime in the State, al-
though the sheer cliffs of the Hanging Hills and the slightly easier slopes
of Mt. Carmel tempt an occasional devotee of the Alpine art. The highest
land in Connecticut is in the extreme northwestern corner, where Bear
Mountain pierces the blue at 2355 ft. and Gridley Mountain rises to
2200 ft.

Bicycling: Cyclists pedal over many back roads, and the railroad en-
courages this sport by operating cycle trains from New York City to the
Canaan Hills. Regulations covering the operation of cycles on the high-
ways are concerned with the proper lighting of vehicles and the use of
reflectors on the rear.

General Information xxix

Winter Sports: Snow trains cross the State on their way from the larger
cities to the Berkshires and the northern New England hills. Skating
and hockey are favorite sports in every town. Bobsledding increases in
popularity with the construction of better runs, but tobogganing is not
practiced. Ski runs are many; the better clubs are in Litchfield County,
where the snow falls earliest and stays longest.

Golfing: Golfers can always find a course within convenient reach.

Tennis: Tennis courts have been built in practically all municipal parks
throughout the State.

CALENDAR OF ANNUAL

EVENTS

(nfd no fixed

date)

March

nfd

New Haven

Paint and Clay Club art exhibit.

March

nfd

Hartford

Exhibit of work by Connecticut

artists.

March

Easter Sunday

New London

Sunrise Service in Coast Guard

Academy Bowl, 7 A.M.

New Haven

Sunrise Service, East Rock Park.

Easter Monday

New Haven

Egg Hunt, East Rock Park and

Edgewood Park.

Easter Week

New Haven

Easter Flower Show, East Rock

Park Cineraria Show, Pardee

Gardens, East Rock Park.

March

nfd

New Britain

Ukrainian Festival in memory

of the Ukrainian bard, Taras

Shevchenko; concert and folk

dances presented in native

costumes.

April

nfd

Hartford

Antique Exposition; exhibits

and lectures.

April

nfd

Hartford

Spelling Bee (local finals), Bush-

nell Park.

May

Storrs

Connecticut State College May

Day Exercises; pageant.

May

Willimantic

State Teachers' College May

Day Exercises; pageant.

May

nfd

New Haven

Powder House Day; pageant

based on historical episode.

May

2d wk

New Haven

Annual Iris Show, East Rock

Park.

May

nfd

Hartford

Flower Mart and Show, Old

State House.

May

2d or 3d

Derby

Blackwell Cup or Carnegie Cup

Saturday

Crew Race on Housatonic

River.

May

nfd

Middlefield

Apple Blossom Festival, Lyman

Orchards.

May

nfd

Farmington

Peach Blossom Time, Tunxis

Orchards.

May

New Haven

Skeet Shooting; five-man team

championship.

May

Hartford

Russians celebrate their na-

tional holiday with athletic

/> !

events, folk dances, and songs,

in Charter Oak Park.

xxxn

Calendar of Annual Events

June
June

mid-month
mid-month

Winsted
Hartford

June 2d or 3d wk New Haven

New London

June
June

June
July

July
July
Aug.

Aug.
Aug.

Aug.
Aug.
Aug.

15 to 20
nfd

last wk
29

nfd

ist Friday

2d Saturday
nfd

3d wk

nfd

Aug. nfd

Middletown
Stratford

Greenwich
Greenwich

Lyme
Falls Village

Fairfield
Greenwich
East Hampton

Litchfield
Hartford

Hartford
Old Lyme
Durham

West Goshen

Laurel Week.

Flower Show, Old State House.

Rose Week, Elizabeth Park.

YaleUniversityCommencement.

Rose Show, Pardee Rose Gar-
dens, East Rock Park (contin-
uing through summer).

Yale-Harvard Freshman, Com-
bination, and Junior Varsity
Crew Races, A.M.

Yale-Harvard Baseball Game,
Mercer Field, P.M.

Yale-Harvard Varsity Crew
Race, 7 P.M.

Graduation exercises of Coast
Guard Academy.

Graduation exercises of Con-
necticut College for Women.

Wesleyan Commencement ex-
ercises; band concert and
college sing.

Skeet Shooting; Great Eastern
States and National Tele-
graphic Championship, Rem-
ington Gun Club, at Lord-
ship.

Dog Show, Greenwich Kennel
Club.

Annual golf championship
matches, Greenwich Country
Club.

Art exhibit begins, lasting
through summer.

Subscription concerts every Sun-
day, under auspices Jacques
Gordon Musical Foundation,
Music Mountain.

Horse Show.

Scottish Games Association.

Old Home Day Celebration;
3-day event; pageant, con-
certs, drum corps exhibition,
parade.

Horse Show; fancy riding, jump-
ing.

Lawn Bowling Tournament,
Elizabeth Park.

Gladiola Show, Old State House.

Art exhibition.

Middlesex County 4~H Club
Fair.

Litchfield -County 4-H Club
Fair.

Calendar of Annual Events

xxxm

Aug.

nfd

Wolcott

New Haven County 4~H Club

Fair.

Aug.

nfd

Long Island Sound

New York Yacht Club Cruise.

Aug.

21, 22

North Stonington

New London County 4~H Club

Fair.

Aug.

latter part

Lyme

Hamburg Fair.

Sept.

nfd

West Avon

Hartford County 4-H Club

Fair, Cherry Park.

Sept.

nfd

Goshen

Goshen Fair.

Sept.

nfd

Haddam Neck

Haddam Neck Fair.

Sept.

nfd

South Woodstock

Woodstock Fair.

Sept.

nfd

Old Saybrook

Horse Fair.

Sept.

(3 days before

Willimantic

Elks County Fair.

and including

Labor Day)

Sept.

nfd

Wethersfield

Horse Show.

Sept.

nfd

Greenwich

Horse Show.

Sept.

nfd

Brooklyn

Brooklyn Fair.

Sept.

nfd

Guilford

Guilford Fair.

Sept.

nfd

Hartford

Hartford County Food Exhibit,

State Armory.

Oct.

ist wk

Danbury

Danbury Fair.

Oct.

ist wk

Harwinton

Harwinton Fair.

Oct.

2d wk

Durham

Durham Fair.

Oct.

nfd

Riverton

Riverton Fair.

Oct.

nfd

Stafford

Stafford Fair.

Oct.

New London

Navy Day celebration at U.S.

Submarine Base.

Nov.

Hartford

Swedish population celebrates

national holiday with songs

and dances.

Nov.

nfd

New Haven

Chrysanthemum Show, East

Rock Park.

Dec.

2d wk

Hartford

Connecticut Vegetable Growers'

Meeting.

Dec.

nfd

Hartford

Pomological Show, Women's

Club, Broad St.

Dec.

Hartford

Community sing, Prospect St.

i. CONNECTICUT: THE

GENERAL BACKGROUND

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

CONNECTICUT, the 'Nutmeg State,' is one of the thirteen original
States. From east to west it extends about ninety-five miles, from north
to south about sixty miles. Its area of 4965 square miles could be con-
tained in Texas fifty- three times; only two States, Rhode Island and Del-
aware, are smaller in size. It is bounded on the north by Massachusetts,
on the east by Rhode Island, on the south by Long Island Sound, and on
the west by New York. In 1936 the population was approximately
1,725,000.

The coastline of the State is typical of New England, rock-bound and
rugged, with numerous sandy beaches and occasional 'salt meadows.'
In general, the landscape is mildly rolling near Long Island Sound; to-
ward the north, and especially toward the northwest, the slopes become
more pronounced. The point of highest altitude is Bear Mountain, in the
extreme northwest corner of the State, with an elevation of 2355 feet.
There are two distinct series of hills, usually roughly designated as the
eastern and western highlands, between which lies the central lowland
interrupted by the traprock ridges of New Haven and Hartford Counties.
The Berkshire Hills, extending south from Massachusetts and Vermont to
the city of Danbury, provide most interesting scenery. Both the Norfolk
and Litchfield Hills, famed in song and story, attract swarms of summer
tourists, artists, and vacationists; many of these visitors have purchased
secluded hill farms and return each summer.

Connecticut is rich in interesting and romantic place names, such as
Dublin Street, Jangling Plains, Dark Entry, Cow Shandy, Dodgingtown,
Padanaram, and the Abrigador. Many of the names of towns or topo-
graphical features are of English, Biblical, or Indian origin. What names
could retain more of the flavor of old England than Greenwich, Cheshire,
Durham, Cornwall, Avon, and Wallingford to cite but a few? What
terms are more redolent of the Old Testament than Canaan, Hebron,
Goshen, Bethany, Lebanon, and Zoar? The Indian names, which are le-
gion, have a delightfully primitive quality: Yantic, Cos Cob, Quassapaug,
Naugatuck, Quinnipiac, Wequetequock. The very name of the State it-
self harks back to the earlier form ' Quinatucquet,' meaning 'upon the
long river/

Connecticut : The General Background

Connecticut's scenic advantages have but recently been recognized as
a tourist attraction. Forest-clad hills, kept green during the summer
by abundant rainfall, lakes scattered over the State, and miles of breeze-
swept bathing beaches along the Sound provide a variety of recreational
facilities. Excellent highways make travel to these points easy. A well-
kept and well-marked system of hiking trails and bridle paths invites the
hiker and the rider to venture into country not reached by motor roads.
In Connecticut the enthusiast may enjoy some of the wildest and most
rugged scenery in the East. The gorge of the Mianus River on the Con-
necticut-New York State Line is considered one of the most primitive
spots within a short distance of New York City. North of Old Lyme, the
Devil's Hop Yard, now accessible to motorists, is marked by piney depths,
massive granite boulders, and splashing streams. Near-by is the ghost
town of Millington Green, a relic of the days when lumbering was carried
on extensively. The panorama from the mesa-like Hanging Hills of Meri-
den is one of great beauty.

In contrast to the rough back country is the quiet neatness of the village
green in each small community, adorned by its Congregational church and
magnificent elms. Especially beautiful are the greens at Sharon, Wood-
stock, Tolland, Pomfret, and Windham. Those interested in well-propor-
tioned churches of the Colonial period will delight in the handsome edi-
fices of Canterbury, Killingworth, Litchfield, Lebanon, and Brooklyn.
Towns unrivaled in the beauty of their elm-shaded main streets are Ridge-
field, Lyme, Roxbury, Colebrook, Madison, and Litchfield. The usual
country house is well painted and built far enough from the highway to
insure a certain degree of privacy and dignity. White paint is spread with
a lavish brush; green trim and blinds are popular. Occasionally a red-
brick or yellow Colonial house varies this rural color scheme of white and
green.

The country landscape, with its broad fields of different crops, offers
varied shadings of green. Waving corn, hillside orchards, acres of shade-
grown tobacco under netting that appears from a distance like a vast sea,
meet the eye of the traveler and leave the impression of a land of plenty,
a land that is kind to its people. The dairying section of Connecticut
and much of the land is devoted to dairying furnishes the contrast of
red barns, white farm houses, tall silos, and orderly fence rows against a
background of alfalfa and timothy fields, with pasture land dotted with
black and white Holstein or yellow and white Guernsey cattle. Connecti-
cut is proud of her farms, and eighty-three per cent of the farmers are
landowners. Very few farmhouses are left unpainted, although the older

General Description

barns, usually with native pine, hemlock, or chestnut siding, are often
weathered to a soft gray. Old rail fencing can still be seen in the back
country, and the many walls of field stone are proof that a Connecticut
farmer has to work for what he gets.

The winter scene in Connecticut is especially beautiful. The rolling
character of the country lends itself readily to all manner of winter sports.
Ski jumps of national importance are found at Norfolk and Colebrook
River, where many meets are held. Professional ski jumpers and ski run-
ners congregate at Salisbury, Norfolk, and Winsted, where competition
is keen. The tourist is surprised to find winter sports' centers easily accessi-
ble over roads that have been cleared of snow and properly sanded.
Connecticut offers many of the facilities of Banff and Lake Placid within
easy driving distance of many of the large eastern cities.

Residents of New York City do not commonly realize that over the
New Haven Railroad the distance from their city's limits to the Connec-
ticut State Line is but twelve miles, and that at another point Connecticut
comes within seven miles of the Hudson River. To such an extent does a
corner of New England thrust itself into the metropolitan area! With the
extension of the Hutchinson River Parkway in Westchester and the com-
pletion of the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut, a hitherto untapped re-
gion of beautifully wooded hills and rocky dells will be accessible to the
motorist.

Connecticut is dotted with inns of various sorts. Hotels and garage
service are generally excellent. Many rustic eating places border the high-
ways in the back country. Here a barn has been equipped as a studio and
lunch room; there an ancient house serves a light snack in the atmosphere
of another day. Artists sketch along the country roads, and operate
tourist houses for a supplementary income. In season, a system of State-
inspected roadside markets cater to passers-by. The traveler along the
Boston Post Road, with its gasoline stations and wayside restaurants, gets
but a few glimpses of charming coastal villages and sequestered inland
hamlets set among the hills; but let him wander off the beaten paths and
he will discover a countryside much as it was in the pre-Revolutionary
days.

Quiet country towns with close-clipped lawns and stately shade trees,
picturesque islands offshore, sunrise over the hills of Cornwall, sunset over
still pastures, the roar of Kent Falls and the silence of the Cathedral Pines
all these await the traveler who cares to venture away from the larger
cities. Few States have more to offer in natural beauty, in contentment,
and in peace.

Connecticut : The General Background

Connecticut occupies approximately one-half the southern portion of
the New England peneplain. The surface of the State has the characteris-
tics of a gently undulating upland, with the Connecticut Valley lowland
separating this upland into two nearly equal divisions. From the northern
shore of Long Island Sound the land rises at the rate of twenty feet a mile
to a general elevation of one thousand feet at the northern boundary; in
the northwestern section of the State there are a few points where the alti-
tude exceeds two thousand feet. As a contrast, the lowland attains a
height of only one hundred feet at the northern border. The total area of
this lowland is about six hundred square miles. Along the Massachusetts
boundary, the lowland is about fifteen miles in width, and at New Haven,
where it dips into the Sound, it narrows to a mere five miles. Such a con-
dition is the result of a weak bed of rock eroding after the general upland
surface had been elevated subsequent to its formation near sealevel.
Within this bedrock was enough harder traprock to resist erosion; hence
such features as the Hanging Hills of Meriden and the ridges in the vicin-
ity of New Haven. These ridges are characterized by deep notches and
high points that equal in elevation the upland levels east and west of the
lowland region.

At East Haddam, where the Fall Line intersects the lower gorge of the
Connecticut River, one hundred and forty-five earthquake epicenters
were located by the French seismologist, F. de Montessus. More recent
research indicates that the greatest intensity of disturbance occurs on a
line rather than at a given point. The village of Moodus in East Haddam
lies at the intersection of many converging seismotectonic lines. Scientific
investigation has thus accounted for the mysterious and dreadful ' Moodus
Noises/ early interpreted by the Indians as the rumblings of evil spirits,
and by Cotton Mather as the voice of an angry God.

The western upland is decidedly more rugged than the one east of the
valley; here several isolated peaks terminate the line of the Green Moun-
tains and Berkshire ranges. With few exceptions, the highlands are
broken by deep and narrow valleys running in a southern and southeast-
ern direction. The ridges are heavily forested, and provide a pleasant con-
trast to the fertile fields in the river valleys.

The Connecticut River drains only the northern portion of the low-
land. Southeasterly from Middletown the river has carved for itself a
narrow valley in the eastern upland. The Housatonic and Naugatuck
Rivers drain the western highland; and the Thames system composed
chiefly of the Yantic, Shetucket, and Quinebaug Rivers drains the
eastern area. On the Connecticut River, navigation extends to Hartford,

General Description

on the Housatonic to Derby, and on the Thames to Norwich. Oil tankers,
coal barges, and pleasure craft make up most of the traffic on these rivers.
The depression of small valleys along the shore has created a number of
good harbors.

The lakes, waterfalls, and pot-holes, so common over the State, owe
their origin to glacial action. There are more than a thousand lakes, with
a total area of some 44,000 acres. Among the natural lakes are Waramaug,
Bantam, Pocotopaug, Gardner, and Twin Lakes. Artificial lakes include
Lake Zoar and Candlewood Lake, the latter being by far the largest body
of water in Connecticut.

The State's coastal plain, extending along Long Island Sound, is well
developed commercially and residentially. Seaside resorts, State parks,
and bathing beaches line the shore, with some intervening marshland.
There are several good harbors, the most important of which is at New
London, where the United States Government has a submarine base and
a Coast Guard Academy. Shipping was once of great importance, but it
is now relatively negligible except for coastwise traffic.

NATURAL RESOURCES AND
CONSERVATION

Minerals: There are few States where the rocks and minerals are so well
exposed for observation as in Connecticut. Minerals occur in great
diversity of genetic types, but their commercial exploitation has not
been substantially profitable.

The garnet and iron mines of Roxbury, the nickel mines of Litchfield,
and the iron mines of Salisbury have long since ceased production. Cop-
per mining at Granby, Bristol, and Cheshire was attempted even as late
as World War days, but the workings are now idle. Roxbury granite
is only locally important, Portland brownstone went out of fashion
shortly after the last dust-ruffle brushed the sidewalk, but the traprock
quarries are always busy supplying stone for highway and construction
work. The lime kilns of the State are rusty wraiths of their former selves,
the breakwater stone quarries are idle, and the last silica mill has been
torn down; but the Strickland quarries in Portland produce material for
a well-known commercial scouring agent, a garnet mine is active in
Tolland County, and a prospector blasts hopefully for platinum in the
rough hillsides of Sherman.

Soils: The soils of Connecticut furnish a livelihood for many farmers
and dairymen. No State in the Union has better markets so close to the
fields where crops are grown, and few other States are so free from prob-
lems of drought, soil depletion, and erosion. Early in the history of
Connecticut, Yankee farmers learned the rudiments of 'side-hill farming';
modern guidance by an ever-vigilant State agricultural service has per-
petuated the fertility and encouraged the wise utilization of the soil, and
the State has made the most of this rather limited resource.

Water-Pouter and Watersheds: The streams of the State provided
early mills with an abundance of water-power. As industry expanded,
the rivers became ever more important to the growth of the State and its
economic self-sufficiency. Water-power used directly at the site is still
important, and an abundance of electrical energy is generated from the
rivers that plunge over the Fall Line on their race to the sea. Only one
of the State's 169 towns (Union) is without electrical service, and no
hydroelectric power is 'imported.'

Natural Resources and Conservation

Scarcely a single community in Connecticut suffers for lack of a pure,
soft, potable water supply. Watersheds are usually controlled by munici-
palities, but numerous privately owned water companies also function
satisfactorily. The watersheds are vigilantly protected and conserved.
Pine plantings around reservoirs are seen in almost every section of the
State. Notices warning the passer-by of the dangers of fire and pollution
are posted, and all watersheds are patrolled. Pollution is slowly being
eradicated on streams not used for public water supply, and industry is
conscious of the necessity for better and more sanitary disposal of waste
material. Only the Naugatuck River shows any marked degree of
pollution, and State authorities are now (1937) actively concerned with
the purification of this one offensive stream among Connecticut water-
ways.

Flood Control: The State is alive to the necessity of long-term planning
for eliminating the menace of floods such as have twice swept the State
during the past nine years. Losses in soil have not been severe, but the
economic waste through lost time on production and the damage to
industrial equipment is so costly as to create a major problem. Connecti-
cut's interest and position in the matter of flood control are of course
largely influenced by the attitude and action of the States to the north.
The General Assembly in 1937 ratified an interstate compact on flood
control calling for the construction of dams on streams tributary to the
Connecticut River in the States of New Hampshire, Vermont, and Mas-
sachusetts.

Forests: With an occasional exception, such as the conservation work
of the Shaker Colony at Enfield, where a pine grove was planted under
the direction of Elder Omar Pease in 1866, the preservation and renewal
of Connecticut's forests have been grossly neglected by past generations.

The chestnut, fastest growing of the State's timber trees, for many
years supplied most of the wood cut for commercial use. But the chestnut
blight destroyed chestnut trees, and the 'peckerwood' sawmill operator
moved on to a new stand. Timber production dropped from the record
figures of 168,371,000 board feet, cut by 420 mills, in 1909, to only
20,525,000 board feet, cut by 85 mills, in 1930. Seventy-five per cent of
the recent cut has been in hardwoods, and the average annual output
for thirty years has been slightly under eighty million feet. Cordwood for
lime kilns and brass mills took most of the remaining timber, and every
farm woodlot kept a family in fuel. Forests were depleted, and new
plantings were scattered and thin.

Before State control and the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps,

io Connecticut: The General Background

about 27,000 acres of forest, on a yearly average, were devastated by
fire. A similar loss was formerly suffered from the ravages of insects and
ice-storm damage. But in 1932, owing largely to the patrol work of
trained fire crews, only 7000 acres were burned over.

In 1937, 1,789,000 acres in Connecticut, or 56% of the State's
total area, consist of forest land. This is an estimated increase of some
300,000 acres in the past fifteen years. Further increases are probable.
The State owns about 75,000 acres, and is planning additional purchases;
municipal water boards and companies own 100,000 acres; and the re-
mainder is privately owned and controlled. Although plantings are in-
creasing, the softwood supply in Connecticut plantations totals only about
23,000 acres.

PLANT AND ANIMAL LIFE

SHRUBS

MOUNTAIN LAUREL (Kalmia latifolia), the State Flower, is as typical
of the rocky Connecticut hillsides as the rhododendron is of the Appa-
lachians. Protected by law, this shrub, which furnishes a dark evergreen
cover, grows profusely in the woodlands and has been planted in shady
highway gardens along the roadsides. The Laurel Festival is an annual
three-day event in Winsted in honor of the beautiful pink and white
blossom.

The shelving pink or white dogwood blossoms are almost as common as
laurel and present a magnificent display in June. Especially noteworthy
growths are in Hubbard Park in Meriden, in the rocky glens of Green-
wich, on the King's Highway in the eastern hills of Wolcott, and on
Greenfield Hill. The pink azalea, locally named ' honeysuckle,' blossom-
ing in pinks shading to red, is found almost everywhere. Clusters of white
wild cherry blossoms appear early in the spring. The bark of this tree is
used as a cough mixture, but its wilted leaves are poisonous to horses
and cattle.

Pasturelands abound with three shrubs: the sweetfern, the bayberry,
and sheep-laurel. The latter is poisonous to sheep and cattle. The bay-
berry fruit has a wax content that has been used since Colonial days in
the making of scented candles. Sweetfern has a delightful odor and
taste. Its dried leaves are often smoked by youngsters. Juniper bushes,
spreading evergreen branches along the ground, produce berries valued as
flavoring in gin.

Huckleberry and blueberry bushes of both high and low varieties bear
edible berries of commercial value. The Ivy Mountain area of Goshen is
especially productive as berry country. Several kinds of blackberries are
conspicuous in June for their wands of white blossoms, and ripen some-
what later than the low bush blueberries. Occasional patches of wild
raspberries survive in the State. The black raspberry or thimbleberry is
widely distributed. Pokeberries, which abound, though not edible, are
used as dye for homespun. Cranberries are native to Connecticut; their

12 Connecticut: The General Background

present-day commercial production here is negligible, but many good
natural bogs exist, notably one to the east of the Cheshire-Waterbury
road and one near Twin Lakes.

At the edge of the Appalachian hardwood belt where it merges into the
northern evergreen forest cover, watered by bountiful rainfall, Connecti-
cut borrows some plant life from each of these two types of cover.

WILD FLOWERS

As soon as the snow melts from the Connecticut countryside, a trip
into the deep woods and a climb into the hill country are rewarded with
the discovery of trailing arbutus, which sometimes blooms beneath the
snow. Blue and white violets cover the lowlands, and the cool woods
shelter the hepatica and the yellow dogtooth violet. The starry-flowered
bloodroot is another conspicuous spring plant in suitable situations in
wood and shady glen. The Indian turnip, or jack-in- the-pulpit, in marshy
places, is ever ready to 'preach' for the youngsters who pinch the strange
bloom with inquisitive fingers. Cowslips, deserving a much fairer name,
spread a yellow glow along quiet swamp pools. Country people prize
the leaves of this plant as 'greens,' cooking it as they do the dandelion,
milkweed, and dock. In May or June, meadows are alternately white
with daisies or yellow with buttercups. Wild geraniums lend a touch of
lavender against the varied greens and, later, the lupine, in favored
locations, covers sandy banks and sterile fields with a wash of blue.

In midsummer, the wild rose blooms. A trip into the deep woods is
rewarded with the discovery of some one of the more delicate orchids.
The Pyrola and the Indian pipe cannot be found by the roadside, but
reward the botanist who wanders far afield. Evening primroses, vetches,
clovers, mustard plant, vervains and composites are a part of the pattern,
and even the hated wild carrot, or Queen Anne's Lace, is a weed of beauty.
Later, at the brook's edge, the scarlet cardinal flower raises its gaudy
spire as the trout play below its roots.

Th$ Connecticut countryside often appears at its best in autumn.
The gaudy scarlets of the woodlands merge with the yellow of the golden-
rod and the browns of ground vegetation. Ivy, climbing around trees
and stone walls, adds a flaming red equaled only by the sumach. Swamp
sumach, distinguished by very green and shiny leaves, is poisonous, but
the upland staghorn type, with great spikes of turkey-red berries in

Plant and Animal Life 13

autumn, is not only harmless but has medicinal properties. The three-
leaved poison ivy, often called mercury, should be avoided, but the five-
leaved Virginia creeper (a cousin of the grape) is harmless.

MEDICINAL PLANTS

Among the often-missed, delicate blossoms to be found between wheel
tracks of old wood roads, are a large variety of herbs, including penny-
royal, and lobelia, whose medicinal properties are valued by the well-in-*
formed 'herb-doctor,' homeopath, and country housewife. Partridge-
berry, a tiny woodland vine found creeping beneath the running or Prin-
cess Pine, produces a brew which was believed to lessen the dangers of
childbirth for pioneer women and their dusky predecessors.

Witch-hazel, a shrub blooming in October with a delicate yellow flower,
furnishes a lotion, concocted at home in the early days, which is now
manufactured at several distilleries in the State. The root of the aromatic
sassafras, found along the edges of woods and in fence corners, is used
both as a flavoring and as a cure for throat ailments. Black birch, a tree
which blossoms in the form of a tassel, is valued for the preparation
known as ' oil of birch,' used as a substitute for wintergreen.

Old charcoal pits provide ideal soil conditions for rank growths of poke-
berry and mullen. Mullen tea is locally believed to be effective in treating
fever and reducing bruises. Thoroughwort, or boneset, with a white
blossom, and skullcap with a blue one, are other common and useful
Connecticut medicinal plants.

NATIVE TREES

The deciduous woodlands of Connecticut vary from the soft maple and
pepperidge in the swamps to the oak, ash, birch, hickory, poplar, yellow
poplar, sycamore, beech, hard maple, and butternut of the ridge. North-
ward, the woodland changes from hardwood second growth to a pre-
dominance of evergreens, ranging from seedling plantings to the towering
white pines of Cornw.aH. Spruce and balsam are not plentiful but hem-
lock and white pine are abundant and readily re-seed and flourish.
Beautiful stands of hemlock are numerous, notably at Sandy Hook, along

14 Connecticut: The General Background

the Mianus and Shepaug Rivers, at Cornwall, Canaan, New London,
Hartland, and Goshen. Red pine, which has proved resistant to rust and
blister, covers many municipal watersheds. Tamarack, or eastern larch,
which is still plentiful, furnished the early settlers with ideal wood for
snowshoe frames, ship timbers, ladders, and fence posts. Tamarack gum
was regarded as superior to spruce gum as a balm for wounds.

The hop-hornbeam and ironwood (or blue beech) are both common, and
their wood is used for whipstocks and tool handles. Black walnut and
hickory are fast disappearing in commercial quantities. The elm and
sugar maple are favorite shade trees in all Connecticut villages. Willow,
one of the first trees to show leaves in the spring, supplies material for
basket splints, and its charcoal a base for gunpowder. Recently, the
persimmon has been grown as far north as Rockville. Catalpa, horse
chestnut, and locust are introduced species in the State, and are becoming
naturalized in various places.

ANIMAL AND BIRD LIFE

The smaller mammalia all adjust themselves to conditions in this
industrial region, and in recent years, as more land is returned to forest
cover through State, municipal, or Federal purchases, they seem to
multiply and thrive. On rural highways skunks dispute the right-of-
way with many a midnight motorist. Woodchucks sit erect in clover
fields beside the road, solemnly surveying the passing traffic. Even the
white-tailed deer, dazed by the glare of approaching headlights, often
stands rigid in the center of the less frequented roads. Foxes, both red
and gray, prey on country henroosts in the rural sections or lead deep-
voiced foxhounds a merry chase through moonlit woodland and over
frozen stubble.

Fur-bearing animals are plentiful enough in the State to furnish a fur
crop valued at from $80,000 to $100,000 per annum. Country lads trap
muskrats, mink and an occasional otter. On the highway above the
Hamburg Cove a dealer in raw furs swings a sign from a cedar pole and
* trades ' for pelts with all the sagacity of the native Yankee. Catalogue
houses regularly stuff country mail boxes with price lists of raw furs, and
rural mail carriers obtain additional income by running trap lines, usually
of Connecticut-made steel traps.

In the Canaan Mountain region and the wild country near Winsted

Plant and Animal Life 15

a few cow moose are said to be at large. Near Colebrook, the horn of
a bull moose was found in 1936. Undoubtedly, these animals escaped
from captivity. Canada lynx very rarely wander in from ' up north ' to
furnish sport for the more highly skilled rural hunters. Bobcats or Bay
lynx, now scarce, furnish an average of about twenty pelts a year in
Connecticut, but are not hunted seriously. Cottontail rabbits are so
plentiful as to be classified as pests. The snowshoe rabbit or varying hare
is not uncommon in Litchfield County and occurs throughout the northern
uplands. The European hare is an introduced species which has become
widely though sparingly established.

BIRD LIFE IN CONNECTICUT

Among the New England States, Connecticut is unique in possessing"
within its borders three faunal life zones: upper austral, transition, and
Canadian. Typical of the upper austral birds which breed regularly in
Connecticut are: clapper rail, fish crow, orchard oriole, hooded warbler,
worm-eating warbler, Louisiana water thrush, seaside sparrow; and
representative of the Canadian Zone in the high hills of the northwestern
part of the State, as regular summer residents, are: the brown creeper,
black-throated blue warbler, northern water thrush, junco, and white-
throated sparrow, with such spasmodic breeding species as sapsucker, saw-
whet owl, and golden-crowned kinglet. The vast majority of the breeding
birds are typical of the transition zone which covers most of southern New
England. Connecticut is particularly fortunate in lying well within the
edge of the great eastern fly-way for migrants which pass each spring and
fall up and down the Hudson, Housatonic, and Connecticut River Valleys.
These two facts, in conjunction with the maritime situation along the
route of the shore bird and waterfowl migration, account for the rich and
varied bird life of the State.

Among the game birds, the fresh-water ducks are the most important,
but, with the exception of the local black ducks and the protected wood
ducks, are rapidly becoming scarcer, owing largely to continued over-
shooting. Second in importance is probably the ruffed grouse, which
continues to hold its own, particularly in protected woodlands, despite
the ravages of obscure and supposedly exotic diseases. The bob-white or
quail are now protected and in consequence are slowly but surely regaining
their insecure foothold as a characteristic bird of orchard, pasture, and

1 6 Connecticut: The General Background

thicket. A very marked increase in numbers has occurred in 1937. The
ring-necked pheasant has thrived as an introduced game bird, and offers
good sport to local gunners.

Some authorities, including authors of several official bulletins of the
U.S. Department of Agriculture, decry the reduction in the numbers of
predatory hawks and owls, slaughtered by the representatives of the State
Department of Fish and Game. They argue that the balance of nature
has been upset and that much economic loss has been sustained from the
over-abundance of rodents, rabbits, snakes, and other vermin. These views
are not shared by some of the agriculturists and rural taxpayers, nor by
some of the practical conservationists in charge of the forests and wild life
of Connecticut.

Control: Six or seven hundred predatory hawks are annually destroyed.
Crows furnish a yearly bag totaling 3500, and about 150 great horned
owls are killed as State foresters and game protectors clear the cover for
the protection of game birds.

Fish wardens captured and donated to the poor over 51,000 pounds
of snapping turtles during the year 1936-37. Over 2300 watersnakes
were destroyed by the same agency. Trappers are licensed to destroy
fox, lynx, bobcat, and other predatory beasts.

Caution: The only wild life in Connecticut to be avoided are skunks,
copperheads (in the swampy lands), and rattlesnakes (in a few isolated hill
regions). Skunks never invite trouble and only their curiosity and in-
dependence cause them to be ranked as undesirable. It is advisable to
give the skunk more than half of the road.

GEOLOGY

SURFACE FORMS

TO ANYONE driving a car over ridge and vale in northwestern Con-
necticut, or climbing laboriously to the high summit of Bear Mountain,
the chief characteristic of the topography seems to be irregularity.
Nevertheless the surface of the State, viewed as a whole, may be described
as an old plain, gently tilted from northwest to southeast and more or
less dissected by streams. The truth of this statement is demonstrated
by study of a relief model made of plaster or clay and showing all land-
scape features in proper scale. A sheet of cardboard laid on such a model
is not held up by a few scattered high points; it rests rather snugly on
many broad areas that are nearly flat or gently rolling, and slopes grad-
ually from the northern boundary to the shore of Long Island Sound.
It is evident that if the stream valleys on the model were filled, the card-
board would then fit the top of the model rather accurately. In other
words, the ruggedness of the upper Housatonic Valley and similar areas
is chiefly due, not to scattered peaks and ridges that rise to exceptional
height, but to numerous steep-walled valleys cut below a surface that
originally was remarkably even.

The part of the State that would require the largest amount of fill to
raise it to the level of the ideal plain is the wide lowland belt bordering
the Connecticut River in the vicinity of Hartford, and extending generally
southward to New Haven Harbor. This belt includes much of the best
farming land of the State. The soil is predominantly reddish in color, in
agreement with the bedrock beneath, which consists largely of red-tinted
sandstone and shale. On the other hand, the higher ground on each side
of the low belt is underlain by granite and similar rocks that are much
more resistant than the sandstone and the shale. Within the low belt
itself are steep-sided ridges, such as Mount Carmel, Pistapaug Mountain,
and the Hanging Hills of Meriden. These ridges are on dark basaltic
rock, as hard and resistant as granite. It seems, then, that there is a
general relation between the topography of the State and the character
of the bedrock. The north-south belt of low country mentioned above

1 8 Connecticut : The General Background

is called the Central Lowland; the higher areas east and west of it are
known respectively as the Eastern and Western Highlands.

BEDROCK

The rocks that underlie the surface of Connecticut may be divided
into two general groups according to age and structure. The Central
Lowland, which extends from north to south entirely across the State and
nearly across Massachusetts, is floored with reddish sandstone and
shale in which are included sheets and dikes of dark basalt and related
igneous rocks. A small detached area in Southbury is underlain by rocks
of the same kind. The sandstone and shale have been eroded to form the
lowland, whereas the more resistant igneous masses are responsible for
the numerous bold ridges that diversify the scenery of the low belt.
All of the bedrock within this belt was formed during the Triassic period
of earth history. The strata of shale and sandstone were laid down as
layers of mud, sand, and gravel, partly in the channels and on the flood
plains of ancient streams and partly on the floors of shallow lakes.
Strange extinct reptiles known as dinosaurs inhabited the region in large
numbers; thousands of their footprints, perfectly preserved when the old
muds hardened into rock, are to be seen in museums as well as in their
original positions in old quarries. Three times during the Triassic period
great floods of molten lava poured over the land and formed sheets of
black basalt, which in turn were buried by thick layers of mud and sand.
In a final great mountain-making upheaval, all of the Triassic deposits
were broken and tilted toward the east. During succeeding ages the up-
turned edges of the mountain blocks have been eroded, and now a com-
plete section of the beveled strata, nearly three miles in total thickness,
can be seen by traversing the lowland belt from west to east. Compari-
son of the Triassic rocks in Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey
suggests that these rocks originally covered a much larger area than at
present.

Rocks much older than the Triassic underlie the Eastern and Western
Highlands. These older rocks are here grouped together, although ac-
tually they form a complicated assemblage, containing many rock types
and units that differ greatly in age. Some of these rock units originated
on the floors of ancient seas. For example, in the western part of the
State there are extensive belts of marine limestone. The layers of lime-

Geology 19

stone and shale, once nearly horizontal, were folded and contorted by
mountain-making forces, and in many places they are now vertical or
even overturned. In connection with the mountain-making, great masses
of molten rock welled up, cutting across and partially engulfing the folded
strata. This molten material solidified to make coarse-grained granite,
a type of rock that is formed thousands of feet below the earth's surface.
Since the granite is now exposed over large areas, as at Stony Creek,
Stonington, and Thomaston, we know that erosion has carried away vast
quantities of rock, completely removing an old mountain system.

When the tremendous forces were compressing and folding the rock
strata and the granite bodies were being formed, the combination of
pressure and heat changed or metamorphosed much of the older rock.
Limestone became marble; shale changed to slate, or in part to a rock
composed largely of mica and known as mica schist. Garnets, some of
large size, developed in parts of this metamorphic rock. Many other
peculiar minerals were formed in the old mountain zone. Bodies of very
coarse-grained granite, called pegmatite, yield dozens of mineral species,
including some that are radioactive. By analysis of radioactive minerals
found in quarries in the town of Portland, it has been determined that
the pegmatite in that vicinity was formed 280,000,000 years ago.

In brief outline, the story recorded in the bedrock of Connecticut is as
follows: the land was covered by ancient seas, and strata made of the old
marine deposits were later folded to form high mountains. Erosion during
long ages wore the mountains down and exposed the granite in their cores.
Part of the land then began to sink slowly, and into the basin thus formed
streams swept gravel, sand, and finer debris derived from the granite and
older rocks. Dinosaurs left their footprints and bones in these deposits
before the latter were hardened into rock. Great flows of lava poured over
the land. Again there was mountain-making movement, which broke and
tilted the new-made sandstones and lavas, making ranges similar to those
in the present Great Basin of Nevada and Utah. Long-continued erosion
then planed down these ranges until a wide region, including much of New
England, was reduced to a plain near sea level.

In this long history of erosion, undoubtedly the areas on weak bedrock
were worn down rather rapidly, whereas the resistant rocks stubbornly
withstood the attacking forces for long ages. However, the weakest rocks
cannot be cut below sea level by the running water of streams, and given
time enough even the most resistant bedrock is brought down to the same
critical level. Thus it was that the surface of our State became a mono-
tonous plain, or near-plain, on which large rivers meandered widely.

20 Connecticut : The General Background

The next event was slow and nearly uniform uplift of northern New
England, tilting the old plain gently toward the Atlantic. Streams began
to flow more swiftly and to cut downward. Again the weak bedrock yielded
readily to the attack of erosion, and permitted some belts to be reduced
to low elevation before the areas of resistant rock showed any appre-
ciable effect. This selective wearing away may be compared to an etching
process used in engraving. A plate of metal is covered with wax, which
is then cut away with an engraver's tool until the desired pattern is pro-
duced. Acid applied to the plate attacks the bare metal, but cannot touch
the areas protected by wax. In this way the surface, originally smooth,
is etched into relief.

GLACIATION

The present surface of Connecticut represents natural etching that has
partially destroyed the old tilted plain, which is still identified by numer-
ous remnants. However, another modifying influence was required to
shape the landscape as we now see it. This second agent was the moving
ice cap of the Ice Age. The cause of this widespread glaciation is still
largely a mystery; but an abundance of evidence demonstrates the exist-
ence of the ice sheet, both on this continent and in northern Europe.
Over all of Connecticut the sheet was thick enough to bury the highest
hills and to move slowly under its own weight. Soil and loose stones were
moved along, blocks of bedrock were pried loose and added to the mass of
moving debris, and the entire bedrock surface was polished, scratched,
and gouged by the relentless grinding mill. Much of the original mantle
of Connecticut was moved as far south as Long Island. During hundreds
of thousands of years the ice sheet waxed and waned. At last the climate
became more temperate, and the gigantic cap began to waste by melting
from the top and from the front. Gradually all of Connecticut was set
free. But for a long time floods of water poured across the State from the
ice remnants farther north. Large temporary lakes were formed where
stagnant ice dammed the old stream valleys. Water escaping from these
lakes poured over cliffs as falls, and with the aid of hard pebbles as grind-
ing tools, wore circular pot-holes, as deep as wells, into the solid rock.
The wasting ice dropped its load of debris, and thus Connecticut, which
had lost much of its original cover, inherited soil and boulders brought
from Massachusetts and even from Vermont and New Hampshire. Scat-
tered glacial boulders that obviously have strayed far from their original
source are common features in all parts of the State.

Geology 2 1

Contrary to common opinion, the ice sheet did not erode deeply into
bedrock and fashion the topography anew. It is clear that the ridges and
valleys we now see were formed by running water long before the Ice Age.
The moving ice used its energy chiefly in moving soil cover and dumping
it haphazardly, thus modifying the older topography more largely by de-
position than by erosion. Large piles of this glacial debris form the elon-
gate drumlins near Storrs and elsewhere in the State. In the last stages of
the glacial history, when the rotting ice was transected by long crevices,
running water filled many of these elongate depressions with sand and
gravel. When the surrounding ice melted away, these deposits remained
as long narrow ridges. Elsewhere isolated masses of ice were partially
buried in gravelly deposits, and later melted to leave the undrained de-
pressions known as kettles.

The haphazard shifting of debris by the glacier ice resulted in many
changes of the older drainage. The Farmington River flowed south in
preglacial times and emptied into New Haven Harbor. After the ice dis-
appeared, the old channel was left filled with glacial deposits in the vicin-
ity of Plainville, and the river found it necessary to seek out a new route
to the north, through an old gap at TarifTville, and finally into the Con-
necticut River at Windsor. Dumping of glacial debris obstructed many
smaller stream valleys to create the lakes and swamps that are so com-
mon in all parts of the State.

The Connecticut shoreline is made ragged by many deep bays and inlets,
and rocky islands are numerous offshore. The lower parts of the large
stream valleys are 'drowned' to form estuaries, and in the Connecticut
River the tides reach as far inland as Hartford. All of these features sug-
gest recent sinking of the coastal belt; but at least a part of the real cause
is actual rise of sea level due to return into the sea of vast quantities of
water that were locked up in the great ice sheets during the Ice Age.

All of the numerous effects of glaciation form conspicuous features in
the Connecticut landscape of today; but these effects are merely a veneer
superposed on older features of the bedrock. Glaciation occurred only
yesterday, from the geologic point of view. It is barely ten thousand years
since the last of the glacier ice wasted away; but millions of years have
elapsed since the Connecticut and Housa tonic rivers began to cut their
present valleys, and the old plain that was partly destroyed by the valley
cutting was formed tens of millions of years ago. In the bedrock itself we
see evidence of great changes in still earlier tunes, including the uplift of
lofty mountains beneath which lay the granite now so widely exposed.
Like human civilizations, landscapes come and go, each built on the ruins
of another.

THE INDIANS OF
CONNECTICUT

ETHNOLOGISTS distinguish four main groups among the aborigines of
Connecticut: the Nipmuck, the Pequot-Mohegan, the Sequin or 'River
Indians/ and the Matabesec or Wappinger Confederacy. The first of
these, the Nipmuck, occupied the northeastern corner of the State and
part of Massachusetts. They had no ruler of their own, and were subject
to one or another of the neighboring tribes. The Pequot and Mohegan,
although politically distinct, were linguistically and otherwise closely
related tribes, and actually formed a single people. They established them-
selves in the southeastern section of Connecticut after an invasion
before 1600. The 'River Indians,' who consisted of a group, or league, of
tribes under one chief, called the central part of the present state their
own; while the Matabesecs, who were forced to share their territory with
the Mohicans of eastern New York, occupied its western part.

Both the 'River Indians* and the Matabesecs were broken up into a
number of localized tribes, the former being subdivided into the Tunxis,
Poquonnuc, Podunk, Wangunk, Machimoodus, Hammonasset, and
Quinnipiac, while the latter counted among their tribes the Pootatuck,
Wepawaug, Uncowa, and Siwanoy. All of the Connecticut tribes were
frequently invaded by the powerful Mohawks, who kept them under com-
plete domination for long periods at different times.

The first contact between the whites and the Indians of Connecticut
was probably made around the year 1614 by Dutch traders. Shortly
after, hi 1633, the Dutch established themselves in what is now Hartford,
and hi the next few years the influx of English settlers from Massachusetts
began.

It was not long before the Connecticut settlers became involved in a
life-and-death struggle with the Pequots, the most virile of the tribes.
The first outrage on the Indians' part was the murder of Captains Stone
and Norton on their way up the Connecticut River to trade.

The killing of the adventurer, John Oldham, off Block Island in 1636
led to ill-advised reprisals by a force from Massachusetts under Captain
Endicott. The Pequots, enraged by the burning of some of their houses
and corn, attempted to form an offensive alliance with the Narragansetts

The Indians of Connecticut 23

of Rhode Island. Had they been successful, the white settlers might well
have been annihilated. Through the fall and winter of 1636-37, a series
of attacks at Saybrook, Wethersfield, and other settlements kept the
whites in a constant state of alarm.

On May i, 1637, the General Court of Hartford decided to take the
field against the Pequots. Ninety men were levied forty-two from
Hartford, thirty from Windsor, and eighteen from Wethersfield, and
Captain John Mason was put in charge of the expedition. Ten days later
Mason's party, with seventy Mohegan allies, sailed down the Connecticut
River to Saybrook, where they joined Captain Underbill with twenty
men from Massachusetts.

As the Pequots were in possession of two strongly fortified encampments
and had a force of nearly five hundred warriors, the undertaking was a
formidable one. The original plan to attack from the western or Thames
River side, where the movements of the whites would have been under
the constant observation of the Indians, was wisely abandoned. The main
body of troops was sent over to Narragansett Bay to attack from the east.
On the morning of May 24, the long overland march began for the little
band of seventy-seven Englishmen with a small army of Indian observers,
sixty Mohegans and four hundred Narragansetts. This retinue was more
of a hindrance than a help, and might easily have constituted a potential
menace, if the attack were not successful. On the morning of the 26th, an
hour before dawn, the English advanced on the chief fort at Pequot
Hill, West Mystic. It consisted of a circular area of several acres, sur-
rounded by a twelve-foot palisade and containing some seventy wigwams.
The surprise was successful; both entrances were taken and the work of
slaughter began. It was a slow and confused business. Mason, therefore,
decided to fire the encampment. Aided by a rising wind, the flames swept
the fort; those who ran out were shot down, the Mohegans and Narra-
gansetts lending a hand in this work. The destruction of the main body
of the Pequots was complete, with a loss to the English of only two killed
and twenty wounded. The other Pequots at Fort Hill made a sally, but
were driven off. It was the most decisive battle ever fought on Connecti-
cut soil, although one more action was needed to bring the war to an end.
In a swamp fight at Fairfield on July 13, 1637, Mason overtook and de-
stroyed the fleeing remnants of the Pequots, leaving one hundred and
eighty captives to the whites and a few fugitives among the New York
tribes. On September 21, 1637, a treaty of friendship was concluded
between the English on one side, and Uncas of the Mohegans and Mian-
tonomo of the Narragansetts on the other.

24 Connecticut: The General Background

A period of peace followed, which lasted for nearly forty years, with
growing tension as the settlers took over more and more of the Indians'
hunting grounds. The fate intended for the Indians was clear, but before
submitting to the white men's depredations, the original owners of the
land rallied under Philip of the Wampanoags, a tribe of Rhode Island and
Massachusetts. Intelligent, brave, made desperate by the injustice of
the invaders, this Indian champion of a lost cause, abandoning all hope
of peace, attempted to unite all the Indians of New England in a general
conspiracy. His plans were revealed to the English by a Christian Indian,
who was promptly murdered by Philip's henchmen. The execution of
these murderers was the signal for the outbreak of what became known
as King Philip's War. In June, 1675, Philip attacked Swansea, near
Mount Hope, Rhode Island, killing nine and wounding seven of the
inhabitants.

This time the Narragansetts, although still reluctant, were forced to
participate on the side of King Philip. The colonists, aware of the serious-
ness of the situation, mobilized an army of one thousand men. On Decem-
ber 1 8, 1675, the Connecticut forces, consisting of three hundred English-
men and one hundred and fifty Pequot and Mohegan Indians, under the
command of Major Treat, joined those of Massachusetts and Plymouth.
In combination, they made a desperate attack upon the Indian fort at
Mount Hope; and after suffering heavy losses, they succeeded in com-
pletely subduing the Indian tribes.

Many of the survivors of the sorely defeated people moved out of New
England northward or southward, others re-established themselves in
New York State, while still others settled down in small groups in their
original territory at the sufferance of the colonists. Thus a small number
of Paugussets, Uncowas, and Pootatucks finally found a home several
miles from Kent on the Housa tonic River, where a reservation, called
Schaghticoke, consisting of about four hundred acres and harboring a
dozen half-breeds, is still maintained. Another band of Pequots settled
near Stonington, where seventeen descendants are maintained at present
as State wards. Still another group, of which nine members survive,
were allowed by Governor Winthrop to settle near Ledyard. This settle-
ment is known as the Ledyard Pequot Reservation, and comprises one
hundred and twenty-nine acres of rough land. Aside from these few State
wards, thirty-one descendants of the Mohegan tribe are living as members
of the community in the town of Montville. They are concentrated in the
section known as Mohegan, where they still observe on certain occasions
some of their native customs although they have long been Christian-

The Indians of Connecticut 25

ized, and maintain a church of their own, the Mohegan Congregational
Church. The rest are scattered in towns and villages throughout the
State. Altogether, only one hundred and sixty-two Indians survive today
in Connecticut.

As to the original number of Indians in the State there is a lack of agree-
ment among the authorities. While some put the number as high as from
12,000 to 15,000, others assert that no more than from 4000 to 5000
aborigines occupied the territory. At any rate, the first of these estimates
is undoubtedly highly exaggerated.

COLLECTIONS OF INDIAN MATERIAL IN CONNECTICUT

Public displays of relics relating to the Indians of Connecticut are on
view at the following institutions: Bruce Memorial, Greenwich; Pequot
Library, Southport; Barnum Museum, Bridgeport; Hagaman Library,
East Haven; Blackstone Library, Branford; Stratford Historical Soci-
ety, Stratford; New London Historical Society, New London; Peabody
Museum, New Haven; Old Stone House, Guilford; Norwich Free Acad-
emy, Norwich; Wesleyan University, Middletown; Litchfield Public
Library, Litchfield; Mattatuck Society, Waterbury; Newgate Prison,
Granby; Athenaeum, Hartford. Some of the more notable private col-
lections belong to the following: Dr. F. H. Williams, Bristol; Crandall's
Poultry Farm, Poquonock Midway, near Groton; Norris L. Bull, 1565
Boulevard, West Hartford; Edward H. Rogers, 340 Bridgeport Avenue,
Devon; Joseph Lamb, 29 Park Place, New Britain; W. Shirley Fulton,
170 Hillside Avenue, Waterbury; Duffield B. Peck, Clinton; Elliott R.
Bronson, Winchester Center; C. C. Coffin, Milford; Lyent Russell, 154
Hemingway Street, East Haven; Mathew Spiess, Center Street, Man-
chester; William Fen ton, Westport.

HISTORY

THE settlement of the Connecticut Valley in the i63o's was the begin-
ning of the westward movement of the English colonists in the New
World. When news of the fertility of the Connecticut Valley reached
Massachusetts, many land-hungry groups who had grown restive under
the restrictive Massachusetts laws began to migrate westward.

A Dutch navigator, Adriaen Block, was probably the first to observe
the possibilities of the region, when he sailed along the coast and up the
Connecticut River, which he discovered in the year 1614 and called the
Varsche River. Nearly twenty years passed, however, before the Dutch
established a trading post and fort near the future site of Hartford (June,
1633). By this tune the Indians had reported the existence of a fertile
country with valuable trading possibilities to the Plymouth colonists,
and Edward Winslow made an exploratory visit to the Connecticut
Valley in the summer of 1632. Next year a Plymouth expedition sailed
up the Connecticut, past Dutch Point, to the mouth of the Farmington
River. There, on September 26, 1633, they established a post at Mat-
taneaug (Windsor). In the same year, John Oldham of Watertown and
three others explored the Connecticut Valley, and * discovered many very
desirable places upon the same river, fit to receive many hundred in-
habitants.' This report accomplished what the persuasions of Winslow
and Bradford had not effected, and stimulated the first permanent settle-
ment from the Bay towns of Watertown, Dorchester, and New Town
(Cambridge).

In 1634, a large party from Watertown, with Oldham among them,
settled at Pyquag (Wethersfield). They claimed that they were the
first settlers to plant a crop in the valley. In the summer of 1635, emi-
grants from Dorchester settled in Windsor, erected a building, and thereby
gave present historians of Windsor an opportunity to argue that this
town was the first. But the severity of the winter was such that most of
the 'inhabitants' were driven down the Connecticut River to the new
military post at Saybrook, where they took ship to their homes in Dor-
chester.

In October, 1635, the first general migration took place, when fifty
persons from New Town (Cambridge) under the leadership of John

History 27

Steel moved across Massachusetts with all their household goods and
settled at Suckiaug (Hartford) close by the Dutch trading post. The
Reverend Thomas Hooker and his congregation trekked westward in
the following spring. The prime motive of these migrations was land
hunger, as the constant arrival of newcomers from England taxed the
resources of the early towns of Massachusetts Bay. To economic causes
were added the rivalries of strong-willed men, such as Hooker and John
Cotton, and a dislike of some of the autocratic and theocratic features
of the government of Massachusetts. These colonists from Watertown,
Dorchester, and Cambridge, who were settled in Wethersfield, Windsor,
and Hartford, soon absorbed the small number of Plymouth people and
kept the Dutch confined to their trading post, which was finally abandoned
in 1654. In 1638, the Fundamental Orders, drafted under the inspiration
of Hooker's sermon of May 31 and largely the work of Roger Ludlow,
were drawn up, and in January, 1639, they were adopted by the three
towns. Under this document, sometimes called the first practical con-
stitution, the towns formed 'one publike State or Commonwealth.'
Already (April 26, 1636) a general court had been held, in which Steel
and Ludlow took part; and it now became the supreme authority, with
deputies from the towns acting in concert. It is not without significance
that Thomas Hooker was John Pym's brother-in-law. To Pym, Hampden,
and other reformers in the mother country, the main organ of political
power was the House of Commons. So here in Connecticut, the Governor
was merely a presiding officer, and the courts were creations of the legis-
lature by which their judgments could be set aside. Until the Consti-
tution of 1818 replaced the Fundamental Orders and the Charter of
1662, the legislative body continued to dominate the executive and the
judicial. It is worthy of note that the preamble presumed a close relation
between Church and State, and that in 1659 the general court imposed
a property qualification for suffrage. There was a distinct aristocratic
element in this democracy.

In 1635, a second settlement, Saybrook, was established at the mouth
of the Connecticut River by order of an English company of lords and
gentlemen, among whom were Lord Say and Sele and Lord Brooke for
whom the Colony was named. John Winthrop, Jr., son of the Governor
of Massachusetts, was in charge of this enterprise, his chief aids being
Colonel George Fenwick and Captain Lion Gardiner. The Saybrook
group possessed a deed of conveyance from its patron, the Earl of War-
wick, under date of March 19, 1632; but Warwick never received a patent
to support the large claims later made by the Connecticut Colony to

28 Connecticut: The General Background

lands from Narragansett Bay westward to the Pacific Ocean. As the
other Puritan lords and gentlemen became involved in the Cromwell
Revolution, the settlement did not thrive at first and was important only
as a fort and trading post. After several years of negotiation, Fenwick
sold his rights to the Connecticut Colony in 1644. There is no evidence
that he had any authorization from the company to convey the property,
nor did Warwick's original deed carry jurisdictional rights. At any rate,
the separate existence of Saybrook Colony came to an end in 1644, and
Connecticut succeeded to a doubly doubtful title.

The third settlement was made in 1638 at Quinnipiac (New Haven)
by colonists of the English merchant class, under the Reverend John
Davenport and Theophilus Eaton. Land was acquired by purchase
from Momauguin, chief of the local Indians, and the lack of a patent or
charter vexed the Colony from its inception until its absorption by Con-
necticut in 1665. After living for a year under a plantation covenant,
the colonists organized a civil government in June 1639. ' Seven pillars'
were chosen, chief of whom was Theophilus Eaton, the elected magistrate.
It was stipulated that all free burgesses should be church members, a
restriction which proved increasingly irksome to the settlers. Internal
dissatisfaction with the 'judicial laws of God as they were declared by
Moses' became an acute problem. These 'Blue Laws,' as they were
called by the Tory historian, Samuel Peters, in his 'General History of
Connecticut' (1781), were Mosaic only in capital cases, and in general
closely resembled the Cotton Code of Massachusetts. They contrasted
unfavorably, however, with the wider freedom of the Connecticut Colony,
particularly in the matter of franchise.

In 1643, New Haven was extended as a colony to include Milford
(1639), Guilford (1639), and Stamford (1641); Branford (1644) and
Southhold, Long Island (1640), later came under its jurisdiction. Two
attempts to settle a subordinate colony in Delaware were opposed by the
Swedes and the Dutch, and ended in failure. Although the Colony was
founded to promote the peculiarly Puritan combination of piety and
commercialism, its commercial enterprises did not thrive, and its piety
was over-zealous and repressive. Its shipping activity was short-lived,
and was featured by the loss at sea of the ' Wonder-working Providence '
with several leading citizens on board. This ship set sail for England in
January, 1646, and was never heard of again. Only as a 'phantom ship'
did it appear miraculously in the clouds before the sight of the grieved
New Haveners. In general, the colonists were forced to depend for a
living on agriculture, in a coastal region less well adapted to agricultural
pursuits than the fertile Connecticut Valley.

HOMES OF PATRIOT AND
MERCHANT PRINCE

CONNECTICUT was primarily a farming community where
the struggle for life was not easy. But a few families rose to
prominence through trade, bringing the wares of the great
world to the remote country villages. It was these families, in
the main, who supported the Revolution, sometimes at the
loss of their fortunes.

The earliest house of the Huntington family in Norwich is
the narrow gambrel, much added to later, built by Joshua
Huntington about 1719. The earliest house of the Trumbulls
was built by Governor John Trumbull the first, in 1740. In
the same year, Oliver Ellsworth's father, David, built the
Ellsworth House in Windsor, one of the first to make the cen-
tral hall popular. A little later, in 1753, the merchant prince
of Wethersfield, Joseph Webb, built the house that was to
become memorable as the meeting place of Washington and
Rochambeau, where the campaign of Yorktown was planned.
All these, and such houses as the manses in Suffield and
Woodbury, 1742 and c. 1750, developed many interior ele-
gances not found in the ordinary house. The Smith Mansion
in Sharon is akin to the Van Cortlandt Mansion in New York.

After the Revolution, large fortunes began to be made in com-
merce between the more prosperous rural centers and the
outer world. These were reflected in the Morris Mansion of
New Haven, practically a house of 1780, the Stan ton House
and Store in Clinton (both now open to the public), and such
later houses as the Julius Deming House in Litchfield (1793)
and the Noble House in New Milford. These later showed a
more definite architectural purpose, which culminated in the
Greek Revival, as illustrated in Winsted, in Colebrook, and
very notably in a number of houses in Farmington. The tran-
quil village of Windham shows the contrast between the
simple little type of store upon which many of these country
fortunes were based, and a mansion of the later Greek Revival.

-PI

JABEZ HUNTINGTON HOUSE, NORWICH

GOVERNOR TRUMBULL HOUSE, LEBANON

WEST FRONT OF THE GOVERNOR SMITH MANSION, SHARON

MORRIS HOUSE, NEW HAVEN

STANTON HOUSE, CLINTON

itAJOR TIMOTHY COWLES HOUSE, FARMINGTON

NOBLE HOUS r NW

mil

DEMING HOUSE, LITCHFIELD

ROCKWELL HOUSE, WINSTED

OLD STORE, WINDHAM

PERKINS HOUSE, WINDHAM

History 29

Both New Haven and Connecticut had bought land from the Indians
but neither possessed a title valid under English law. The Say and Sele
group, though it had a deed of conveyance from Warwick, was similarly
insecure in its right, since there was no evidence that the original Warwick
patent had been executed, and the deed would not have survived close
legal scrutiny. Connecticut recognized the insecurity of its position, for
it had bought whatever rights Colonel Fenwick possessed, in 1644, but
upon his return to England he failed to get the patent confirmed or
renewed. Consequently, when Charles II was restored to the throne in
1660, the Colony fully realized how precarious the situation was.

It took little persuasion, therefore, on the part of Winthrop, who had
been elected Governor in 1657 and re-elected in 1659, to induce his
brethren to send him to England to see what could be done. The story
of his negotiations is vague, but he somehow succeeded in obtaining a
royal charter which placed the King's approval on the system of govern-
ment already in existence, with a few minor modifications. The boundaries
set forth in the charter, furthermore, extended from Massachusetts to
the Sound, and from Narragansett Bay to the Pacific. Whether or not
the royal authorities or Winthrop intended to destroy the independence
of New Haven, the fact remained that by royal grant the New Haven
colony had been incorporated into Connecticut. Naturally, the Colony
immediately voiced a loud protest, and surrendered in 1664 only be-
cause it was faced with the greater evil of being included in the area
granted to the Duke of York.

Thus, so early, Connecticut reached its full proportions, which it
succeeded more or less in holding by constant vigilance and dexterity
over a period of a century. Connecticut twice resisted Sir Edmund
Andros once in 1675, when he was acting as emissary for the claims
of New York and attempted to land a force at Saybrook; and again in
October, 1687, when the charter whose surrender he demanded was
snatched from under his nose and hidden in the famous Charter Oak at
Hartford. In the face of such efforts of Crown officials to regulate Co-
lonial affairs, only Connecticut and Rhode Island retained their corporate
existence; and Rhode Island, because of its dependence on foreign trade
and its prominent position in the English mercantile system, was actually
far less autonomous than Connecticut. Pennsylvania and Maryland,
though they were still in the possession of the heirs of the original pro-
prietors at the time of the Revolution, suffered from proprietary restric-
tions. After 1689 the status of Massachusetts became that of a semi-
royal province, and Connecticut alone of the Puritan commonwealths
carried on the Puritan experiment.

30 Connecticut : The General Background

This amazing degree of autonomy was not solely the result of skillful
policy and the work of able men; it was due more to the self-sufficient
nature of the Colony. Only North Carolina traded less with the outside
world. In Colonial Connecticut, agriculture was the main occupation;
and there was no staple crop, such as tobacco in Virginia, to induce
English regulation. The Crown exercised little control over Connecticut
because there were few occasions for such control. The Colony, realizing
the strength of its position and the support its policy would receive from
a Parliament that was becoming more and more determined to limit the
royal prerogative, trod warily, and deliberately refrained from giving
royal officials an opportunity for punitive measures.

During the century between the granting of the charter and the Revo-
lution, Connecticut played its part in the larger events of the New
World. It hanged a few witches about the middle of the seventeenth
century, and joined its neighbors in King Philip's War of the i6yo's,
though it suffered far less in that struggle than Maine, Massachusetts
Bay, and Plymouth. From 1687 to 1689, as part of the Dominion of
New England, it was subjected to the harsh rule of Andros. Within a
few years, however, government was resumed on its former basis with the
approval of Crown lawyers, who ruled that the charter was still valid.
The Colony participated in the Colonial wars: in 1690, Fitz-John Win-
throp led an unsuccessful expedition against Montreal, and twenty years
later three hundred Connecticut militiamen were among the troops that
captured Port Royal during Queen Anne's War. It was well represented
in the force that took Louisburg in 1745 ; and during the French and Indian
War it wavered, like its neighbors, between co-operation and obstruction.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, boundary disputes with
adjoining Colonies were incessant. Encouraged by the charter of 1662,
the Connecticut Colony attempted to take Westchester and the western
towns of Long Island from New York. In 1664, the royal grant to the
Duke of York conflicted with the Connecticut charter by assigning all
land up the Connecticut River to New York. As previously noted, this
claim was decisive in persuading New Haven to choose a union with
Connecticut. The most serious controversy occurred over land claimed
by Connecticut in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania. Here war
actually broke out between rival settlers just before the Revolution,
causing a bitter dispute that was not adjudicated until 1782. Similar
boundary disputes with Rhode Island and Massachusetts were frequent,
but after years of wrangling were ended in compromise.

In 1708, the General Court, which had occupied itself with ecclesiastical

History 31

affairs, summoned delegates to a synod to be held at Saybrook. At
this convention, the conflict between the strict Congregationalists, who
held that each church body was a unit with full powers of administration
and discipline, and the moderate 'Presbyterians/ who favored centraliza-
tion, was settled by a compromise. The Saybrook Platform, adopted by
the twelve clergymen and four laymen who composed the convention,
provided for biennial meetings of the ministers of each county in con-
sociations to consider matters of common interest and exercise a certain
control over the ministry. This form of polity has been called 'modified
Presby terianism ' ; and, in fact, the terms ' Presbyterian ' and ' Congrega-
tional' were used indiscriminately until the middle of the eighteenth
century. The platform resulted in a permanent establishment that
tempered the excesses of the 'Great Awakening' of 1740 and remained
in force until the adoption of the Constitution of 1818. A toleration act
was added by the General Court, and further exceptions were made for
the Episcopalians in 1727 and the Baptists and Quakers in 1729, en-
abling them to pay their ecclesiastical taxes to their own denominations.

Connecticut produced many men of talent and strong character, but
the same isolation that preserved its freedom also fostered a pronounced
provincialism. Each town lived unto itself and looked to its own con-
cerns, and this self-sufficiency developed into an intense particularism
that did not welcome outside influences. The Colony was poor, for there
was little foreign trade to bring in hard money; and colonists given, as
Roger Wolcott once said, to 'detraction and censoriousness ' were far
too strong-minded for co-operation. The rugged soil they tilled made
thrift and self-reliance their outstanding virtues and, in the eyes of
the inhabitants of other Colonies who dealt with them, their chief faults.

In the circumstances, it is not surprising that conservatism became
characteristic of the commonwealth. Few men were rich and few were
poor; few owned very large or very small estates. Averseness to change,
of which vestiges still remain, became almost a second religion with the
political and social leaders. To their minds, democracy would have been
as great a calamity as a royal governor; and the government, though
autonomous, was popular only in the sense that elections were held.
Beneath an outwardly popular form prevailed a system that was aristo-
cratic and paternalistic, and the governorship was held for long periods
by one man.

Connecticut, like Massachusetts, was an unwilling member of the
British colonial system. Because of its tradition of self-government, a
fear of interference, aroused by the new imperialistic policy of the mother

32 Connecticut : The General Background

country after 1763, led most of its 198,000 inhabitants to support the
revolt in 1775. During the Stamp Act controversy, the General Court
instructed its London agent to insist on the ' exclusive right of the colo-
nists to levy their own taxes.' Immediately after the battle of Lexington,
six regiments were mobilized in fact, preparations for war had been
under way for more than a year.

The more important military operations that took place in Connecticut
during the Revolution were the skirmishes at Stonington in 1775, Dan-
bury in 1777, New Haven in 1779, and New London in 1781. Undoubtedly
the Colony's most brilliant military figure was Benedict Arnold, although
Ethan Allen, a colorful natural leader, has a strong claim to the title.
The Connecticut militia participated in the early expedition against
Canada. The outstanding civil figures during the war were Jonathan
Trumbull, the only Colonial Governor who was not deposed during
the Revolution, Oliver Wolcott, and Silas Deane, the first agent of the
Continental Congress in France.

From 1775 to 1818, Connecticut moved slowly away from its extreme
conservatism. There the war had not been a social revolution because
no back-country bloc had existed; but in the period that immediately
followed, a definite trend towards liberalism can be seen. Religious
dissent became acute because of the increase of Episcopalians, Baptists,
and Methodists, who, by supporting the Toleration Party, helped to
secure the Constitution of 1818 that disestablished the Congregational
Church.

Conservatism, however, was merely modified. Frightened lest Shays'
Rebellion should spread southward, the State lent its support to the
Constitutional Convention of 1787 and hastily ratified the resulting
document, which protected and favored the rights of property. Al-
though the religious dissenters joined the Democratic-Republican Party
in hope of ejecting the Congregationalists from their privileged position,
this party was born late and made slow progress. Connecticut looked
askance at the election of Jefferson, whom it considered tainted with the
skepticism of the French Revolutions. His embargoes infuriated the
State; and during the War of 1812, Connecticut refused the War De-
partment the use of its militia.

The movement for a Federalist convention, launched by Massachusetts
to consider some united action and possible secession, found favor in
anti-administration Connecticut, and delegates were sent to the Hart-
ford Convention of December, 1814. Delegates from Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, and Connecticut expressed opposition to the war, which

History 33

was injuring the commercial interests of New England, and strongly
denounced the policy of the administration, particularly in respect to
forcible drafts. The general aim seems to have been to obtain certain
reforms in the direction of State rights; but as the sessions were held in
secret, false reports were circulated that the convention plotted a dis-
solution of the Union. The coming of an early peace rendered super-
fluous the acts of the convention, and its chief result was to bring con-
siderable odium to the New England Federalists.

The political revolution of 1818 was the product of basic economic
changes that were occurring in the State and in the Nation during the
two-score years after the Declaration of Independence. Banks were un-
known in Connecticut as late as 1792, but by the year of the Hartford
Convention ten State banks had been organized, with a capital of more
than three million dollars. The wars of the Napoleonic period encouraged
a brisk carrying trade which brought prosperity to the towns along the
Sound and the Connecticut River; and when Jefferson's embargoes cut
this commerce off in its infancy, the State, like the rest of New England,
was forced into manufacturing. Gristmills, textile mills, and factories of
various sorts sprang up everywhere.

Nineteenth and twentieth century Connecticut presents a striking con-
trast to the Colonial commonwealth. Within fifty years a homogeneous
agricultural State became a highly complex, heterogeneous, industrial
society which retained certain of its earlier spiritual characteristics. This
transformation was the direct result of the development of the Industrial
Revolution, of the constant migration of settlers to the West, and (in the
later period) of heavy immigration from Europe.

Connecticut was the product of the first expansion of New England;
it became in turn the source of incessant migrations. In the late seven-
teenth century, New Jersey was the popular destination, and in the eight-
eenth century, the Berkshires, Vermont, New Hampshire, up-State New
York, and Pennsylvania. Two large land companies, the Delaware and
the Susquehanna, were formed in the State. After the Revolution, mi-
gration was directed toward northern New England, Pennsylvania,
New York, and the Western Reserve in Ohio, an area that Connecticut
excepted from the cession of its holdings in the Northwest Territory to the
Federal Government in 1787. Throughout the early nineteenth century,
this movement continued unabated, reaching the upper and lower Mis-
sissippi Valley, central Texas, and even the Pacific coast.

It is difficult to estimate the actual number of emigrants, but it is safe
to say that today many more of the descendants of Connecticut colonists

34 Connecticut : The General Background

live in the Middle West than in the State of their ancestors. In a gazetteer
published in 1819, Pease and Niles estimated that the emigrants and their
descendants numbered more than 700,000, while fewer than 300,000 re-
mained. From 1789 to 1889, thirty-four men born in Connecticut served
in the United States Senate as representatives from fourteen other States,
and 187 in the House from twenty- two other States. It is significant that,
though the United States as a whole showed a population increase of
about thirty- three per cent in every decade between 1800 and 1840,
Connecticut had an increase of only four or five per cent in each of those
decades.

Towards the middle of the nineteenth century this emigration dwin-
dled, and immigration from Europe began at first from the North, later
from central and southern countries. As early as 1870, twenty-eight per
cent of the State's population was foreign-born; and in the first three de-
cades of the twentieth century, the foreign-born population of Hartford
and New Haven has varied between twenty-five and thirty per cent. If
native whites born of foreign or mixed parentage are counted as foreign-
ers, then today considerably more than half of the residents of Connect-
icut are foreign.

This movement of population accompanied and accelerated a definite
trend toward modern industrialism. The glacial soil of Connecticut, out-
side of the narrow river valleys, has never been fertile; and when babies
came as regularly as the seasons, the population tended to reach such pro-
portions that the soil could not support it. Confronted with the alterna-
tive of migration or starvation, most of the youth chose to migrate.
Some, however, preferred to risk starvation rather than to leave their
homes; and since complete dependence upon agriculture was no longer
possible, the more ingenious turned to manufacturing.

Although it possessed numerous small factories, Connecticut was largely
agricultural before 1840. In 1820, cloth was still spun in the home, and
the 'cities' were little more than country towns. Each community pos-
sessed enough artisans to be self-sufficient, and the State specialized in
supplying its neighbors with foodstuffs. Natural resources were scanty,
and capital was scarce; but with a supply of labor to be had at less
than a dollar a day, the money and the raw materials necessary to indus-
try could be found outside. By the middle of the century, textiles were
the leading manufactured product, though clocks, locks, tools, hats, gin,
firearms, tinware, and dozens of ' notions ' such as mouse-traps and combs
were being turned out in large quantities. Yet the outstanding charac-
teristic of Connecticut industry in this era was not so much the excellence

History 35

of its craftsmanship as the skill with which goods were marketed. The
' Yankee Pedlar ' became well known throughout the nation.

With the construction of railroads in the forties and fifties, Connecticut
became a predominantly industrial State. The continued influx of Euro-
pean immigrants insured a constant supply of cheap labor. Almost every
town in the State has specialized in the manufacture of some particular
product. It must suffice to point out that between 1860 and 1929, the
value of the industrial output of Connecticut increased from $82,000,000
to $1,472,000,000, though in national rank the State dropped from fifth
to thirteenth place.

If Connecticut, at present, does not lead the Nation in manufacturing,
it does lead in insurance, for Hartford is the insurance center of the United
States. Fire and marine insurance companies appeared before 1800.
The first of such companies was the Mutual Assurance Company of the
City of Norwich, incorporated in 1795; but perhaps the best known was
the Hartford Fire Insurance Company, organized in 1810. Other corpo-
rations were soon formed for the same purpose; and about the middle of
the century, life insurance was first written. In 1930, the policies of
Connecticut life insurance companies represented a total of $10,000,000,-
ooo, and the company assets amounted to $1,650,000,000.

Despite a century of immigration, Connecticut retains to an amazing
degree its traditional characteristics. The masses derived from recent
immigration will become inevitably a paramount influence, and are now
rapidly gaining political and social predominance. Their progress to polit-
ical power has been delayed by a striking survival from the particularism
of the Colonial era the law allowing many towns, regardless of size, two
representatives in the lower house of the legislature. The rural communi-
ties have remained, generally speaking, the stronghold of the older stock.
Still it cannot be denied that Thomas Hooker, or even the liberal Oliver
Wolcott, who became Governor in 1817, would be surprised at the trans-
formation of Connecticut. Could they return they would find, instead
of their rural commonwealth, a complex and highly industrialized soci-
ety; instead of a homogeneous people, a melting-pot composed of many
European nationalities; and instead of a strongly Protestant community,
a society where Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and free-thinkers inter-
mingle.

GOVERNMENT

CONNECTICUT, the ' Constitution State/ still operates under one of the
oldest of State constitutions, adopted in 1818. Long before 1818, however,
Connecticut was governed by a basic organic law established by her own
citizens. In 1639, the river towns of Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield
adopted a set of laws known as the Fundamental Orders. These have
often been called ' the earliest written constitution in history/ although
present-day scholarly opinion inclines to the view that they were not a
constitution at all but merely a set of statutes. At any rate, they did set
up a system of government providing for semi-annual general assemblies
of deputies to be sent from the towns, and for the election of magistrates
and a governor. They also laid down rules for conducting the assemblies
and elections, and for denning the powers of all officials.

These laws remained in effect until 1662. In that year, Governor John
Winthrop, Jr., obtained from King Charles II a charter on which Connect-
icut based her government for one hundred and fifty-six years. This
astonishing document granted the Colony practically full self-government
at a time when England's policy was very definitely moving in the direc-
tion of complete royal control over the Colonies. Just how Winthrop
managed to get this liberal charter signed has never been fully ex-
plained; but it proved so satisfactory that, when the Colonies separated
from England during the Revolutionary War, and all the other States
except Rhode Island adopted new constitutions, Connecticut chose to
continue under its old charter, only slightly amended, until 1818. This
charter, which was similar to that of a private joint-stock trading com-
pany, provided that men of sufficient property and reputation should
choose a governor, deputy governor, council, and house of representatives.
The house elected the other executive officials and the judges.

In 1818, Connecticut adopted the constitution under which it still oper-
ates. This document began with a declaration of rights; it went on to
separate the government's powers into three departments, legislative,
executive, and judicial; and it then defined the powers and duties of each
department. Moreover, the constitution greatly extended the franchise
(although universal white manhood suffrage was not in force until 1845),
disestablished the Congregational church, and furthered the cause of

Government 37

education by confirming the Charter of Yale College and perpetuating the
school fund. More than forty amendments to this constitution have been
passed in the last one hundred and twenty years, but it has never been
thoroughly revised, as other State constitutions have been. In 1902, a
convention to revise the constitution was called; but after long debate the
convention made only a few relatively slight changes, and even these were
decisively defeated when submitted to the people for ratification.

The legislature is still the most important of the three departments of
government. Like that of the Federal Government and of nearly all the
States, it is bicameral in form, with a senate of 35 members and a house of
representatives of 267. Members of both branches are elected for two
years, and meet in regular session in odd-numbered years only, although
the governor may call a special session in case of emergency. The regular
session begins in January and must, according to the constitution, adjourn
early in June. The assembly may pass laws on any subject not forbidden
by the Federal or State Constitutions, and the restrictions are slight in
comparison with those in other States. The procedure in passing legisla-
tion shows the influence of leisurely pre-Colonial English Parliaments,
since every bill must be read three times before each house and must also
be considered in committee before it can become a law. Connecticut long
held staunchly to the usual New England system of submitting bills to a
joint committee of both houses; but in 1937, because the two houses, con-
trolled by different political parties, were unable to agree as to the proper
representation on such a committee, this time-honored custom was aban-
doned.

Two points regarding the legislative department deserve special men-
tion, as indicating the power and peculiarity of that body in Connecticut.
The first is that, while the governor may veto any act of the general assem-
bly, the latter may revalidate the law by a mere majority vote of both
houses. This leaves the assembly practically supreme in the field of legis-
lation, the usual American check of the executive veto being quite shad-
owy. In this matter, as in so many others, Connecticut's dislike of change
is leaving her outside the current trend of American government.

The other noteworthy feature is the system of representation in the
general assembly. Like the Federal Government, Connecticut has a small
senate and a large house. But unlike the Federal Government, the senate
is elected from districts based on population, while election districts for the
house are geographical. In both branches the representation is unequal.
According to the State constitution, all senatorial districts should contain
approximately the same number of people; actually the number varies

38 Connecticut : The General Background

from 20,000 to 90,000. By a division that shows suspicious signs of gerry-
mander in favor of the country as against the city, the average senatorial
district, in 1924, in the four urban counties (Hartford, New Haven, Fair-
field, and New London) had 43,584 people, while that in the four rural
counties (Litchfield, Tolland, Windham, and Middlesex) had only 25,480.
This inequality was even greater in 1937. But this balance in favor of the
rural regions in the senate pales into insignificance when compared to that
in the house of representatives. Representation is based on the towns, as
it has been as far back as 1662. Those that have more than 5000 inhabi-
tants or were incorporated before 1818 (99 in all) send two representatives;
all the others (69) send one. Of course, the towns vary greatly in size, yet
Hartford with a population of 164,000 chooses two representatives and so
does Union with a population of only 196! Well over half of the State's
population lives in the seven cities of Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport,
Waterbury, New Britain, Stamford, and Meriden; yet these cities elect
only 14 of the 267 representatives. In 1924, one sixth of the people, those
living in the most sparsely settled regions, elected more than two-thirds
of the house. When it is realized that adoption of a constitutional amend-
ment requires a two-thirds majority of each house and that ordinary legis-
lation has to pass both houses, the power of the country districts of Con-
necticut becomes clear. Small wonder that the government is conservative
and cautious.

And yet Connecticut is well and honestly governed, although its govern-
ment can hardly be called democratic. The representatives from the rural
districts, many of whom are solid farmers and business men, compare
favorably with the city politicians in the adjoining seats. Legislative ab-
surdities, such as the Standard Time Laws of the i92o's which required
all public clocks to exhibit eastern standard time while most of the citizens
lived by daylight saving time, are rare. Extreme anti-city legislation is
prevented by the number of urban members of the senate. One result of
the overwhelming power of the rural regions in the house of representa-
tives has been to keep the Republican Party in power there even after
such 'a Democratic landslide as that of November 1936.

Of the executive officials, the governor is of course the foremost. He is
chosen by the people at the regular State election held in November in
even years, and holds office for two years. He wields legislative and judi-
cial as well as executive powers. He may grant temporary reprieves after
convictions for all crimes except impeachment. He suggests legislation in
his messages on the state of the government, and he may use his political
power with his party, which usually has majority control in at least one of

Government 39

the houses of the assembly, to push through the measures he desires. He
may postpone legislation by vetoing it; and, if he has public opinion be-
hind him or the legislative body is closely divided on the bill, his veto is
likely to be sustained. As the State's chief executive, he appoints the
judges of the higher courts, most of the commissions which administer
the government, and the directors of the State's humane and penal insti-
tutions. Some of the appointments require the consent of the Senate,
some of both houses, and others are direct.

Connecticut's governors have usually been men of probity and ability.
Especially was this true of the period before the constitution of 1818,
when such men as John Winthrop, Gurdon Saltonstall, Roger Wolcott,
Jonathan Trumbull, and Oliver Wolcott, to mention only a few, held
office for long periods. When Connecticut finally adopted a constitution
that put into effect the ideas of the Revolutionary fathers, who feared a
strong executive and saw in the legislature the guardian of American liber-
ties, the governor's power was considerably diminished and he became
more of a figurehead. His power has remained comparatively slight, de-
spite the growth of State business resulting from the great increase in
population and industry. There is need for a strong executive, who not
only will have the power to manage well but will also concentrate in his
person the responsibility for such management. Only in this way can the
electorate exercise the control required of them in a democratic system
of government. Other States, which preceded Connecticut by a genera-
tion in cutting down the governor's power, have increased that power in
recent years; but this State, as usual, has preferred the old ways. From
time to time, however, efforts have been made to lengthen the governor's
term and increase his veto power, and of late there has been a strong drive
toward these ends.

As in other States, the day-to-day business of running the government
is in the hands of a considerable number of executive officers. Some of
these, notably the secretary of state, treasurer, comptroller, and attorney
general, are elected by the people. Others, many of whose positions are
of equal importance with those of the elected officials, are appointed by
the governor, usually with the consent of the senate. Examples in this
group are the commissioner of finance and control, bank commissioner,
commissioner of health, highway commissioner, insurance commissioner,
commissioner of labor and factory inspection, commissioner of motor
vehicles, state police commissioner, commissioner of welfare, tax com-
missioner, commissioner of public works, and the members of the public
utilities commission. Apparently the chief reason why the first group of

4O Connecticut : The General Background

officials is elected is that they were important in the nineteenth century
when the constitution was set up, while the functions of the second
group have developed gradually during the last thirty years.

The officials mentioned above are only a few of the many who carry on
the multifarious activities of the State government today. They number
nearly a hundred in all. (A complete list may be found in the ' State Regis-
ter and Manual' published annually at Hartford by the Secretary of
State.) The various administrative bodies have grown up in a rather
helter-skelter fashion, especially since the World War, and now represent
a conglomerate of overlapping organizations. A thorough reorganization
is needed, such as has already been carried through in other States com-
parable to Connecticut in population and economic activity. Such a reor-
ganization has long been in the minds of Connecticut officials, and the
general assembly of 1937 made some progress in this direction.

Like all English Colonies, Connecticut had courts from its beginning,
and the present court system is a growth and adaptation of the English
system brought to America in the seventeenth century. Throughout the
Colonial period, the general assembly, or general court as it was called
until 1662, was the highest judicial as well as legislative body. Before
1640 a smaller tribunal to decide petty disputes had been set up the
particular court. This lasted until 1665 when, with the institution of
counties, county courts were created, and a court of assistants was ap-
pointed to take over a large part of the judicial work of the general assem-
bly. The office of justice of the peace, instituted in 1669, was not fully
denned until 1702; it is still important as the petty tribunal of the smaller
towns. Before 1700, there was a probate court in each county. In 1711,
the superior courts, one for each county, replaced the central court of
assistants. Shortly after the Revolutionary War, the general assembly
relinquished its judicial powers, and the supreme court of errors started
on its long and honorable career in 1784.

The supreme court of errors, consisting of a chief justice and four asso-
ciate judges, is today the State's highest judicial tribunal. Solely a court
of appeal, it reviews cases brought up to it after trial in an inferior court.
However, it is closely integrated with the superior court, since its judges
are also members of that court. The superior court, the key agency in the
State's judicial system, is the highest court actually to try cases. Its juris-
diction includes all matters not specifically delegated to the inferior courts,
and it hears appeals from those courts. It holds sessions in each of the
eight counties. About 1870, the amount of business before the court in
the more populous counties became so excessive that new judicial bodies,

Government 41

called courts of common pleas, were created to take over the less impor-
tant cases. Below these county courts are the probate courts, which today
number about 115; the town, borough, and city courts, 68 in number; and
the justices of the peace.

Court procedure is relatively simple, and has been so since the last
quarter of the nineteenth century. As in other parts of the government,
startling innovations have been few, but the courts are keeping abreast
of modern methods. For instance, a bench of three judges may be substi-
tuted for a jury trial at the option of an accused person, even in a homicide
case. The larger cities have juvenile courts for the young, legal aid bu-
reaus for the poor, and small claims courts where cases involving small
amounts of money are handled cheaply and speedily. There is a strong
movement in the State today to abolish town courts, most of which try
few cases and operate on the fines they collect, and to replace them with
district courts, each covering several towns and having a full-time and
well-paid judge.

A word must be said about local government. The eight counties are
chiefly judicial districts, with no legislative and only minor executive
functions. In this, the county in Connecticut resembles that of other
northeastern States and contrasts strongly with the South and West,
where counties dominate the field of local government. Below the counties
are towns, cities, and boroughs, of which the towns are the oldest and his-
torically the most important. One hundred and sixty-nine in number,
geographically they cover every inch of the State. Where no borough or
city exists, the town government is the sole instrument for carrying on
local affairs. Even where a city or borough has been superimposed, the
town remains a living unit of government, for it is only as residents of a
town that Connecticut's citizens vote for members of the State's house of
representatives. In the smaller towns, the town meeting, at which all
adults may speak and vote, presents an unusual example of a pure demo-
cracy, wherein the people, and not their representatives, make laws to gov-
ern themselves, in addition to choosing all the town officials. In populous
districts this system has proved impractical, and boroughs (23) and cities
(21) have been incorporated. Where these exist, their officials have taken
over most of the work of the town officers; but the latter continue to be
elected, giving to Connecticut local government the aspect of a bewilder-
ing palimpsest of efficient modern political machinery, necessary in teem-
ing industrial communities, imposed upon the simple democratic forms
of a quieter and less populous age.

It is clear that, the most important characteristic of Connecticut's gov-

42 Connecticut : The General Background

ernment is its conservatism. With its roots well grounded in the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries, its main outline has varied very little
from that fixed by the constitution of 1818. However, many features
have changed, as the forty amendments to the constitution indicate. But
there has been no complete revision and, in the field of government as it
was known to the nineteenth century, no innovations such as the initia-
tive, referendum, and recall of elected officials. Legislation, too, has been
along well-established lines; it is significant that no Connecticut statute
has ever been declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme
Court. There are indications, such as the present movement to reorganize
the executive departments, that Connecticut may some day make her
entire governmental structure up-to-date.

THE RACIAL MAK E-U P O F
CONNECTICUT

CONNECTICUT'S population, like that of Massachusetts and Rhode
Island, is composed largely of people either born abroad or born in this
country of foreign or ' mixed ' parentage. According to the United States
Census figures of 1930, only 34.1 per cent of the State's present population
is of native parentage, and this small percentage includes many persons
only one generation removed from foreign origin. Rhode Island is the
only State in the Union with a smaller proportionate population of
descendants from native-born parents.

Connecticut's Colonial population was almost entirely of English
origin. Although the white population of the State increased rapidly
from 1640 to 1650, during the following years up to 1790 the rate of
increase dropped to only an estimated 17 per cent. By the end of the
eighteenth century, immigration barely filled the gap left by the great
tide of migration which carried Connecticut families westward to new
lands. Entire towns were depopulated. The Yankee was restless. He
sought more fertile fields. Behind him were left the older folk or the
commercially inclined the inventor with his back-yard factory. Infant
industries were hampered by lack of enough hands or power to manu-
facture the goods needed by a new and vigorous civilization.

The development of water-power, harbors, and navigable rivers en-
couraged growing industry. Isolation resulting from the embargo during
the War of 1812 forced Connecticut to turn to the production of goods
formerly imported, and Yankee ingenuity harnessed the streams and
equipped little factories, beginning the activity that has molded this
Commonwealth into an industrial State. By 1840, the new order had so
far succeeded that there was a shortage of labor to do the work contracted
for. Industrialists turned to Europe for the labor they required, and
Europeans were attracted to America as the land of promise.

Among the earliest groups to arrive were the Irish, who formed the
larger portion of the 'old immigration' and were numerically important
even during the Colonial era. The Irish helped fight our early wars,
shoulder to shoulder with the natives. They bought lands here, made the

44 Connecticut: The General Background

tinware for our first Yankee 'pedlars/ and worked in woods and fields as
well as in factories.

Although the main immigration of Irish to Connecticut occurred after
the potato famine of 1846-47, Irish laborers were busy here during the
early nineteenth century, building roads, canals, bridges, and dams. With
the development of railroad transportation after 1830, Irish laborers were
in great demand, and Connecticut like New York, New Jersey, Penn-
sylvania, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island became one of the chief
centers of Irish concentration.

Some 70,000 foreign-born Irish were in Connecticut in 1870; most
of their descendants are included in the native stock. American-born
Irish of the first and second generation now number 151,893. Most of the
Irish in the State are two or three generations removed from foreign-
born parents; they have been assimilated in Connecticut economic life,
and are well represented in all professions and occupations.

English immigrants of the period from 1830 to 1840 were usually of
the skilled or semi-skilled laboring class. They were largely absorbed
by the developing Connecticut brass industry.

The first German settlers in the State, stragglers from the Hessian
reinforcements of the British army in the Revolution, were few in number.
Not until the period of 1880-1910, long after these pioneers had settled
in New York and the Middle West, did German immigrants come to
Connecticut in large numbers. Unlike most of the other ethnic groups,
the Germans do not form compact colonies, but are well-distributed in
every section of the cities and suburbs. The Connecticut Germans are
also engaged in many occupations. Of the 76,281 Germans in the State,
52,816 are American-born.

Canadians, including both the French and natives of the Maritime
Provinces, began arriving in Connecticut at a very early date. They
numbered only 3145 foreign-born in 1860. The Canadian immigrants
soon outstripped both the English and the German newcomers. By
1930, the foreign-born Canadians numbered 38,566; and the combined
groups, including those of foreign or 'mixed' parentage, numbered 97,105.
The French Canadians (67,130) are concentrated mainly in the north-
eastern part of Connecticut, where they are chiefly employed in the textile
mills. The English- Canadians settle in the larger cities, particularly in
Hartford, and are engaged in various occupations.

The year 1870 marked the arrival of considerable numbers of Scandi-
navians. In the present-day Scandinavian group, 41,374 are Swedes,
including the native-born of foreign or ' mixed' parentage. The Danes

The Racial Make-Up of Connecticut 45

total 6124, and the Norwegians number 3898. Most of the Scandinavians
in urban communities are employed as mechanics, machinists, tool-
makers, and woodworkers, and those in the rural districts work chiefly as
gardeners, florists, and farmers.

The arrival of Italian immigrants in any considerable number dates from
the 1870*5, when a group of about 100 settled in New Haven. A hard-
ware manufacturer employed many of them, while the others worked as
railroad section hands and truck gardeners. Within two years the Italian
population of New Haven numbered 200; in 1880 it had increased to 500,
and by 1889 more than 2000 Italians resided in the city. By 1907, the
hardware concern that first brought these people to Connecticut em-
ployed nearly 3000 Italians, and a near-by rubber plant had about 1000
on its payroll.

The peak of Italian immigration came during the years from 1900 to
1916, when the Italian population of Connecticut increased to 60,000.
These people now make up the State's largest foreign group, leading the
1 new immigration ' from the countries of southern Europe. Today, there
are 227,262 Italians in the State, with the metropolitan area of New
Haven alone claiming 55,000 inhabitants of Italian descent.

Although invariably living in separate compact colonies, the Italian
group has made a place for itself in commercial, industrial, and agricul-
tural Connecticut. American-born Italians of the second generation
quickly shake off the influence of the mother country, are eager to be
considered Americans, and are inclined toward active participation in
political as well as commercial life.

The Poles are numerically one of the most important ethnic groups in
Connecticut. Their heaviest immigration came in 1907, and their con-
centration, usually in group settlements, is notable in cities such as New
Britain and Bridgeport. The 1930 census lists 133,813 Poles in the State.
They are well distributed in both agriculture and industry, and have a
larger proportion of farmers than most of the other eminent groups.

Of the other Slavic groups, only the Lithuanians (30,690) and Czecho-
slovakians (32,491) are numerically important. The Lithuanians are
heavily concentrated in the brass industries of Waterbury, and the
Czechoslovakians are employed in considerable numbers in Bridgeport
factories, which also employ large numbers of Magyars. These latter
people, numbering 23,175 in Connecticut, usually are skilled and semi-
skilled workers.

Jews have been resident in Connecticut since Colonial days. Even at
the time of the Revolutionary War they had a part in commerce and

Connecticut: The General Background

finance, and early replaced the Yankee 'pedlar' as purveyors of goods.
Figures on the Jewish population are at best inaccurate, as the Jews come
from many countries, and data listed under 'country of origin' are con-
fusing. Estimates place the total number of Connecticut Jews at 91,538,
with Hartford and New Haven ranking second only to Atlantic City and
New York in the proportionate size of their Jewish population. Connecti-
cut is one of the very few States that has a Jewish farming population,
with possibly about 1000 families engaged in agriculture. The majority
of the Jews engaged in industry and trade are concentrated in the larger
cities.

As early as 1774, there were 6562 Negroes in the State. But the present--
day Negro population are not descendants of these eighteenth-century
Connecticut slaves. Most of them have come from the Southern States
in a steady migration lasting from about 1870 until after the World War.
By 1910 there were 15,174, and in 1930, 29,354 Negroes in the State.
They are employed chiefly in the unskilled labor and service occupa-
tions.

Various other ethnic groups of lesser numerical importance, including
Greeks, Scotch, Finns, Ukrainians, French, Austrians, Armenians, and
Swiss, make their individual contributions to the cosmopolitan pattern of
Connecticut life.

The State has, within little more than a half century, been transformed
from the habitat of a fairly homogeneous people to the workshop of
a heterogeneous population.

TABLE I

RACIAL COMPOSITION OF THE POPULATION OF CONNECTICUT IN 1790 AS
INDICATED BY NAMES OF HEADS OF FAMILIES

(According to the Federal Census Bureau, A Century of Population Growth)

NATIONALITY

NUMBER

PER CENT OF TOTAL

TOTAL

272 2^6

English

223 A37

nfi 2

Scotch

6 d.2^

90.2

? ft

Irish

i :c8o

French
Dutch

512

2 rS

U. /

0.2

Hebrew

*3"

r 1 _

German

5 [Less

All Others

I \ than i%.

The Racial Make- Up of Connecticut

TABLE II

NUMERICAL GROWTH OF THE LARGEST FOREIGN-BORN WHITE STOCKS IN
CONNECTICUT, ACCORDING TO COUNTRY OF ORIGIN BY DECADES: 1860-1930

(Based on the Census Reports of the United States)

COUNTRY or
ORIGIN

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

I9IO

I92O

1930

England

887?

o 2 7o8f

Scotland

2 <4,6

32^8

4,1 ^7

zi^uy

7A87

Ireland

70678

77880

c8/i c8

2S/1T8

Sweden
Germany
Poland l

oD44o
42

8525

/UUJU

323
12443
83

/uu^o
2086
15627

22 *j

//oou
IOO2I
28176
I sO4

70994
16164
31892
10698

50450
18208
31127

45464
17697
22614
4.6623

18453
23465

40267

Czechoslovakia 2 . .
Austria

I ZA

125

287

177
1187

493

C2 2O

9264.2

6558
I26OO

12220
6^06

Hungary

1 146

c6o2

jogrr

T 7 222

08^6

Russia

2 A

2Q27

I J 4OJ.

^4.121

28710

2 ^76o

Lithuania a
Greece

121

IO74.

Il662
28?!

13247

-2-227

Italy

117

870

^28^

IQIO^

^60^4

80322

87123

Canada and
Newfound land *. . .

3145

10840

16444

21231

2/045

26898

24967

38566

1 The 1910 figures for Poland are included in those for Russia, Germany, and Austria.

' Up to 1000 inclusively figures given are of those coming from Bohemia; figures for 1910 are included in
those for Austria. "

3 Since Lithuania did not achieve an independent status until after the end of the World War, figures
prior to 1920 are lacking.

* It can be estimated that about two-thirds of those coming from Canada after 1870 were French-
Canadians.

TRANSPORTATION

HIGHWAYS

THE tourist entering Connecticut today finds hard-surfaced highways
leading to every section of the State. Early travelers were not so for-
tunate. Letters written in 1780 by a European visitor, Count Chastellux,
mention the highways through Litchfield as being more for 'the roe-
buck than for laden horses and conveyances'; and in another place,
'you mount four or five miles, continually bounding from one large stone
to another, which cross the road and give it a resemblance to stairs/
In 1716, the inhabitants of Hartford complained that 'the Collegiate
School of Connecticut' (later Yale College) should not be situated in
New Haven because it was ' so remote ' and the transportation by water
was so uncertain. They also recorded that there was ' but little communi-
cation between the colonies ' (meaning the towns of Hartford, New Lon-
don, and New Haven).

Not until well into the eighteenth century was there much travel in
New England. Those who passed through Connecticut found the State
peculiarly backward. The Yankee individualist stayed at home, and
thought other people should do the same. In a pamphlet issued in 1935,
Miss Isabel S. Mitchell summarizes the situation thus: 'Bad roads dis-
couraged intercourse, lack of intercourse increased isolation, isolation
developed independence and a lack of co-operation, which in turn caused
the roads to suffer.' The stagecoach era began in the eighteenth century,
and reached its height after 1840. The first regular line of stages, es-
tablished in 1783 between Hartford, Boston, and New Haven, met with
spirited opposition. It is recorded that 'when Levi Somers proposed
the scheme to a friend of his in Boston, the latter ridiculed him as a
visionary, saying "The time may come when the public will support a
stage between Hartford and Boston, but not in your day or mine."'

Beginning late in the eighteenth century, private corporations were
chartered to construct and maintain specific roads, given a franchise for
collecting tolls, and often allowed to raise funds by lottery to finance
construction. The first toll road in the State was the Mohegan Road,.

Transportation 49

following the course of an old Indian trail, between Norwich and New
London. In May, 1792, an act was passed by the legislature establishing
a toll-gate (the second authorized, but the first to be completed, in
America), and appointing a board of commissioners to maintain this
highway, which was not owned by a corporation, but was really one of the
earliest State roads in America. Toll collections were continued on this
highway until 1849, when the New London, Willimantic and Palmer
Railroad opened its line parallel to the Mohegan Road. The third toll-
gate in the United States was established on the Greenwich Road in
1792. An October session of the General Assembly in 1797 granted a
franchise to the Boston Turnpike Company over roads 'from Hartford,
through East Hartford, Bolton, Coventry, Mansfield, Ashford, Pomfret,
and Thompson to the Massachusetts Line.' This route became known as
' the middle turnpike.' It was on this road that a famous old Connecticut
tavern, Woodbridge's in Manchester, stood. In every case, the toll roads
granted exemption to churchgoers, funeral attendants, members of the
militia, and people going to the mills.

Between 1795 ano ^ I ^53j one hundred and twenty-one of these toll-
road or turnpike franchises were granted. A charter for a turnpike to
Bristol was granted in 1801 and revoked in 1810. The Talcott Mountain
Turnpike Company was chartered in May, 1798, to construct and main-
tain a road from Hartford through Farmington to New Hartford. Other
important pikes were built by the Greenwoods Company and the Hart-
ford and New Haven Turnpike Company. These corporations failed to
satisfy the public, and about 1850 they began to relinquish their fran-
chises. Governmental action then became imperative.

The year 1895 saw the abandonment of the franchise for the Derby
Turnpike, the last of the old pikes. A new era in road-building started in
that year with the creation of a State commission to assume responsi-
bility for Connecticut highways. Through routes were designed as
trunk lines, and provisions made for their maintenance in 1908. 'Feeder
roads' became known as State Aid roads. Since 1931, the dirt or third-
class roads have been in another classification, and a yearly grant of
$17,500 is made by the State to each of the 169 towns, to be expended
on dirt roads of their selection, under supervision of the State highway
engineers.

A significant date in the annals of road construction is 1858, when
Eli Whitney Blake of New Haven invented the stone crusher that made
possible the economical construction of highways on a large scale. There
were scarcely a dozen miles of macadam roads in all New England as

50 Connecticut: The General Background

late as 1851, but today there are more than five thousand miles of hard-
surfaced highways in Connecticut alone.

The landscaping of highways and the establishment of more than 125
shaded roadside parks are conspicuous developments in Connecticut.
Clay banks are sodded, or planted with iris and rambler roses; and tri-
angular plots at main intersections bloom with flowering shrubs. Rag-
weed along the highways is cut, in deference to hay-fever sufferers.
Woodland areas close to waterfalls and roadside brooks have been con-
verted into small State parks, and equipped with tables and other facili-
ties for picnicking.

Winter road conditions in Connecticut are usually very good. Strate-
gically stationed highway crews turn out with plows and sand trucks at
the first sign of snow or sleet. Experimental highway lighting is being
tried in several sections, but no permanent installations have been made
as yet (1938).

RAILROADS

The introduction of railroad transportation into Connecticut met with
considerable opposition. Connecticut rivers offered easy access to the
back country; Long Island Sound furnished coastwise transportation
facilities; and the owners of the turnpike system were active in obstructing
competition. The typical Yankee dread of change and satisfaction with
' things as they are ' may also have had some bearing on popular reluctance
to adopt the new and faster mode of transport.

In 1832, a charter was finally granted to the New York and Stonington
Railroad, after prolonged debate in the General Assembly, during which
a memorial was prepared stating that a railroad would 'produce more
harm than good, and may result in great injury and injustice to private
property. A railroad is a monopoly in a peculiar sense.' This memorial
was signed by Roger Sherman, Simeon Baldwin, William Bristol, and
J. Wood, all 'overseers of turnpike stock.'

The next charter, granted later in 1832, was to the Boston, Norwich
and Worcester Railroad to operate between Norwich and Worcester.
This route tapped the rich industrial region to the north, and eliminated
the hazardous sea route around Point Judith, connecting both Boston
and Worcester with the sheltered water route along Long Island Sound
through the Thames River at Norwich. Practically all the early rail-

Transportation 5 1

roads ran north and south, connecting the back country with the sea-
ports. It was not thought possible to build a coastwise rail line at this
time, because of the numerous rivers to be bridged.

The Hartford and New Haven Railroad opened a line to Meriden in
1838. Later, in 1839, this was extended to Hartford, connecting with a
Springfield, Massachusetts, line that brought this railroad into direct
competition with the Norwich and Stonington lines for New York to
Boston traffic. When this charter was granted, the people of Newington
presented a petition stating that they were a ' peaceable, orderly people '
and begging that their quiet might not be disturbed by 'steam cars and
an influx of strangers.'

The Housatonic Railroad was chartered in 1836 to connect western
Massachusetts with Long Island Sound and to form a connection between
New York and Albany by way of Bridgeport. Until 1848, this was
Bridgeport's only railroad. The line along the old Farmington Canal,
chartered in 1846, was opened between New Haven and Plainville in
1848, and extended to Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1855.

The first east-and-west railroad line in the State was the New York
and New Haven Railroad, chartered in 1844 and opened late in 1848.
This line absorbed the Hartford and New Haven Railroad in 1872.
Consolidation and refinancing marked the history of Connecticut rail-
roads for several decades after the Civil War. Trolley lines, steamship
lines, and even hotels were absorbed by the railway financiers. Attempts
were made to operate independent lines, but the great New Haven system
managed to absorb most of them.

Electric power was in use on the New Britain to Hartford branch of
this road as early as 1901; the main line was electrified as far as Stam-
ford in 1907, and to New Haven in 1914. The 'Comet,' first stream-lined
train on the New Haven system, made its initial run between Providence
and Boston on June 5, 1935. A second stream-lined train now operates
between Bridgeport and Hartford.

Early in 1937, the New Haven system petitioned the Interstate Com-
merce Commission for permission to abandon many miles of non-pro-
ductive track throughout the State. Among the lines slated for abandon-
ment are the Litchfield branch, with one hundred forty-seven curves
between Hawleyville and Litchfield, a distance of about twenty-five
miles, over which only the 'K-i type' of engines can run.

The only railroad other than the New Haven operating in Connecticut
today is the Central Vermont, a subsidiary of the Canadian National
Svstem.

52 Connecticut : The General Background

CANALS

An occasional crumbling stone arch, or a stretch of over-grown ditch
filled with stagnant water, now the home of muskrats and herons, is all
that remains of the former canal system which Connecticut hoped might
compete with the great Erie Canal.

On January 29, 1822, citizens from seventeen towns met to discuss
the building of the Farmington Canal. In May of the same year a charter
was granted to the Farmington Canal Company, as part of a grand
project that was expected eventually to connect the St. Lawrence River
with Long Island Sound. Work was started near the Massachusetts
border on July 4, 1825. Three years later the canal was opened from
New Haven to Cheshire. Progress was thenceforth rapid, and in 1829
the canal was operated to Westfield, Massachusetts, bringing some bene-
fits in reduced fuel costs to communities along the route. But continuous
landslides raised the cost of maintenance so high that a loss was sus-
tained each year. In 1846, the stockholders refused to subscribe for more
stock; and in 1847, operations were finally suspended. The only dividend
ever paid to the stockholders of this company was derived from the sale
of hay along the right of way. Many of the stockholders were New York-
ers, and they petitioned the legislature for permission to build a rail-
road to replace the canal. This petition was granted, and a line of steel
later traversed the same lowlands where the lazy canal boats once crept
along with their cargoes.

Canals have never prospered in Connecticut, but the largest failure
was that of the Farmington venture. The Blackstone and Middlesex
canals were relatively short lived, and did not pay. The Windsor Locks
Canal, completed in 1828, was in a somewhat different category, be-
cause it was built to take river traffic around the rapids and to provide
water power. This canal, with its crude hand-operated gates and locks,
is still open to traffic.

Failure was swift and conclusive for the Quinebaug Canal of 1824,
the Saugatuck and New Milford ditch of 1829, and the Sharon Canal
venture of 1826. Connecticut financiers and engineers decided that the
Nutmeg State was too hilly and rough to make any canal project a pay-
ing venture.

Transportation 53

BUS LINES

In Connecticut, as elsewhere, the rapid development of improved high-
ways has been accompanied in recent years by a no less rapid develop-
ment of bus transportation. Some fifty companies, covering nearly 2250
route miles, now operate within the State; and all of the larger eastern
interstate lines cross through its territory. Although about 350 miles of
street railway remain (1937), bus service has made heavy inroads upon
this form of transportation. Railroad-owned buses shuttle back and forth
across country where the steam lines have ceased to be remunerative;
and large fleets of school buses take youngsters to and from the consoli-
dated schools that have recently replaced many of the old district schools
in the State.

AVIATION

The new era in transportation marked by the conquest of the air was
recognized by Connecticut as early as 1911, when the State adopted the
first code of laws in the country governing the registration, numbering,
and use of aircraft, and the licensing of pilots. In 1936, there were 21
aviation fields, 765 licensed pilots, and 322 registered air-craft within
the State. The only strictly commercial airport is Rentschler Field at
East Hartford; here an airline operating between Newark and Boston, on
a schedule of three trips daily each way in summer and two in winter,
picks up approximately 450 passengers and 2700 pounds of mail and
express each month. The State's air routes are well marked with both
directional markers and beacons.

INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE

SHIPPING AND SHIPBUILDING

THE early settlers of Connecticut, concentrated in compact settlements
for protection from unfriendly Indians, soon discovered that it was
not possible to live by agricultural pursuits alone. Although practicing
an economy which at first was almost wholly self-sufficient, there were
still a few necessities that had to be imported; and as living conditions
gradually became less primitive, there was an increasing demand for
other imports. Most important of all, as they established themselves
more firmly, they required an outside market for their surplus crops,
livestock, hides, etc., and for such early manufactures as bricks and forest
products.

Thus it was that, within a relatively short time after the first coloniza-
tion, many of the settlers became shipbuilders, mariners, and traders.
Onions from Wethersfield, tobacco from Windsor, oak staves from the
back country, cattle and hides from the rich pasture lands, were shipped
in home-built sloops, often of only ten or twelve tons, down the rivers to
the sea and the West Indies. The first voyages were blind ventures into
the unknown from which many ships never returned. The 'Great
Shippe' which sailed out of New Haven in 1646, laden with produce to
recoup the fortunes of the settlers, became one of these ghost ships.

These hardy sailor-farmers often had more difficulty in getting out of
the rivers than they later experienced in reaching the West Indies.
They were often delayed by flood tides rising against the current, shoal
water, or a changing channel that put the little sloops aground before
their sails could fill with an offshore breeze to carry them away to Carib-
bean ports.

A bit of old Connecticut can still be found in Paramaribo, Dutch
Guiana, where most of the buildings were erected by Connecticut traders.
The traveler is puzzled by the incongruity of fireless houses equipped
with brick chimneys, heavy green-painted shutters, and cupolas perched
atop steeply pitched shingled roofs. He wonders at the doors in true New
England Colonial style, with fan-lights and wooden pilasters. The Town

Industry and Commerce 55

Hall at Paramaribo was built of brick brought from Connecticut by
Captain Joshua Green of Glastonbury.

The record of one ship, the 'Neptune,' which sailed from New Haven
in 1797 for China, is representative of the success that attended many
Connecticut shipping ventures. The 'Neptune,' commanded by Captain
Townsend, carried a general cargo and $500 in gold coin. In the West
Indies, her master traded for rum and sugar; at Rio, he bartered for
fustic, indigo, sandalwood, and other Brazilian products. Around the
Falkland Islands and Tierra del Fuego, the crew of the ' Neptune ' spent
some time in sealing. Rounding the Horn, they sailed for the South Seas,
where they carried on a brisk exchange of calico and other cotton cloth,
brass wire, and old iron for dividivi (the pods, used for tanning and dye-
ing, of a native tree), pearls, and pearl shell. Finally reaching the coast
of China, Captain Townsend bartered sealskins and the remainder of
his original cargo for teas, silks, lacquerwork, porcelain, sandalwood,
and ivory. After two and a half years, the 'Neptune' returned to New
Haven on July n, 1799, with a cargo valued at $250,000 and the original
stake of $500 in gold intact.

Shipbuilding at Derby, on the Housatonic River, dates from 1657.
Thereafter this port, at the head of tidewater, rapidly became the ship-
ping center for products of the surrounding inland districts. In addition,
the Derby Fishing Company carried on an extensive trade with the West
Indies and Mediterranean countries. Not until the building of highways
and railroads deflected commerce from the Housatonic Valley to the
better ports of New Haven and Bridgeport did Derby lose its importance
in shipping.

The port of New Haven, although hampered by the slow development
of communications with the back country, still managed to build up,
after 1763, a thriving trade with the West Indies, Newfoundland, and the
neighboring ports along the Atlantic coast. By 1800, trade flourished
with China, the Pacific, the East Indies, and the South Seas, and an
average of one hundred ships cleared New Haven Harbor annually. In
1802, Long Wharf was built, and a sealing fleet operated out of New
Haven. At the opening of the War of 1812, the port had six hundred
registered seamen, engaged in privateering or in regular service. The loss
of foreign trade through the war and the preceding Embargo Act, the
opening of the Farmington Canal in 1828, and the building of the Hart-
ford and New Haven Railroad in 1833-38 gave such an impetus to
industrial development that manufacturing rapidly became the chief in-
terest of the city.

56 Connecticut : The General Background

Bridgeport was a center of privateering activities during the Revolu-
tion, and acquired a portion of Derby's trade when the highway from
Newtown was built in 1798-1801.

The first shipbuilding in New London dates from the John Colt ven-
ture in 1664. New London was sending ships to all oceans by 1819, and
its skippers were in great demand at other ports. At the peak of activity,
about 1846, the New London whaling fleet consisted of seventy-one ships,
the last survivor of which came to port in 1909. Captain Stevens Rogers
of New London was master of the * Savannah,' the first steamship to
cross the Atlantic. The present shipyards at Essex, Noank, and Groton,
all that remains of this formerly important industry, continue to enjoy
a brisk trade. Submarines are built at Groton, pleasure craft at Essex,
and the Noank yards are busy on various classes and tonnage.

Mystic and Stonington were especially active in shipping and ship-
building. The former was noted for its clipper ships, the latter for its
whaling fleet. Toward the close of the clipper-ship era, Mystic took the
lead in this type of construction, producing a vessel that combined large
cargo space with speed. In 1860, the modified clipper ship 'Andrew
Jackson,' Captain John E. Williams commanding, established a record
of eighty-nine days and four hours from New York to San Francisco,
breaking by nine hours the record made by the 'Flying Cloud' in 1851.
The 'Andrew Jackson' was built by Irons and Grinnell in 1854. The
yachts built in Mystic by D. O. Richmond in 1870-80 held all records until
the ballast-keel type was designed. Stonington interests controlled
nineteen whalers between 1830 and 1850.

Practically all of the Connecticut River towns served as early commer-
cial and shipping outlets for ' back-country ' produce and manufactures.
Middletown developed into an important shipbuilding and commercial
center, carrying on a thriving trade with the Orient; Rocky Hill, Wethers-
field, and Windsor became warehouse and shipping centers. At Withers-
field was built the first ship in the State, the 'Tryall,' in 1649. A canal
around the rapids at Windsor Locks brought some commerce to that
town in 1829. A warehouse was established about 1636 at Warehouse
Point. The old Gildersleeve Shipyard at Portland, where an occasional
barge is still built, was once one of the most active on the river; a schooner
of ninety tons came off the ways there as early as 1741, and during the
Revolution a number of war vessels were turned out, including the
ooo-ton 'Bourbon.' Ships for the New York and Galveston Line, es-
tablished in 1863, were built in Portland. East Haddam was an important
center of shipping and shipbuilding. Sloops were built on the Salmon

Industry and Commerce 57

River at Leesville. Thomas Childs, a Middle Haddam shipbuilder, is
said to have laid down 237 vessels. Essex was such an important ship-
building center that it was raided by the British during the War of 1812.
Old Saybrook, at the mouth of the Connecticut River, was an important
port for coasting vessels and for the trans-shipment of goods from smaller
river boats to seagoing ships. More than sixty skippers and their crews
from Old Lyme sailed clipper ships to China and the Far East, and later
manned packet ships to Liverpool and Havre.

Rumors of slave trade in connection with these early voyages were
numerous; whenever a skipper was suspiciously overdue from the West
Indies, gossips would speculate on the possibility of profit in a cargo of
'black ivory.' Undoubtedly, many Connecticut fortunes were thus
founded in those early days.

Today, Connecticut's freighting traffic is handled almost entirely by
rail and by truck. A few boats still carry cargoes to New York from
New London, New Haven, and Bridgeport; an occasional tug wheezes up
the Connecticut River with one or two coal barges, or a tanker whistles
for the opening of the draw at East Haddam. But the romantic era of
the merchantman, the privateer, the clipper ship, and the whaler has
long since passed. Old sailors pour gasoline into the tanks of their
modern fishing boats, and dream of more adventurous days.

MANUFACTURING

While Connecticut's ships were exporting staple provisions to many
other States and foreign countries, thousands of discontented farmers were
migrating to the West, for, despite the fertility of the Connecticut Valley,
large areas of the State were rock-ribbed and untillable. As early as 1840,
the density of population was sixty-four persons to the square mile,
equaling the 1930 distribution in Kentucky or North Carolina. Many
of those who -remained were forced to find more profitable sources of
income. The pressure of necessity, aided by an abundance of swift streams
providing water-power, developed the industrial ingenuity and resource-
fulness that thenceforth characterized the Connecticut Yankee. Home
industries that at first supplied merely local markets began to lay the
foundations for Connecticut's transition to an industrial State.

A small water-power mill began operations in New London as early
as 1650, and one at Derby in 1679. Bog iron was worked at Lake Salton-

58 Connecticut : The General Background

stall, East Haven, in 1665. Nails were made and exported before 1716.
An effort was made to introduce silk-culture into the Colony in 1732,
and a silk factory was opened at Mansfield in 1759. London hatters were
complaining as early as 1732 of the competition of Connecticut hats.
In 1737, a Simsbury blacksmith produced the first copper coins made in
the Colonies, using copper mined at East Granby. The paper mills of
Norwich date from 1768, and those of East Hartford from 1776. Brass
was being worked at Waterbury in 1749, and the first tinware made in
this country was produced at Berlin in 1740.

As soon as the small industries had supplied local markets, some of
the manufacturers as, for example, the Pattison brothers of Berlin,
makers of tinware set out on foot, with packs upon their backs, to
seek a market in outlying districts. Within a few years, scores of peddlers
employed by numerous small manufacturers had made their way as far
west as Lake Erie and St. Louis, and south to New Orleans. Coastal
blockades during the Revolution and War of 1812 stimulated local
manufacture. The peddler whose original pack had been confined to
tin goods was soon recognized as a vendor of Yankee ' notions ' buttons,
pins, hats, combs, brass kettles, and clocks. Almost every important
present-day Connecticut industry received its original impetus from the
Yankee peddler, who supplied ever-extending markets as he followed the
tide of migration westward.

Hartford claims the first woolen mill in New England, established in
1788. A noteworthy improvement of native wool is credited to General
David Humphreys, who very early in the nineteenth century imported
one hundred merino sheep and developed a superior strain on his farms in
Watertown. In 1806, Humphreys built a complete factory town
nucleus of the present-day Seymour where he established a school
and an apprentice system, and produced paper, woolens, tools, and metal
goods.

The first successful cotton mill in the State was built by Samuel
Pitkin and Company at Hilliardsville (in Manchester), in 1794. Cotton
mills established at Vernon in 1804 were followed by mills at Pomfret
in 1806 and at Jewett City in 1810. As late as 1810, it was estimated
that two-thirds of all the cloth made in the country was of household
manufacture.

Since the opening of the Patent Office in 1790, Connecticut has re-
ceived more patents in proportion to its population than any other State
in the Union. This inventiveness and skill in mechanical design has
greatly furthered the success of Connecticut industries. The advantage

INDUSTRY

YANKEE ingenuity has been the mainspring of Connecticut
industry ever since pioneer Connecticut farmers first launched
little ten-ton sloops and sailed off over uncharted seas, seek-
ing a market in the West Indies for surplus crops and food
products. The infant industries originally furnished goods
for home consumption, but when that market was supplied,
turned to the production of varied merchandise for the
'Yankee Pedlar' trade. Buttons and the smaller metal spe-
cialties formed a great part of the stock of these itinerant
merchants. Wherever they went they discovered demands
for new articles, and when they returned for fresh stock, their
crude drawings and patterns furnished fresh stimulus to the
little streamside industrial plants. No matter what the de-
mand, the factory seldom failed to furnish the desired article,
even though it were first necessary to devise hand-made tools.
This leadership in the working of metals, in skill and design,
has been responsible for the success of Connecticut's indus-
trial plants, which today lead the country in the production
of precision tools and scientific recording instruments as well
as in a score of other lines of manufacturing. All kinds of
brass articles are made in Connecticut, totaling 30 per cent
of the country's output.

The movement of goods to and from markets by railroads
has played an essential part in the development of Con-
necticut industry, dependent as it is on distant raw materials
and nation-wide custom, and today new air trails are blazed
to far places by planes, propellers, and motors of Yankee man-
ufacture.

BURNISHING BRASS, SCOVILL MANUFACTURING COMPANY, WATERBURY

PRATT AND WHITNEY, AIRCRAFT MANUFACTURERS, EAST HARTFORD

"::'-

ASSEMBLY DEPARTMENT OF THE PROPELLER DIVISION, UNITED AIRCRAFT
CORPORATION, EAST HARTFORD

FINAL ASSEMBLY DEPARTMENT, SIKORSKY AIRCRAFT, STRATFORD

EXPERIMENTAL DEPARTMENT, SIKORSKY AIRCRAFT

INSPECTING POLISHED COPPER SHEETS, AMERICAN BRASS COMPANY, ANSONLA

FORGING HOT BRASS, SCOVILL MANUFACTURING COMPANY, WATERBURY

CASTING SHOP, AMERICAN BRASS COMPANY, WATERBURY

WITHDRAWING A HEATED COPPER BILLET FROM THE FURNACE, AMERICAN
BRASS COMPANY, WATERBURY

LINE-UP OF LOCOMOTIVES, NEW HAVEN RAILROAD, CEDAR HILL

STEAM POWER, STREAMLINED TRAIN, NEW HAVEN RAILROA

Industry and Commerce 59

attained by the early Connecticut craftsmen in the working of metals
has grown, until today the State leads the country in the production of
precision tools and scientific recording instruments, as well as in a score
of other manufactures.

Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin in 1792 was a milestone of
accomplishment for Yankee mills and southern agriculture. Whitney's
introduction of quantity production methods in his firearms factory in
Hamden also had a far-reaching effect upon industry throughout the
Nation. His production of interchangeable parts, and his system of
specialized labor, each worker having but one operation to perform, gave
Connecticut industry an early advantage. Upon this system has been
built the carefully planned high-speed production and the assembly line
of modern industry. Whitney worked closely with Simeon North (see
below] in inaugurating these modern production methods.

In the brass industry, Connecticut took an early lead, starting in 1749.
Brass buttons were manufactured in 1802 by Abel Porter at Waterbury.
Rolled sheet-brass, drawn brass wire, brass pins, rods, spun brass shapes,
shellwork and eyelets, all were developed as the industry grew and the
Connecticut brassmakers attained greater skill. Connecticut produces
thirty per cent of the brass manufactured in the United States (1937),
and leads all other States in this field. Britannia ware was introduced by
Charles and Hiram Yale in 1815. The world's largest factory engaged
in the production of silverware is situated in Meriden, and the State as
a whole ranks fourth in this manufacture.

The discovery of the process for vulcanizing rubber, in 1839, by
Charles Goodyear of Naugatuck, brought a thriving industry to Con-
necticut and was an important contributing factor in the development
of modern motor transportation, electric power distribution, and in-
dustrial efficiency.

Clockmaking in Connecticut is noteworthy as an example of the de-
velopment from household or one-man manufacturing into an important
industry, which now leads all other States in the value of production.
Connecticut clocks were first produced by individual craftsmen and dis-
tributed by peddlers, who soon made the sundial and the 'time stake'
obsolete throughout the original Colonies.

Benjamin Cheney produced wooden clocks about 1745, in a small
back-yard shop at East Hartford. Thomas Harland of Norwich made
a few clocks, in connection with other mechanical devices, about 1773.
Daniel Burnap, an apprentice to Harland, established his own shop at
East Windsor about 1780, and first advertised 'brass wheeled clocks'

60 Connecticut : The General Background

on March 14, 1791. Gideon Roberts was making wooden-movement
clocks in 1790 at his Bristol shop. These makers were all limited to a
very small output, and they were often their own peddlers. Eli Terry
was constructing clocks by hand in 1793. In 1807, he purchased an old
mill in Plymouth, and equipped it with machinery, producing in 1808,
the first five hundred machine-made clocks manufactured in America.
Joseph Ives, who entered the field in 1811, was a clockmaker of excep-
tional inventive ability; in 1832, he placed on the market clocks with
brass works, and later patented and produced clocks with a cantilever
spring. In 1812, Seth Thomas started operations in the Thomaston
plant which still bears his name. The quality clocks of Sessions and New
Haven are likewise time recorders that today find world-wide markets.
The first cheap watch, the once-famous Waterbury, with its seemingly
endless spring, was also a Connecticut product; the Ingersoll and Ingra-
ham watches of today are made in this State.

With Simeon North's introduction of the system of interchangeable
parts for firearms in 1813, this industry developed rapidly in Connecticut,
until the names of North, Whitney, Sharps, Spencer, Winchester, Colt,
Remington, Savage, Parker, Ballard, and Marlin had become famous in
this country and abroad. The State now leads all others in the produc-
tion of firearms and ammunition.

The first actual use of a submarine for war purposes is credited to
David Bushnell, a Connecticut designer, who made an unsuccessful
attempt in 1776 to sink the British warship * Eagle ' off New York. Simon
Lake of Milford did considerable early research work on submarines, and
is credited with the perfection of the first even-keel submarine, in 1894.
Groton shipyards are now (1937) at work on submarines for the United
States Navy.

Astonishing growth has been attained in the aircraft industry. Plants
in East Hartford and Stratford have kept ahead of the field, and operate
on schedules that keep the test pilots busy. Government orders con-
tinue to come in; and constant improvement in motors and propellers,
together with a supply of especially skilled labor, promise well for the
continued growth and expansion of the industry. Fighting ships, cargo
and transport planes, either built complete in Connecticut or powered
by Connecticut motors, now duplicate the feats of the old Connecticut
clipper ships in breaking speed records to the far corners of the world.

Two once-thriving Connecticut industries have experienced difficulty in
adapting themselves to changed conditions. Cutlery manufacture, form-
erly of importance, has practically ceased because of foreign competition;

Industry and Commerce 61

and the cotton and silk mills have suffered greatly from low-wage southern
competition. A shift in manufacture to rayon goods has not solved the
textile industry's problem. Some smaller mills have been taken over
by garment manufacturers from other States, but the change is usually
unsatisfactory to labor and the community alike. Woolen mills occasion-
ally enjoy short-lived prosperity when new blood or new backing is
obtained. The plush mills at Seymour, using the Tingue process, operate
with outside capital. Mohair mills in Shelton enjoy spasmodic activity
which fluctuates with the demands of the motor industry, but the Mont-
Ville mills have closed. The smaller mills that specialize on a single
product are more successful in weathering the storm; but as a whole, the
textile industry in Connecticut has fallen upon evil days.

Connecticut ranks first among the States in the production of com-
modities as varied as typewriters and felt hats. Danbury is 'the hat
center of the world,' and Fairfield County produces thirty-eight per
cent of the American output in this field. About one-half the hooks and
eyes, pins, needles, and snap fasteners produced in this country are
manufactured in Connecticut.

The period of the State's greatest development in manufacturing
began soon after the War of 1812. During the years from 1850 to 1900,
the population of the State increased 145 per cent, but the average num-
ber of wage-earners employed in manufacturing establishments increased
248.3 per cent. Wage-earners so employed in 1850 constituted 13.7 per
cent of the State's total population, and 19.5 per cent in 1900. The
decade of greatest relative development was that of 1909-19, including
the war years, when factory output increased 184 per cent. New factory
construction in 1923 and 1924 was valued at $16,807,775. * n J 937> more
than 60 per cent of Connecticut's population depended upon some three
hundred manufacturing establishments for a livelihood.

MINING AND QUARRYING

Nearly every known mineral has been found in Connecticut, and the
exploitation of its mineral wealth dates back to Colonial days, when
Governor Winthrop and others seized lands and mineral rights. Yet there
had been little commercial mining in the State, especially of the more
precious minerals. Some rocks of the western highlands are believed to

62 Connecticut: The General Background

be of the Pre-Cambrian age; gold has been discovered and actually
mined; garnets are taken from a carefully guarded working in Tolland
County today, but the quantity is unknown except to the owner of the
mine.

Portland quarries still produce feldspar in marketable amounts. Rox-
bury granite from Mine Hill, of excellent quality and available in un-
limited quantities, is now used for residential and public buildings. The
lime quarries of western Connecticut yield a fine quality of building lime,
and the output of agricultural lime more than suffices for local needs.
Brick clays are of frequent occurrence. Traprock quarries are worked
more extensively than any others, because of the demand created by
highway construction and the excellent quality of the stone.

Commercially unimportant production of mica is carried on in back-
yard mines in Middlesex County. Bismuth mines in Monroe are worked
by hand and by crude mechanical processes. Silica is available almost
everywhere in the State; and no iron ore is of better quality than the
limonite, or brown hematite, once produced by the now flooded Ore Hill
pits. Near New Haven, in the dense brush of a hillside pasture lot, a
crude windlass marks the spot where a hard-working Italian secures a
yield of about three dollars a day from his private gold mine. The dis-
covery of coal at Southbury caused some excitement when drilling
crews came in to prospect for oil between Poverty Hollow and Bates
Rock, but the small deposits were never exploited.

At Mine Hill in Roxbury a vertical vein of siderite, six to eight feet
thick and of undetermined length, was prospected at various times from
1724 on. A great plant for the smelting of ore was constructed, 'lease
hounds' operated unrestrained, a German goldsmith was engaged to
develop what was supposed to be the silver content of the ore, and tales
of the wondrous wealth of the hill beside the Shepaug River spread
abroad. The ore was a spathic and ferrous carbonate with an iron con-
tent running to 57 or 60 per cent, but the gas content made pre-heats
necessary and caused many explosions in the furnaces. Dank drifts
reach into the heart of the hill, furnaces and stacks stand gaunt and
neglected, and the Columbia School of Mines utilizes the site as a field
practice area. Equally promising at one time were the garnet mines of
Roxbury, where tons of crystals were mined and ground for abrasive
purposes by local labor. Silica paints and wood fillers were once exported
from the State, but the stone has no commercial value today; the mines
are water-filled, and the last mill has been burned or abandoned.

Brownstone from Portland quarries changed the complexion of New

Industry and Commerce 63

York, when stone boats plied from the riverside workings to the city
where brownstone fronts were popularized. A well-known scouring pow-
der is still produced in a country mill with Connecticut stone furnishing
the base; but Winthrop's cobalt mines are now disused, and his 'tall
tales ' of gold in purest form are discredited.

FISHERIES

Connecticut's commercial fisheries have long suffered from stream and
harbor pollution, but this hazard is gradually being eliminated by a
vigilant State Water Commission and State Health Department. Re-
stocking is now carried on with considerable success, and the return of
shad to the Connecticut River is especially notable.

Commercial interests and the State Shellfish Commission have de-
voted much attention to the cultivation of oysters and lobsters. The
Commission has helped to develop these natural resources by establishing
an efficient lobster hatchery at Noank, regulating the harvesting of
shellfish, fixing closed areas, eliminating pests, licensing vessels, and tax-
ing oyster acreage to support these regulatory activities.

Scallop fisheries on the Niantic River, swordfishing out of Mystic
and Stonington, flounder fishing offshore, and the harvesting of soft
or long clams are important marine industries. The shad fisheries of
the Connecticut River make a valued contribution to the part-time in-
come of rivermen, who haul nets in season and secure other employment
when the 'run' is over. With excellent markets at their very door,
Connecticut fishermen probably could dispose of many times their present
annual catch without exporting any part of it.

Oyster farming is an important activity in Connecticut. A yield of as
much as a thousand dollars an acre has been recorded from the under-
seas gardens in which the oysters are planted, cultivated, and harvested.
Seed oysters bring about eighty cents a bushel in the shell, but good
seasons are considerably less frequent than poor ones. The last really
good 'catch' in Connecticut waters was in 1931. Local experience de-
termines the best location for the beds, which are kept clean for the
fattening process. Oysters are left on the fattening beds for a year or
more, to eliminate all copper coloring or pollution resulting from the
absorption of industrial wastes. Connecticut oyster beds in 1934 cov-
ered an area of 47,826 acres.

LABOR

WITH the emergence of an industrial wage-earning class at the close of
the eighteenth century, labor organization became possible. The opening
of small factories around New Haven, Hartford, and New London created
a great demand for skilled and unskilled labor, a demand that was met
somewhat by the use of skilled artisans. Until 1810, however, manufac-
turing was greatly hampered by the high cost of labor, for unskilled work-
ers found the cheap western lands a more attractive goal.

The skilled workers were at this time in their heyday. Their social
status was high and their political influence greater than their numbers
justified. At the same time, ample opportunity was allowed them to enter
the ranks of the employing class. The higher educational level of the arti-
sans was evidenced by the fact that in 1 793 they established a technical
and literary library in New Haven.

In 1807, the General Society of Mechanics of New Haven was organized
with a membership of ninety-five. Its objectives were 'To relieve such
of the members as are reduced to a state of suffering: to assist young mech-
anics by loans and to promote the mechanical arts.' By 1811, the loan
fund of the society amounted to more than $450.

After 1815, industry developed more rapidly than did the available
supply of labor. Yet, despite the growing shortage of workers, a form of
economic feudalism prevailed, since employers still continued the tradi-
tion of the indentured apprentice. However, the shortage was met some-
what by the increased employment of women and children. The ' sun to
sun' system of labor, practiced by farmers, was transferred to the growing
factories, and approved by public opinion, for Connecticut tradition had
invested 'industrious habits' with the sacredness of a moral, if not a re-
ligious, precept.

By 1830, the shortage of labor was somewhat alleviated by the growing
tide of immigration from Europe. Unskilled labor became more plentiful,
resulting in a drop in wages. In 1831, $3 a week for men and $2 for women
were considered fair wages, from which $1.25 was deducted for company
board. Children were paid from fifty cents to one dollar a week, according
to their age and degree of skill. These wages were based upon a working
day of from fourteen to sixteen hours in summer, and from ten to twelve
hours during the winter months.

Labor 65

The main complaint voiced by the skilled workers at this time had to
do with their lack of economic and political equality. Their independence
was submerged under a general wave of 'shop discipline/ and their politi-
cal interests were merged with those of their employers. Socially, too,
they no longer occupied the position that had been theirs in the closing
years of the eighteenth century.

It was due to these dissatisfactions on the part of skilled labor that the
first industrial union in this country, the New England Association of
Farmers, Mechanics and Other Workingmen, was organized in Lyme in

1830. New Haven, Hartford, and New London were the centers for this
new political and industrial union in Connecticut. In New London, in

1831, three candidates of the Association were elected to the State legis-
lature, and its entire slate of town officers was elected to office. Due to
lack of support from the unskilled workers, the Association went out of
existence in 1834.

The first important strike in Connecticut took place in the latter part
of 1833, when weavers employed by the Thompsonville Carpet Manufac-
turing Company quit work to enforce a demand for higher wages. In re-
taliation, the company brought suit against the strike leaders, charging
them with conspiracy to ruin the business the first such suit in the
United States. Three separate trials took place, the last occurring in 1836
when a verdict was rendered for the defendants after the jury had been
instructed that it was legal to combine to raise wages but unlawful to con-
spire to ruin an employer's business.

Although the ten-hour day had been established in New York by 1830,
mechanics and laborers in Connecticut still worked from dawn to dusk.
The first strike in connection with the ten-hour day took place in Hartford
in 1835. Although unsuccessful, it was the forerunner of many such efforts
to shorten the working day for Connecticut labor. In 1835, the cord-
wainers of New Haven organized a union to obtain shorter hours and in-
creased pay.

The fifties brought the first of the modern protective trade unions to
Connecticut. In 1852, the first typographical union in Connecticut was
started in New Haven; and in 1853, the Hat Makers' Association was or-
ganized in Danbury to strengthen the apprentice system, much abused
by the employers of that day. The cigar makers of New Haven had
developed an effective union by 1853, and two years later a convention
was held at Hartford to plan an organization for the cigar makers of
New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

The manufacturing boom of the reconstruction period following the

66 Connecticut : The General Background

Civil War greatly stimulated the growth of labor unions. Among the
groups that organized during this period were the Iron Holders of Bridge-
port, and in New Haven the Bricklayers and Plasterers, the Locomotive
Engineers, and the Stone Masons. In 1867, labor votes made possible the
election of James E. English to the governorship of Connecticut. For
their political aid, the unions were promised an eight-hour day; a law to
that effect was subsequently passed by the legislature, but with the pro-
vision that it was not obligatory upon employers if the latter had made
other arrangements with their employees. Needless to say, the law was
unenforceable. With the depression of 1873, labor organization in Con-
necticut declined, and further unionization was not attempted until the
Knights of Labor came into the field in 1878.

In 1874, a consumers' co-operative, the Sovereigns of Labor, made a
bid for labor support. In 1875, the organization claimed that it had 1200
members in New Haven, 1000 in Hartford, 500 in Meriden, and 500 in
Bridgeport and Middletown. Organized and led by employers and poli-
ticians, it made arrangements with merchants whereby discounts were
given to members. Soon, as the result of protests that inferior products
were given with the discounts, the organization opened its own stores,
employing a business firm in Hartford to act as its commission agents in
purchasing products directly from grangers and manufacturers. By 1876,
little remained of the Sovereigns of Labor.

The first local assembly of the Knights of Labor was organized at New
Britain in 1878. Unlike the later American Federation of Labor, the
Knights of Labor did not confine its membership entirely to employees.
Labor was organized on a basis of regional assemblies, rather than by
separate industrial unions. In 1885, some 6000 persons were enrolled in
ten assemblies in New Haven, and the entire State membership was
nearly 12,000. The New Haven Trades Council was closely affiliated
with the Knights of Labor during this period, as were many of the other
Central Labor Unions in Connecticut.

Many of the labor and factory laws now appearing on the Connecticut
statute-books were first introduced by the various assemblies of the
Knights of Labor. Largely to their efforts are due the rehabilitation of the
Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the enactment of laws limiting the work-
ing hours of women and children to sixty per week, prohibiting employ-
ment in factories of children under fourteen years of age, and providing
for inspection and proper safeguards in factories.

Wages were so low in the early seventies that the Connecticut Bureau
of Labor Statistics reported in 1875 that the children in working-class

Labor 67

families were contributing from one-fourth to one-third of the family in-
come, while children under fourteen supplied about one-sixth of the fam-
ily weekly earnings. Without the wage increases of the eighties, the pro-
hibition of child labor would have been an economic calamity to most of
the working-class families of Connecticut.

The long working day of the preceding decades was much curtailed
during the eighties. The ten-hour day became an accomplished fact for
most of skilled labor, while in some trades an eight-hour day was estab-
lished. In 1886, the cabinetmakers, printers, piano-makers, tailors, and
carpenters had a sixty-hour week. The cigarmakers had a forty-six-hour
week, although two years previously their hours had ranged from ten to
fourteen a day. The painters were on a fifty-two-hour week, while the
telegraphers worked nine hours if employed during the day or forty-five
hours a week if employed at night. Baking and barbering were the only
two organized trades in which working hours of more than sixty hours a
week prevailed.

The Knights of Labor had its greatest growth in Connecticut between
the years 1881 and 1886. In a militant attempt to expand its growing
membership, it introduced the boycott as a strike weapon. In 1885, the
boycott was used against four leading hat manufacturers of South Nor-
walk and Danbury who refused to arbitrate a strike. At the Crofut and
Knapp factory in South Norwalk, in the same year, dynamite was used
for the first time in Connecticut in connection with a strike. The Derby
Silver and the Southington Cutlery strikes of 1886 revealed the weak or-
ganization of the Connecticut Knights of Labor and its lack of competent
leadership. With the decline of the national organization after 1886, the
field was left open for the growth of the craft union.

The Connecticut Federation of Labor was organized at Hartford on
March 9, 1887, by various labor groups from New Haven, Hartford, Meri-
den, Danbury, and \Vaterbury. Unlike the Knights of Labor, it made a
clear-cut distinction between employer and employee, its plan of organi-
zation was on the basis of trade or craft unions, and it made its appeal to
the skilled rather than the unskilled workers. An immediate improve-
ment in standards of wages, hours, and conditions was its objective.

During the later eighties, the Connecticut Federation of Labor suc-
ceeded in organizing an average of seven locals annually; and throughout
the severe depression of 1893-97, nine locals were being organized yearly.
With the turn of the century, labor organization increased at an even more
rapid rate. In 1900, there were 14,000 members of labor unions in Con-
necticut; in 1902, the number had increased to 32,000, or 10 per cent of

68 Connecticut : The General Background

the total number of wage-earners in the State. By 1905, however, the re-
sistance of employers to the unionization of their shops had become an
almost insurmountable obstacle for labor organizers.

From 1881 to 1905, during the rise of the craft union in Connecticut,
930 strikes were called in 2 1 1 1 factories. In more than half of these cases,
the strikes were unsuccessful, due to the fact that labor's right to bargain
collectively was not recognized either by employers or by public opinion.
Although the bloodshed and violence that marked many labor difficulties
elsewhere were largely absent, labor history was made in one of these
conflicts and its later legal developments the famous Danbury Hat-
ters' Case.

In 1902, attempts were made to unionize the hat-making establishment
of D. E. Loewe in Danbury, against the owner's insistence upon an open
shop. After a long-drawn-out strike, marked by a refusal of the company
to deal with the strike leaders, the union officials requested union men and
labor sympathizers throughout the country to boycott the products of the
company. In 1903, with its business at a standstill because of the boycott,
the company brought suit for damages against the officers of the American
Federation of Labor and the United Hatters of North America, as well as
a large number of individual members of both organizations, alleging an
unlawful conspiracy on the part of the defendants to ruin their business.
In 1908, the United States Supreme Court handed down a decision in
favor of the company, stating in its majority opinion that a boycott by
labor unions against a producer doing an interstate commerce business
violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Law of 1890. Damages of nearly
$300,000 were levied against 186 members of the Hatters' Union, the de-
cision being affirmed by the Supreme Court in 1915. The American Fed-
eration of Labor replied with a campaign against the use of the Sherman
Act in labor disputes; and in the Clayton Act of 1914, labor organizations
were specifically exempted from the provisions of the anti-trust laws.

During the years from 1905 to 1917, while trade-union membership
more than doubled in the country as a whole, Connecticut labor bodies
were mainly occupied with holding whatever members they did have.
Membership began to decline after 1906, and after the final decision in the
Danbury Hatters' Case, the open-shop movement received great support
and impetus in Connecticut.

The World War did little to aid the growth of unionism in Connecticut.
The great proportion and heterogeneous character of unskilled labor em-
ployed in Connecticut industry hampered, rather than aided, such
growth, both during the war and after. In manufacturing and labor

Percentage distribution of the population by nativity for
Connecticut, New England, and the United States, 1930.

57.1%

40.8%

33.5%

38.8%

CONNECTICUT

20.7%

10.9%1U%

Native White of
Native Parentage

Native White of Foreign
or Mixed Parentage

NEW ENGLAND UNITED STATES

Foreign Born White
Colored

Based on the fifteenth census of the United States

70 Connecticut: The General Background

circles, Connecticut was considered one of the foremost 'open shop'
States in the industrial North.

The so-called 'American Plan' of company unionism came early to
Connecticut, and during the period from 1922 to 1929 it displaced many
of the old and established craft unions within the State. Not until 1934
did labor begin to regain something of its former strength. Even then,
the percentage of unionized workers was no greater than it had been in
1904, for labor organization could not keep pace with the growth of in-
dustry.

The Amalgamated Clothing Workers and the International Ladies
Garment Workers' Union were the only two labor bodies to benefit from
the application of the labor provisions of the National Recovery Admin-
istration to Connecticut industry. Public opinion had been much aroused
by the influx of sweatshops into Connecticut, caused in great part by the
higher labor costs in New York City; and when data appeared showing
the abuses engaged in by these 'fly-by-night' enterprises, church and civic
organizations united to prevent a reversion to the labor conditions of a
century ago by encouraging the unionization of workers in these plants.
The reaction of the public against the sweatshop system was so over-
whelming that shop after shop was compelled to treat with its employees
through the unions. In this case, Connecticut opinion tacitly recognized
labor's right to organize.

The history of labor in Connecticut during the past hundred years has
been a series of attempts on the part of bodies of workmen to achieve some
form of economic and social status commensurate with their contribution
to industrial life. As the history of colonial Connecticut was one in which
the middle class of free-holders and independent artisans demanded fur-
ther rights for themselves as a class, so the history of industrial Connecti-
cut can be said to be a record of the attempts of wage-earners to gain
broader interpretations of their rights as citizens and members of an emer-
ging and numerically powerful group.

AGRICULTURE

ORIGINALLY so important agriculturally as to be designated the ' Pro-
vision State ' by General Washington during the Revolution, Connecticut
has seen its agriculture gradually supplanted by industrial activity.
Nevertheless, the farm crops today are valued at about $40,000,000 in an
average year. Total crop acreage for 1936 was 427,200 acres, as compared
with 424,000 in 1935.

Agriculture was the State's leading occupation until the middle of the
nineteenth century, when industry became of prime importance. In 1930
only 29 per cent of the population was classified as rural. A farm census
of 1935, the first accurate census of this type ever made in Connecticut,
lists 34,853 farms, valued roughly at $230,000,000. Although 75 per cent
of the land surface of the State is included in farms, only 7 per cent of this
portion is actually under cultivation. Recently there has been a trend to-
ward subsistence, or part-time, farming. The Resettlement Administra-
tion is now (1936) retiring 11,000 acres of submarginal land through
purchase, and it is expected that these lands will be returned to forest
under State lease on the standard Resettlement ninety-nine-year con-
tract.

News of the fertility of the Connecticut Valley, reported by the John
Oldham expedition from Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1633, stimulated
early English colonization in this section. The first settlers found it possi-
ble to produce bumper crops along the alluvial bottomlands without much
effort. Wethersfield colonists planted rye as soon as they arrived, and
later became famous as the largest onion producers of the State, exporting
more than 1,000,000 bunches annually. Onions sent to West Indian ports
were always strung or bunched. The natural grasslands of the Hartford
and Glastonbury meadows furnished ample forage for what little livestock
the colonists brought with them. Tobacco was grown at the Windsor
plantations very early in the life of the Colony, and the first American
cigars known as 'Long Nines' were made by Mrs. Prout of South
Windsor, in 1801. Cattle were raised with such success that they became
an export commodity only a little later than tobacco, onions, and oak
staves.

Tobacco is the outstanding cash crop in the Connecticut Valley today.

72 Connecticut: The General Background

For more than a century some of the best wrapper leaf in the world has
been produced here. Connecticut shade-grown tobacco is the nation's
highest priced cigar leaf. /Connecticut broadleaf ' is universally known,
and commands a premium price. The sorting, stripping, and curing of
tobacco leaf furnishes employment for many persons in season. In 1936,
the Connecticut tobacco crop was 21,429,000 pounds, raised from 14,500
acres.

The usual rotation crops on tobacco soils are potatoes and corn. A very
high yield of corn is obtained, and the potato yield is occasionally in excess
of 600 bushels to the acre. The local markets easily absorb all potatoes
and corn raised in the State, and the short haul to market enables the
local grower to meet outside competition without loss. Potato plantings
in 1936 covered 16,700 acres and yielded 2,839,000 bushels. Many varie-
ties of corn are raised; some is fed out as green fodder, some used as ensi-
lage, and some is allowed to mature for grain. The State produces much
sweet corn for immediate consumption, but very little is commercially
canned.

The soils of Connecticut are favorable to a considerable diversification
of agriculture. The loams of the central valley, ideal for raising the better
grades of wrapper-leaf tobacco, are adapted also to potato growing. The
sweet potato is now being successfully grown in the older tobacco soils,
and State experiment stations are encouraging farmers to expand their
acreage on this new crop. Truck crops are easily raised in the lighter sandy
loams, and with some success in the heavier soils. A natural grass soil
is found in the valleys and on the hilltops of Litchfield County, where the
Charlton loam, a common hilltop type of soil in New England, holds a
greater moisture content in dry seasons than is found in the more sandy
loams. A plentiful supply of lime for agricultural purposes is available
within easy hauling distance throughout the State. Vegetables are suc-
cessfully grown in the tobacco soils, berries thrive on the sandy loams,
and celery is raised successfully on the heavier soils. Windham County
raises more Brussels sprouts than any other county in the country, with
the exception of one in California.

Dairying is important on 80 per cent of all farms operating commer-
cially, and there are 120,000 dairy animals in the State. Connecticut is
now declared to be a 'modified accredited State ' by the Bureau of Animal
Industry, thus becoming the thirty-ninth such State in the Union. Poultry
raising is rapidly increasing. About 2,500,000 chickens produce approxi-
mately 22,500,000 dozen eggs annually. Turkeys of excellent quality are
successfully raised. Fruit orchards are recovering from the damage suf-

Agriculture 73

fered during the severe winters of 1933-35; an d a yearly crop of apples,
peaches, and pears valued at about $3,000,000 is harvested.

The Farm Bureau and the county agents are occasionally helpful to the
small farmer, but more active among the larger agriculturists. Egg and
berry auctions are held at key points throughout the State; a State-inspected
and regulated system of roadside markets caters to the traveling public ; and
' Connecticut fancy turkeys,' advertised on billboards during the winter hol-
idays, are carefully graded and sold under a co-operative marketing scheme.

Eleven hundred poultry producers own and control the Connecticut
Farmers' Co-operative Auction Association, a non-profit organization
that holds egg and poultry auctions at West Hartford. Similar auctions
are held at Willimantic, Manchester, and Hamden. These organizations
are producer co-operatives, but Connecticut also has combination pro-
ducer-consumer and straight consumer * co-ops ' that function well. The
great Eastern States Co-operative has many members in Connecticut;
the United Farmers Co-operative Association has at least one branch in
the State, made up almost entirely of Finnish farmers; the Quinebaug
Valley Fruit Growers Association, Inc., functions with a limited member-
ship in northeastern Connecticut; and Italian fruit growers have formed
a co-operative in the Glastonbury area.

The most unusual organization of its kind is the so-called 'Father Dunn
Co-op ' in Ashford, one of the few co-operatives in the country founded
and operated by a priest. This organization of poorer farmers in the sub-
marginal eastern highlands of the State now owns a store and a fleet of
trucks. Throughout the depression it functioned without difficulty.

The Connecticut Milk Administration is making progress with milk
control and the regulation of marketing in the State. Assisted by two de-
puties and five inspectors, the Milk Administrator has done much for
improved conditions in classification and retailing, but the producer still
seeks relief from the unusually low prices paid for his product. Retailers
are licensed, their books are opened to the inspectors, efforts are made to
insure prompt payment to producers, and price wars are infrequent.

Connecticut State College at Storrs carries'on an efficient and helpful
work for the farmer. Experiment stations at Storrs and New Haven issue
frequent bulletins; and a tobacco substation at Windsor offers advice on
that crop. A cow- testing association helps to keep its member herds free
from ' boarders ' and to attain a higher efficiency in butterfat output. A
State market bulletin is issued thrice weekly, offering information re-
garding the produce market at six points within the State, printing adver-
tising for the individual farmer, and keeping the rural communities sup-
plied with news of interest.

74 Connecticut: The General Background

The Farm Bureau and the county agents are not especially helpful to
the small farmer, but are active among the larger agriculturists. The
Grange has one hundred and forty-one local and eleven Pomona units,
in addition to the State organization. Some five thousand women are en-
gaged in home-making projects, and more than five thousand boys and
girls participate in 4~H Club activities. Agricultural and grange fairs
continue to be popular, thirty-seven of these being held in 1936. There
are also five 4~H Club County Fairs, to which youthful exhibitors bring
their prize stock just as it is ready to show at the Eastern States Exposi-
tion in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Connecticut farmers have to contend with many difficulties. Living
costs are inevitably high in a State that is predominantly industrial.
Taxes continue to mount with the increased valuation of acreage as resi-
dential sections expand into the country; and the area of tillable land is
usually small in comparison to the total taxable area of individual farms.
The average farm is so small that the use of highly developed farm ma-
chinery is impracticable. The water and power companies' purchase of
large and sometimes fertile areas of cultivated land restricts normal farm
expansion. Despite these unfavorable conditions, however, the natural
advantages of a temperate climate and adequate rainfall, the accessibility
to good markets by means of excellent highways, and the co-operation
afforded the farmer by various State bureaus and marketing organizations
are factors which seem to assure a successful future to Connecticut agricul-
ture.

EDUCATION

IN THE field of education, Connecticut's record is a long and distin-
guished one. The Puritan preachers early encouraged learning with the
object of offsetting ' the chief project of that old deluder, Sathan, to keepe
men from the knowledge of the scriptures.' The church and school stood
side by side, and the minister often assumed the duties of schoolmaster.
The schoolhouses were rudely constructed one-room buildings, equipped
with rough wooden benches and desks, ink made of tea and iron filings,
and few if any books.

One of the first public school systems in the history of education was
founded in Connecticut shortly after the establishment of free public
schools in New Haven (1642) and Hartford (1643), a system that for
many years was unsurpassed in its uniform application to all classes. A
general code enacted in 1650 ordered the establishment of elementary
schools, for the teaching of reading and writing, in all townships of fifty
families or more; and of Latin grammar schools, for the preparation of
those more gifted students who might wish to enter the college at Cam-
bridge, in towns of 100 families or more. Penalties were imposed upon
parents who neglected the education of their children, and the towns re-
served the right to remove boys from the homes of such parents and to
apprentice them to masters who would train and educate them. Towns
employing a schoolmaster might provide for his salary by levying a town
tax on property, by tuition fees from those who attended, or by any other
means agreeable to an individual township. Although the State fixed the
minimum requirements for provision and attendance, it neither supported
the schools nor maintained any direct control, tending to shift the entire
responsibility to local supervision.

In 1671, the State ordered the four county towns of New Haven, Hart-
ford, New London, and Fairfield to establish grammar schools, under
penalty of a fine of ten pounds. In the following year, the General Court
granted 600 acres of land in these counties for educational purposes. In
1690, these grammar schools were made free, and the State contributed
thirty pounds towards the salary of the master of each school. In 1795,
Connecticut contracted for the sale of 3,000,000 acres of land in northern
Ohio, which had been assigned to the Colony by the original charter from

76 Connecticut: The General Background

King Charles II and was known as the Western Reserve. The income
from the proceeds of this sale was set aside for educational purposes, and
became known as the ' school fund.' Administered under the supervision
of the State Treasury, the fund up to July i, 1931, had earned $13,620,-
372.42, all of which was used for the support of common schools in Con-
necticut.

In the latter half of the eighteenth century, public education was neg-
lected because of the more pressing problems of war and reconstruction.
At the turn of the century and during the early decades of the nineteenth
century, a growing demand for broader education led to the establish-
ment of privately owned academies offering a wider curriculum and draw-
ing students from a more extensive area than did the public schools.

The system of public high schools was initiated as a result of the work
of Henry Barnard, who devoted his life to the furtherance of education. In
1838, he originated a bill in the State legislature providing for State super-
vision of the common schools. A Board of Commissioners was promptly
created, with Barnard as secretary; and for the first time, annual reports
on school conditions were required. To relieve the congestion discovered
in the ungraded schools, Barnard suggested a higher school, and before
long the system of public high schools was well under way. In addition
to his services to the State, Barnard was the first United States Commis-
sioner of Education, and from 1855 to 1893 he edited the American Jour-
nal of Education.

Secondary education is now provided in Connecticut by 137 high
schools, junior high schools, and trade schools, with an enrollment of
about 100,000 pupils. Public, private, and parochial elementary schools
number 1,286, with more than 390,000 pupils registered. State funds en-
sure modern educational methods and trained teachers for the rural dis-
tricts, and transportation to and from school for children living in remote
sections. Within the last fifteen years, consolidation of grades and dis-
tricts has resulted in the elimination of 600 one-room buildings.

Connecticut maintains eleven trade schools, all established since 1907.
The founding of these schools was begun under the administration of
Charles G. Hine, who served on the State Board of Education for more
than 37 years. Hine also helped to establish the library extension service
and the system of rural education. By State law, every town with a popu-
lation of 10,000 or more must establish and maintain evening schools for
the instruction, in elementary subjects, of persons over fourteen years of
age. Perhaps the most important ruling of the State Board of Education
in recent years was made in 1922, when it was decreed that only graduates

Education 77

of approved normal schools, or those of equal professional training, would
be certified for teachers' positions in elementary schools. There are nor-
mal schools at New Britain, New Haven, Danbury, and Willimantic.

In addition to the support given the public schools, the State maintains
an industrial school for boys at Meriden, a similar school for girls at Long
Lane Farm, Middletown, and a school for imbeciles and defectives at
Mansfield.

The education of Indians and Negroes began at an early date in Connec-
ticut. Moor's Indian Charity School was established at Columbia in 1735
by the Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, who instructed the aborigines in re-
ligion and the English language, training them to be sent forth as mission-
aries among their own race. Funds for the development of the school
were sought abroad, and the King of England and Lord Dartmouth were
among the contributors. The school was removed in 1769 to Hanover,
New Hampshire, * to increase its usefulness,' and has since become known
as Dartmouth College.

The first effort towards education for Negroes was made in 1832 by
Miss Prudence Crandall, a Quakeress of Canterbury, who accepted a
young Negro girl into her school. The other pupils promptly quit the
place, and the courageous young woman replied by turning her school
into an institution exclusively for ' young ladies and little misses of color/
As a result, race feeling ran so high that in 1833 the Connecticut * Black
Law ' was rushed through the legislature. This made it illegal to establish
schools exclusively for the instruction of Negroes without the permission
of local authorities.

About the middle of the nineteenth century, free public schools sup-
planted the privately owned academies, which had grown to be more or
less aristocratic institutions charging high tuition rates. Many of these
academies, however, continue to function as preparatory schools, and have
been attended by famous men from all over the country. One of the oldest
of these is Bacon Academy, established at Colchester in 1803, and now
serving as the free high school for that town. The Cheshire Academy in
Cheshire is on the site of the Cheshire Episcopal Academy, which num-
bered among its student body the elder J. P. Morgan, Admiral A. A.
Foote of the United States Navy, and Gideon Welles, Secretary of the
Navy during the Civil War. Other preparatory schools of note are the
Taft School in Watertown, Choate School in Wallingford, Hotchkiss in
Lakeville, Kent at Kent, Pomfret at Pomfret, and Avon Old Farms at
Avon. Among the nationally known girls' boarding schools are Miss
Porter's School at Farmington, the Ethel Walker School in Simsbury,

78 Connecticut : The General Background

the Westover School in Middlebury, and Rosemary Hall in Greenwich.
It was the original intention of the settlers to found a college in each
of the New England Colonies. To this end, in 1648, the General Court,
assembled in New Haven, gave power to a committee to choose a site
'most commodious for a college.' Massachusetts, however, objected that
' the whole population of New England was scarcely sufficient to support
one institution of this nature [Harvard], and the establishment of a
second would, in the end, be a sacrifice of both.' Thus the plans of John
Davenport of New Haven came to nothing, notwithstanding the fact
that in 1655 more than 540 had been subscribed for the new college.
Half a century later, under the leadership of the Reverend James Pier-
pont, ten clergymen met in the house of the Reverend Samuel Russell at
Branford and made the famous gift of books for ' the founding of a College
in this colony.' A month later, on October 16, 1701, the General Assem-
bly in New Haven passed 'An act for liberty to erect a Collegiate School '
where youth might ' be fitted for Publick employment both in Church and
Civil State.' The founders chose the Reverend Abraham Pierson of Kil-
lingworth (now Clinton) as rector and Saybrook as the site: During
Pierson 's lifetime the scholars met in Killingworth, and only after his
death in 1707 were classes held in Saybrook. From there the college was
moved in 1716 to its present situation in New Haven. At the commence-
ment exercises in 1718, the name of Yale was given to the new college, in
recognition of timely pecuniary assistance (in the sum of 562 125.) re-
ceived from Elihu Yale, a London capitalist of American birth, who had
amassed a large fortune as governor of the English trading post in Madras.
Yale's subsequent growth has been steady and at times startling. In
1846, its library was housed for the first time in a separate building, and
in the next year a course of advanced studies was instituted from which
the Graduate School developed. Yale was the first institution of higher
learning in America to grant, as it did in 1861, the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy; and in 1869, the Yale School of Fine Arts was founded, the
first of its kind in any such institution. Under the guidance of such out-
standing presidents as Ezra Stiles (1776-95), the two Timothy Dwights
(1795-1817, and 1886-99), Theodore Woolsey (1846-71), and Arthur
Twining Hadley (1899-1921), the college reached its second centenary
and became a university of eleven schools, with more than five thousand
students, nearly a thousand faculty members, and an endowment approxi-
mating one hundred million dollars. The depression found Yale in the
midst of the most extensive building program ever undertaken by any
university. One result of this extraordinary outburst of construction hah

Education 79

been to divide the undergraduate body into smaller colleges, nine in num-
ber, where the benefits of the Oxford-Cambridge system of education can
in some measure be obtained.

Other notable institutions of higher learning within the State include
Trinity College, established at Hartford in 1823, under the auspices of the
Episcopal Church; Wesleyan University, founded by Methodists in 1831
at Middle town; and Connecticut College for Women, opened in 1915 at
New London. The Hartford Theological School (Congregational) was
chartered in 1834. The Berkeley Divinity School (Episcopalian), now
situated in New Haven, was founded at Middle town in 1854.

One of the oldest agricultural schools in America was opened in 1845
by Dr. Samuel Gold and his son, T. G. Gold, at Cream Hill, Cornwall.
The State College was established at Mansfield in 1881 by Charles and
Augustus Storrs, who provided land, buildings, and an endowment fund.
It was also financed from the proceeds of the sale of government lands
allotted to Connecticut. First known as Storrs Agricultural College, it
was later called the Connecticut Agricultural College, and finally Connec-
ticut State College. Classified as a Federal Land Grant College, it offers
wide facilities for studies and practical work in agriculture and home
economics.

ARCHITECTURE

TODAY, the well-informed traveler is as much interested in the archi-
tecture of a country as he is in the manners and customs of its people.
For in essence one is a reflection of the other. Whether in Bali, Gizeh,
Niirnberg, Normandy, or our own Connecticut, the structures reared by
a people are the most public and often the most permanent expression of
its social life the translation of habits of life and modes of thought into
wood and stone.

Such of the early architecture of Connecticut as still remains is a fasci-
nating and partly open book to those who drive through the State's vil-
lages and along its country roads, and who know something of its history.
It is not alone churches and houses and barns that appear but the
drama of a frontier, of English-born people struggling with the soil and
with the rigid molds of their ancestors' standards, and gradually achieving
greater sophistication, freedom, graciousness, charm, and variety, while
at the same time manifesting a provincial yearning for cosmopolitanism.

This development is traceable more clearly, perhaps, in Windsor than
in any other Connecticut town. One of the very earliest domestic build-
ings in the State is the ell of the Fyler House in that town a little house
which in its primitive simplicity typifies the utter plainness of the first
permanent homes of the settlers. A more imposing example of the second
type developed can be seen in what remains of the old Deacon Moore
House, with its framed overhang, pendant drops, gable brackets, and
rare crossed summer beams within. This is representative of one of the
most persistent characteristics of all our early architecture, the harking
back to old precedents. The first colonists left England scarcely a quar-
ter century after the age of Elizabeth had passed, and they built Eliza-
bethan houses here. Yet it must be remembered that every house was a
compromise, a translation of Old World ideas into frontier terms. A new
stereotype arose, derived partly from English precedents and partly
from the need of building hastily with materials that were strange to the
builders a style quite distinct, and yet in some ways akin to the
Georgian. Parson William Russell's home on Broad Street Green may

Architecture 8 1

serve as the typical example, a large eighteenth-century house with cen-
tral chimney, capacious yet simple, with its own sparing type of orna-
mentation a really American product.

As prosperity brought greater financial ease and sufficient means for
expansion, many builders erected the central-hall type of house with a
chimney at each side. One of the earliest of this type is 'Elmwood,' which
David Ellsworth built in 1740. It is interesting to note that in a second
house built ten years later, Ellsworth reverted to the established form,
with central chimney, but with greater freedom in the employment of
decoration.

The loftier wing that Oliver Ellsworth added to his father's comfort-
able farmhouse reveals the lawyer who had become acquainted with
Georgian elegance and had brought back to his home town something of
an international experience. In 1807, the house built by Oliver for his son
Martin shows the freedom, and yet the outward austerity, of the new re-
publican era which was adapting and formalizing new elements, drawn
frankly now from Renaissance motifs, in wood. Its gable end to the street
is asymmetrical yet formal, self-conscious yet stately; but it breaks away
from the time-honored arrangement with a small square hall at the front,
inconspicuous stairs at the left, and a dignified drawing-room at the right.
The regularity of the orders on the exterior gives little indication of the
freedom of arrangement within. Precedents were being broken, giving
way to new tendencies which in time became formalized in new tradi-
tions, such as characterized the progress of the nineteenth century.

The same developments translated into the language of brick can be
followed at Windsor, notably in the Chaffee, Nathaniel Hayden, and
Halsey houses. Every town in Connecticut contains its own particular
version of this same history luxurious and expansive when it reflects
an early industrial and shipping prosperity, as in Norwich ; or plain and
bare, when the living was sparse and frugal, as in many of the hill towns.
Connecticut, on the whole, was handicapped by its stony, unproductive
fields, and could show little to compare with the relative luxury of Massa-
chusetts and Rhode Island. Here the struggle for existence spiritual
as well as economic produced a simple and sturdy indigenous mode of
building less influenced by foreign precedent than any other Colonial
architecture. Connecticut is pre-eminently the home, for example, of
the salt-box type of house, the most distinctively American of any of our
Colonial forms.

The very earliest abodes have, of course, not survived. They were
compromises with the crudest necessity, and were not expected to last.

82 Connecticut: The General Background

A pit was dug into a bank or elsewhere and lined with upright planks, or
with stone, to a height somewhat above the surface of the ground; then
it was covered with logs chinked with clay, or with poles upon which
bark or thatch was laid. Reproductions may be seen in the Pioneer Vil-
lage in Salem, Massachusetts, a permanent exhibit ; and one was construct-
ed in Waterbury for the Tercentenary of 1935. Such rude 'dug-outs'
have always been built under pressure by the soldiers at Valley Forge,
as sand and cyclone shelters on the western plains, and on the western
front in the Great War. In their early form, they were an expression, not
of some past tradition, but of the struggle with drastic necessity. Nor
were they, as might at first appear, wholly apart from the main current
of architectural development. The dug-out form of cellar was later
used in many houses; several homes in Chester and the charming Wood-
bridge Tavern (about 1750) in Old Mystic were designedly built into hill-
sides for warmth and protection.

An account of the erection, by John Talcott in 1636, of one of the earli-
est houses in Hartford shows that it followed the usual rule, said to be in-
variable in Rhode Island, that seventeenth-century houses were built
with their fronts to the south probably with a view to facing the sun
as much as possible. There were some exceptions: the Henry Whit-
field House (1640), an English manor house of stone in Guilford, faced
west, as did the Whitman House in Farmington; while the Comfort Starr
House in Guilford and the Williams House in Wethersfield faced east.
But, as a rule, especially in the outlying districts, the earliest houses
faced south, whatever the location of the road. This arrangement was
generally abandoned in the eighteenth century.

The Talcott House mentioned above is interesting from another point
of view. It represents two stages of construction. In the first stage, it was
simply a single large room with an end chimney, and perhaps with an
attic above. Not every house got beyond this stage, and presumably a
number of the earliest houses were of this simple plan. The early ell of
the Fyler House in Windsor illustrates this type of construction.

In the second stage another room was added on the other side of the
great chimney. Often a second story was added, making a tall narrow
house, two stories high, but one room deep, with the chimney occupying
most of the space between the two ground-floor rooms. The small hall,
or * porch' as it was called, in front of the chimney provided an entrance
to the rooms on either side, and allowed a cramped winding stair to the
apartment above. Cottages of this sort, but only one story in height, are
frequently found in all sections of New England and derive from all pe-

Architecture 83

riods. The popular home and garden magazines sentimentally term them
' Cape Cod cottages/ although the type reached perfection in certain parts
of Connecticut, as around Clinton. Examples of the early type in its two-
story proportions are excessively rare; the best is the Williams House
(1680) on Broad Street in Wethersfield.

With the third stage, architectural progress really begins. Even from
the earliest period 1635 to 1675 most houses now appear to have
had at some time a later addition at the rear. The latter was often a
necessity arising from the pressure of overcrowded families when the
elder son married. The family had then to give up part of the room in the
old house, or else go to the expense of building another, as the son would
naturally stay and work the farm which he was eventually to inherit.
An additional reason for enlarging the house in the early days w r as the
greater security provided in being all together. The addition was a
lean-to at the rear which had the appearance of an old-time salt-box, such
as commonly hung on the kitchen wall. This addition may often be re-
cognized by the fact that the lean-to rafters were spliced on at the upper
plate at the back, giving a broken but graceful curve to the long rear-
ward slope of the roof. It provided one long room, with two small rooms
at either end; the long room, or new kitchen, had access to the rear
side of the chimney. In some regions, such as Rocky Hill, many houses
were never finished in the second story, the children and servants being
obliged to make shift in one big unfinished room.

The salt-box addition, though by no means confined to Connecticut,
was more characteristic of this State than of its neighbors. Some of the
finest examples are in eastern Massachusetts, but on the whole it is a
Connecticut Valley feature, not ranging far east of that valley, but trace-
able in narrowing territory up its stream into the edges of New Hamp-
shire. A regional distribution such as this can be traced in other forms as
well. It has never been studied, and remains one of the adventures that
beckon the traveler.

Once developed, the salt-box became, in many localities, the prevail-
ing form of construction for a century. Houses began to be built in that
shape from preference, with what may be termed an integral lean-to, the
rafters running right through from roof- tree to plate. Most salt-boxes
that we see today have this uncompromising straight roof-line. The in-
tegral salt-box dates from approximately 1700 to about the time of the
Revolutionary War, when the provincial period was over; and it is typi-
cal of what may be called the fourth stage in the development of the Co-
lonial house.

84 Connecticut : The General Background

In the fifth stage, the logical next step came rapidly with growing ease
and independence the raising of the entire frame to create a two-story
house with four rooms in each story, and a broad peak or gable roof
above. This was done, for instance, with the General David Humphreys
House in Ansonia. It is the typical house of the eighteenth century, still
built around a broad central chimney, with cramped stair and 'porch'
between the chimney and the front door. The Elisha Williams House
(1716) at Rocky Hill is among the earliest and best of those built com-
plete at one time. One- or two-story ells were added at will, or perhaps a
small lean-to as in the Trumbull House (1740) at Lebanon. Most of
the ' Colonial' houses in Connecticut villages are of this form, which was
followed throughout the eighteenth century and even later.

There was little more that increasing prosperity could do in the matter
of style and arrangement, except what may be taken as the last of the
stereotyped styles the sixth stage. In this, for additional warmth and
convenience, the house was built around two chimneys, one between the
front and backrooms on each sideband the hall ran straight through
the house. Perhaps the earliest example of this style is Oliver Ellsworth's
house, 'Elmwood, 7 built by his father, David Ellsworth, in 1740. The
hesitation in adopting the central hall, with its added graciousness, is
amusingly illustrated by the way the stairs in this house are hidden away
in a recess. This was a local peculiarity, as was in other localities the
' central hall ' that did not continue all the way back through the house.
Stereotyped forms of building were, like the characters of their builders,
rather unyielding in the old days.

From this time on, progress was in the general direction of greater
freedom in design and embellishment, and Colonial architecture was no
longer a direct and frank expression of the character and struggles of the
builders. When a medium is too easily mastered, when it becomes simply
the expression of individual taste, when mere facility supplants creative
effort, decadence sets in.

But it must not be thought that because these stereotyped forms
changed with difficulty they were the only forms the architectural lan-
guage permitted. From the very beginning there were exceptions, due
to the fact that aristocratic elements had come over with the English
settlers, elements that were to become alien in our essentially democratic
body politic, but which were predominant for a while because of their
greater cultural and social prominence. Such exceptions are the manor
houses of Haynes (built before 1646) and Wyllys (1636) in Hartford, and
the 'grate houses' of Eaton and Davenport and Allerton in New Haven.

Architecture 85

These houses were built around a central court, or in the form of a cross
or an ell; and Eaton's house had twenty-one rooms, with furnishings
comparable to those of a manor house in England. Representing as they
did a temporary phase of aristocratic leadership in a new country, rather
than the permanent democratic organization of our society, it was nat-
ural that these houses should have been the least permanent type in early
American architecture, a type of which scarcely a survivor remains.

In the Connecticut Colony, around Hartford, the adherence to the
' framed overhang' of Elizabethan England was most pronounced. In a
house with framed overhang, the second-story girts and walls of the front
are projected a short distance (commonly from eighteen to twenty-four
inches) beyond the ground-floor posts and walls, usually with a lesser
' overhang' at the sides, and none at all at the rear. The overhanging
second story is still found in Farmington and Windsor, with steep gables,
brackets, and carved pendants or drops reminiscent of English homes.
The type seems to have been characteristic only of the northern colony,
and of the earliest period. Six examples are all that remain today, the
best preserved specimen being the Whitman House (about 1660) at
Farmington. It is often repeated that the overhang was designed for de-
fense against the Indians, but both its geographical and its period limita-
tions indicate that it is an Elizabethan feature instead.

A Kentish and Sussex type of hewn overhang, rare in England, became
the most prevalent type in New Haven, and in a modified form was
widely used throughout Connecticut. It consisted in carrying out the
ground-floor corner posts into brackets, upon which the second story
projected a few inches. The same construction was frequently followed
in the gable ends whence the name 'gable overhang.' A house over-
hanging on both the second and third stories is said to have a double over-
hang; this modified type appeared until well after 1800.

Structurally, the seventeenth-century house was often framed in the
manner of English half-timber work of various types, but was covered
with clapboards or shingles. The roof, modeled on English lines and cov-
ered with either shingles or thatch, was pitched very steep to shed water.
As time went on, up to the middle of the nineteenth century, the roof be-
came progressively flatter. The earliest houses had the steepest roofs.
The gambrel roof, common in Rhode Island, is prevalent in the south-
eastern part and the Connecticut Valley, and in some western parts of
Connecticut. This type, of which the roof of Connecticut Hall (1752) on
the Yale campus is a notable example, was often adopted for brick houses.
No other roof is capable of such subtle grace and charm as the gambrel.

86 Connecticut : The General Background

Another type experimented with early in the eighteenth century was
the hip roof. At first, a single big chimney sticks up like a thumb in the
middle; later on, two chimneys flank a ridge-pole. This type is always an
interesting variation, but of awkward arrangement within.

Interior construction can be only briefly touched upon here, though it
is the interior upon which one must depend most in judging the age of a
house. In the seventeenth century, of course, construction was of the
most heavy and often primitive type. There was no attempt to disguise
the functional aspect, and little was added by way of interior embellish-
ment. Corner posts partly projected into the room, displaying a flare to-
ward the top to form a better support for the horizontal members which
were framed and pegged into them. Sometimes this flare grew evenly
from the base; sometimes it was carved out in 'knees.' Summer beams
and supporting joists carried the weight of floors above. These summer
beams were ordinarily parallel with the main line of the house; they were
beaded in the eastern towns, and chamfered in the Valley and western
parts of the State in which case the joists were likely to be beaded.
Chamfering or beveling reached its height in the accuracy and delicacy
of the 'lamb's tongue' scrolls and other 'stops' at the end of the bevel, in
the region around Guilford. In the earliest and crudest houses, the bevel
was irregular and sometimes ran into the side wall. The Deacon Moore
House (about 1660) in Windsor has the very unusual feature of cross-
summers, beautifully chamfered.

As the eighteenth century wore on, and especially as the trend in-
creased toward plastered and then papered walls, it became the tendency
to box in the posts and summers, and then to cover the frame entirely.
This, of course, often happened later to earlier work, as if its frankness of
construction were something to keep hidden. On the other hand, many
well-meaning amateurs uncover the ' beams ' of a ceiling in the mistaken
notion that the exposed frame was typical of all periods. The thin and
bare uncovered rafters of an early nineteenth-century house look even
more out of place than do the heavy corner posts and summers of two
centuries earlier clothed in a useless casing.

The misguided enthusiasm of a good many local historians is responsi-
ble for markers with seventeenth-century dates on houses whose light
construction betrays much later origin to anyone really acquainted with
early architecture. Seventeenth-century work, good or bad, is rare and
should always be treated with reverence. It was the most frank and fear-
less work of our ancestors.

The interior walls were practically always finished with wood in the

Architecture 87

earliest days. The boards used for this work were of two types beaded
and featheredge. They are found in a hard pine no longer grown on these
shores, in soft pine, whitewood, chestnut, or butternut. The earlier floors
were usually of oak; a few much later floors of maple are found in the
northwest section of the State. Paint, in the seventeenth century, was
unknown and unnecessary. There is no rarer or more beautiful sight than
a wall of unpainted featheredge (as in the Graves House in Madison),
which has softened and grown rich in patina through the years.

Featheredge is the board from which paneling developed. It always re-
mained in use in the hinder parts of the house. One edge of the board was
so beveled that it fitted like a tongue into the groove of the next board ;
at the top of the groove, a half-round or bead was inserted. This made
an interesting and varied wall surface, especially when the boards ran, as
they customarily did, horizontally on the two outer sides of the room and
vertically on the inner sides.

The typical ' raised panel ' or eighteenth-century paneling simply fitted
this edge into patterns. The first panels, appearing around 1690 to 1710,
were large and very regularly spaced. As time went on, the panel ar-
rangement of fireplace wall-ends was made more delicate and varied.
The study of eighteenth-century paneled fireplace walls is one of endless
fascination and variety, because with them artistic design entered home
building.

At the end of the eighteenth century, the beaded edge was elaborated
and the early bold contours of the paneling were flattened. Then the
raising of the panel dropped out entirely: it became a sunken instead of a
raised panel. In a general way, featheredge was characteristic of the
seventeenth century, raised panels of the eighteenth, and sunken panels
of the nineteenth. The Greek Revival period, though it had its new
graces of dignity and proportion, simplified doors and panels into a new
and self-conscious severity, and finally paneling went out of fashion.

Windows were a necessity, as well as a luxury and a point of embellish-
ment. In the seventeenth century, they were always of the casement
variety brought from England, with diamond-shaped panes set in lead.
They were characteristically narrow, and high under the eaves or girts,
with plain frames projecting from the house. They were sometimes ir-
regularly spaced, and set where convenient. An original casement is
occasionally found in some inside partition or tucked away in an attic
as in the Lee House at East Lyme and the Fiske-Wildman House at
Guilford. The typical eighteenth-century window was at first of six,
eight, nine, and finally of twelve panes of six- by eight-inch glass. These

88 Connecticut: The General Background

were held in muntins seven-eighths of an inch or more wide. Later these
muntins were narrowed, and the panes of glass used were larger. Even
the average * restored ' house of the eighteenth century usually has nine-
teenth-century windows. These can be identified because their muntins,
or subdivisions, are deep and narrow rather than wide and flat.

Paint was an innovation of the eighteenth century. The earliest color
known was an earthy ' Indian red. ' Then a gray-green in varying shades
began to be used, and later on a widening variety. Today we seldom have
any idea of how colorful and cheerful an eighteenth-century house was.
The colors were bright and frank and lively a ' break-away ' from the
rich gloom of aging unpainted panels. White was probably not much
used in this country before 1800. The outer walls, when painted at all,
were red or yellow or gray. Toward the end of the century, imported
wall papers came into use; the earliest known in New England is the
paper put on the side hall of the magnificent Lee Mansion at Marble-
head in 1768.

One feature of our architectural inheritance that is not sufficiently ap-
preciated is the contribution to town planning made by the Connecticut
'village Green.' While by no means confined to this State, it was here,
as nowhere else, almost the rule in small villages as well as large. Cows
were at one time given pasturage on the ' Commons ' or * Green ' belonging
to the whole community. The church, the school, and the principal homes
of the colonists, the stocks, the pound, and later the general store were
clustered about it. Many of these old Greens still exist today, practically
untouched as in Wolcott, Windham, and Woodstock, for example.
Where there was not a Green, there was a broad and definitely recognized
'four corners.'

As a general rule, it was the community centralized most definitely
around a Green that developed the strongest communal life. New
Haven Green, with its four churches, its college, and its municipal build-
ings, is the perfect example of one that has developed into a civic center,
from which radiate in orderly progression the main streets of the town.
The debt that modern city planning owes to the foresight of earlier genera-
tions in this respect is one that will be appreciated more and more as time
goes by.

Outstanding in the early community was the one public building as
important to the inhabitants as their own homes the church. This

CONNECTICUT S ARCHI
TECTURAL HERITAGE

NO EXAMPLE of the one-room, end-chimney house, which
was the earliest sort of permanent dwelling of the colonists,
now remains unaltered, but several have been incorporated
into buildings of later types. Such a one is the Hempstead
House at New London.

The second type consisted of two rooms, both upstairs and
down, with a central chimney. The Older Williams House,
Wethersfield (1680), is an example. A third type has the
added lean-to across the back, as in the Acadian House in
Guilford (c. 1670). From this developed the 'salt-box' which
is particularly characteristic of Connecticut. The Stone
House in Guilford, though one end of it is probably the earliest
construction in the State, is a direct descendant of the English
manor house, a type that was never a frequent visitor to our
shores.

In various communities, different methods of building re-
flected the parts of England from which the settlers came.
Around Hartford, the framed overhang with pendant drops
was a survival of mediaeval England. The hewn overhang was
more common farther south. The Whitman House (c. 1660),
Farmington, and the Hollister House (1675), Glastonbury,
illustrate these variations.

In the eighteenth century, public buildings began to assume a
greater importance. They form a closer link than houses do
with the contemporary architecture of England. The churches
are a chief part of Connecticut's architectural heritage,
and none among them has more of its original atmosphere
than old Trinity Church in Brooklyn (1771). At the end of
the century, gentlemen architects had begun to make a pro-
fession of what had previously been left to master builders.
The first to achieve a name in New England was Charles
Bulfinch of Boston, designer of the old State House in Hart-
ford (1796), as well as of the State House of Massachusetts.
In the nineteenth century, a wider range of architectural
forms were adapted to American use, among them the Gothic.
The old building of Linonian and Brothers Library at Yale
(1846), now remodeled for use as a chapel, was designed by
Henry Austin. In contrast with it is the modern Gothic of
the Harkness Quadrangle, one of the most ambitious Gothic
buildings in America.

WHITFIELD STONE HOUSE, GUILFORD

JUDGMENT ROOM, THOMAS LEE HOUSE, EAST LYME

ACADIAN HOUSE, GUILFORD

OLDER WILLIAMS HOUSE, WETHE.RSFIELD

' " i*

LYONS HOUSE, GREENWICH

GRAVE HOUSE, MADISON

FRAMED OVERHANG, WHITMAN HOUSE, FARMINGTON

HEWN OVERHANG, HOLLISTER HOUSE, GLASTONBURY

I
INTERIOR, TRINITY CHURCH, BROOKLYN

INTERIOR, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, OLD STATE HOUSE

GAMBREL ROOFS, PLAINFIELD

CROSBY TAVERN, THOMPSON

afe^MMic..

INTERIOR OF DWIGHT CHAPEL, YALE UNIVERSITY

LINONIA COURT, YALE UNIVERSITY

Architecture 89

was the center of social as well as of religious life. Although often not
erected until several years after a settlement had been founded, it was
the first public building, and the most important. The colonist made no
separation of Sundays and weekdays, of church and home. But the
church, once erected, did symbolize to him the one influence to which his
independence bowed.

The first church edifices were seldom more than large houses in appear-
ance. The earliest now standing in Connecticut, the disused meeting-
house of the Long Society of Preston (1726), still looks like a dwelling
house temporarily closed, though it does stand a bit incongruously among
gravestones. It was largely renovated in 1819, but the interior is
essentially that of an eighteenth-century meeting-house, with its entrance
in the middle of one long side, a high pulpit opposite, and box pews
around the sides and filling the central floor. The earliest churches after
this one Salem Town Hall (1749), Abington (1753), and Hampton
(1754) have been so modernized as to have little antiquarian value.
The brick Congregational Church (1761) of Wethersfield is still a noble
structure, reminding one of the old brick churches of Holland, and
preserving not only a rarely beautiful spire but the general outlines of its
period. Then follow three which were built in 1771 and which remain
the best examples we have of the eighteenth century the Congrega-
tional Church of Farmington, and the two old churches in Brooklyn.
The Farmington church, except for a later portico, is essentially un-
changed; as is Trinity, the towerless little Episcopal church in the grove
at Brooklyn. The Congregational Church at Brooklyn, now a community
center, has a handsome exterior, but there is little of interest within.
The old Stone Church (1774) of East Haven is another of which the same
can be said.

The tower, an embellishment attempted only by the State church, the
Congregational, was always offset during this period. It stood at one
end, practically a separate structure, and contained a subordinate portico,
repeated perhaps, but without the steeple, at the other end. With the
arrival of the classic influence about the turn of the century, the tower
began to be drawn into the nave (as in Bloomfield and Canterbury, each
1804), and finally was centered directly over the front facade of the main
building. Then a projecting portico, smaller than the facade, was often
built out in front, enclosing the tower and protruding beyond it. The
lines of the lower portico pediment repeat those of the front gable. The
two Congregational churches on the Green in New Haven exemplify
this. At the same time, the open and rather stiff tower of the earlier

Connecticut : The General Background

period began to come under the influence of English design. The books
of James Gibb and Sir Christopher Wren had come over (Peter Harrison,
who died in New Haven, left a considerable architectural library).
Towers now began to have octagonal as well as square stages, and to be
given a degree of embellishment never before seen in New England.
The golden age of church architecture here came not in the strictly
'Colonial' period, but in the years from 1810 to 1825. In this short
period most of the churches were built to which the traveler turns with
keenest interest. And in this connection, it is of note that the churches
of theocratic Connecticut surpass those of any other New England State.

Ithiel Town had designed Center Church (1812-14) at New Haven
largely from English plans. It is generally conceded to be drawn to some
extent from St. Martin's in the Fields, which again was influenced largely
by Wren's fifty-three London churches. Like most English-derived
churches, it combined an imposingly classical front and a handsome well-
organized interior with very weakly designed sides and rear end. The
United Church (1813-15) to the north of it, by David Hoadley, was more
American in conception, in fact a more consistent whole, with a more
graceful and spontaneous tower, but with a poor interior. Hoadley soon
became the popular church architect of Connecticut, and the most
potent influence of the period. Killing worth (1817), the two churches in
Avon (1817, 1818), the two churches in Woodbury (1814, 1819), and the
First Church of Milford (1823) all followed his style; and Avon and Mil-
ford were actually built by him. The First Church in Milford was taken
as the perfect flower of the period (as in many ways it is), and was copied
directly in Cheshire (1826), Southington (1828), and Litchfield (1829).
Very slight differences in detail can be noticed, each version being refined
to the last degree. The Litchfield structure, which was once used as a
motion-picture theater, may well be taken as the ultimate and most
worked-over masterpiece among our churches.

At first Roman and then earlier Greek elements began to hold sway,
and to be copied with more and more scholarly accuracy. Two of the
outstanding pure 'classical revival' churches remaining are Cornwall
(1841) and the Baptist church (1841), now converted to Catholicism,
in Old Lyme. But after a pedantic period, more and more freedom set
in a 'renaissance,' when classical forms were easily adapted in any
way that the imagination of the day might dictate. A counter impulse
came in when the Episcopal churches, conscious of their own Gothic
tradition, sought to adhere to that tradition. Trinity Church (1814-15),
on the New Haven Green, by Ithiel Town (perhaps assisted by Hoadley),

Architecture 91

was the earliest example of Gothic in Connecticut. Straightforward,
but still obviously an immigrant, the style is far more convincing within
than without. Lancet windows began to appear even in wooden buildings.
The Gothic influence can be traced in St. Peter's (1825) at Hebron, in
Kent (1826), in Riverton (1829), and in that little gem at Barkhamsted
Hollow (1816) which the Episcopalians shared with the Universalists,
and which now seems doomed to destruction by a water development.
A last flare of the Gothic spirit even invades the classical in the eclectic
tower of Bristol (1832). Both styles were to draw apart again, and after
a period of disuse to come to real fruition in a later day.

Ill

With the dawn of the nineteenth century, industry and trade were
thriving, and consequently houses tended to become larger and better
appointed. By 1820, for instance, the story-and-a-half cottage that had
been the typical home in many communities began to disappear, and
another type was taking its place the two-and-a-half -story house, with
a gable end to the road and a doorway in one corner. Among the wealthier
classes, the central-chimney house with the stairs in a tiny square hall
in front of the chimney was giving way to the central-hall type with a long
flight of stairs and two chimneys. The new measure of ease and refine-
ment found expression in a new delicacy of detail. 'Architecture,' based
now on definite Georgian precedents in England, and detail, influenced
by the over-delicate classic refinements of the Adam brothers, were now
the vogue.

During the early part of the nineteenth century, the professionally
trained architect became an established figure, and greatly influenced the
trend of building activity by the creation of such outstanding major build-
ings as the Old State House (1796) at Hartford, by Charles Bulfinch; Cen-
ter Church (1812-14), New Haven, by Ithiel Town; and the North Church
(1814-15) on New Haven Green, by David Hoadley. The work of these
men had its influence on many of the churches and houses built through-
out the State. 'Architecture ' had become established as such, and build-
ings were being 'designed' rather than developed from their immediate
environment under the competent hands of country craftsmen. Though
the work of the early nineteenth-century architects had gained over that
of the eighteenth and seventeenth centuries in the matter of studied
design and the scale and elegance of detail, a certain sophistication had

92 Connecticut: The General Background

taken the place of the naivete that charms one in the work of the earlier
builders.

That the outstanding excellence of early nineteenth-century architec-
ture was not logically carried on to the evolution of a distinctive type of
American architecture is one of the calamities in American cultural
development. The cause of the decline in architectural taste is a matter
that is open to debate. But a decline there was, which continued through
several decades, reaching its lowest level in the orgy of jigsawed and
turned woodwork of the sixties and seventies.

This decline, however, was gradual, for a style that made its appearance
about 1820 and was prominent until about 1850 had possibilities of being
a continuation of the architectural development so well begun. Known
as the * Greek Revival,' it drew its inspiration from the architecture of
classical antiquity. Its first manifestations were in the form of minor
details of Greek ornament used in buildings that, in mass and general
scale and detail, were purely Colonial i.e., in the tradition that was
current before the Revolution. An interesting example of its beginnings
is the Congregational Church at Guilford, built in 1829, a building which
in mass is traditional Colonial but which bears an imaginative adaptation
of the i Greek fret' ornament around the entrance doors and some Greek
decoration at the corners of one of the stages of the steeple.

As the movement progressed, the buildings and their details became
heavier and larger, and the refined delicacy that had characterized the
preceding Federal period largely disappeared. Moldings, columns, and
ornamental details were copied directly from Greek examples until,
when the period had reached its height, public buildings and even resi-
dences assumed the form of colonnaded Greek temples. In most cases,
however, the general plan and mass of the houses still retained their
earlier character, and the Greek influence was felt more in the type of
molding or the incorporation of a two-column entrance porch in the
Greek manner. So popular was this vogue that many owners of eight-
eenth-century houses had the old entrance motives replaced by new ones
of Greek design, thereby often injuring the original character of the house.
Outstanding examples of the Greek Revival in Connecticut are the row
of high colonnaded houses on Huntington Street in New London; the
Congregational Church (1838) at Madison; Plymouth Church (1834) at
Milford; the Westville Congregational Church (1838) at New Haven;
the Second Congregational Church at Derby; and a small house on the
north side of Route 80 in North Branford. While this style resulted in
many buildings of a certain architectural significance, it cannot be said

Architecture 93

to have been a progressive improvement on the character of the earlier
Colonial. It did not as truly express the functional requirements of
contemporary life, but was rather an affected adaptation of an architec-
ture that had reached its highest development in an entirely different
climate and civilization. It was not spontaneous it did not arise
directly out of human needs; and it left a weakened architectural impulse
that fell prey to the importation of one foreign ' influence ' after another.

One of the most interesting, yet also the most artificial and most
neglected today, of those importations was nineteenth -century Gothicism.
In Victorian England, the Georgian style had had its day; and English-
men, influenced by the writings of Ruskin, were trying to recapture the
spirit and splendor of their natural heritage, the Gothic of the Middle
Ages. As the Connecticut colonists had translated the stone forms of the
English Georgian into Yankee pine, so again Americans tried to adapt
Gothic forms to wood. The development of woodworking machinery,
particularly the bandsaw and jigsaw, made it an easy matter to torture
wooden boards into uncouth shapes. Throughout the land there sprang up
city halls, churches, and houses in the 'Gothic' manner. Houses were
built with high peaked gables ornamented with an elaborate system of
crockets, cusps, pointed arches, and balustrades all sawed from inch-
thick boards. The sum total was failure. The bandsaw could not translate
Gothic into wood. Here and there, however, arose a building whose real
picturesqueness of mass induced a feeling of repose and at the same time
a certain sense of gaiety. Perhaps the best example of this sort in the
State is the Archer Wheeler House, on Golden Hill Street, in Bridgeport.

The outstanding building of this period in Connecticut, and perhaps
in the country, is the State Capitol (1872) at Hartford, on its commanding
site in Bushnell Park. The composition of the main structure is well
studied, and forms, when viewed from a distance, a satisfying base for
the high gilded dome. The ornament and decoration, however, are mere-
tricious and meaningless, and miss the true character of Gothic enrich-
ment.

The old Library (1842) on the Yale Campus is a better example of
Gothic design. It copies faithfully, and with some relation to material
and purpose, an English church in the fifteenth century or 'Perpendicular '
style; and though its turrets and finials are excrescences little adapted to
our weather, it is a rare and impressive little building. One cannot but be'
glad that it has lately been transformed into an ecclesiastical edifice,
so that the full beauty of its interior proportions can be admired.

As American architects began to study abroad, other imported in-

94 Connecticut : The General Background

fluences were felt for example, the brownstone Romanesque, popular-
ized by Richardson (as in the Public Library and railroad station at New
London); and the classical renaissance of Italy, so often adopted by
McKim (as in the unusual railroad station in \Vaterbury, with its tower
copied from Siena). But these were impulses that usually died with
the architect who imported them. As increasingly large sums have been
made available for public buildings, architecture has become more and
more eclectic and international. Connecticut has had rather more than
its share of conspicuous examples of this later trend. Mention can be
made only of the newer buildings at Yale, in a freely translated English
university Gothic; the incomparable Gothic chapel at Trinity College;
and the highly original transcriptions of all the heavy and primitive
styles, in the scattered quadrangles of Avon Old Farms, combined in one
harmonious whole.

Questions may well be raised as to the future of any American ' style,'
based on so many elements. And yet it has become increasingly evident
that an indigenous 'Colonial' tradition survives through it all, particu-
larly with reference to domestic architecture. It is with the hope of help-
ing to establish true standards for the appreciation today of its earliest
forms that the houses noted in this Guide have been pointed out.

NOTES ON CONNECTICUT

ART

IF CONNECTICUT'S contribution to the fine arts is less substantial
than those of some other northern States, the ultimate reason is to be
found in the absence of a conspicuously good harbor along her coast, and
the consequent absence of a great metropolis wherein collectors might
gather and toward which artists would naturally gravitate. Even with
her comparative disadvantages, however, the State has given the world
some honorable names and much excellent work.

For the first century and a half the settlers were too busy wresting a
living from the soil to think much of the fine arts. During the eighteenth
century the usual itinerant portrait painters began to make their journeys
to and fro, and left their anonymous works to posterity, stilted and prim-
itive, yet none without a certain naif charm. As a counterpart to these,
wall decorators occasionally blossomed forth in an overmantel landscape
or figure piece, or perhaps inserted a small mural medallion in an over-all
wall decoration. As interest in old houses increases, more and more of
these little murals are being uncovered, and tradition frequently associates
them with Hessian soldiers. Their primitive, out-of-scale draftsmanship
often serves as an advantage rather than a drawback, and the farm-house
renovator who finds one beneath several layers of shabby wall paper
counts himself fortunate.

The first name of any distinction to be connected with Connecticut
is that of Ralph Earl. Though born in Massachusetts, in 1751, he painted
most of his portraits in Connecticut, and died there in 1801. Earl might
be described as a kind of countrified Copley. He preferred full-length
figures on large canvases; his ambition outran his proficiency, but his
designs are strong and his figures full of character. Occasionally one finds
a child in a portrait group that recalls the whimsical primitiveness which
a far-distant and far greater contemporary, Goya, chose to use in his
portraits of children.

During the Revolutionary War a disgruntled young ex-officer in the
American army lived in London and made copies of old masters in the

96 Connecticut : The General Background

studio of Benjamin West. This was John Trumbull, born in Lebanon,
Connecticut, in 1756, the youngest son of Jonathan Trumbull, governor
of the colony and subsequently of the State. John Trumbull also studied
in France, and upon his return to America, after the war was over, he had
become one of the most talented, as well as versatile, painters of his day.
As a portrait painter he was ranked second only to Stuart in his time, and
he produced a number of exquisite miniatures. He is seen at his best,
however, in the series of small studies for the rotunda in the Capitol at
Washington. These eight little canvases, now in the Yale Gallery of
Fine Arts, comprising chiefly battle scenes, are full of life, light, and
drama, and survive as one of the major treasures of early Republican art.
The four full-size panels which he was commissioned to do for the Capitol
are less successful; when painting on a large scale Trumbull was appar-
ently affected by a desire for grandiosity, and it is probable that he was
further hampered by defective eyesight.

Another portraitist of great ability was Samuel F. B. Morse (1791-
1872), associated with Connecticut by his years of study at Yale and the
large number of portraits he executed within the State. Morse was well
trained in France and England, and his best canvases leave little to be
desired. He had simplicity without emptiness, dexterity without virtu-
osity, style without mannerism, and the characters of his subjects fairly
leap from the canvas. When, during the middle forties, he sickened of the
smallness of his rewards and turned to electrical experimentation, applied
science took a great step forward, but American painting suffered an
irreparable loss.

A New Haven painter, Nathaniel Jocelyn (1796-1881), in his early
years gave considerable promise. His customary rather somber blacks
and reds, and his decorative use of the puffed sleeves and fantastic coif-
fures of the period, make his earlier portraits a welcome ornament to
many a chimney-breast. As his years increased, however, slickness and
facility grew on him, and he ended in a rather insipid Victorianism. His
pupils, Samuel Lovett Waldo (1783-1861), and Thomas Pritchard
Rossiter (1818-71), became two of the most fashionable and successful
portrait painters of their time. Rossiter in general loved bright color;
his work is less tight and smooth than that of many of his contemporaries,
but often shows carelessness. Waldo was the better of the two: his work
lacked subtlety "and the indefinable last touch that means greatness, but
his canvases are often astonishingly good. His name is usually mentioned
in connection with that of his partner, William Jewett, who is supposed
to have painted in his backgrounds and draperies. With Waldo and

Notes on Connecticut Art 97

Jocelyn the classic school of Connecticut portraiture if the foregoing
group deserves such a name ceases, and in subsequent work the great
hand of Manet hovers behind almost every brush.

The Hudson River School had few repercussions in Connecticut, but
the State contributed one of the most prominent members of the group,
John Frederick Kensett, who was born in Cheshire in 1818. Kensett was
a leading landscape painter of his day; he had studied and traveled
widely in Europe, but he neither lived nor painted considerably in Con-
necticut. The same may be said of Frederick Edwin Church (1826-1900)
of Hartford. Church belonged to the group of landscape painters includ-
ing Thomas Cole, his master, Bierstadt, and Moran, who went far afield
for their subjects and painted them large. They were the pictorial expo-
nents of ' manifest destiny,' and their vast canvases now mostly languish
in dark corners of art galleries, awaiting the revival of appreciation which
time will inevitably bring.

It remained for an obscure New Haven painter, George Henry Durrie
(1820-63), to emerge, after a long period of oblivion, as the first and best
interpreter of the Connecticut scene. Durrie was a pupil of Jocelyn and
his portraits resemble those of his master. His real field was landscape,
the hills and farms that he knew and loved. These he put on canvas with
a minuteness of detail probably inspired by Durand. In his best canvases
(his work is very uneven), and especially in his winter scenes, Durrie
was more than a recorder and became, in flashes, a poet very much
the sort of poet that wrote ' Snowbound.' One can fairly smell the wood
smoke in his frosty air, hear the creak of snow under the sledge runners,
the barking of distant dogs, and breathe the atmosphere of the old, snug,
cheery farm life of the early nineteenth century. Many of Durrie's paint-
ings were used as subjects for Currier and Ives prints, the most famous
of these being 'Home for Thanksgiving.' It is a pity that Durrie died in
early middle age, for in later life he might well have acquired, as did
Inness, the simplicity whose absence kept him from real greatness.

At this point one may digress to mention two engravers who stand at
the head of Connecticut's roster in this field. The first was Amos Doo-
little (1754-1832), who was born in Cheshire but lived in New Haven.
Unschooled as he was, he stands forth as the most interesting American
engraver of his time, and his four copper plates of 'The Battle of Lexing-
ton,' said to be made from designs by Ralph Earl, are highly prized by
collectors. So is his famous 'Display of the United States,' in which the
bust of Washington is surrounded by the coats of arms of the thirteen
States. John Warner Barber (1798-1885) of East Windsor conceived the

Connecticut : The General Background

idea of making a popular history which could also serve as a guidebook,
and illustrating it with copper plate engravings after drawings of his own.
In his horse and buggy he covered not only his own State, but almost the
entire country, and did more than any other man of his time to familiarize
Americans with the history and topography of their native land. His
engravings are simple to the verge of crudeness, but they are attractive
in their way.

The story of Connecticut sculpture began rather early, in the person of
Hezekiah Augur of New Haven (1791-1858). He was the son of a carpen-
ter, and in early life learned to carve in wood. Not content with chair-legs
and similar hack-work, which he did very acceptably, he turned to
marble, and without instruction or model produced a head of Apollo,
using a carving machine designed by Samuel F. B. Morse. His great work,
'Jephthah and his Daughter,' still displayed in the Yale Art School, is
sentimental and unsculptural, yet it is done with an irresistible gusto and
stands as a not unworthy monument to a man who persisted in aiming
high. Washington Allston paid this work the somewhat ambiguous com-
pliment of walking around it for half an hour without uttering a word.

Olin Levi Warner (1844-90) of Suffield, an artist noted for the vigor
and sensitiveness of his modeling, produced the statue of Governor
Buckingham in the Capitol at Hartford and that of William Lloyd
Garrison in Boston. George Edwin Bissell (1839-1920), born in New
Preston, took up sculpture when over thirty, and after some years of
study in Europe created a number of portrait figures and memorials not
only in his own State but in many others.

More distinguished than these was Paul Wayland Bartlett (1865-1925),
Born in New Haven but educated in France, he first exhibited in the
Salon at the age of 14. The greatest of his many works is the equestrian
statue of Lafayette which stands in the Court of the Louvre; a replica is
in Capitol Park in Hartford. He is also represented in the Library of
Congress, the National Capitol, and the pediment of the New York Stock
Exchange. His contemporary, Bela Lyon Pratt (1867-1917), born in
Norwich, studied at the Yale Art School, and under Saint-Gaudens, Cox,
and Chase in New York. His work is characterized by simplicity and a
deep but restrained feeling. [He is represented by figures outside the
Public Library in Boston, also in the Public Gardens and the State
House, as well as by several important memorials scattered through the
eastern States, but probably his most appealing works are the ' Spanish
War Soldier' at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, and his
'Nathan Hale' on the Yale Campus.

Notes on Connecticut Art 99

Among contemporary sculptors of note living in the State are Robert
G. Eberhard, Professor of Sculpture in the Yale School of Fine Arts,
Evelyn Longman Batchelder of Windsor, Henry Kreis of Essex, Heinz
Warneke of East Haddam, Karl Lang of Noroton, Lewis Gudebrod of
Meriden, and A. Phimister Proctor of Wilton.

The majority of the artists heretofore mentioned were natives of Con-
necticut who went forth to work and to make names for themselves
elsewhere. In the latter years of the nineteenth century this process was
largely reversed, and we find artists who had already won their spurs in
other parts settling in Connecticut, either singly or in groups, because it
was a delightful place to live and to paint and is not far from New York.

Among the first of those who became Connecticut artists by adoption
were the two sons of the Hudson River artist, Robert W. Weir. The
elder, John Ferguson Weir (1841-1926), after studying in New York and
Europe and painting * The Forging of the Shaft,' now in the Metropolitan
Museum, was in 1869 appointed dean of the recently created School of
Fine Arts at Yale, a position he filled until 1913. His reputation as a
painter, though overshadowed by that of his brother, is nevertheless high,
and his later canvases, thoroughly impressionistic, have much of the
light and air and color usually associated with Monet. J. Alden Weir
(1852-1919) owned farms in Windham and Branchville. A student of
Bastien-Lepage, he started out in the classical manner of nineteenth-
century French painting, but became increasingly impressionistic, or
'luministic.' His figure pieces, exceedingly restrained in color and low in
value, have a certain fine feeling and nobility which win more praise from
artists than from laymen, but his later landscape work is more airy and
probably more widely appreciated.

Late in the nineteenth century artists began to assemble in small
groups for summer residence in various favorable spots, and the era of
the 'art colony' began. The oldest was at Mystic, associated with the
names of Charles Harold Davis (1856-1933) and Henry Ranger (1858-
1916). Ranger was a popular landscapist during his lifetime, but his
work is now rated far below its true merit. Davis, who moved to Mystic
in 1890, devoted himself to the Connecticut scene more exclusively than
any other painter except George Durrie. It is interesting to compare
their styles, the one tight and realistic, the other full of light and air.

Prominent among the group at Old Lyme were Carleton Wiggins and

ioo Connecticut: The General Background

Eugene Higgins, who might not inappropriately be called the last of the
Romantics. Childe Hassam was also an intermittent resident at this
place. Similar aggregations of more recent origin have sprung up at
Kent, Westport, and Silvermine (in the town of Norwalk). All of these
hold annual exhibitions, in some cases in galleries built and operated by
the associated artists. These centers and other villages have attracted
to the State many of the most prominent artists of the present day, a full
list of which would be too long to include, and a partial list would involve
invidious distinctions.

Hartford, the second center of population in the State, has produced a
group of artists sometimes referred to as 'The Hartford School.' Two of
the first to attain national reputations were William Gedney Bunce
(1840-1916) and Dwight William Tryon (1849-1925). Both left the
State early in their careers, Bunce spending most of his time in Venice,
painting his highly subjective and beautifully colored sea-scapes. Tryon
did most of his painting near New Bedford. His work, like that of Ranger,
Davis, and others among his contemporaries, stands less high at present
than during his lifetime, but his accomplishment was genuine, and recog-
nition of it will not die out. Late in the century there was a good deal of
artistic activity in Hartford which centered around Charles Noel Flagg
and his Connecticut League of Art Students. Flagg came of a family of
artists whose members included Washington Allston, George Whiting
Flagg, Jared Flagg, and Montague Flagg; he was a friend of Tryon, with
whom he had studied abroad, and his League was run somewhat in
imitation of the Paris atelier. Among the most prominent of his pupils
were the sculptor Paul Wayland Bartlett, James Britton, Louis Orr the
etcher, Milton Avery, Albertus Jones, and James Goodwin McManus,
the last four of whom are still doing admirable work in their various
fields.

The State is fairly rich in public collections. The oldest is the Yale
Gallery of Fine Arts, which started in 1831 with the purchase by the
University of all John TrumbulPs works that still remained in his pos-
session. This constituted the first art gallery to be incorporated in an
American university. The most important subsequent accretion was the
purchase of an extraordinary group of 119 Italian primitive paintings
from John Jackson Jarvis in the seventies. The Wadsworth Atheneum
in Hartford, founded in 1844, with the subsequent additions of the Mor-
gan Memorial (1910) and the Avery Memorial (1934), forms an important
and rapidly increasing collection. In New London is the Lyman Allen
Museum and in Norwich the Slater Memorial Museum, the latter per-
haps unique in being incorporated with a public school.

Notes on Connecticut Art 101

Descriptions of these collections occur elsewhere in this volume. At
this point it may be relevant to remark that most of them pay but little
attention to the work of the artists who were born or flourished in their
vicinity. Botticelli's best works are in Florence, Rembrandt's in Holland,
Watteau's in Paris, Hogarth's in London, but one may look in vain for
Rangers and Davises and Hassams in Norwich or New London, or for
Kensetts and Tryons in Hartford. In some cases, indeed, the idea seems
to be to make a special effort to concentrate on foreign work. There is in
Hartford a small but articulate group of enthusiasts who are ardently
interested in contemporary European artists, and have given a fine
showing to such members of the post-Picasso group as Tchelitchev,
Berman, and Tonny. The best collections of Connecticut furniture, glass,
silver, and textiles are to be found in Hartford and New Haven.

The various historical societies also contain many important works
of art, and here more attention is paid to local talent. Chief among these
societies in size and scope are the New Haven Colony Historical Society,
the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford, and the Mattatuck
Historical Society in Waterbury, but many of the smaller ones also
possess works of interest and beauty. Among these, with no discrimina-
tion against many others, may be mentioned the Winchester Historical
Society at Winsted, which, housed in one of the loveliest of early nine-
teenth-century dwellings, contains a remarkably fine group of primitive
portraits.

All the four museums mentioned above foster educational work, either
as part of their activities or through organizations closely connected with
them. The Yale School of Fine Arts, founded in 1866, is the chief of these,
as it is the oldest. It has always been one of the leading art schools in
the country, but was particularly successful as a school of painting under
the guidance of Professor Edwin Cassius Taylor from 1923 till 1935. In
Hartford, the Hartford Art School, run in connection with the Avery
Memorial, has largely supplanted the older Connecticut League of Art
Students, and is conducted on rather modern principles. The Slater
Memorial conducts classes in connection with the Norwich Free Academy,
and the Lyman Allen Museum in connection with the adjacent Connecti-
cut College for Women.

An interesting development of recent years has been the employment
of artists by the Federal Government under the CWA, FERA, and WPA.
By virtue of this, many public institutions have been enriched by works
in all mediums by Connecticut artists, and the existence of the fine arts
has been brought home to a public previously all too little aware of it.

IO2 Connecticut: The General Background

There are numerous murals from this source in the schools and other
public buildings of Hartford, New Haven, and Fairfield County, with
a thinner scattering in other parts of the State. Among the best, are
decorations by James Daugherty in the Greenwich Town Hall, the
Stamford High School, and the Holmes School in Darien, and those by
John Steuart Curry in the Norwalk High School. One cannot bear to
leave this subject without mentioning also two fresco panels, ' Comedy '
and * Tragedy,' in the Bedford Junior High School in Westport, which
Curry was enabled to execute by private subscription in 1934. These
are a far cry from Trumbull and Morse, but if anyone needs to be con-
vinced that art is not yet dead in the State, let him look at them!

LITERATURE

EARLY Connecticut literature has been aptly described as a 'distin-
guished blank.' The rigors of survival against hostile Indians and hard
winters made the settlers an essentially practical people. Although the
New England colonists were of a superior intellectual class, including at
one time an Oxford graduate for every 250 persons, daily bread and the
salvation of the soul were of first importance. Men whose vigorous in-
tellects might have produced significant literature devoted their energies
to the struggle against political oppression and the fear of eternal dam-
nation.

The colonists were militant separatists who felt called upon to justify
before the world their self-imposed exile. Their ministerial leaders rose
ably to the occasion with consummate theological arguments, and in
their weekly sermons provided the chief intellectual and literary advan-
tages accessible to the frontiersmen. The discourses and numerous pub-
lished tracts of Thomas Hooker, John Davenport, and Henry Whitfield
of Connecticut were eagerly read, and played a significant part in guiding
public opinion.

In the pioneer days when books were luxuries, almanacs with their
varied collections of astronomical data, schedules of court decisions,
mileage between taverns, dates of local storms, and interesting predic-
tions, became a household institution. The first almanac with a Con-
necticut imprint was dated 1709 and written by Daniel Travis. As
Thomas Short, the first printer in New London, established his printing
press in the spring of 1709, it is probable that this almanac was printed
at the ' Sign of the Bible,' Cornhill, Boston. Short's press in New London
was the first in Connecticut, and, later sold to Timothy Green, remained
the only one for forty-five years. In 1716, Green sold in New London
an almanac calculated for the meridian of Boston, written by Daniel
Travis and printed by Bartholomew Green of Boston.

The first almanac by a Connecticut author printed in Connecticut, as
well as the earliest known to have been printed in the Colony, was
Joseph Moss's 'An Almanack ... to the Meridian of Yale/ printed by
G. Saltonstall and sold by Timothy Green. In 1753, Roger Sherman, a
signer of the Declaration of Independence, wrote an 'Astronomical

IO4 Connecticut: The General Background

Diary,' published by Timothy Green. Many of the early Connecticut
almanacs were reprints of Boston's famous 'Ames Almanack,' which was
first locally reprinted at New Haven in 1756. In 1761, a Yale ' College
Almanak ' was written ' By a Student.'

The * Connecticut Almanack ' was first compiled by Clark Elliot, pub-
lished in New London in 1767, and purchased in 1778 by Nehemiah
Strong of Hartford, one of the most prominent of Connecticut almanac
authors, whose initial 'Watson's Register' first appeared in 1775. Best
known, and celebrated for its almost continuous publication from 1772
to the present day is ' DabolPs Almanac,' first printed by Nathaniel Daboll
in New London in 1772 under the name of * Freebetter's New England
Almanack,' and known today as * The New England Almanac and Farmer's
Friend.' Another old almanac that is still published was originated in
1806 by Elisha Middlebrook of Fairfield and published by him until
1860. The 'Beckwith Almanac,' started at New Haven in 1848, and
peddled about Connecticut by its author, was published until 1933.

Diaries were among the earliest writings and have preserved in un-
affected simplicity detailed accounts of the manners and customs of the
colonists. Perhaps the best known Connecticut diary is the one written
by Ezra Stiles from 1769 through the period of his presidency of Yale
College. A diary kept by Joshua Hempstead (New London, 1711-58),
and one by Nathaniel W. Taylor recording his * Life on a Whaler, or an
Antarctic Adventure in the Isle of Desolation,' are preserved in the New
London Historical Society collection.

The Journal of William Wheeler (1762-1845), a student at Yale and
a resident of Black Rock, Fairfield, records an 'exact and impartial
account' of events in that old seaport town. This diary is included in
the recently published 'History of Black Rock,' by Cornelia Penfield
Lathrop. The Rev. Isaac Bachus of Norwich Town kept a diary from
1748 to 1806, which contains a wealth of information on local and national
events. A brief though interesting diary by Mason Fitch Cogswell of
Canterbury is devoted to a detailed account of his horseback trip across
Connecticut, from November 14 to December 19, 1788, in which he
carefully recorded the simple details of life in the homes he visited.

The diary (1797-1803) of Julia Cowles of Farmington, now in print,
is an appealing document which vividly presents many phases of the
social life of her times, in the record of her girlhood, her reactions to the
wickedness of 'modern' life, the tender details of the courting of John
Treadwell, son of Governor Treadwell, and of her engagement to him.
Despite her lover's pleading, she delayed their marriage because of her
failing health, and died while still a young woman.

Literature 1 05

Roger Wolcott of Windsor (1679-1767), State governor and military
leader, found time to write 'Poetical Meditations: Being the Improve-
ment of Some Vacant Hours,' in which his Calvinistic vision saw 'Hell's
flashes folding through eternitie.' This was the first book of verse
published in Connecticut. And, before the Revolution, there was at
least one writer of commanding ability in America, a native of South
Windsor Jonathan Edwards (1703-58). Mystic, metaphysician, and
logician, his vivid imagination pictured Hell's torments and the eternally
erupting mountains of fire and brimstone, to the prostration of multitudes
at the time of the ' Great Awakening.' The very title of his most famous
works breathes contempt on the ungodly and looser thinkers: 'A Careful
and Strict Enquiry into the Modern Prevailing Notions of that Freedom
of Will which is Supposed to be Essential to Moral Agency, Virtue and
Vice, Reward and Punishment, Praise and Blame' (1754). For the next
hundred years, Connecticut's orthodoxy was noteworthy.

When independence had been won, but divergent doctrines threatened
anarchy, a group of distinguished Yale graduates formed a literary
society to combat the lawless influences with political satire. This first
recognized literary group in the State became celebrated as 'The Hartford
Wits,' and included a college president, several foreign ministers and
ambassadors, and a judge of the Connecticut Supreme Court. Richard
Alsop, Joel Barlow, Timothy Dwight, and the brilliant John Trumbull,
who passed the entrance examinations to Yale at the age of seven and
entered college five years later, were among the leaders of the group,
which also included Lemuel Hopkins, Theodore Dwight, and Col. David
Humphrey, aide-de-camp to Washington and author of the earliest
biography of Israel Putnam. Jointly they published 'The Anarchiad'
(1786), 'The Political Greenhouse' (1799), and 'The Echo' (1807).
Joel Barlow, perhaps the group's most distinguished and versatile member,
wrote two widely read poems: 'Hasty Pudding,' a realistic portrayal of
New England home life; and a ponderous epic, 'The Columbiad,' in
which Hesper unfolds to Columbus a retrospective view of the conquest
of Mexico, the settlement of North America, and a vision of the future
supremacy of America. This latter work, heavy with Latin derivatives,
makes laborious reading today, but it was enthusiastically received by
the colonists, who even named their coast defense guns 'Columbiad.'
John Trumbull's mock-epic, 'M'Fingal,' a Hudibrastic attack on the
Tories, ran through thirty editions and earned for Trumbull the title of
'Father of American Burlesque.' Timothy Dwight, president of Yale
College for twenty-two years, was the author of a poem of epic propor-

io6 Connecticut: The General Background

tions, 'The Conquest of Canaan,' dealing with the narrative of Joshua's
wars, in which Revolutionary heroes were compared with Biblical
characters. His shorter poem, ' Greenfield Hill,' is a delightful description
of the Connecticut village with which he was associated for many years.
Dr. Elihu H. Smith, physician of Wethersfield and another active
member of 'The Hartford Wits,' was the first Connecticut poet to publish
a volume of collected verse 'American Poems, Original and Selected.'
Thus, for a few years at the close of the eighteenth century, before the
days of the New York and Boston groups, Connecticut could boast of
the first literary circle in the new nation. This is the only time in its
history when Connecticut can be said to have possessed a literature of
its own.

In those days there lived in Connecticut a redoubtable man of letters
whose influence was of the most enduring and widespread sort. In the
years between the Declaration of Independence and the framing of the
Constitution, Noah Webster (1758-1843) brought forth his blue-bound
'American Spelling Book.' Passing through various degrees of spelling
reform and Yankee individualism, it appeared throughout a century in
unnumbered editions. The success of Webster's first dictionary, pub-
lished in 1806, led to the compiling of his masterly 'American Dictionary
of the English Language* (1828). On this foundation our speech, with
the exception of Harvard English and its rival Worcester's Dictionary
(1846), has rested.

There was something redoubtable, also, about a Ridgefield minister's
son, Samuel Griswold Goodrich (1793-1860), who just before his death
declared himself the author of 170 volumes, 1 16 of them written under the
pseudonym of 'Peter Parley.' Inspired by Hannah More, Goodrich
purveyed an endless stream of edifying sugar-coated instruction to the
young. For him, the shy and fastidious young Nathaniel Hawthorne
wrote 'Peter Parley's Universal History' (1837), which sold a million
copies, and edited the 'American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining
Knowledge'; while in his giftbook annual, 'The Token,' many of Haw-
thorne's earliest stories appeared.

Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790-1867) of Guilford joined the early New
York school of writers, and was co-author with James Rodman Drake
of the satiric 'Croaker & Co.' verses. Like many of his contemporaries,
he was an imitator of Scott, Byron, and Campbell; his 'Marco Bozzaris'
is a spirited Byronesque depiction of the Greek struggle for freedom
against the Turks.

One of Noah Webster's assistants was a young botanist-chemist-

Literature 107

geologist-poet, whose knowledge of ten languages made him a valuable
helper in revising and proof-reading the orthographer's magnum opus.
Suffering from a persecution complex, James Gates Percival (1795-1856)
turned in his versatility from science to poetry and then back again. He
was State Geologist of Wisconsin at the time of his death. The sensitive
and delicate beauty of his verse missed fame by a narrow margin.

Jared Sparks (1789-1866) of Willington lived to become president of
Harvard and to be called the 'American Plutarch.' The country owes
him a great debt for his preservation of important documents and letters
of Revolutionary times and leaders. His 'Life and Times of George
Washington/ bowdlerized but honest, and 'American Biographies' are
full of valuable source material. John Fiske (1842-1901), born in Middle-
town, was a later distinguished Harvard man and eminent historian.

The father of the ' Little Women ' was born in Connecticut and began
his career as a Yankee peddler and country school teacher. Amos
Bronson Alcott (1799-1888) of Wolcott astounded the citizens of Chesh-
ire by his advanced educational methods, the beginning of his greatest
contribution to American life and thought. His close association with
Concord, Massachusetts, has obscured the fact that the formative years
of this ' tedious archangel ' were passed in this State.

Several minor poets of Connecticut became more or less prominent in
the half century which closed with the Civil War period. John Pierpont
(1785-1866) published 'Airs of Palestine,' later visiting the country
which his muse had celebrated; he also wrote a number of ardent anti-
slavery poems. James Hillhouse (1789-1841) of New Haven was the
author of several long Biblical poems and dramas. John G. C. Brainard
(1796-1828), born in New London, edited the Connecticut Union in
Hartford and wrote of the native scene timidly perhaps, but at times
authentically. Henry Howard Brownell's 'Bay Fight,' a stirring de-
scription of the battle of Mobile Bay, fired the popular imagination in
Civil War times. Brownell (1820-1872), whose war poetry has been
collected in a volume called 'Lines of Battle,' was born in Providence,
R.I., but spent the greater part of his life in East Hartford. Other poets
were known for one or two nationally popular verses. Emma Hart Wil-
lard of Berlin (1787-1870), writer of school-books, is remembered for
'Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep.' 'Marching Through Georgia' and
that theme song of the temperance movement 'Father, Dear Father,
Come Home With Me Now, the Clock in the Steeple Strikes Twelve/
both came from the pen of the talented composer Henry Clay Work.

Most portentous, summing up a whole school of feeling in her obit-

io8 Connecticut: The General Background

uaries and elegiac verses was Lydia Huntley Sigourney (1791-1865),
'The Sweet Singer of Hartford.' Writing for a sympathetic, even enthu-
siastic audience, she produced fifty-nine volumes of lachrymose verbosity.
The works of this 'American Mrs. Hemans' are now literary curiosities
that serve as an excellent index to the taste of a generation to which
a cloying sentimentality was endearing and which reveled in polite
periphrasis.

Late in the nineteenth century, Mrs. Sigourney found a successor to
her popularity in Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1855-1919), who lived for twenty
years in a cottage at Short Beach. But sentiment had undergone a start-
ling reversal, and Mrs. Wilcox's philosophy was more cheerful, as ex-
pressed in her notable lines, 'Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep,
and you weep alone.' It was also more pungent and Outspoken, witness
her best-known title, 'Poems of Passion.' The twentieth century was now
imminent.

Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833-1908) was born in Hartford, and
after leaving college entered the newspaper field, owning and editing
at different times the Norwich Tribune and the Mountain County Herald
of Winsted. Then, while still a young man, he left the State, later be-
coming nationally known as poet, critic, and editor.

Although Lyman Beecher (1775-1863), of New Haven and Litchfield,
achieved some fame as a clergyman and writer, at least two of his thirteen
children were far more distinguished. These two were Henry Ward
Beecher (1813-87) and Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-96). Both were
born at Litchfield, and both left the State with their family at an early age.
After the publication of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' in 1852, Mrs. Stowe came
to Hartford, where she had attended school as a girl; and here she built
a large home which, along with a later and more permanent residence in
Florida, she occupied at intervals until her death. In 'Poganuc People'
she has described her early childhood in Connecticut; while the New
England scene and character in general are sympathetically portrayed
in such other of her later books as ' The Minister's Wooing ' and ' Old town
People.'

Close in spirit to these later books by Mrs. Stowe, as well as to the
writings of Mary E. Wilkins and Sarah Orne Jewett, are the New England
stories of Rose Terry Cooke (1827-92), of West Hartford. These appeared
in The Atlantic Monthly for many years, beginning in 1861. Miss Cooke
also wrote some poetry of distinction.

The novels, poems, and narratives of outdoor life written by Theodore
Winthrop (1828-61) were once popular but are now little read. His

Literature 109

western novel, 'John Brent,' anticipated the frontier fiction of Bret
Harte. Winthrop was born in New Haven, and studied at Yale. After
more than a decade of wanderings outside the State, he was killed at the
battle of Great Bethel, early in the Civil War.

More enduring has been the reputation of Donald G. Mitchell (1822-
1908), who under the pen-name of 'Ik Marvel' wrote those delicate
fantasies, 'The Reveries of a Bachelor' and 'Dream Life,' as well as a
number of other books. Mitchell's later years were spent in Virgilian
retirement on his estate near New Haven, commemorated in 'My Farm
at Edgewood.'

The most lovable as well as the most popular figure in Connecticut's
literary annals is Samuel L. Clemens (1835-1910), known the world
over as Mark Twain. After wandering through the middle and far West
and spending a year abroad, Clemens settled down in Hartford soon
after his marriage in 1870, and during his thirty years' residence here
he wrote most of the books upon which his fame chiefly rests, including
'Tom Sawyer' and ' Huckleberry Finn.' A number of these books were
originally issued by a Hartford house, the American Publishing Company,
which also published (in 1900) the first collected edition of his works.

Soon after coming to Hartford, Clemens collaborated with his friend
and neighbor, Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900), in his only piece of
contemporary fiction, 'The Gilded Age.' Warner, a brilliant editor and
writer, is best remembered for the leisurely charm and keen understanding
of human nature embodied in such books as 'Backlog Studies,' 'My
Summer in a Garden,' and 'Being a Boy.'

Among the later writers of Connecticut, a prominent place belongs to
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935), poet, sociologist, and ardent
champion of a freer and fuller destiny for women: Mrs. Gilman was born
in Hartford, and lived for many years in Norwichtown. Although best
known, perhaps, as the biographer of Mark Twain and authorized editor
of the latter's posthumous publications, Albert Bigelow Paine (1861-
1937) of West Redding wrote a number of stories and sketches char-
acterized by a quiet humor somewhat akin to that in much of Mark
Twain's work. Arthur Colton (b. 1868) of Washington is the author of
'The Belted Seas' and 'The Delectable Mountains.' The versatile talents
of Lee Wilson Dodd (1879-1933) were chiefly exercised in the fields of
fiction and the drama, though he was also an accomplished critic, lecturer,
and teacher. Anna Hempstead Branch (1875-1937), whose family dated
back to earliest days in New London, is known to poetry lovers through
'The Shoes That Danced' and other books of verse. Odell Shepard, of

no Connecticut: The General Background

Trinity College, has written ' The Harvest of a Quiet Eye ' (descriptive of
a walking trip in the northern part of Connecticut) , two or three volumes
of poetry and essays, and a recently published biography of Bronson
Alcott.

The influence of Yale University has been notably reflected in American
literature since the early nineteenth century. Yale's list of alumni in-
cludes many of the country's best known writers, from James Fenimore
Cooper to Stephen Vincent Benet, Thornton Wilder, and Sinclair
Lewis; and numerous members of its faculty have made important con-
tributions to literature and literary scholarship. Prominent among this
latter group in recent years have been Wilbur L. Cross (now governor of
Connecticut), author of definitive biographies of Henry Fielding and
Laurence Sterne; and William Lyon Phelps, whose published volumes
are chiefly popular criticism of modern poetry, fiction and drama. The
Yale Literary Magazine, edited by undergraduates of the university, dates
from 1836 and is now the oldest surviving monthly in this country. The
Yale Review, which has appeared under its present name since 1892 and
under the editorship of Wilbur L. Cross since 1911, is one of the world's
most distinguished quarterlies. Finally, in this general connection, a
word must be said about the Yale University Press, which has won an
enviable reputation in the American publishing field for combining
scholarly content with distinguished mechanical form in its output.

Connecticut has provided the setting or background for numerous
books of fiction, among them (to mention only a few relatively recent
examples) Sinclair Lewis's 'Work of Art/ Edna Ferber's 'American
Beauty,' Lee Wilson Dodd's 'The Book of Susan,' J. G. Cozzens's 'The
Last Adam,' and Wayland Williams's 'Family.'

CONNECTICUT FIRSTS

1636 First American naval battle (of a sort) is fought off New London.

1639 First constitutional document to set forth the principle that 'the founda-
tion of authority is in the free consent of the people ' the so-called
Fundamental Orders of Connecticut is adopted at Hartford.

1640 First American public election in defiance of the Royal Courts is held at
Wethersfield.

1647 First concession or license for off-shore whaling is issued at Hartford.
1662 First American ship in West India trade is 'The Tryall' of Wethersfield.
1670 First survey is made for first turnpike to be completed in America from
Norwich to New London.

1680 First American carding mill is established at Wethersfield.

1724 First American portable house is brought to Windsor from Plymouth.

1727 First copper coins in America are minted by Samuel Higley, a blacksmith

of Simsbury. Higley 's coins were marked: 'I am good copper. Value me

as you will.'

1 738 First theological seminary in America is organized by Rev. Joseph Bellamy
at Bethlehem.

1740 First American tinware is manufactured by Edward Pattison and his
brother in Berlin.

1744 First half-ton of American-made steel is produced by Samuel Higley of

Simsbury.

1750 First American hat factory is established at Wethersfield.
1765 First oil mill in New England is built at Leesville.

1769 First type foundry in America is established at New Haven by Abel
Buell.

1774 First 'declaration of freedom' from British Crown is adopted by town of
Mansfield 21 months before adoption of the Declaration of Independ-
ence.

1775 First American warship, the 'Oliver Cromwell,' 16 guns, is built at Essex.
First Federal prison is established at East Granby.

First pins manufactured in America under bounty are made by Leonard
Chester at Wethersfield.

First submarine torpedo boat ever used in naval warfare is invented by
Daniel Bushnell of Westbrook; its first action was against the British
flagship 'Eagle' in New York Harbor, Sept. 6, 1776.

1779 First British prize, the sloop 'Hero,' is captured by the Wethersfield
sloop 'Enterprise.'

1780 First fur hat factory in America is conducted by Zadock Benedict of
Danbury.

112 Connecticut: The General Background

1782 First law school in America is organized at Litchfield by Judge Tapping
Reeve.

1783 First map of the United States engraved in America is produced by Abel
Buell in New Haven.

1785 First reports of law cases to be printed in America compiled by Colonel

Ephraim Kirby of Litchneld, include the years 1785-88.
1787 First American boat propelled by steam, using paddle-wheels, oars, and

screws, is perfected by John Fitch of South Windsor.
1789 First American juvenile publication, 'The Children's Magazine/ is

published in Hartford.
1794 First cotton gin is patented by Eli Whitney, a native of Connecticut, and

later first manufactured in New Haven.
1796 First American cook book, written by Amelia Simmons, is published in

Hartford (republished 1937).
1799 First United States government contract for pistols is awarded to Simeon

North of Middletown.

1801 First American cigars, known as 'long nines,' are made by Mrs. Prout of
South Windsor.

1802 First commercial ivory combs are made by Julius Pratt of Essex.

First merino sheep in America are imported by Gen. David Humphreys

of Derby.

First packaged garden seeds to be sold in America are marketed by the

Enfield Shaker Colony.

First standardized interchangeable clock movements are produced by

Eli Terry at Plymouth (Todd Hollow).

1803 First tax-supported town library in America is organized at Salisbury.
1806 First American patent for welding iron to steel is taken out by Daniel

Pettibone of Roxbury.

First factory town in America is established by Gen. David Humphreys

at Seymour.

1809 First United States patent to a woman is issued to Mary Kies of South
Killingly for a silk-and-straw weaving machine.

1810 First double-twist augers are made by Walter French of Seymour.
First 'lookout' tower for public use in the United States is built on Talcott
Mountain by Dan Wadsworth.

First pineapple cheese is made and patented by Lewis N. Norton of
Goshen.

1812 First use of steam power for manufacturing is made in plant of Middle-
town Woolen Manufacturing Company.

1813 First adoption of standardized production methods is made by Simeon
North at his arms factory in Middletown.

First American-made steel fish hooks are produced by Eb Jenks of Cole-
brook.

First manufacturers' agreement to limit prices and regulate trade practices
is made by tin manufacturers of Meriden 120 years before the N.R.A.
(National Recovery Act).

First patent for 'elastic steel-wire teeth for cotton and wool carding' is
granted to Eb Jenks of Colebrook.

Connecticut Firsts 113

1814 First 'shelf clock' is patented by Eli Terry of Thomaston.

1816 First fanning mill for separating chaff from grain is patented by Benjamin
D. Beecher of Cheshire.

1817 First American school for education of the deaf is founded at Hartford.

1818 First 'knocked-down' furniture is produced by Lambert H. Hitchcock of
Riverton, who shipped his famous chairs, etc., in separate parts, to be
assembled after delivery.

First successful American milling machine is invented by Eli Whitney,
for use in his New Haven gun shops.

1819 First silk thread wound from the cocoon by water-power is produced at
Mansfield.

1820 First American plows are manufactured at Wethersfield.

1822 First machine for sawing ivory is invented by John B. Collins of Hartford,
and used by the Cheney family at Ivoryton.

1824 First American industrial school is established at Derby by Josiah Hoi-
brook and the Reverend Truman Coe.

1826 First axes commercially manufactured in America are made by the Collins
Company of Collinsville.

1828 First American carpet mill is established at Thompsonville.

1829 First double reflecting tin baker is invented by Isaac Dobson of Farming-
ton.

First Fourdrinier paper-making machine in America is produced by
Phelps & Stafford of Windham.

1830 First American hoopskirts are made at Derby.

First scroll lathe chuck in America is patented by Simon Fairman of
West Stafford.

1831 First discovery of laws of cyclonic storms is made by William Redfield of
Cromwell.

First drawn-brass pipe and wire in America are made by Israel Holmes of

Waterbury.

First English brass workers are imported by Naugatuck Valley employers

and landed in wooden casks from a ship anchored off the coast.

1832 First machine producing pins in one operation is invented by Thomas
Ireland Howe of Derby.

1833 First American coffee mill is patented by Amini Clark of Meriden.
First engine lathe in America is built by Aaron Kilbourn of New Haven
and Killingworth.

1834 First friction matches in America are made at Coe Town (now Beacon
Falls) by Thomas Sanford, who later sold his formula for $10.

First spun-brass kettles in America are made by Israel Coe of Wolcott-
ville (now Torrington).

1835 First 'German silver' spoons in America are made by Robert Wallace of
Wallingford.

1836 First American tacks are made in Derby.

First hook and eye fasteners are made by Israel Holmes of Waterbury.
First safety fuse for blasting is made by Ensign Bickford of Granby.

114 Connecticut: The General Background

1837 First American paper made of straw is produced by Smith and Bassett of
Seymour.

1839 First successful process for vulcanizing rubber is discovered by Charles
Goodyear of Naugatuck.

1840 First American shaving soap is made by J. B. Williams of Glastonbury.
First silver-plated spoons in America are made by W. B. Cowles of
1 Spoonville,' East Granby.

First machine for threading bolts is invented by Barnes and Rugg of
Marion (town of Southington).

1844 First use of nitrous oxide gas as an anesthetic is made by Dr. Horace
Wells of Hartford.

1845 First pocket cutlery is produced in this country by Holley Manufacturing
Company of Salisbury.

First sewing machine is invented by Elias Howe of New Hartford.

1846 First American table cutlery is manufactured by the Meriden Cutlery
Company.

1847 First collegiate agricultural experiment station in America is established
by Yale University.

1848 First cylinder lock is invented by Linus Yale of Stamford.

1849 First spool- wound silk thread is produced by Gen. Merritt Heminway of
Watertown (silk was previously sold in skeins).

1850 First American 'derby' hat is made at South Norwalk by James Knapp.

1852 First American machine for making wood type is perfected by Edwin
Allen of South Windham.

1853 First American trade association, the American Brass Association, is
formed by Naugatuck Valley manufacturers.

1854 First spool-wound linen thread in America is made by Willimantic
Linen Company.

1856 First commercially successful condensed milk is produced by Gail Borden
in Torrington.

1858 First air-tight fruit jar with spring-fastened glass top is patented by
W. W. Lyman of Meriden.

First successful stone crusher is invented by Eli Whitney Blake, revolu-
tionizing road-building.
First burners for kerosene oil are manufactured at Meriden.

1860 First American sailing ship to beat the 'Flying Cloud's' record on the
New York-San Francisco run is built at Mystic. This ship was the
'Andrew Jackson,' a modified clipper, which made the run in 89 days and
4 hours.

1861 First American degree of Doctor of Philosophy is conferred by Yale
University.

First camp for boys in America, the Gunn Camp, is organized at Wash-
ington.

1862 First corrugated spring for railway cars is invented by Carlos French of
Seymour.

First wheeled horse-rake with lever is patented by Daley and Treat of
Morris.

Connecticut Firsts 115

1863 First American accident insurance is issued to James Bolter of Hartford.
First Civil War monument is erected in Berlin (Kensington Village).

1864 First Fine Arts Department in an American university is opened at Yale.

1866 First American boiler insurance is written in Hartford.

First commercial center-fire cartridge is developed by Union Metallic
Cartridge Company at Bridgeport.

First 'horseless carriage,' steam propelled, is made by Alonzo House of
Bridgeport.

First machine-made horseshoe nail is produced at Seymour, under patent
of Thaddeus Fowler.

First wire-cutting machine and automatic straightener for pins (revolu-
tionizing the pin-making industry) are invented by John Adt of Torring-
ton.

1867 First American-made button hooks are manufactured by Mark Louns-
bury and Peter Gabriel in Seymour.

1870 First all-metal woodcutting plane is produced at the Stanley Works in
New Britain.

1876 First automatic turret lathe for cutting screws is made by Christopher
M. Spencer of Hartford.

First permanent polish for copper is patented by Thomas James of New
Haven.

1877 First bicycle factory in America is established at Hartford.

1878 First commercial telephone switchboard is installed at New Haven.
1880 First American hail insurance is written March 24 by Tobacco Growers

Mutual Insurance Company of North Canaan.

First American-made mohair plush is produced at Seymour by John H.

Tingue.

1884 First American braided silk fish-lines are made by Elisha J. Martin of
Rockville.

1885 First standard measuring machine, accurate to one-hundred-thousandth
of an inch, is perfected by Pratt & Whitney Company of Hartford.

1886 First American telescopic steel fishing rod is invented by Everett Horton,
a Bristol mechanic, whose purpose was to develop a rod that could be
hidden under his coat when he went fishing on the Sabbath.

1888 First electric trolley car in New England makes its first run in Derby.
1891 First American trading stamps are introduced by Sperry and Hutchinson
of Bridgeport.

1894 First even-keel submarine is developed by Simon Lake of Milford.
First machine for dipping wooden matches is invented by Ebenezer
Beecher of New Haven.

1895 First mechanical player-piano is produced by H. K. Wilcox in Meriden.

1898 First American automobile insurance is written in Hartford.

1899 First 'tackling dummy' for football practice is devised by Amos Alonzo
Stagg at Yale University.

1901 First American automobile legislation ('speed limit, 12 miles per hour,
8 miles per hour in city ') is enacted at Hartford.

First non-sinkable lifeboat is invented and built by the Holmes Ship-
building Company on Mystic River.

1 1 6 Connecticut : The General Background

1909 First successful gun 'silencer' is invented by Hiram Percy Maxim of
Hartford.

1910 First steel golf-club shafts in America are made at Bristol.

1912 First use of Diesel engine for submarines is made by New London Ship
and Engine Company of Groton.

1920 First acidophilus milk is produced at Fairlea Farms in Orange.

1923 First mercury turbine is operated by the Hartford Electric Light Com-
pany.

1936 First accurate aerial map of any State is made of Connecticut 13 X 18
feet in size, portraying an area of 5004 square miles.

II. MAIN STREET AND
' VILLAGE GREEN

All Historic Houses mentioned as Points of Interest in the City
Tours which follow are private unless otherwise specified.

BRIDGEPORT

City: Alt. 20, pop. 146,716, sett. 1639, incorp. 1836.

Railroad Stations: N.Y., N.H. & H. R.R., cor. Fairfield Ave. (US 1) and Water St.

Airports: Bridgeport Airport, Main St., Stratford, 5 miles east from center of

Bridgeport on US 1; 30 min. by motor car. Fare by taxi, $1.50.

Taxis: 30^ first mile; 10^ each additional third.

Piers: Ferries to Port Jefferson, L.I., 75^ one way, and steamer to New York,

$1.00 weekdays and $1.50 Sundays and holidays (May 30 to Labor Day),

Stratford Ave. Wharf, Water St.

Accommodations: Two hotels in central area.

Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, 2d floor; Connecticut Motor Club,
Stratfield Hotel, Main St.; Travellers' Aid, R.R. Station.

Swimming: Municipal Pool, Pleasure Beach Park, fee 10^ weekdays, 20f Sun-
days and holidays. Public beach at Seaside Park.

Amusement Parks: Pleasure Beach, foot of Sea view Ave.; bathing beach, pool
and dance hall; concessions.

BRIDGEPORT spreads over flat country at the mouth of the Pe-
quonnock River on Long Island Sound. The great concentration of
industry within a comparatively few years has given the city an ap-
pearance of having grown 'without a plan or in spite of one.'

The railroad, elevated on an embankment faced with Roxbury granite,
crosses the city, skirting the section where huge manufacturing plants,
covering acre after acre, produce munitions and tools, automatic ma-
chinery and equipment essential to factories and homes throughout the
country. West from the old-fashioned railroad station is the cramped
and congested shopping center ; but in the outskirts, landscaped residential
sections, more than one thousand acres of public parks, and a shore
drive of about three miles offer compensations in unusually beautiful
vistas of woodland and sea. Many of the streets are lined with stately
elms; obsolete trolley tracks in the center of the principal arteries of
traffic have been replaced by strips of green lawn that furnish a touch of
color and serve as safety zones.

Many races are represented in Bridgeport, a number of whom
retain their native customs and religions. Only twenty-five per cent of
the population is of full native parentage. Among the heterogeneous
foreign group are Italians, Czechs, Hungarians, and Poles, numerically
important in the order named.

Although six hundred Pequonnock Indians once lived on a reservation
on Golden Hill, in the heart of the city, little of the past is evident in
Bridgeport. The Indians bartered most of their land for '30 bushels of
Indian corn and 3 pounds worth of blankets,' and in 1842 their remain-

120 Main Street and Village Green

ing eight acres were sold to pay accrued taxes and purchase quarters
for them in Trumbull, where their descendants, 'Rising Star' and * George
Sherman/ live on one acre of land.

The community was first settled in 1639 by residents of the older settle-
ments of Fairfield and Stratford, and was known as Newfield, later as
Stratfield, until 1800, when the area was extended by the General
Assembly and the borough of Bridgeport was incorporated and named
for the first drawbridge erected over the Pequonnock River. In 1821,
it was incorporated as a town and by 1836 had become a city. Every
census from 1800 to 1930 has shown an increase of at least forty per cent.
Like so many New England seaport towns, Bridgeport had a lusty
whaling trade, but interest in seafaring declined when the opening of the
railroad in 1840 brought with it an industrial boom.
Among the earlier manufacturing ventures were the production of hats,
pewter ware, carriages, saddlery, furniture, and shirts. In 1856, the
Wheeler and Wilson Manufacturing Company, makers of sewing machines,
moved here from Watertown, and became the first of the many nationally
important industries established in the city. Carriage-making, the most
colorful of the nineteenth-century industries, was climaxed in 1894-95
by the building of the first 'horseless carriage,' equipped with hard rubber
tires and a self-starter. Unfortunately, the exhaust made the wagon an
insufferable hot box, so it was regretfully stored in a shed behind the
Armstrong plant where it was made.

In 1902, close on the heels of the last carriage-making industries, the
Locomobile Company produced one of the early American automobiles
propelled by gasoline, which combined an all-steel frame, sliding-gear
transmission, and a vertical cylinder motor at the front beneath a hood,
all of which are features of modern automobile design. The company
produced a limited quantity of high-quality cars until 1929.

First gramophones in America were produced here by the American
Gramophone Co., later the Columbia Phonograph Co., Inc.

Today almost five hundred manufacturing firms, many with a large
export trade, produce ammunition and firearms, automatic machinery,
nuts, bolts and screws, brass products, brake linings, corsets, chains,
electrical and pharmaceutical supplies, hardware, marine cables and
engines, machinery, phonograph records, plumbing supplies, rubber
goods, sewing machines, scissors, typewriters, steel products, and toys.

Bridgeport does not depend upon any one class of manufactured goods
for its prosperity. Probably no city in the United States includes more
diversified industries. Although, like other manufacturing cities, it was
seriously affected by post-war deflation, statistics show that the value
of the city's annual production for the year 1936 exceeded its pre-war
rate by 102 per cent. In 1933, the city elected a Socialist mayor and
board of aldermen, and has twice since re-elected the Socialist ticket.

Bridgeport 121

TOUR 1

W. from Mill Pond Park on North Ave. (US \A).

1. The Pixlee Tavern (private), 590 North Ave., SW. of the Park, is a
remodeled salt-box house, dating from 1700, now covered with yellow
stucco. General Washington is believed to have stopped en route to
Cambridge in 1775, thus giving a local habitation to a well-known
apocryphal story. It concerns a ruse that he employed to secure his
supper at the tavern when he arrived late one night unaccompanied and
found every place at the table occupied. The guests failed to recognize
the leader of the Continental troops and continued to munch savory
fried oysters, increasing the appetite of the hungry general. From his
post beside the fireplace, he casually remarked, * Do any of you gentle-
men realize that horses are very fond of oysters?' In the excitement of
the lively discussion which followed, one guest offered to wager that
'no horse ever lived that would eat oysters.' Immediately Washington
suggested, 'Very well. Why not try them on my horse?' As soon as
the excited guests started for the barn, Washington quietly found a
place at the table. At the edge of the Park across the street, the Wash-
ington Elm, named in honor of his visit, is said to be from 250 to 300
years old.

2. Tom Thumb House (private), 956 North Ave. at Main St., is the house
most commonly associated with P. T. Barnum's midget attraction, Gen-
eral Tom Thumb (Charles S. Stratton). It is a large square frame
dwelling built by the General's father, Sherwood S. Stratton in 1855,
but since converted into apartments and shops. To this home, fitted

BRIDGEPORT. POINTS OF INTEREST

1. Pixlee Tavern 16. Beardsley Park

2. Tom Thumb House 17. American Fabrics Company

3. Captain Abijah Sterling House 18. Stanley Works

4. Broth well Beach House 19. John Brooks House

5. Clinton Park 20. General Electric Plant

6. Mountain Grove Cemetery 21. Remington Arms Company

7. Nathaniel Wheeler Fountain 22. Saltex Looms, Inc.

8. United Congregational Church 23. Bridgeport Brass Company

9. Public Library 24. Singer Manufacturing Company

10. City Hall 25. Underwood Elliott Fisher Company

11. Barnum Institute of Science and 26. Warner Brothers Company

History 27. Bryant Electric Company

12. Seaside Park 28. Raybestos Division

13. Court Marina 29. Harvey Hubbell, Inc.

14. Fayerweather's Island 30. Billiard Company

15. Site of a Revolutionary Fort

124 Main Street and Village Green

for his use with miniature furnishings, Tom Thumb brought his tiny
bride, Lavinia Bump Warren, after their spectacular wedding in New
York, in 1863.

3. The Captain Abijah Sterling House (private), 1040 North Ave., a
salt-box erected about 1760, was the boyhood home of General Tom
Thumb.

4. The Broth-well Beach Home (private),^ SW. cor. North and Park
Aves., an early 19th-century building, with a glass fan-light over the
front door, leaded in the rare eagle design, was built around, or to re-
place a tavern erected by Samuel Cable in 1759.

5. Clinton Park, cor. North and Brooklawn Aves., was used as a military
training ground during the Revolutionary War, and later, during the
Civil War. Here a wrestling match took place between Captain John
Sherwood and an Indian from Golden Hill who had challenged the white
men to a contest. Captain Sherwood, dressed in ordinary citizen's
attire, put his hands upon the naked, well-oiled shoulders of the savage,
and laid him flat on his back, 'not caring to soften the violence of his
fall/

L. from North Ave. on Dewey St.

6. In Mountain Grove Cemetery, Dewey St., 140 acres of landscaped
grounds planted with large, stately oaks, are the Graves of Phineas T.
Barnum (1810-91) and Tom. Thumb. The former's burial-place, marked
by an imposing monument, is directly across from that of Tom Thumb,
whose memorial, a 4o-foot shaft in Italian marble surmounted by a life-
size statue of the famous midget, is simply inscribed ' Charles S. Stratton,
Died July 15, 1883, aged 45 years, 6 mos., n d.' Buried by his side, in
an infant's casket, is the body of his wife, who survived him by more than
30 years, and whose small headstone is marked with the single word
1 Wife.'

Near-by, a small, plain stone indicates the Grave of Fanny J. Crosby
(1820-1915), hymn-writer and poet, who lost her sight when she was
six weeks old.

TOUR 2

S.from North Ave. (US I A) on Park Ave.

7. The Nathaniel Wheeler Fountain, at the intersection of Park and
Fairfield Aves., opposite St. John's Episcopal Church, is a memorial
designed by Gutzon Borglum to one of Bridgeport's foremost 19th-
century industrialists and philanthropists. As organizer of the Wheeler
and Wilson Manufacturing Company (see below), Wheeler was a pioneer
in the development and promotion of the sewing machine.
L. from Park Ave. on State St.

Bridgeport 125

8. The United Congregational Church (1926), State St., SW. cor. Park
Ave. (R), designed by Allen and Collens, is a striking modern brick
version of the early 19th-century church architecture. It is exceptionally
broad and has an uncommonly tall and graceful spire. Inside, eclectic
influences prevail: the architectural melting pot is seen in the tall Ro-
manesque columns, the Gothic hammer- vault roofing, and the luxurious
mahogany pews.

9. In the Public Library (open weekdays 9-9.30) (1925), SW. cor. State
and Broad Sts., a four-story brick and limestone building designed by
Frederick J. Dixon, is the Bishop Room (open weekdays, 9-6), an historical
museum. Included among its permanent exhibits of old books, manu-
scripts, deeds, maps, newspapers, and Connecticut almanacs, are the
Americana collections of the Fairfield County and Bridgeport Historical
Societies.

10. The City Hall, NE. cor. State and Broad Sts., originally a two-
story, sandstone building with heavy, fluted Ionic columns in the style
of the Greek Revival, erected in 1854-55 and enlarged and remodeled
by Joseph W. Northrop in 1905, is historically notable as the scene of
an address by President Lincoln on March 10, 1860, an event commem-
orated by a bronze tablet on the State St, front. Bridgeport news-
papers of Civil War days were strenuously antagonistic to the President.
The Bridgeport Farmer wrote

* Give us a few more months [to end the Civil War], a few hundred thousand
more men, a few hundred millions more of money and we will finish up the
war,' say Lincoln and his shoddy crew.

Do not be deceived by these fake and plausible stories the party in
power cannot, neither does it intend to bring the war to a conclusion.

R. from State St. on Main St.

11. The Barnum Institute of Science and History (open Mon., Wed., Fri.,
Sat., 2-5, free), 805 Main St., occupies the third floor of the mosque-
like building of yellow brick erected about 1890 by Barnum. Among the
articles exhibited here, those of special interest are an Egyptian mummy,
some of the personal effects of Tom Thumb, and collections of old house-
hold utensils, army guns and swords, and mounted birds.

Barnum, Bridgeport's most beloved citizen, may be known to the world
as the founder of 'The Greatest Show on Earth,' but to this city which
became his home, he was an empire-builder and a philanthropist. While
the world remembers him as the great showman who packed circus
tents with promises of such marvels as 'a cherry-colored cat,' and lived
up to the promise, though not to the expectation, by producing an
ordinary black pussy, Bridgeport remembers him as a staunch and pat-
riotic citizen. Through his effort many industries established their
plants here; when the city needed a harbor, Barnum went to Washington
and secured the necessary appropriation for dredging; when the railroad
failed to give proper service, Barnum forced improvements; he established
parks and an improved water supply, and served the city as both mayor

126 Main Street and Village Green

and representative to the Assembly. When Barnum's likeness appeared
on the city's centennial half-dollar in 1936, the press of the nation laughed
at the idea that the man who has been credited with the phrase, ' Every-
body likes to be humbugged/ should be so honored on a United States
coin, but Bridgeport has not forgotten that, but for Barnum's efforts,
the city might have been little more than a wide place in the road.
Born in Bethel, July 5, 1810, Barnum tried storekeeping with little
success. After failure as a lottery agent, Barnum started the Herald of
Freedom, a weekly newspaper, but was fined and jailed for his out-
spoken criticism of the contemporary scene.

Barnum drifted to New York with a cattle drover and then on to Phil-
adelphia where he purchased an old Negress, Joyce Heth, who was
reputed to be 160 years of age and the former nurse of George Washing-
ton. With the Negress as the principal sideshow, Barnum formed a
company, writing his own advertising and touring America. When
Joyce died in 1836, her age was proved to be only 70, but Barnum's
company continued its tour until 1839. The youthful showman again
failed, but in 1841 he purchased Scudder's American Museum in New
York. His discovery of Charles Stratton, the two-foot son of Bridgeport
parents, led to the grand European tour of the dwarf, 'General Tom
Thumb,' who was exhibited before Queen Victoria and European royalty.
In 1850, Barnum sponsored the American tour of Jenny Lind, giving the
* Swedish Nightingale' a contract that called for a salary of $1000 per
night for 150 nights, plus all expenses.

Through an amalgamation of circus, menagerie, and museum of various
freaks Barnum formed 'The Greatest Show on Earth' (1871). Military
men of many nations copied much of Barnum's technique in handling
baggage, materials, men, and animals.

Although Barnum never had a formal education, he wrote several books
including 'The Humbugs of the World' (1865), 'Struggles and Triumphs'
(1869), and his 'Autobiography' (1854 and later editions). Tales are
told of his insistence that 'Barnum' and not 'Webster' should be the
authority for the spelling of the names on animal cages. No train passed
the winter quarters of his circus in Bridgeport without passengers agape
at Barnum's ' Elephantine Agriculture ' a man in Oriental costume
mounted on an elephant, plowing a field beside the track.

P. T. Bamum died on April 7, 1891.

12. Seaside Park, end of Main St., on the Sound, is a beautiful 2io-acre
tract, the first land for which was donated to the city in 1865 by P. T.
Barnum. Entered through the imposing Perry Memorial Arch and
traversed by Marine Boulevard, a scenic roadway extending two and
one-half miles along the sea wall, the park provides excellent facilities
for bathing, tennis, baseball, and soccer, with a quarter-mile cinder
track and a half-mile trotting track. Just beyond the Memorial Arch
is a Statue of Elias Howe, Jr., inventor of the sewing machine, who,
although born in the town of Spencer, Massachusetts, became during

Bridgeport 127

his residence here, closely associated with the city's industrial and social
development.

During the Civil War, Howe recruited a regiment of volunteer infantry
(iyth Connecticut) and furnished officers' mounts for the outfit. The
statue stands on the spot where Howe, with an income of $200,000
annual royalties, slept on a bed of straw as a private soldier.

Although a sewing machine had previously been invented in England,
one in France, and one by Hunt of New York, none had been successfully
promoted, and Howe, unaware of the earlier inventions, independently
developed a lock-stitch machine in 1844. The following year, he ob-
tained his first patent, won a demonstration against five expert seam-
stresses and exhibited the machine at numerous fairs. British interests
advanced capital and Howe went to England to supervise the manu-
facture of machines, but upon returning to America found that many
factories had infringed upon his patents. After considerable litigation,
his rights were established in 1854 and other manufacturers compelled
to pay royalties to him.

A bronze Statue of Barnum, modeled by Thomas Ball and cast by Von
Miiller in Munich, was unveiled July 4, 1893, here by the seawall,
overlooking the Sound.

13. Opposite Seaside Park, in the block between Waldemere Park,
Linden, and Park Avenues, is the massive brownstone structure called
Court Marina, which Barnum erected in 1868-69 as ms ^ as ^ residence.
This whole region is full of the plethoric houses of the prosperous 8o's
and 9o's, in every conceivable mixture of architectural styles, but set
in grounds planted with tall trees and huge rhododendrons.

R. from the end of Main St. on Marine Boulevard.

14. On Fayerweather's Island, off the coast at the end of Marine Boule-
vard, connected with the mainland by a causeway, is the Old Lighthouse
(not open), erected in 1809 and rebuilt in 1823.

Return via Marine Boulevard to the Perry Memorial Arch; L. on Park
Ave.; L.from Park Ave'on Fairfield Ave.; L. from Fairfield Ave. onBrewster
St.; R. from Brewster St. on Grovers Ave. which becomes Black Rock Drive
(no parking allowed).

15. On Black Rock Drive was an early base for whaleboat warfare, and
the Site of a Revolutionary Fort, erected here in 1776 on a small knoll
known as Grovers Hill. The one gun at this fort, which announced to
Fairfield the coming of the British in 1779, harassed the enemy con-
tinually during the destruction and raid of the town.

In that same year Major-General Silliman, chief of military and safety
activities of Fairfield County, and his son were taken prisoner by the
enemy. As the Continental forces had no captive of equal rank to ex-
change for their General, Captains Lockwood and Hawley and a group
of 25 volunteers set out in a whaleboat from this harbor one December

128 Main Street and Village Green

night. Landing on Long Island, they succeeded in capturing a notorious
Tory, Judge Jones, for whose safe return the British relinquished their
prisoner, General Silliman.

TOUR 3

E. from Main Si. on Congress St. (crossing Pequonnock River); L. from
Congress on Noble Ave.

1 6. Beardsley Park, Noble Ave., extending along the western bank of
the Pequonnock River, includes 234 acres of rolling, wooded land, through
which wind sylvan drives and paths edged with fragrant laurel, kalmia,
azalea and holly. Within the park are a lake, a zoo, an i8-hole golf
course, a greenhouse, tennis courts, and a reproduction of the Anne
Hathaway Cottage (open every day, 9-5, free), set in a formal English
garden.

17. American Fabrics Company (open on application at office), 1069
Connecticut Ave., is 20 times the size of the original plant established
in 1910 by Albert Henkels, owner of a lace factory in Langerford, Ger-
many. It was sold to the present owners by the .Alien Property Cus-
todian during the World War. Runnings, woven labels, and many types
of laces, such as Cluny, Valenciennes, filet and Spanish, are made here.

1 8. Stanley Works (open on application at office), Seaview Ave., producers
of electric tools, are the makers of the 'Magic Eye/ a photo-electric cell
device combined with a pneumatic mechanism that opens and closes
doors without manual aid. Among the best-known installations of the
'Magic Eye' are the doors in the Pennsylvania Station, New York
City, and the 500 ' roll-up ' doors at the Fort Benning barracks, Georgia.

19. The John Brooks House (private) (1788), at 199 Pembroke St., a
frame 'half -house' with a Dutch 'stoop' and little gambrel-roofed ell, is
one of the few Bridgeport old houses in almost original condition. It
retains its interior paneled walls and corner cupboards.

20. The General Electric Plant (open on application at office), Boston Ave.
at Bond St., has been continually enlarged since the company rented
the plant from Remington Arms in 1915 and purchased the property
in 1922. It employs 8000 men and women in the production of domestic
and industrial electric equipment and supplies. Distribution head-
quarters for the products of General Electric plants in other cities are
maintained here.

West of the electric plant are blocks of neat small brick houses built
as a housing development during the days of Bridgeport's rapid growth
during the World War. They helped to inaugurate a new movement
to provide tasteful, comfortable homes of varied design for the workers
who were flocking into the city.

21. The Remington Arms Company (not open), Barnum Ave., with a

Bridgeport 129

plant covering 60 acres and fields for storage of explosives covering 360
acres, owes much of its prestige to the invention of the central-fire
cartridge. The first metallic cartridges were exploded by the pressure
of the hammer on a hollow rim in which a small quantity of high ex-
plosive, known as a priming mixture, was poured. This method of firing
was unsatisfactory as the cartridge case was bent by the crimping and
nicking of the hammer. Another method that would permit a second
or third use of the original cartridge case was sought. On August 6,
1866, the Union Metallic Cartridge Company of Bridgeport produced a
successful central-fire metallic cartridge.

This concern also pioneered in the introduction of the first paper shot-
gun shells in the United States.

During the World War, about two billion standard 30- '06 rifle car-
tridges and 1,218,979,300 rounds of other ammunition were produced
here.

Established here in 1867 under the name Union Metallic Cartridge
Company by the sporting-goods firm of Schuyler, Hartley and Graham
of New York, this firm merged with the Remington Arms Company of
Ilion, New York, in 1912, and has since been known as the Remington
Arms Company, Inc. In 1920, the local plant commenced the production
of pocket cutlery and soon became one of the world's largest manu-
facturers of those products.

In June, 1933, a controlling interest in the plant was purchased by E. I.
du Pont de Nemours and Company. Since that time, Remington has
purchased the patents and designs of the Parker Gun Company of
Meriden. Although frequently associated with military munitions, 98
per cent of the factory's output since the World War has been shotguns
and cartridges for the sporting-goods market.

22. Saltex Looms, Inc. (open on application at office), 217 Kossuth St.,
now owned by American interests, manufactures seal-plush, velvets and
upholstery plushes. This firm was established as the Salts Textile
Manufacturing Company, a branch of Sir Titus Salt, Bart. Sons and
Company Ltd., of Bradford, England.

23. The Bridgeport Brass Company (open on application at office), 774 E.
Main St., fabricators of brass, was organized in 1865 to make brass
clock movements, and later made hoopskirt frames, kerosene parlor
lamps and the first successful kerosene bicycle lamp, exhibited at the
World's Fair in Chicago, in 1893. An offshoot from clock movements
was a spring motor-operated flyfan, forerunner of the modern electric
fan; F. R. Wilmot, superintendent, designed a crude micrometer, and
the company also made incandescent lamp sockets. Bridgeport Brass
Company produced the first copper wire strung between New York and
Boston, made many telephonic improvements, features a 'hard-drawn
wire,' various alloys of high tensile strength, and was a pioneer in the
adaptation of the electric furnace to the brass industry. Duronze, en-
gravers plates, metal bellows for temperature control, galley plates,

130 Main Street and Village Green

tubing, phono-electric trolley wire and sheet brass are among the firm's
products.

24. The Singer Manufacturing Company (open on application at office),
803 E. Washington Ave., now factory No. 10 of the international concern
of that name, which produces sewing machines for factory use, was
originally the Wheeler and Wilson Manufacturing Company. Organized
in 1853 in Watertown, Connecticut, and moved to Bridgeport in 1856,
the early company manufactured a machine invented by Allen B. Wilson
of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in 1847. Features of the machine were a
curved, eye-pointed needle, a two-pointed shuttle, which made a stitch
at each forward and backward motion, and a two-motion 'feed.' The
sewing machine which had been previously invented by Howe was ham-
pered by a 'feed ' single-motion which did not allow the operator to change
the direction of the seam. Wilson's patent of 1850 made it possible for
the operator to sew seams of any length at any desired angle. A 'four-
motion feed' was patented by Wilson in 1854. Later, to avoid litiga-
tion, a stationary bobbin was introduced. The concern was taken over
by the Singer Company in 1905. The local plant has not produced ma-
chines for household use for the last 25 years.

25. Underwood Elliott Fisher Company (open on application at office),
575 Broad St., the outgrowth of numerous mergers, produces counting,
billing, and adding machines. More than 15,000 machine parts of
different design, requiring 150,000 separate operations, are produced
here. Among the many accounting machines is one used by automo-
bile finance companies, which figures the number of payments to be
made, the number paid, and the balance due.

26. Warner Brothers Company (open on application at office), 325 La-
fayette St., with branches in London, Paris, Hamburg, Brussels, Barce-
lona, Cape Town, Toronto and Mexico City, has been manufacturing
corsets in Bridgeport since 1876. Among the articles of corsetry
first made here are: the brassiere, the 'corselette,' and the 'two-way
stretch' Lastex woven-fabric garments.

27. The Bryant Electric Company (open on application at office}, 1421
State St., the largest single plant in the world devoted exclusively to
the production of wiring devices, began in a rented loft-workshop in
1889. More than 3000 wiring devices, including plural plugs and switches
of all types, are manufactured here.

28. The Raybestos Division of the Raybestos-Manhattan Company, at
1427 Railroad Ave. (open on application at office), manufacturers of
brake linings and clutch facings, was the firm which contributed a signifi-
cant development in automobile brake design when it manufactured
Raybestos brake lining for the early ' Duplex ' brake.

29. Harvey Hubbell, Inc. (open on application at office), covering two
city blocks at Railroad Ave., State St., and Fairfield Ave., producers of
wiring devices and machine screws, has to its credit the invention of the
pull-socket electric light fixture, the separable attachment plug, the

Danbury 131

T-slotted plug, and a toggle switch. Many of the present-day standards
in electrical equipment are the result of wiring devices originated in this
plant.

30. Bullard Company (open on application at office), 286 Canfield Ave.,
produces automatic machinery for an international market. E. P.
Bullard, trained at both the Colt Armory and the Pratt and Whitney
school of nationally known mechanics, made mechanical history as the
advocate of the vertical boring-mill principle of metal working rather
than of the horizontal, or lathe method. Starting as an inventor and
refiner of the simpler forms, manufacturing a drill press in 1864, Bullard
soon branched out into the multiple-spindle lines, and today his Mult-Au-
Matics meet all high-speed production needs and are key production
units in the factories of the world. Seven of the third generation of the
Bullard family continue as executives of the firm.

DANBURY

City: Alt. 375, pop. 22,261, settled 1684, incorporated 1889.

Railroad Station: Danbury Station, White St. for N.Y., N.H. & H. R.R.
Airport: Privately owned; West Wooster St. (US 7). Sightseeing trips on Sat-
urdays and Sundays. Five minutes by taxi from center of city; taxi fare 50^.

Accommodations: One hotel.

Information Service: Danbury Business Association, 288 Main St.

Annual Events: Danbury Fair, held for one week beginning the first Saturday or

Monday in October.

DANBURY, known as 'the Hat City,' is a lively main-street town that
has outgrown the main street. Summer residents from Candlewood
Lake and workers from the hat factories rub elbows with lanky farm
lads and farm women in gingham who bring in eggs and butter to swap
for merchandise. Grouped about the county court-house, on irregular
building lines, are many small shops, a few brownstone structures,
motion-picture houses, and more green-grocer establishments than seem
warranted in a town of this size. The city sprawls about the country-
side like an overgrown village, seeking room for backyard gardens culti-
vated by hatters in their spare time. Hat factories radiate from the
sites of the water-driven mills of the older generation of hatters, and the
residential sections are on sightly elevations which escape the swamp
mists.
Founded in 1684 and named for the English town, in 1687, by the 'original

132 Main Street and Village Green

Eight Families' who trekked from Norwalk through Sugar Hollow and
over Pandanaram to settle 'Pahquioque,' Danbury was early nick-
named 'Beantown,' because beans grown here were of excellent quality.
Local wagons were quickly recognized, as they passed through other
villages, by the bag of beans on top of their loads. According to one
tradition, the land was purchased from the Indians for one bag of beans.
Place names in the town such as Pinchgut, Mashing Tub Swamp,
Squabble Hill, Cat-tail Mountain, Monkeytown, and Dodgingtown, in-
trigue the imagination, but the stories of their origin seem to have died
with the early settlers.

By 1784 the community was a half-shire town with Bridgeport; it be-
came a borough in 1822, and was chartered as a city in 1889. At the
outbreak of the Revolution the town was an important depot for military
supplies and consequently the objective of Tryon's Raid in 1777. The
British, who had landed at Westport, burned and looted the town, de-
stroying the church, nineteen houses, twenty-two stores and barns, with
all of the military goods. Tory houses, carefully marked, were spared.
The townsfolk hid in the surrounding hills and swamps, while the braver
spirits shouldered squirrel rifles and shotguns and harassed the raiders.
Horse, foot, and guns, the British retreated in good order, fighting an
occasional rear-guard action and leaving but few dead and wounded
along the way. Reparation for damage to private property was granted
Danbury citizens by the distribution of 'Fire Lands' in the Western
Reserve.

Zadoc Benedict established the first beaver-hat factory in America here,
in 1780, and produced three hats per day. The industry developed
rapidly until the city led the entire country in hat production, a position
it still maintains today. Fifty-one of the seventy mills in town are en-
gaged in some branch of the hat industry, and many of the others in
sidelines connected with it, such as the production of paper boxes.

Hats are made from felts which come from the fur of the Australian
rabbit. The hair is sheared from the skins and felted, then the felt is
steamed and shaped. Much of Danbury's production is in these rough
shapes. Many hats are 'taylor made,' on the Taylor hat machine which
turns out a product comparable to the best handmade hat.

The hatters' trade is an unhealthy one, as the workers inhale steam and
various chemical fumes from the vats and there is some danger of mer-
curial poisoning. The craft is highly organized, but increasing mechaniza-
tion of the industry has resulted in unemployment.

The Danbury Hatters' case made court history. In 1902, the Loewe
Hat Shop declared for an open shop, the third such declaration in Dan-
bury history. A strike followed, one of many that have occurred since
1882. The union enforced an effective boycott, and the hatters were
cited to appear in court to answer charges that they were violators of
the Sherman Act. A judgment of $80,000 was handed down against the
union. The case was ultimately carried to the United States Supreme

Danbury 133

Court. In the final decision, reached in 1915, the workers lost the
verdict and 186 union hatters were forced to auction off their homes to
satisfy a court judgment of $300,000 against them. The Loewe firm no
longer operates in Danbury.

Danbury has always been a ' sporting town.' Lotteries have been popular
since 1791, when funds for a jail to replace the burned structure were
raised by lottery. The almshouse was built in 1804 by another lottery,
and the transfer of a hotel by lottery was recorded in 1872, an unusual
real estate transaction but typical of the sporting spirit of Danbury.

Harness horses, the great animals that cover the mile for 'best two out
of three' or ' best three in five ' heats, have been bred in Danbury since
1792. Two-year-olds trotted in the little oval of 'Danbury Pleasure
Park,' and names like Quartermaster, Blue Bells, Quarterstretch, Sable-
nut, Villiers, and Onward will long be remembered in the city.

As a partial balance against the influence of trotting horses and lotteries,
the Sandemanian Church, an offshoot of the old Presbyterian Church
of Scotland, was active in the community. These worshipers opposed
lotteries, observed 'love feasts' and declared for a modified community
of goods. There is no trace of this sect in the city today.

TOUR 1

N. from West St. on Main St.

1. In the Danbury Library (L), 254 Main St., at Library Place, a brick
and stone building (1877-79) designed by Lamb and Wheeler, are the
files of the Danbury News (founded 1865), whose editor, James Mont-
gomery Bailey, 'The Danbury News Man,' Civil War veteran and
columnist, brought it a national reputation by his wit and humor, in-
creasing the paper's circulation from 1920 to 30,000 within nine months.
The murals (1935) in the Children's Room, depicting scenes from famous
stories for children, are the work of the artist and donor, Charles A.
Federer of Bethel, Connecticut.

R. from Main St. on White St.; L. from White St. on Holly's Lane which
becomes Ellsworth Ave.

2. In Wooster Cemetery, Ellsworth Ave., is the grave of General David
Wooster, commander of the Danbury forces during the British raid,
who died from wounds May 2, 1777. The Soldiers' and Sailors' Monu-
ment here, dedicated to the unknown heroes of the Civil War, was
modeled by Solon Borglum, 1894.

Return via White St. to Main St.; R. on Main St.

3. The Colonel Joseph Platt Cooke House (private), 342 Main St., which
was visited by Washington, Lafayette, and Rochambeau, was built in
1770 and partially burned by the British seven years later. The front

Danbury 135

portion, with a wide dentiled cornice and pedimented portico, was added
in 1804, and is a handsome though somewhat cramped example of the
period which was experimenting in the use of classical motifs.
L. from Main on Rose; R. from Rose on Rose Hill Ave.

4. The Mallory Hat Company, covering a city block at Rose Hill Ave.
and Franklin St. (open on application at office), was established in the
Dusty Plain region in 1823 when Ezra Mallory produced two hats per
day from local beaver and muskrat fur. The plant's production in 1936
ran to 700 dozens per day, including stiff, soft, straw, and ladies' hat
shapes. This concern attracted considerable attention at one time
during the era of bare heads by refusing to let a bareheaded salesman
interview its purchasing agent.

Return on Franklin to Main; L. on Main.

5. The Asa Hodge House (private) (about 1695), 384 Main St., a tiny
one-and-one-half-story peak-roofed cottage with simple trim, is credited
with being the oldest dwelling in Danbury. Unfortunately, the old stone
chimney is gone; otherwise the house is in practically original condition.

TOUR 2

5. on Main Si. from West St.

6. The County Courthouse (open weekdays 9-5) (1900), 71 Main St.,
designed by Warren Briggs, a substantial brick and granite structure
with two tall sandstone columns, contains exhibits of costumes, antiques,
and war relics. A tablet on a Boulder opposite this building marks the
spot from which the first shot was fired at the British invaders.

7. At the corner of Main and South Sts. is the Site of the Early Episcopal
Church, from which Continental military supplies stored there were
removed to the streets and burned by the British during their raid on
the town in 1777. The church building was untouched because most of
its members were ardent loyalists. It was dismantled and moved to the
southwest corner of South St. and Mountainville Ave., where it serves
as a tenement house.

DANBURY. POINTS OF INTEREST

1. Danbury Library 7. Site of the Early Episcopal Church

2. Wooster Cemetery 8. Milestone

3. Colonel Joseph Platt Cooke 9. Isaac Ives House

House 10. Old Town Cemetery

4. Mallory Hat Company n. Old Brookneld Inn

5. Asa Hodge House 12. Sycamore Tree

6. County Courthouse 13. Hoyt House

136 Main Street and Village Green

8. The Taylor's Tavern Milestone (1789), at the foot of Main St., indi-
cates the distance to Hartford (67 m.), and to New York (68 m.).

R. from Main on West Main; R. from West Main on Terrace Place; R. from
Terrace Place on Chapel Place.

9. The Isaac Ives House (private) (1780), at 8 Chapel Place, a one-and-a-
half-story gambrel-roofed house with a two-and-a-half-story ell, which was
moved from Main St. in 1924, has a pedimented portico and an unusual
beehive fan-light over the door. Heavy strap hinges run the full width of
the door, and the huge lock is original. In this house, a meeting was held,
April 8, 1833, to establish a library for mechanics.

TOUR 3

W. from Main St. on West St.; L. on Division; R. on West Wooster St.

10. In Old Town Cemetery, West Wooster St., between Winthrop Place
and Delta Avenue, the first burial ground of the settlers, is the grave
of Robert Sandeman, founder of the Sandemanian Sect (1764).

11. The Old Brookfield Inn (private}, 105 West Wooster St., an excep-
tionally long, red salt-box house with white trim, has two front doors
and a stone chimney. It was probably built in the latter half of the i7th
or in the early i8th century. The building was moved here from the
Brookfield Iron Works where it served as a tavern. An additional ell
has been built at one end, and wide, modern clapboards used on the front.
The windows have twenty-four lights.

12. A Sycamore Tree, across the street, is believed to be between 300 and
400 years old.

Return on West Wooster to Division St.; L. on Division; L. on Park Ave.

13. The Hoyt House (private) (1750-60), 16 Park Ave., a steep-roofed, low-
ceilinged dwelling, served as a hospital during the Revolution. Human
skeletons have been found in the yard, the remains of those who died of
a contagious disease and were hastily buried lest others contract the
plague. Built on a hillside, one end of the building is one-and-a-half
stories high, and the other is two-and-a-half stories. The dwelling has
been remodeled, but retains its original steep roof.

OTHER POINTS OF INTEREST

The Danbury Fair Grounds, between Park and Lake Aves., is the scene
of the Danbury Fair, held the first week in October, which is believed
to attract more visitors than any other six fairs in Connecticut and is
surpassed by only one in all New England. Exhibitors from throughout

Fairfield 137

the East bring their best cattle, poultry, and stock to Danbury. The
racing card is a good one; a day is devoted to dirt- track auto racing.
The circus atmosphere of the midway carries over to the infield directly
across from the modern grandstand, where, to the disgust of trotting
fans, ladies in pink tights swing from the flying trapeze and dancing
bears perform.

Fairs were held in Danbury as early as 1821 and the present fair grounds
were purchased in 1871. At the Kenosia Trotting Park, on this site, in
1860, in a historic race in which each heat was faster than the one pre-
ceding, Flora Temple won from Widow McChree in 2.39, 2.37, 2.33.
The Frank H. Lee Hat Company (open on application at office), on Shelter
RockRd. and Power St., covering two city blocks, is among the largest
of Danbury's many hat plants and has its origin in the old Glen Factory
in Bethel. Moved to Danbury in 1890, this plant is now a leader in the
industry, manufacturing soft and stiff hats and hatters' fur.

Points of Interest in Environs:

Lake Candlewood, 6.3 m., State 37 (boating, swimming, picnicking)
(see Side Tour 4 A); Wooster Mt. State Park, 2.9 m., US 7 (see
Tour 4).

FAIRFIELD

Town: Alt. 10, pop. 17,218, sett. 1639.

Railroad Station: Foot of Sanford St. for N.Y., N.H. & H. R.R.

Taxis: 15j first \ m. ; 5^ each additional m.

Accommodations: One hotel; several inns.

Information Service: Fairfield Historical Society, Post Road; Fairfield Public

Library, Post Road; Southport Library, Old Post Road.

Swimming: Fairfield Beach.

FAIRFIELD, an old Colonial town on the King's Highway, has retained
many of its early characteristics around the 'Meeting-House Green'
and the 'Village Green' that are by-passed by US 1. The King's High-
way swung sharply south to serve the older Fairfield; the newer Post
Road cuts straight across the township through the modern trading
district, avoiding the curves of the rather narrow old thoroughfare
marked by Benjamin Franklin when he placed milestones between
New York and Boston in 1753.

At the business center on the modern highway, where through traffic is
heavy twenty-four hours a day, are small neat shop buildings, a motion-

138 Main Street and Village Green

picture theater, a modern brick bank building of Colonial design, and a
library. In sharp contrast is the old town center, one block south. There,
beneath the shade of towering elms, eighteenth and nineteenth century
mansions, set back from the road on wide lawns, border the winding
streets about the old white Town House.

Around the edges of the township, especially on the eastern boundary,
industry has made use of lands not suited to residential purposes. No
industry intrudes into the peaceful village itself, and very few of the
local residents find employment in these plants. The total number of
employees gainfully employed in factories in Fairfield is well under 3000.
The manufacturing area merges with that of the sister community of
Bridgeport, where most of the mill employees make their homes. One
and two-thirds miles east of the center of the village are four large plants,
with some two thousand employees: McKesson and Robbins, chemical
plant; Handy and Harmon, smelting and refining of gold and silver;
Max Ams Machine Company, can-making machinery; and the Porcupine
Company, structural steel. Three quarters of a mile west of the center
are two other important plants: the Dupont Fabrikoid Company, pro-
ducing waterproof automobile cloth; and the United States Aluminum
Company, a casting plant.

Originally known to the Indians as Uncoway (corrupted to Unquowa),
the fertile fields of this area first came to the attention of Yankee pioneers
July 13, 1637, when a band of Connecticut troops under Roger Ludlow
pursued the fleeing Pequots from their burned fort in Mystic (see Tour 1)
to their doom in the Great Swamp Fight (see Tour 1). Two years later
Ludlow returned with a party of settlers from Windsor, who were later
joined by colonists from Watertown and Concord.
The land was twice purchased from the Pequonnock Indians, on May n,
1639, and on June 24, 1649; a quitclaim deed was obtained from the
Sasco Indians, February n, 1661. Named possibly in a descriptive sense,
or for Fairfield in Kent, the settlement soon received a patent. Antici-
pating the confiscatory methods of Sir Edmund Andros, who claimed all
unoccupied lands for the Crown, the territory was divided into lots which
ran from the shore inland for about ten miles. As each settler's house
occupied the front of a lot, the landholder maintained that the whole was
occupied. All measurements were calculated down to the inch, showing
an unusual accuracy for that day. A mile of common was reserved in the
center of the township, where the village of Greenfield Hill (see side-trip
from Tour 1) now stands. There ' train bands ' were drilled under officers
who had fought in all the Indian Wars. Much of the original town has
since been annexed by the neighboring towns of Westport, Weston, Red-
ding, Easton, and Bridgeport.

The town had a good harbor at Black Rock, now a part of Bridgeport,
and another at Southport (see Tour 1A). Much shipping resulted from
the agricultural development of the area. The average farmer tilled at
least 150 acres of fertile soil, valued in the early nineteenth century at
$100 an acre.

Fairfield 139

During the Revolution Captain Samuel Smedley, a Fairfield youth who
became distinguished on the high seas, commanded a privateer at the
age of fifteen, and by the end of the Revolution had more prize ships to
his credit than any other privateer or naval officer. On April 20, 1777,
when returning to port badly damaged with four prizes in tow, his ship,
the 'Defense,' sighted the British corvette 'Cyrus.' Though already
manning the pumps to keep his ship afloat, and with half his men sick
with smallpox, Smedley engaged and captured the 'Cyrus.' When the
British commander surrendered he was amazed at the youth of his victor,
exclaiming, 'There is little hope of conquering an enemy whose very
schoolboys are capable of valor equaling that of trained veterans of
naval warfare.'

On July 7, 1779, the village was burned by British raiders under General
Tryon. Driving the militiamen back to the hills, the British looted the
village and put it to the torch during a severe thunderstorm. About 200
houses were destroyed and the resulting bitterness aided recruiting of
the Continental Line. Whaleboat crews conducted reprisals upon the
Tories of Long Island, and many Fairfield sailors sought vengeance upon
British shipping.

Fairfield early became a center of vigorous intellectual life. Here lived
the ancestors of the brilliant Joel Barlow (see Literature), who studied law
here and was admitted to the Fairfield bar. Dr. Sereno Dwight, president
of Hamilton College, and Professor Benjamin Silliman, who has been
called 'the Nestor of American Science,' were also residents. Numerous
jurists and men prominent in military affairs made their homes in Fair-
field and their guests included eminent scholars and statesmen.

TOUR

E. from Unquowa Rd. on New Post Rd.

1. The Fairfield Memorial Library (open 9-8:30), SE. cor. Unquowa Rd.
and New Post Rd., in a two-story brick building with limestone trim, was
organized and incorporated in 1876. Memorial Hall, on the second floor,
is notable for its panels commemorating early settlers. One wing of the
building is devoted to the exhibits of the Fairfield Historical Society,
which include many rare old books, early town documents, and maps.

2. Surrounded by lilac bushes, the Isaac Hull House (open), 573 New
Post Rd., now a shop, is a weathered gray, two-story, double end-
chimneyed house. Under construction by Isaac Hull in 1779, at the time
of the burning of the town, it remained but half finished until 1790 when
it was completed by the Rev. Andrew Eliot. The interior woodwork is
of both the Georgian and post-Colonial type as shown in the raised panel-
ing of the room to the left of the hall and the sunken paneling of the
room on the right.

Fairfield 141

R. from New Post Rd. on Benson Rd.

3. Brigadier General Elijah Abel House (private) (1780), NE cor. Benson
Rd. and Old Post Rd., was operated as a tavern during Civil War days
by the Benson family. The old inn sign, which now hangs in the garret,
reads, * Benson House The Union Must be Preserved/

R. from Benson Rd. on Old Post Rd.

4. Jennings Gardens (open 9 to sunset), public entrance on Beach Rd., on
the grounds of Sunnie Holme, the estate of Miss Annie B. Jennings, have
the largest and most beautiful displays of flowering shrubs in the State.

5. Major William Silliman House (private), of 1786-91, 405 Old PostRd.,
is a large end-chimneyed structure with wide, flat cornice, bare of mould-
ings, very narrow clapboarding, and a central entrance covered by a
gracefully curved portico supported by slender columns. When a boy,
Major Silliman was taken prisoner by the British at Holland Hill.

L. from Old Post Rd. on Beach Rd.

6. Isaac Tucker House (private) (1766), 19 Beach Rd., though set on fire
when the town was burned, was saved by a Negro servant who had
hidden in the attic. It has an asymmetrical plan frequently found in
Fairfield, with a corner hall approached now through a later fan-lighted
doorway.

7. Justin Hobart House (private) (1765), 33 Beach Rd., though remodeled
retains much of its original form; it is a square, two-chimney house with
dentiled cornice, shutters, and a modern sun-porch and portico. Church
meetings and court sessions were held here after the burning of the town,
until the meeting house was rebuilt in 1785.

8. Nathan Bulkeley House (private), 37 Beach Rd., is another pre-
Revolutionary house built in the prevailing Fairfield mode with two
windows on one side of the door and one on the other. The portico is

FAIRFIELD. POINTS OF INTEREST

1. Fairfield Memorial Library 14. Rowland House

2. Isaac Hull House 15. Milestone

3. Brigadier General Elijah Abel 16. Augustus Jennings House

House 17. David Ogden House

4. Jennings Gardens 18. Stone Powder House

5. Major William Silliman House 19. Pulpit Rock

6. Isaac Tucker House 20. Bird Sanctuary

7. Justin Hobart House 21. 'Uncle Ben ' Wakeman House

8. Nathan Bulkeley House 22. Isaac Jennings House

9. Old Burying Ground 23. General Gold Selleck Silliman

10. Town House House

11. Sun Tavern 24. Fairfield Beach

12. Fairfield Academy 25. Penfield Reef

13. Thaddeus Burr House

142 Main Street and Village Green

1 9th century. It was the home of Dr. Jeremiah T. Dennison, an early
homeopath who was relentlessly persecuted. The house was used as a
mess hall by British troops during the occupation.

9. The Old Burying Ground (R), Beach Rd., enclosed by a stone wall and
entered by a lich-gate, contains gravestones dating from 1687 and the
graves of more than 100 Revolutionary soldiers.

Retrace on Beach Rd.; L. from Beach Rd. on the Old Post Rd.

10. The Town House, cor. Old Post Rd. and Beach Rd. (L), on the
Green, was built in 1794. The central portion, a dignified, hip-roofed,
white clapboard structure surmounted by a white belfry, has been re-
stored to the original lines. Restoration in 1937 included the addition of
wings at either end to provide ofiice space. At the western end of the
Green was formerly a pond in which suspected witches were given ' trial
by water.' If they floated they were believed to be guilty, but if they sank
they were judged innocent. Here Mercy Disbrow and Elizabeth Clawson
were bound and thrown into the water. According to records of the time,
'they buoyed up like a cork. 7 At the edge of the Green stands the old
Town Sign Post, still in use.

11. Sun Tavern (private) on the southern edge of the Green (L), about
400 feet back from Old Post Rd., built by Samuel Penfield in 1780 and
maintained as an inn until 1818, is an exceptionally narrow, high gambrel-
roofed house with twin chimneys and three original dormers. The fluted
pilasters of the entrance doorway lend an air of dignity. Washington's
diary says he spent the night here, October 16, 1789. The third floor
contains an early ballroom.

12. F airfield Academy (private] (1804), Old Post Rd., west of St. Paul's
Church, was nationally famous for more than a hundred years. Its
simplicity and symmetry are typical of the post-Colonial period when
conscious design was beginning to affect building. It is essentially a two-
story, peak-roofed building, and has a central gable slightly projecting
from the front. Where the two roofs meet is a simple open cupola. The
flat-topped entrances in the wings contrast with the pedimented door-
way in the projecting section.

13. Thaddeus Burr House (private) (L). Old Post Rd. between Beach and
Penfield Rds., surrounded by lofty elms, is a house whose present appear-
ance belies its age. Built in 1790 to replace the original Burr Homestead,
destroyed during the British invasion, it was modeled after the famous
Hancock House in Boston, and all of the glass for the windows was the
gift of John Hancock. The heavy colonnaded portico of Tuscan order,
the front doorway, and the third story were added about 1840. In the
garden is a hedge of very old arbor vitae. In the original homestead,
John Hancock and Dorothy Quincy were married, August 8, 1775. Doro-
thy had been a visitor here during the siege of Boston and carried on a
gay flirtation with Col. Aaron Burr, much to the discomfort of her fiance.
R. from Old Post Rd. on Unquowa Rd.

14. Rowland House, 570 Old Post Rd. (private), with a peak roof and

Fairfield 143

an entrance at the left corner, built prior to 1769, has unfortunately been
considerably remodeled and now has the appearance of a 19th-century
house. During the British invasion it was saved by a British officer who
had once been entertained in it. Many old and important documents and
town records were later discovered in a chest in the attic.
L.from Unquowa on New Post Rd.; R.from New Post Rd. on Mill Plain Rd.

15. The old Milestone (R), on Mill Plain Rd., about 1500 feet north
of the Post Rd., is one of the stones placed along the old coach routes by
Benjamin Franklin in 1753, and is inscribed *F XX M N H.' (Fairfield.
20 miles to New Haven.)

1 6. Augustus Jennings House (private), on Mill Plain Rd. (L), between
the Post Rd., and Sturges Rd., built in 1760 and painted white, has a
rather interesting exterior, with the northern end shingled, and the
southern portion clapboarded, except for the flush boarding which covers
the main facade at the first story. The porches and short Doric columns
at the entrances are later additions. The dwelling was saved in 1779 by
Lucretia Redfield who put out four fires started by the British.

L.from Mill Plain Rd. on Sturges Rd.; R.from Sturges Rd. on Bronson Rd.

17. The David Ogden House, Bronson Rd. (R), near the entrance to
Oak Lawn Cemetery, was built in 1705. Furnished with antiques and
with old-fashioned flower-beds beside it, this house has been restored
with unusual skill. Its primitive framing, its L-shaped brick chimney
and sparse paneling, and a narrow porch with low turned balusters are
its principal features.

1 8. The Stone Powder House of 1812 (private), on Unquowa Rd. (L),
north from New Post Rd., at the rear of 'Roger Ludlow High School, is
on a plot of land known as 'The Rocks' because of its rugged nature.
This storehouse for munitions was doubtless built of stones taken from
the home of Dr. Laborie, which had crumbled to ruins. Dr. Laborie,
surgeon and preacher, was noted for his missionary work with the Indians.

19. From the rustic pulpit on Pulpit Rock (L), Unquowa Rd., diagonally
opposite the Roger Ludlow High School, Dr. Samuel Osgood, D.D.,
preached to audiences gathered in the street and field beyond, during the
Civil War. An inscription, 'God, and our Country, 1862,' was cut deep
in the rock by a recruit on the eve of his departure for the front. W 'aid-
stein, Dr. Osgood's home, stands close by amid cedars, on the rocky ledge.

20. The Bird Sanctuary (open Tues., Thurs. and Sun., 2-5), on Unquowa
Rd. (R), a short distance north of Roger Ludlow High School, covering
some 10 acres given by Mrs. Mabel Osgood Wright, is now maintained
by the National Audubon Society. Here, in their natural surroundings,
birds native to Connecticut are protected and fed throughout the year.
A museum contains many stuffed native birds.

21. ' Uncle Ben' Wakeman House (private), 546 North Benson Rd., built
in 1800, was a rendezvous for a group of early Connecticut peddlers on
their journeys through the eastern states. This white clapboarded, peak-

144 Main Street and Village Green

roofed homestead has an unusually fine doorway, recessed about one
foot with simple soffit panels and narrow fluted pilasters.

22. Isaac Jennings House (private), NW. cor. Round Hill and Barlow
Rds., is a story-and-a-half gambrel-roofed dwelling (about 1780), with
red clapboarded walls and a flaring Dutch hood over the door.

23. General Gold Selleck Silliman House (private), Jennings Rd., cor.
Hunyadi St., 2 blocks west of Black Rock Turnpike, a large, white,
central-chimney clapboarded structure, originally shingled, was built in
1756. The modern door, a reproduction, and wide eaves considerably
change its appearance. It was from this homestead that General Silliman
of Revolutionary War fame was captured by the British and taken to
Long Island, and here, that Professor Silliman of Yale (1779-1864), the
scientist, was born.

24. Fair field Beach, end of Beach Rd., is one of the safest and most at-
tractive beaches along the shores of Long Island Sound.

25. Penfield Reef is a natural breakwater pushing out from Fairfield
Beach a mile into the Sound; this narrow, rocky reef has been the scene
of many wrecks. During severe storms, the Reef Light is almost sub-
merged by the furious waves.

Point of Interest in Environs:

Greenfield Hill, Timothy Dwight's first Academy, 3.3 m. (see side-
trip off Tour 1).

FARMINGTOIST

Town: Alt. 200, pop. 4548, sett. 1640, incorp. 1645.
Accommodations: One inn.

Information Service: Farmington Museum, High St., Barney Memorial Library,
School St.

Annual Events: Winter Carnival, held in January or February at the athletic
field, Unionville Road, 3 m. from Farmington center; admission 50^.

FARMINGTON, once a busy trading center, is a residential town of
leisurely social life, known for its beautiful tree-shaded streets and stately,
well preserved old houses. An aristocrat among towns, it holds itself
aloof from the hurry and bustle of the work-a-day world, secure in its
background of tradition, culture and wealth.

Often called the 'mother of towns,' because it formerly included land
which has been divided into nine other towns, Farmington was settled in

Farmington 145

1640 by a party of colonists from Hartford, a year after Captain John
Mason had been sent by the three river towns of Hartford, Wethersfield,
and Windsor to explore the region then inhabited by the Tunxis Indians.
Five years later, the settlement was incorporated and named Farmington,
probably for the English Farmington in Gloucester, though the name may
have been suggested by the occupation of the settlers.

After the Revolution, the town entered upon a period of industrial activity
which continued throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth cen-
turies. In 1802 and 1803, 15,000 yards of linen were manufactured, and
2500 hats were made by Timothy Root's shop on Hatter's Lane; leather
goods were being made in four shops, and muskets and buttons were
manufactured. Other industries were operated by clockmakers, silver,
gold, and tinsmiths; candlemakers, carriage-builders and cabinet-makers,
whose products were shipped to the South and peddled through the States
by Yankee peddlers. During this period the Farmington East India
Company did a thriving shipping business, and the town became a
prosperous mercantile center.

The opening of the Farmington Canal through this section in 1828 brought
increased trade and prosperity to the town, which continued until 1848
when the waterway was closed because of landslides. At present, Farm-
ington's commercial activity includes only small local stores and a few
wayside tea rooms. Its principal industries are dairying and agriculture.

TOUR

Junction of Main St. and Farmington Ave.

1. The Rochambeau Monument, a bronze plaque on a boulder in a small
park at the junction of Main St. and Farmington Ave., commemorates
the encampment of the French General's troops within the town in 1781.

E. from the Monument on Farmington Ave.

2. The Elm Tree Inn (open), first block on the north side of Farmington
Ave. (L), a brick and frame structure, was erected after the Revolution
around a 17th-century house where Philip Lewis started an inn in 1665.
The rear ell encloses the original building in which is preserved a large
kitchen fireplace. The west end of the house is still covered with beaded
clapboards and an interior wall is finished with feather-edged boards.

3. The Whitman Tavern (private), SW. cor. Farmington Ave. and High
St. (R), a yellow, two-and-a-half story, clapboarded house, is a typical
example of a sturdy central-chimney dwelling of the i8th century. Built
by Captain Judah Woodruff, Farmington's master-builder, in 1786, it
served as a shop for journeymen shoemakers from 1812 to 1854, and
later housed the village library. In 1791 it was sold to William Whitman,
whose descendants own the building.

146 Main Street and Village Green

R. from Farmington Ave. on High St.

4. The Samuel Whitman House (open daily except Monday; adm.
(L), now the Farmington Museum, first block on High St., is a carefully
restored 17th-century dwelling. One of the oldest frame houses in the
State (about 1660), it is easily recognized by its gray-brown, unstained
oak clapboards, its 1 8-inch overhang, and narrow casement windows.
They look curious and inadequate to a traveler today, but in the iyth
century when glass was at a premium, a house furnished with double
or triple casement sash brought from England was luxurious indeed. Two
of the four exterior doors are studded.

Exhibits of note are: collections of old deeds and documents; musical
instruments used in the church choir; an old hymnal printed in Farming-
ton; old china, including pieces of Lowestoft formerly owned by the Cowles
family; and some silver made by Martin Bull of Farmington. A collection
of lamps contains a 'courting lamp/ which timed the length of a suitor's
visit.

5. The Judd Homestead (private) (1697), High St. (L), beyond the Samuel
Whitman House, is a broad, low, gambrel-roofed house with wide clap-
board siding, typical of the late 17th-century frame dwellings.

R. from High St. on Mountain Road; L. from Mountain Road on School St.

6. The Barney Memorial Library (open week-days) (R), first block on
School St., has several interesting exhibits, including a collection of birds'
eggs which is one of the finest in the country. Presented by Harry Curtiss
Mills, the collection includes more than 8000 eggs of 843 species, among
them eggs of the dwarf screech owl, the only known specimens on exhi-
bition in the United States.

Return on School St.; L. on Mountain Road; R. on Main Street to a drive-
way halfway up the first block; R. on the driveway.

7. The brown shingled Gleason House (private) (about 1660), behind the
dwellings on Main Street, is one of the few houses with a framed overhang
still standing in the State. Although the usual drops have been cut off
the 1 8-inch overhang, their bases with gouge carving and two of the
original brackets remain.

Return on Main Street; L. on Main Street.

8. Miss Porter 1 s School both sides of Main St., at Mountain Road, an
exclusive, nationally-known finishing school for girls, was founded in
Farmington in 1844 by Miss Sarah Porter, sister of Noah Porter, Jr.,
eleventh president of Yale, and Samuel Porter, a leader in education for
deaf mutes. The main building (about 1828) of the institution, which
has an interesting irregularity in the placement of its windows, was
erected for a hotel at the time of the opening of the Canal.

9. The Samuel Deming House (private) (R), next to Miss Porter's School,
built in 1768 by Judah Woodruff, has a double overhang and unusual
wooden leader heads under a delicate cornice.

Farmington 147

10. The Gad Cowles House (private) (L), on the grounds of Miss Porter's
School, opposite the Deming House, dates from 1799. It is the earliest,
as well as the largest, of a group of houses which are as typical of 19th-
century Farmington dwellings as the framed overhang is of the iyth
century. In the tall gable-end facing the street is a Palladian window
above an elaborate cornice, supported by tall fluted Ionic pilasters. In
one corner of this facade, the delicate detail of a small open porch con-
trasts with the grand scale of the house. A portico, on the southern
wing, with four free-standing columns is the most imposing feature of the
building.

11. The Congregational Church (1771), Main St. (L), beyond the Cowles
house, is one of the few Colonial buildings of which the architect's name
is known. He was Captain Judah Woodruff, builder of much that was
good in Farmington. The unusually tall steeple of the church, topped
with an open-belfry spire, is universally admired as a masterpiece of
Georgian-Colonial architecture. The main entrance, placed in the middle
of one side in accordance with iSth-century practice, is now obscured
by a later Doric portico. The massive scale of the entrance is notable.
The impression of great height is due to the narrow graduated clapboard-
ing which materially affects the scale and, in part, to the distance be-
tween the first- and second-story windows. It is easy to believe that the
Colonial architect, like the Gothic, tried to give his churches a sense of
loftiness that houses of the Colonial period lacked. If so, it was a definite
spiritual expression that later, more conventionalized generations forgot.
The height of rooms increased in their houses, decreased in their churches.

12. A driveway to the right of the church leads to the Grange Hall,
once the Academy (1816), which is distinguished by a delicate octagonal
belfry on the lower ell at the north end.

R. from Main St. on Mill Lane.

13. The Old Grist Mill, still grinding corn, at the end of Mill Lane, on
the east bank of the Farmington River, was erected by the Cowles
family about 1778. At one time owned by the late Winchell Smith,
noted playwright, it attracted national attention many years ago when
the motion picture ' Way Down East ' was filmed here. Hoping to make
Connecticut a grain-raising State, Mr. Smith bought expensive harvesting
machinery and encouraged the farmers to plant rye, wheat and buck-
wheat on contract for him; he failed in the marketing of his various
ground flours and mixtures and turned to grinding cowfeeds and mid-
dlings.

Return on Mill Lane; R. on Main St.

14. The Major Timothy Cowles House (private} (1815) (L), SE. cor. Main
and Church Sts., belongs to the elaborate, Greek Revival group of dwellings
beginning with the house of Gad Cowles, which made Farmington famous
in the early i9th century. Projecting two-story porticoes of ornate and
over-delicate Ionic detail face front, north and south. A Palladian window
is almost lost from view over the front door; and a doorway, excellent in

148 Main Street and Village Green

design, is crowded into the angle of the north wing. An over emphasis
upon well-executed form, often to the detriment of the whole effect, is
characteristic of the Greek Revival.

15. The Simon Hart House (private) (1804) (L), Main St. just above
Col ton St., designed in the simplicity of the best early ipth-century
architecture, is long and spacious. On the gable end which faces the
street is an open Doric portico typical of that period.

16. The Rev. Noah Porter House (private), SW. cor. Maple and Main
Sts., the birthplace of the Porter family, was built of brick in 1808
(without the third story) by the Rev. Noah Porter, who was for 60 years
pastor of the Congregational Church. The first meeting of the American
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was held here in 1810.
Here were born Noah, Samuel, and Sarah Porter (see above).

R. from Main St. on Maple St.

1,7. The Riverside Cemetery, one block west on Maple St., on the site
of an Indian burying ground, ? contains a large, brown sandstone
monument erected in 1840 in honor of the Tunxis tribe of Indians.
Another monument commemorates the Civil War dead. One of the
Mendi captives, who died in Farmington while awaiting trial for mutiny,
is buried here. The inscription on the stone reads: 'Foone. A native
African who was drowned while bathing in the Center Basin August
1841. He was one of the company of slaves under Cinque on board the
schooner " Amistad" who asserted their rights and took possession of the
vessel after having put the Captain, Mate and others to death, sparing
their Masters Ruez, and Mantez.'

Return on Maple St.; R. on Main St.

1 8. The General George Cowles House (private) (1803), beyond the Porter
Homestead on the west side of Main St., an imposing mansion, has a
rather plain brick front relieved only by a recessed arched entrance,
unusual in the detail of its downward tapering columns between the door
and the side-lights. On the southern facade, which faces Hatter's Lane, is
a two-story Ionic portico and a Palladian window in the gable above.

19. Opposite the Cowles House lies the Old Cemetery (L), with an en-
trance in the Egyptian style once much used in Connecticut. The oldest
stone dates from 1685.

20. The Samuel Cowles House (private), SW. cor. Main St. and Meadow
Rd., a large gambrel-roofed house with corner quoins, bracketed cornices,
and round-headed gable windows of the English Georgian type, is named
Oldgate from its entrance gate of modified Chinese design. It is not only
the most elaborate house in Farmington, but interesting also because it
is the first house in the State (1780) that brought into the plain provincial
art of the time the influences of the classical renaissance as developed in
the English Georgian. It is evidently not the work of a local architect.
Woodruff, whose work was contemporary, never attempted a facade
like this, which focuses upon a handsome projecting pediment supported

Greenwich 149

on four Ionic columns. Above it, pilasters frame a well-designed Palla-
dian window in the second story. Tradition has it that the design was by
a British army officer, an architect named William Spratt, who was im-
prisoned in Farmington for two years. The design of this facade brought
Spratt his reputation, and other West Indian merchantmen in Litchfield
and East Haddam subsequently employed him. This same motif appears
on many other buildings, and sometimes in a debased form was copied in
many a village of western Connecticut. The small Dutch-roof ell at the rear
was the home (1661) of Farmington's first minister, the Rev. Samuel
Hooker, son of the Rev. Thomas Hooker who founded Hartford, and
grandfather of the wife of Jonathan Edwards.

21. Another house, contemporary and very simple in contrast with the
elegance of Oldgate, but with clear-cut lines and an aspect of serenity,
is the General Solomon Cowles House (1784), on the next or southwest
corner. It is a square house with a hip roof and long piazza.

22. The Isaac Cowles House (private), built in 1735, on the east side of
Main St. (L), facing Meadow Rd., has a double overhang and a well-
designed doorway, in which the pilaster caps have been strangely omitted.
The very unusual cornice has small carved panels between the brackets.

23. The remains of the John Cole Homestead (private) (R), west side of
Main St. at Tunxis St., have been made into two dwellings. Built in 1661,
the structure was the first of the 17th-century houses for which Farming-
ton is famous. Many generations ago the original house was cut in two
by two sons who quarreled after the property was bequeathed to them.
The southernmost section is on the original stone foundation; its two-
foot framed overhang is original. The other half, moved a short distance,
has a new overhang built in on the long side facing the road.

GREENWICH

Town: Alt. 60, tax borough pop. 5981, sett. 1640.

Railroad Station: Greenwich Station, Railroad Ave. at Greenwich Ave. for

N.Y., N.H. & H. R.R.

Piers: Public Dock, Steamboat Road for Island Beach boats, May 30 to Labor

Day (10^ for residents; 25?f for non-residents; Sun. and holidays 500).

Accommodations: Three hotels.

Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, 34 East Putnam Ave.

Swimming: Byram Park, East Port Chester; Island Beach in the Sound, reached

by boat from Public Dock; Milbrook Country Club (private).

Bridle Paths: Several miles of marked bridle paths form a network winding

150 Main Street and Village Green

through the northern section of the town, passing through some of the finest
estates in the vicinity.

Annual Events: The Scottish Games Association holds an athletic and folk dance
competition July 4.

GREENWICH, with approximately six miles of coast line along the
Sound, is essentially an urban community of the New York metropolitan
area with a sophisticated suburban atmosphere, quite unlike the typical
Connecticut town. The home of many prominent figures in New York
social and financial life, Greenwich is distinguished by its palatial land-
scaped estates in a natural setting of rolling hills and coves, bays, rivers,
and lakes.

Modern shops and large hotels are clustered in the elm-shaded business
district. Residential sections stretch southward to the irregular, rock-
ridged shore of Long Island Sound, and northward into the hilly country-
side. On the outskirts are the districts known as Old Greenwich, site of
the original settlement, which has preserved many of its early home-
steads; Riverside, where reside many wealthy persons; Milbrook, center
of extensive estates about the Milbrook Golf and Country Club ; and the
residential sections known as Belle Haven, Rock Ridge, and Round Hill.

Settled in 1640 by Daniel Patrick and Robert Feaks, agents of the New
Haven Colony, who purchased the land from the Indians for twenty-
five coats, the community, named for the English Greenwich, was re-
garded as of strategic importance, as it represented the most westerly
thrust of the English toward the Dutch settlement at New Amsterdam.
The Director General of the New Netherlands immediately served notice
that the land was rightfully under his jurisdiction. Fearing attack from
the Indians, whose friendliness had turned to hostility, and hoping for
protection from the Dutch, Captain Patrick signed a treaty at New
Amsterdam in April, 1642, wherein the Mianus River between Stamford
and Greenwich was agreed upon as the western boundary of Connecticut.
Disputes over the boundary continued. In 1650, the Dutch, in a treaty
signed at Hartford, ceded Greenwich to Connecticut, but the jurisdiction
of territory farther west was disputed for many years.

During the Revolutionary War, the Continental salt works at Green-
wich were destroyed, and homes were plundered and burned when the
town was attacked by General Tryon and a force of 1200 British and
Hessian soldiers. General Putnam and a force of 100 militiamen at-
tempted a defense, but were forced to retreat.

Industry has never been an important factor in the development of the
town, although considerable shipping and shipbuilding were carried on
in the early nineteenth century, when agricultural products, especially
large cargoes of potatoes, were shipped to New York from this port.
With the advent of the railroad and subsequent development of farm-
lands to the west of New York, Greenwich agricultural activities were
greatly curtailed.

EARLY CHURCHES OF
CONNECTICUT

THE theocratic state was the origin of Connecticut's first
government, and the church was always the most important
feature of her early architecture.

The oldest churches that remain anywhere near intact are a
group from just before the Revolution, in Farmington, Weth-
ersfield, and Brooklyn. Something of the Gothic aspiration
for height is to be found in them. The tower is offset, at one
end of the building, and after one or two belfry stages, open
and closed, terminates in a narrow, tapering spire. The en-
trance is at the side, opposite the pulpit.

With the movement toward the Classic Revival, church archi-
tecture began in the early nineteenth century to borrow more
and more of ancient forms. Town's building for Center
Church, New Haven (1812-14), was the precursor of the
' golden age' of Connecticut churches. An adapted Renais-
sance portico now projects from the front of the building, and
the steeple rises back of this entrance gable, most of it from
within the main edifice of the church. As time went on, the
steeple moved backward, as it were, into the church building,
and the portico became more and more a separate compo-
sition.

David Hoadley did more than any other man to influence this
finest period from 1815 to 1830. Four very similar churches
culminated in Litchfield (1829) sometimes considered the
perfect example although Col. Samuel Belcher's church at
Old Lyme (1817), now reconstructed, is an artists' favorite.
Country churches, as in Killingworth, often achieved more
charming results from their very simplicity. Plymouth
Church, Milford (1834), represents the later, severer tend-
ency of the Classic Revival. Often this was a careful copy-
ing; sometimes, as in the stone Congregational Church at
East Granby, a more spontaneous, free rendering brought
about an unexpected attractive result.

CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, FARMINGTON

CONGREGATIONAL CHTJUCIf, WETHER SFTELD

CENTER CHURCH, NEW HAVEN

CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, LITCHFIELD

fc&l

CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, OLD LYME

IIIIII
I II I I

CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, KILLINGWORTH

PLYMOUTH CHURCH, MILFORD

CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, EAST GRANBY

Greenwich 151

Each year on July 4, at the Charles A. Moore estate, is held an inter-
national celebration of the Scottish Games Association. Bagpipe bands
vie for prizes, and contestants from Scotland, Australia, the United
States, and Canada participate in tossing the caber as well as in native
dances such as the Highland Fling, sword dance, and foursome reel.

MOTOR TOUR

S. from US 1 on Greenwich Ave. to Steamboat Road.

i. Bruce Museum (open daily during daylight hours; free), in Bruce Park
at end of Steamboat Road, a four-story, square, stone house of 1850,
with no adornment except an abbreviated French tower, is devoted to
exhibits of natural history, art, and history.

Formerly the Bruce estate, the 80 acres and residence were bequeathed
to the town by Robert M. Bruce in 1908. The museum is under the
direction of Mr. Paul G. Howes, who was formerly with the American
Museum of Natural History. Mr. Howes, chief photographer with the
scientist William Beebe on the Kalacoon Expedition to British Guiana,
collected many of the specimens exhibited.

On the first floor are a herbarium, in which blossoms of shrubs native to
Connecticut are reproduced in wax, an art department, and a collection
of mammals. Specimens of the wild animals of Connecticut are shown
against authentic backgrounds. In addition there are many North
American, Australian, and Asiatic specimens.

An ornithological collection occupies the second floor. Here, expertly
mounted native birds are classified in four large groups illustrating the
four seasons: spring in the woods, summer at the shore, autumn and
winter in the woods. An exhibit of birds' nests and eggs has been col-
lected from many parts of the world. An extensive entomological col-
lection, including thousands of local and foreign specimens, is also dis-
played on the second floor.

A variety of collections occupies the third floor: gems and minerals from
various countries; fossils illustrating the history of life on the earth;
models showing the evolution of the horse from his tiny ancestor; and
extinct reptiles of the Connecticut Valley. A collection of Indian relics
includes arrowheads, agricultural implements, and specimens of bead-
work and paintings. An American historical collection includes many
relics of Colonial days.

At the end of the Point is the Indian Harbor Yacht Clubhouse, a large
stucco building in Italian style with tile roofs. On the peninsula to the
east, the elaborate villa of the late Commodore Elias C. Benedict stands
near the site of the headquarters of 'Boss' Tweed's 'Americus Club of
New York.' The Tweed estate (1865) stretched from this point to the
Post Road.

152 Main Street and Village Green

Return to US 1; R. on US I.

2. The granite Second Congregational Church (L), conspicuously placed
at the top of the hill, in the center of Greenwich, has a tall, slender broach
spire at one corner that towers above the trees and can be seen for miles
in all directions.

3. Christ Episcopal Church (R), erected in 1908-10, was designed by
William Francis Dominick. The three granite buildings of this dis-
tinguished Gothic group include the church, with a square, high pinnacled
tower and rather flat roof; a cloistered parish house, somewhat recessed
from the street; and the rectory, a dwelling of Gothic design.

4. Putnam Cottage (open 10-5, Hon., Wed., Fri., Sat.; free] (1731) (L),
243 East Putnam Ave., is maintained as a museum by the D.A.R.
This white homestead with a peaked roof and long, low veranda has
undergone several renovations, but retains its original round-ended
shingles on the front. According to tradition, it was from this house that
Israel Putnam made his daring escape from the British on February 26,
1779. The General, recently arrived at Greenwich to review the Con-
tinental troops, was shaving in his room when he saw, in the mirror, the
reflection of approaching Redcoats. Outnumbered and totally unpre-
pared, Putnam ordered his men to flee for their lives, and, jumping astride
his horse, turned the animal toward the brink of the rocky precipice
near-by. The astonished British saw horse and rider disappear over the
cliff. Threading his way to right and left, Putnam reached the valley;
not one of the dragoons dared to follow him. The Post Road is cut through
the rock at about the spot where Putnam made his escape. A small
Bronze Tablet at the top of the incline, west of the Putnam Cottage,
commemorates the adventure.

The house is completely equipped with old furniture and accessories of
the 1 8th and early i9th century. In the parlor is an early spinet, a
handsome flat-topped desk, a secretary, an old spinning wheel, and many
other objects of interest. In an adjoining room is one of the first Franklin
stoves, in the rare, arched style; a pair of old pewter candlemolds, and
many other examples of early pewter, including a teapot, plates, bowls,
warming pans, etc. There is also on exhibit a chest of drawers made of
cherry hewn from a Greenwich tree by a local craftsman in the early
1 8th century. The bedrooms are furnished with Colonial pieces, includ-
ing a fine example of an early American cradle.

5. The High Low House, Round Hill Road, a composite structure, com-

GREENWICH. POINTS OF INTEREST

1. Bruce Museum 5. High Low House

2. Second Congregational Church 6. Milbank Mausoleum

3. Christ Episcopal Church 7. Edgewood School

4. Putnam Cottage 8. Rosemary Hall

154 Main Street and Village Green

bining a 16th-century English manor house, transported to this country
from England in 1911, and a granite Tudor residence, erected in 1905
by I. N. Phelps Stokes, architect and owner, is on private grounds, not
open to the public. British supervision of British-American labor as-
sured the sympathetic handling of the 16th-century material. The
English dwelling for which the residence is named was erected in Ipswich,
Suffolk County, England, about 1507. Built of half timber and brick,
with seven sharp gables in its red tiled roof, the old house has a great
i2-panel, heavily studded oaken entrance door with a Gothic top and
original hardware, a hand-carved header and broad carved lintel. Hand-
carved half -columns rise to Gothic brackets; a hand-carved frieze on
the second-floor end-overhang, and random brick and timber panels
spread to either side of the entrance. The heavy corner posts and brackets
are elaborately hand-carved, and weathered rift-grain oak shows wherever
the timbering is revealed.

6. The Milbank Mausoleum, occupying a commanding position in the
Putnam Cemetery, Parsonage Rd., is a scholarly reproduction of an
Ionic temple, with columns extending around all sides. From the road
below, it appears to be an open colonnade.

7. Edgewood School, on Glenville Rd. and Brookside Lane, opened in
1910 on the estate of Mrs. Charles D. Lanier, is a co-educational pro-
gressive school with an enrollment of about 200 pupils from 3 to 20
years of age. Conducted on the principle that education to be successful
must be interesting from early childhood, the courses in this school seek
first to establish an appreciation of intellectual discipline.

The main school building, a spreading structure of granite boulders with
a wide covered porch, stands on a i2o-acre campus across which Horse-
neck Brook winds, tumbling in falls and rapids and spreading out in
quiet pools.

8. Rosemary Hall, at junction Ridgeway and Zaccheus Mead Lane, is a
preparatory school for girls founded in Wallingford in 1890 and moved
to its present site in 1900. The 25-acre campus includes six school
buildings, two hockey fields, two gymnasiums, and a running track. About
200 students are enrolled.

Points of Interest Of shore:

On Great Captain's Island, 3 m. out, in Long Island Sound, opposite
the entrance to Greenwich Harbor, named for Captain Daniel
Patrick, first military commander of the town, is a square stone
lighthouse erected by the U.S. Government in the early nineteenth
century.

On Little Captain's Island, 2 m. out, the town has established a public
recreational center. (Boats, every 20 min. from Memorial Day to
Labor Day, leave dock at foot of Steamboat Road; 20-minute sail; boat
fee 25j round trip; Island Beach, bath-house rental

Groton 155

Points of Interest in Environs:

Lyon House; Conde Nast Press, Laddin's Rock; Keofferam Lodge,
Shore Road; Arcadia (headquarters of National Agassiz Associa-
tion) ; Perrot Memorial Library (headquarters Greenwich Historical
Society), Old Greenwich (see Tour 1).

GROTON

Town: Alt. 60, pop. 10,770, sett. 1649, organized 1705.

Airport: Trumbull Airport, Eastern Point; taxi fare from center of Groton,
75^ for one or two passengers; time, 15 min. Sightseeing planes, $1 per ride,
over harbor. No scheduled service.
Taxis: 50^ anywhere in village.

Accommodations: One large hotel, open in summer only.

Annual Events: Navy Day Celebration, U.S. Submarine Base, October 26.

GROTON, spreading along the eastern bank of the Thames River
opposite New London, clings to the steep slope of Groton Heights, dom-
inated by the granite shaft erected in memory of the militiamen who
attempted to withstand two regiments of British regulars in 1781.
From the water's edge to the hill crest, the old shipbuilding village of
narrow streets and small vine-grown houses seems to have slumbered for
years, growing in its sleep and awakening just before the World War
to be rediscovered by industry. Although submarines, engines, banjos,
thread and castings are produced here, Groton remains a Yankee com-
munity with nearly sixty per cent of its population of full native parent-
age. Village politics, the affairs of the Nation and of the Odd Fellows, the
principal organization in town, are discussed in the back room of Groton's
leading ' department store/ In summer, a steady stream of sleek motors
rolls through the Main Street, en route to Eastern Point, three miles
south, an exclusive shore resort.

The countryside around Groton has been drenched with the blood of
Indians, patriots, and British invaders. Before the white men came,
some of the bloodiest of tribal wars were fought in this hunting ground
of the Pequot Indians, who were seldom on friendly terms with the
Narragansetts, or later, with the English.

Land in Groton was granted to New London settlers in 1648-49 and,
originally known as the ' East Side,' was first occupied in 1649 by Jonathan
Brewster, eldest son of Elder William Brewster of the Plymouth Colony,
who established a trading post at Brewster's Neck on the Thames River

156 Main Street and Village Green

north of the present Groton. Organized in 1705, the town was named
for the county seat of the Winthrops in Suffolk, England. The settle-
ment did not develop into a compact little village like most Yankee towns
but spread over the broken terrains of ' breezy ridges and sunny valleys '
into numerous little streamside communities in the back country and a
fringe of shipbuilding and fishing settlements along the shore of the
river and Sound. (See NOANK and WEST MYSTIC, Tour 1.) The
township extends from the Mystic to the Thames Rivers and originally
reached from the Sound to the Preston line, until Ledyard (then North
Groton) became a separate town in 1836. The town now includes the
Borough of Groton, Center Groton, Poquonock Bridge, Noank, and
West Mystic. Agriculture was not profitable, but fisheries were. By
1838 some three hundred Groton men and boys were regularly engaged at
sea, some fishing off Cuba for the Spanish trade, some in West Indian
trade, and others in salvaging operations up and down the coast.

Among the distinguished Groton skippers was Captain Ebenezer Morgan,
who returned to New London harbor on September 18, 1865, in his
' Pioneer,' with 1391 pounds of whale oil and 22,650 pounds of bone.
The cargo was sold for $151,060, and as the ship and outfit cost only
$35,800, a net profit of over 300 per cent was made in the fifteen months'
voyage.

Captain James M. Buddington of Groton, commanding the ship 'George
and Henry,' in 1855 discovered the abandoned British frigate ' Resolute,'
one of the squadron sent out in search of Sir John Franklin. Ice bound
in Baffin's Bay, the ' Resolute' was abandoned and drifted 900 miles
out into the Atlantic. Captain Buddington brought her safely to New
London harbor and received $30,000 for salvage from the United States
Government. The English ship was refitted at the Brooklyn Navy
Yard and returned to England as a gift from the United States to the
Queen.

Captain Joseph Warren Holmes, a Groton skipper, doubled Cape Horn
more times than any man afloat, with eighty-three trips to his credit.
For pure adventure, little in the annals of the sea surpasses the experience
of Captain Ambrose H. Burrows, who sailed from New York, January
24, 1823, commanding the brig 'Frederick' bound for Lima, Peru. At
Callao, after a passage of 158 days, he found the city in a state of insur-
rection. General Bolivar arrived with reinforcements and restored order.
Later, on sailing for Quilca, the seaport for Arequipa, capital of Upper
Peru, the brig was fired upon and boarded by a crew from a pirate craft,
'Quintanelia,' commanded by an Italian. Short of navigators, the
pirates forced Captain Burrows to navigate his own vessel. The skipper
asked for the company of his sixteen-year-old son and smuggled his
pistols aboard. At pistol point, Captain Burrows took over the ship
again, cast the pirates adrift in a longboat, sailed his ship back to Callao,
and found the city in the midst of another revolt. Rescued by the U.S.
frigate 'Franklin,' Captain Burrows sold his vessel and returned to
America on the 'Constitution.'

Groton 157

The wanderlust of John Ledyard, born in Groton in 1751, nephew of
the commander at Fort Griswold, is said to have inspired the recurring
mystery of ' disappearing freshmen' at Dartmouth College. While a
Dartmouth freshman, in 1772, Ledyard fashioned a canoe fifty feet long
from a pine tree and paddled down the Connecticut on the first of many
voyages which took him to unexplored countries. Arriving at Hartford,
young Ledyard shipped before the mast and made a voyage to Gibraltar,
the Barbary Coast, and the West Indies. Sailing from London as a
corporal of marines under Captain Cook, the Groton youngster was
absent for four years on a cruise that took him to Hawaii at its discovery,
China, Siberia, and into the Arctic. On his return to America, Ledyard
published his journal. In 1786, following Thomas Jefferson's plan for
exploration of the Pacific Northwest by way of Siberia, Ledyard traveled
on foot from Stockholm, Sweden, to St. Petersburg, Russia, a distance
of 1400 miles in seven weeks. He was stopped at Irkutsk and ordered to
leave Russia. He returned to London, undaunted in his quest for unknown
places. While fitting out an expedition at Cairo, to explore Africa, Led-
yard died at the age of thirty-seven.

Shipbuilding was one of the village's important early industries. Large
ships were built in Groton yards as early as 1724, and during the Revolu-
tion a thirty-six-gun frigate was built in the Poquetanock River at the
order of the Continental Congress. In 1812 many privateers were fitted
out to run the British blockade. The Eastern Shipbuilding Company
established a plant in Groton in 1900 and commenced the construction
of two large steamships for the Great Northern Steamship Company, the
'Minnesota' and 'Dakota,' largest merchant vessels of their day, with
a displacement of 33,000 tons each.

Groton has had its share of strange cults. Spiritualism held sway under
the banner of the First Spiritual and Liberal Society for some years
in the early seventeenth century, but gradually died out. The Rogerene
Quakers, organized by John Rogers of New London about 1675, were a
very strong sect and were so determined in their efforts to make the
town of Groton pure that they were occasionally whipped or treated to a
coat of tar and feathers by their fellow townsfolks. The only remaining
trace of this sect now is in the back country.

TOUR

5. from Post Road (US 1) on Thames St.

i. The Mother Bailey House (private) (1782), 108 Thames St., is a two-
and-a-half-story frame building with two end chimneys. The entrance
porch, supported by Ionic columns, is a later addition. The house
owes its fame to an episode of the War of 1812. In June 1813, Com-
modore Stephen Decatur and his small fleet, pursued by a British squad-
ron, had taken shelter in New London harbor. Fearful of a repetition of

158 Main Street and Village Green

the attack of 1781, terrified inhabitants bundled their household goods
into carts and hastened inland. A messenger from the fort, sent through
town to collect old rags for gunwadding, was unsuccessful in his quest
until he met Mother Bailey (Anna Warner Bailey), who promptly re-
moved her red flannel petticoat and remarked, 'There are plenty more
where that came from.' When the petticoat and its story reached the
fort, the garrison promptly displayed 'The Martial Petticoat' from
a pikestaff planted on the ramparts as a symbol of the devotion of a
patriotic lady. After the war, President Andrew Jackson is reported to
have visited Mrs. Bailey and presented the iron fence at the west of the
house, as a token of appreciation.

2. The Gary Latham House (private), 157 Thames St., called Ferry
Tavern, a narrow two-and-a-half-story, peak-roofed structure with a lone
chimney, is so small that there are only two rooms within, one above the
other. There is little architectural evidence to justify the early date
claimed for it (1655).

3. The Colonel Ebenezer Avery House (1754), NE. cor. Thames and
Latham Sts., with a peak roof and central chimney, was used as a hos-
pital for the wounded in 1781. Although it has been remodeled, this
frame dwelling retains the original paneling around the staircase, a
fine corner cupboard with a carved rose at the top, and three or four
paneled and battened interior doors on the first floor.

L. from Thames on Fort St.

4. Fort Griswold, Fort and Thames Sts., commanding the entrance to
the Thames, was the site of one of the tragedies of the American Revolu-
tion. Here on September 6, 1781, Lieutenant-Colonel William Ledyard
hastily assembled 150 militiamen in an attempt to repulse the attack
of two regiments of British regulars and the 3d Battalion of New Jersey
volunteers, who advanced on Groton after capturing Fort Trumbull,
New London. Under the direction of Benedict Arnold, who watched
from across the river, the British stormed the fort and killed Colonel
Ledyard and most of his brave company. The untrained Colonial rifle-
men, recruited from near-by farms, sold their lives dearly, accounting
for 193 British. Looting, mistreatment of the wounded and prisoners,
and the burning of the town followed the slaughter of the defenders.
Eighty-five militiamen were killed at the fort and all male members of
many families were destroyed; of the Avery family alone, nine men were
killed and three wounded.

The General Assembly of May, 1792, offered to those involved in the
tragedy, or to the heirs and legal representatives, a half-million acres
of land in the Western Reserve, as partial compensation. Ninety-two
Groton families benefited by this grant. In May, 1842, title to Fort
Griswold was ceded to the U.S. Government. A stone marker, enclosed
by an iron fence, marks the spot where Ledyard, the military commander
of the district, fell by his own sword which he had trustingly extended to
the conquering officer as a token of surrender. Another marker, strangely

Groton 1 59

enough, is a memorial to the Major Montgomery of the British forces,
who, while leading the attack over the parapet, was killed by a pike
wielded by Gordon Freeman, a Negro servant of Ledyard.

The feeling generated by the massacre has not abated despite the passing
years. Commemorative exercises are frequently held on the old battle-
ground. For many years Jonathan Brooks of New London (d. 1848)
delivered an unsolicited address from the breastworks on the anniversary
of the massacre. One year, when only a few people gathered to listen,
Mr. Brooks looked out over their heads, cleared his throat, and bellowed,
'Attention, Universe!'

5. Groton Monument (grounds open free; 15^ admission to monument)
(i 830) , Fort St., was erected under State patronage with funds secured from
a lottery. This monument, commemorating the battle of Fort Griswold,
is a granite obelisk 22 feet square and 134 feet high. From windows at
the top, a view unfolds in all directions, including Watch Hill, Block
Island, Gardner's Island, Montauk Point, and the Connecticut coast as
far west as the Connecticut River.

At the foot of the monument a little Monument House (open 9-5 during
the summer months, free), built of stone left over from the construction of
the shaft, has been furnished by the D.A.R., with relics of the battle and
other antiques.

6. Bill Memorial Library (open Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2-6, Saturdays,
2-7) (1890), NW. of the monument, a brownstone building in the roman-
tic style of Richardson, has a fine collection of butterflies.

7. The Joseph Latham House (private) (1717), Monument St., a plain
story-and-a-half cottage of four rooms, is called the 'Gore House,'
because so many wounded men were quartered here after the battle
of Groton Heights.

8. Electric Boat Company, Eastern Point Rd., probably the world's
largest builder of submarines, operates almost exclusively for the execu-
tion of the U.S. Navy contracts. This firm is a successor to the New
London Ship and Engine Company which was the first concern to install
Diesel engines in submarines (February 14, 1912). On this site were
previously located the shipyards of the Eastern Ship Building Company.

Points of Interest in Environs:

United States Submarine Base (visitors admitted), Atlantic sub-
marine headquarters, 5 m. (see Tour 9 A).

Fort Hill, 4.4 m., West Mystic; Pequot Hill, 5.6 m., US 1 (see Tour 1) ;
the Governor Winthrop House, Bluff Rd., 5.7 m. (see Tour 1).

GUILFORD

Town: Alt. 10, borough pop. 1880, sett. 1639.

Railroad Station: N.Y., N.H. & H. R.R., Whitfield St.

Accommodations: One hotel.

Annual Events: Guilford Fair and exhibit of local agricultural products; held

last Wednesday in September from 9 A.M. to 9 P.M.

GUILFORD, named for the town of Guildford in Surrey, England, retains
the appearance of a New England village of the early days. More than
150 old houses border its quiet streets, and the wide Green, with its
elms and stately Greek Revival church, has a tranquil simplicity char-
acteristic of the town. Situated on the irregular shore of Long Island
Sound, the community has attracted many summer residents in recent
years.

Founded in 1639, and originally named Menunkatucket, Guilford was
settled by a body of Puritans from Kent and Surrey under the leader-
ship of Henry Wnitfield and Samuel Desborough. Land extending from
the present Branford to Niantic was purchased from the Mohegan Chief,
Uncas, under a grant from the British Crown. One of the bloodiest of
Indian battles was fought between the fleeing Pequots and the combined
English and Mohegan forces at Sachem's Head (see Side Trip of Tour 1).
Although Guilford was one of the few shore towns to escape pillaging
by the British fleet and General Tryon's troops, the residents, determined
to retaliate for the losses suffered by other towns, organized a whale-
boat raid, May 29, 1777, on the British provision stores at Sag Harbor,
L.I. Rowing from Sachem's Head to the beach at Plum Gut, 200 men,
under Lieutenant Colonel Meigs, dragged their whaleboats overland,
launched them again on the ocean side, and rowed to a short distance off
Sag Harbor. They surprised the British sentry, withstood the fire of a
i2-gun schooner, set fire to about 100 tons of hay, 10 transports, wharves,
and i armed schooner mounting 8 guns, and returned unharmed within
24 hours. In return, the British landed at Guilford in June, but met such
spirited opposition that they retired after burning only two houses on
Leete's Island.

Guilford is the birthplace of such distinguished men as Abraham Baldwin
(1754-1807), member of the Continental Congress, founder of the Uni-
versity of Georgia, and U.S. Senator from Georgia; the Rev. Samuel
Johnson, the first president of King's College, now Columbia University
(1696-1772), and Fitz-Greene Halleck, the poet (see Literature). The
town's most picturesque political character, Samuel Hill (1677-1752), is
said to have been responsible for the expression 'Running like Sam Hill,'
because he ran for office from young manhood. At the time of his death

Guilford 161

in 1752, he was not only State representative, but also town clerk,
probate judge, and clerk of the Proprietors.

Granite quarrying and oyster culture have flourished in the town through-
out most of its existence. Quarries opened in 1837 have provided stone
for the foundation of the Statue of Liberty, for breakwaters at Block
Island, 13 bridges over the Harlem River, New York City, the foundation
of the Brooklyn Bridge, the northern half of the Battery wall in New
York, and the lighthouse at Lighthouse Point, New Haven.

A leading occupation is the cultivation of roses, carried on at the Pinch-
beck greenhouse on State St., said to be the largest single hothouse in the
United States. Covered by more than 125,000 square feet of glass, the
greenhouse is 1200 feet long, and has produced a record maximum output
of 18,000 roses in one day; average production is about 7000 daily.

Schoolroom furniture, canned goods, birch extract, toilet articles, iron,
brass and bronze castings are made in Guilford.

TOUR 1

S. from the Boston Post Road on Fair St.

Nine salt-box-type houses on Fair St. give an opportunity to compare

the differing lines of this type of dwelling for which Guilford is famous.

1. The Spencer Homestead (private) (1761), 101 Fair St., retains its original
lines, except for the addition of a Greek Revival doorway.

2. The Stevens House (private) (1726), 77 Fair St., another outstanding
example, is built around the chimney of an earlier house (1670), which
measures 17 feet X 26 at the base, probably a record size.

3. Captain Nathaniel Johnson House (private), another salt-box, at 58
Fair St., was built in 1732.

R. from Fair St. on Broad St.

4. Site of Governor William Leete Homestead, 6 Broad St., is marked by
a later house, an attractive, modernized salt-box dwelling (private), built
in 1769 by Caleb Stone. Under the garage behind the house is the cellar
foundation of the earlier house, where the regicides, Goffe and Whalley,
were hidden for ten days and fed by Mr. Leete.

5. Jared Leete's House (private) (1781), 76 Broad St., was the home of
that injudicious drinker of cider and prolific composer of ribald verse.
When hunting one day on Moose Hill, he became very thirsty and asked
at a farmhouse for a drink of cider. The housewife, who recognized him,
at first refused and then agreed to furnish the drink if he would write
an epitaph for her. Jared immediately complied with:

'Margaret, who died of late,
Ascended up to heaven's gate.*

1 62 Main Street and Village Green

The satisfied Margaret brought the cider and he immediately added:

'But Gabriel met her with a club
And drove her down to BEELZEBUB.'

Retrace Broad St. TT^;

6. The Hubbard House (private) (1717), 53 Broad St., with a five-inch
overhang at the second-story level, is the largest Colonial house in
Guilford. In it the Rev. Bela Hubbard, D.D., was born in 1739. So
beloved was he for his faithfulness in attending his congregation through
a severe epidemic of yellow fever that he remained an active minister
in New Haven throughout the Revolution, despite his pronounced
Royalist sympathies.

7. The Congregational Church (L), Broad Street, framed through the
trees on the Green, was built in 1829 during the decade in which the
Greek Revival reached its fullest development, and offers an interesting
comparison withjjie Litchfield Congregational Church, built in the same
year. The church is very broad and has an Ionic portico which repeats
the lines of the gable. Three arched windows are placed over the three
square-topped doors of equal height. These details, although authenti-
cally Greek, are somewhat modified by a freer treatment. The rather low
steeple has two octagonal stages over the square tower and is surmounted
by a conical spire. The architect is unknown, but his skill with classical
forms is evident in the design of this building, distinguishing it from the
average village church of the time.

R. from Broad St. on Park St.

8. Smyth House (private) (1820), 55 Park St., where Ralph Dunning
Smyth, lawyer, judge, representative, and local historian lived for many
years, has an elaborate cornice and a hip-roofed portico, supported by
Ionic columns that are typical of the Greek Revival. The large front
windows have finely molded heads. According to tradition, Lafayette,
who stopped for refreshment on the opposite corner of the Green, re-
marked of this house ' C'est gentille.'

GUILFORD. POINTS OF INTEREST

1. Spencer Homestead u. Lot Benton House

2. Stevens House 12. Ebenezer Bartlett House

3. Captain Nathaniel Johnson 13. Ruth Hart Homestead

House 14. Hyland or Fiske-Wildman House

4. Site of Governor William Leete 15. Levi Hubbard Homestead

Homestead 16. Caldwell House

5. Jared Leete's House 17. Ezra Griswold House

6. Hubbard House 18. Acadian House

7. Congregational Church 19. Sabbath Day House

8. Smyth House 20. Daniel Bowen House

9. Episcopal Church 21. Comfort Starr House
10. WHitfield House

1 64 Main Street and Village Green

9. The Episcopal Church (L), Park St., between Boston and Broad Sts.,
a granite building of 1836, is an example of the Gothic Revival, a style
popularized in the State by the erection of Trinity Church in New
Haven.

R. from Park St. on Boston St.; L. on Whitfield St.

10. Whitfield House (open 9-5 daily; free), on Whitfield St., is one of the
earliest stone houses in America and probably the oldest house in Con-
necticut. It has been remodeled many times in the last century, and was
restored in 1903 and in 1936, so that only about a third of the heavy rear
wall, the immense chimney which covers the whole north end of the
house, and the line of the foundation remain. The original fortified house
was built in 1639-40 by the Rev. Henry Whitfield to serve not only as his
home but for all the public uses of the community. The most important
house in the town often did have to serve community uses and was,
therefore, likely to be a departure from the usual type. In 1936, under
a Works Progress Administration project, which was directed by J.
Frederick Kelly, an authority on early Connecticut architecture, the
house was restored as nearly as possible to its original appearance, even
to the odd window which old prints show across the southwest corner.
Now maintained by the State as a museum, the building houses a varied
collection of antiques and curios.

11. Lot Benton House (private), on Whitfield St., half a mile south, was
erected about 1770 in the center of town where the present Congrega-
tional Church stands, but was moved to its present site in 1824, drawn
by 35 yoke of oxen. Dr. Lyman Beecher, a ward of Lot Benton, lived
in the house occasionally and inherited it.

Retrace Whitfield St.; L. on Water St.

12. Ebenezer Bartlett House (private), 15 Water St., dating from the
second quarter of the i8th century, has a great T-shaped chimney. In
this house died the poet Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790-1867).

13. Ruth Hart Homestead (open) (1780), 68 Water St., a little story-and-
a-half Dutch-roofed house, a type rarely found in Guilford, has one very
old, many-paned window, with wooden muntins more than an inch wide
in the southwest room on the first floor.

Retrace Water St. which becomes Boston St.

14. The Hyland or Fiske-Wildman House (open 9-5 during the summer;
adm. 25ff), Boston St. (L), between Graves Ave. and Pearl St., has been
restored by the Dorothy Whitfield Historical Society, Inc., and is main-
tained as a museum. Its date has been the subject of much discussion.
Because of the height of its rooms, the best authorities are inclined to
believe that it cannot merit the 17th-century date commonly assigned
to it. Certainly, with its reconstructed casement windows, it closely
resembles the average house of about 1 700. The beautifully carved over-
hang, with its molded chamfer, lambs' tongue, and brackets beneath, is
one of the finest examples in Guilford. In this house lived Ebenezer
Parmelee, who, in 1727, built one of the first town clocks in America and

Guilford 165

installed it in the First Congregational Church on the Green. It served
in two succeeding edifices until 1892.

15. Levi Hubbard Homestead (private) (1761), 311 Boston St., tradi-
tionally known as 'Black House,' was the home of Nicholas Loysel, a
French refugee, from the Island of Guadeloupe. When Nicholas heard
of the execution of Louis XVI, he painted his house black, and traces of
the paint remain.

16. The Caldwell Home (private) (1740), southwest corner of Boston St.
and Lovers' Lane, was remodeled in the early igth century, but retains
features that link it with the first half of the i8th century. It was origi-
nally a central-chimney house, of the 'hewn overhang' type, predominant
in the southern portions of Connecticut. The 'hewing out' of the solid
corner posts into exterior corbels is plainly visible under the second-story
overhang. The excellent portico, the chimneys and windows, are igth-
century; the dormers are 20th-century.

17. On the opposite corner, across Lovers' Lane at 161 Boston St., is
the Ezra Griswold House (1777), an attractive white salt-box dwelHng on
a high bank, behind an odd picket fence. Its excellent state of preserva-
tion and its charming setting have caused it to be the most photographed
house in Connecticut.

L. from Boston St. on Union St.

18. The Acadian House (private), Union St., between Pearl and Market
Place, a sparsely windowed, primitive salt-box dwelling built about 1670
by Joseph Clay, sheltered exiles from Acadia who were put ashore by a
British ship after the destruction of Grand Pre in 1755.

On Union St. are two of the tiny, seldom preserved Sabbath Day
houses, built by settlers living in distant outlying districts who came into
the village on Saturday in order to attend the Sunday services.

19. One Sabbath Day House (private), at No. 5 Union St., is a story-and-
a-half house, with a sharp-peaked roof and a wide cornice, dating from
1730.

20. The Daniel Bowen House (private), 19 Union St., the other Sabbath
Day House, is an exceptionally small dwelling of 1734 with a sharp
gambrel at the front and a lean-to at the rear.

Right from Union St. on State St.

21. Comfort Starr House (private), 138 State St., is one of the oldest
frame houses in the State and one of the few remaining homes of the
'Signers' who first settled Guilford. Built by Henry Kingsnorth in
1645-46 and sold to Comfort Starr in 1694, this house retains most of its
primitive features, including the five-window front and plain doorway,
the stone chimney, the gable overhang, and the awkward roof-line
formed by the lean-to added at the rear. The position of this house
indicates that in Guilford and the larger communities the usual 17th-
century rule of having a house face the south did not always prevail.

1 66 Main Street and Village Green

Points of Interest in Environs:

Captain Lee House, 0.3 m.; Leete Homestead, Leete's Island, 4 m.;
Sachem's Head, 4.8 m. (see Side Tour from Tour 1) ; old churches,
North Guilford, 6.5 m.; old settlement of Nut Plains, 2.7 m.\
Thimble Islands, 4.5 m. (see Tour IF).

HARTFORD

City: Alt. 40, pop. 164,072, inc. 1784.

Railroad Station: Hartford Station, Union Place and Asylum Ave., for N.Y.,

N.H. & H. R.R.

Airports: Rentschler Field, 400 Main St., East Hartford, 3^ m. from center,

taxi fare $1.05, time 20 min.; American Airlines, Newark-Boston route, 2

stops each way daily, 3 stops each way on summer schedule, Brainard Field

(municipally owned), Aviation Rd. at Maxim Rd., 2 m. S. of center, taxi fare

60^, time 10 min.; United Airlines, Seaplane Dock.

Taxis: 35^ first mile, 25^ each additional mile, $2 per hour, waiting time; $3 per

hour, traveling in city; $4 per hour, traveling outside city.

Accommodations: Five hotels.

Information Service: Travelers' Aid, Railroad Station, Union Place; Informa-
tion Desk, Municipal Bldg., Main St.; Hartford Chamber of Commerce, 805
Main St.; Hartford Better Business Bureau, 190 Trumbull St.; Business &
Technical Branch, Hartford Public Library, 730 Main St.; Conn. Motor Club,
Heublein Hotel, 180 Wells St.

Boat Landing: Hartford Yacht Club, E. bank of Connecticut River, below
Bulkeley Memorial Bridge.

Auditoriums: Horace Bushnell Memorial Hall, 166 Capitol Ave. (3227 seats);
Foot Guard Armory, 165 High St. (1500 seats); Avery Memorial Hall, 35
Prospect St.; State Armory, Broad St. and Capitol Ave. (10,000 seats).

Recreation: Tennis courts in city parks, for use after 4 P.M. weekdays or any
time Sundays, 5^ per hour per player, obtain permit at municipal building.
Golf: Keney Park, Barbour St. and Windsor Ave., 25f nine holes, $15.00 yearly
membership, i8-hole course; Goodwin Park, Maple Ave., 15^ nine holes, $10.00
yearly membership, i8-hole course.
Swimming: Colt Park Pool; Riverside Park Pool.
Bridle Paths: Keney Park.

Annual Events: Community Sing, Christmas Eve, in front of Hartford, Times
Bldg., Prospect St.; Rose Week, Elizabeth Park, June, date varies; Conn. State
Teachers Association Convention, Bushnell Memorial, 3d Friday in October;
Gladiola Show, 3d week in August, Old State House, under auspices of Conn.
Gladiola Society; Flower Show, Conn. Horticultural Society, June, Old State

Hartford 167

House; Shrine Circus, State Armory, April; Sportsmen's Show, February, State
Armory; Home Progress Exposition, March, State Armory; Automobile Show,
November, State Armory; Radio Exhibition, October, Foot Guard Armory;
Hartford County Food Exhibit, September, State Armory; Conn. Pomological
Show, Women's Club, Broad St., December; Transportation Dinner, C. of C.,
February, Hotel Bond; Lawn Bowling Tournament, August, Elizabeth Park;
Opera, at Bushnell Memorial, with nationally known opera companies, twice
yearly, either December and February, or January and March.

HARTFORD, the State Capital and the largest city in the State, is a
financial-industrial center on the west bank of the Connecticut River.
The lofty Travelers' Tower, New England's tallest structure, dominates
the serrated skyline, reaching 527 feet into the blue. The gilded dome of
the State Capitol, rising above the trees of Bushnell Park, the tower of
Trinity Chapel, and the cupola of the JEtna, Building also furnish land-
marks for aviators. Through the center of the city meanders the narrow,
muddy Park River, but the Connecticut River to the east is hidden be-
hind dikes and the railway embankment.

On a gently rolling plain that gradually rises to merge with the foothills
of distant mountains, retaining much of the past in the older sections and
an almost cosmopolitan sophistication in the modern shopping district,
Hartford offers many contrasts. The group of State and county buildings
at the crest of the slight rise known as Capitol Hill is one section of na-
tional interest. The insurance capitols in the business district, and west-
ward on the edge of the residential area, show a different aspect of Hart-
ford life. To the north, along Main Street, many ultra-modern depart-
ment stores reflect the prosperity of the city. In a central triangular plot
on Main Street is the handsome Old State House. Southward, on the
main thoroughfare, the imposing pink granite Morgan Memorial reminds
the visitor that Hartford is the birth and burial place of J. Pierpont
Morgan and his ancestors. The First, or Center Church building recalls
the life of the Reverend Thomas Hooker (1586-1647), its first pastor, who
is credited with the liberal ideas embodied in Connecticut's Fundamental
Orders of 1639.

Main Street is only forty feet above sea level; Front Street is much lower,
and only Capitol Hill and points to the westward are higher than the
main thoroughfare. Ever conscious of the flood hazard, the city has built
an extensive system of dikes along the lower meadows and around the
older factory buildings, and plans have been made for a loftier highway
bridge. The better residential sections are farther back from the river.
Hartford has rather distinct foreign residential areas. Front Street,
along the river, removed barely enough to escape the ordinary freshets,
has an Italian population closely knit and clannish. Windsor Avenue,
to the northward, is the quarter where Hartford's Negroes reside. Park
Street, to the southwest, is the factory section where Slavs flock together
in dingy tenements. On Albany and Blue Hills Avenues, to the northwest,
lives most of Hartford's Jewish population, which has enormously in-
creased, until the city has a proportionately larger number of Jews than

1 68 Main Street and Village Green

any other American community except New York or Atlantic City. This
growth, the result of an influx between the years 1920 to 1930, is the only
noticeable racial trend other than a gradual elimination of the full native
parentage group, which has decreased to twenty-eight per cent.
Hartford is the hub of many excellent highways radiating in all directions
to the important cities of this and adjacent States. Many of the em-
ployees of Hartford's insurance offices and industrial plants are com-
muters from near-by towns, and highways are crowded during business
hours.

Fully twenty- two per cent, or 2700 acres, of the total area of the city is
in municipal parks or squares. A city planning commission has functioned
in Hartford since 1907, but even before that date careful attention was
given to the location of buildings and layout of streets. Approaching the
city from any direction, visitors are impressed with the orderliness and
width of the main arteries of traffic.

Known chiefly as an insurance center because of the concentration of in-
surance companies which outnumber those of any other city in the world,
Hartford is also an important tobacco and agricultural market. Crops
valued at $15,000,000 annually clear through the city. The agricultural
influence is also conspicuous during the sessions of the General Assembly
when rural gentry from the 169 towns of Connecticut mingle with sales-
men in hotel lobbies, or gather in front of shop windows to gaze at the
latest styles.

The hotels are crowded during the many conventions, flower, or sports
shows held here. Military balls are gay affairs because this is the home
city of the ist Company, Governor's Foot Guard and the ancient Putnam
Phalanx. Bearskin shakoes, brilliant uniforms, even the deep drums of
Colonial days, are familiar accouterment when the old military organiza-
tions pass in review on Inauguration Day.

Hartford has distinct sounds, too. The constant, deep-throated drone
of powerful motors and the whir of spinning propellers are forever rising
above the street noises. A fleet of army planes roars in from the west for
the installation of new motors; a combat ship solos topside, hanging to the
highest fleecy cloud; or a * flying laboratory' grumbles under a test load
before attempting to span distant oceans. Motors, ships, variable pitch
propellers have all been developed by Hartford manufacturers now serv-
ing world markets from their plants just across the broad Connecticut
River. The river, ever ready to spread over the lowlands and inundate
Hartford's own aviation field, has forced this concentration of the air-
craft industry out of the metropolis itself.

The stream has ceased to be important in the commercial life of the city,
except for incoming barges, tankers, and coal carriers. Pleasure craft
have their anchorage overstream by the left bank, but a hucksters'
market operates almost on the river level on Commerce Street, where
now rotting steamboat docks were once piled with incoming and outgoing
freight.

Hartford 169

As a cultural center Hartford has contributed much to the Nation.
J. Pierpont Morgan was internationally known as a patron of the arts.
Samuel Clemens, Noah Webster, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Charles Dudley
Warner, and William Gillette have all claimed Hartford as their home.
More than one hundred periodicals were established in the city, among
them The Children's Magazine (1789), the first juvenile periodical in
America. The Hartford Courant dates back to 1764, and the Hartford
Times first went on the street in 1817. Amelia Simmons wrote, and
Hudson and Goodwin of Hartford printed, America's first cook book
(forty-six pages) in 1796.

The slogan '45 minutes in Havana' was not coined in the Cuban city,
but in a Yankee cigar factory here. Tobacco sorting, inspecting, and
packing is an important industry, and there is constant competition
during the tobacco season between the mechanical industries and the
warehouses for the limited supply of female help available after the in-
surance firms have had their choice. A larger number of female employees
is gainfully employed in Hartford than in any other city in Connecticut
(23,608). The typewriter plants also furnish employment to many
women. Other Hartford industries produce electrical equipment, ma-
chinery, precision tools, gold leaf, firearms, printing, screws, castings,
tools and dies, coffins, taps, artificial limbs, millwork, forgings, lithogra-
phy, saddlery, blowers, bedsprings, and pool tables.

Hartford mechanics gave the world the first standard inch when, in 1885,
Pratt and Whitney Company perfected a standard measuring machine
accurate to one one-hundred-thousandth of an inch. The first pneumatic
tires ever built in America came from a Hartford plant in 1894, and Colt's,
'The Arm of Law and Order/ has carried a local trademark to the ends
of the earth.

A modern electric generating plant occupies almost the exact spot where
the first white men landed in Hartford. In 1633, Jacob van Curler, under
orders from the Governor of New Amsterdam (Wouter van Twiller), built
a fort and mounted two guns at 'Suckiage.' The Dutch called it 'The
House of Hope,' but today the site is known as Dutch Point.
The first permanent settlement was made by the English in 1635 when
John Steel and sixty pioneers from Newtowne (Cambridge, Mass.)
settled here in October, 1635, followed by the Reverend Thomas Hooker
and his company in the spring of 1636. The settlement was named in
1637, from Hartford in England. The General Court of the Bay Colony
met to consider the authorization of town governments in the Plantation
of Connecticut on October 10, 1639, and laid down definite rulings on
April 9, 1640. However, when the colonists discovered that they were
no longer within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, representatives of the
river settlements met at Hartford to draw up a plan of government.
Connecticut's Fundamental Orders, said to have been the constitution
known to history that created a government, setting forth the radical
principle that 'the foundation of authority is in the free consent of

170 Main Street and Village Green

the people,' was written in Hartford by Roger Ludlow and adopted here
by representatives of the River Towns on January 14, 1639.

Hartford County was organized in 1665, but the city and town were not
incorporated until the May session of the General Assembly in 1784,
although town meetings and town courts were held and community action
taken in the usual manner of the New England town.

The British proved to be better colonizers than the Dutch, and their
Windsor, Wethersfield, and Hartford settlements cut off the Dutch trade
with the Indians to such an extent that the garrison finally left the fort
unoccupied. The Colonial Court met in 1654 and called on Captain John
Underbill to occupy the fort in the name of England, a procedure ac-
complished without firing a shot. The English thereupon posted notices
on the doors of 'The House of Hope' and the Dutch were seen no more
along the river.

By 1662, the Hartford Colony comprised fourteen towns; it was united
with the six New Haven settlements in 1665, and, by decree of the Con-
necticut General Court, the legislature was ordered to meet in Hartford.
For the sake of convenience this agreement was not adhered to, but
sessions were held alternately in New Haven and Hartford (both main-
taining State Houses) until 1875, when all sessions were held in Hartford.

The charter granted by King Charles II on April 26, 1662, made the
Colony independent. The Great Seal was added to the document in
May, 1662. John Winthrop, Jr., forwarded it to Connecticut, where it
was read to the freemen of Hartford on October 9, 1662. Sir Edmund
Andros, appointed Governor of all New England Colonies in 1687, en-
deavored to induce Connecticut to relinquish its liberal charter. Failing
in this, he arrived in Hartford with an armed escort, October 31, 1687,
conferred with all officials, read his commission aloud, and formally took
office. When Andros demanded the charter, it was brought forth, but the
lights were suddenly extinguished and, when the candles were relighted,
the charter had vanished. Joseph Wadsworth had secreted the parch-
ment in the hollow of an oak tree on the property of Samuel Wyllys,
which thereafter was known as the ' Charter Oak.'

The Andros government lasted only two years and Connecticut returned
to its charter form of government. The charter was kept by Wadsworth
until May, 1715. About 1817, the wife of one of the keepers of the
document is reported to have allowed a neighbor to cut the lining for a
bonnet from the history-making parchment. A portion of the charter was
saved and can be seen in the rooms of the Connecticut Historical Society
in Hartford. The historical duplicate of the original is preserved in a
special safe in the Memorial Hall of the State Library. The wood of the
Charter Oak has been made into chairs, gavels, and other odd articles
now in museums and private collections. A tablet marks the spot where
the great tree formerly grew; the name 'Charter Oak' has been freely
used on all manner of places and articles, from soft drinks and cigars to
a harness-racing track where Grand Circuit horses once pounded down

Hartford 171

the homestretch, but where poultrymen now auction off eggs. The Har-
vester made records at Charter Oak Park; Pop Geers drove there against
Tommy Murphy and Walter Cox; men and animals as sturdy as the
great tree itself fought it out for 'The Charter Oak' or 'The Nutmeg'
purses. Hartford should have copyrighted the name. The proceeds
would have paid for a forest of oaks.

There is no record of any serious trouble with the Indians in or near
Hartford. John Eliot came to preach to the Podunks in 1657, translated
the Bible into their language, but made little progress in aboriginal soul-
saving. The Indians answered his pleas with: 'No, you have taken away
our lands, and now you wish to make us a race of slaves.'
Hartford's fertile meadows produced bumper crops and an early effort
was made to control crops and planting. Each landholder was ordered
by the town authorities to plant the teaspoonful of flaxseed given him.
When John Winthrop, Jr., went to England to secure the charter, his
passage was paid with five hundred bushels of wheat and three hundred
bushels of peas.

Hartford citizenry took an active part in the Revolutionary War, but
there is no record of any outstanding accomplishment by any one in-
dividual. The expedition against Fort Ticonderoga was planned in
Hartford by Silas Deane, Samuel Holden Parsons, and Colonel Samuel
Wyllys, but the capture was accomplished by a lad from Roxbury named
Ethan Allen, accompanied by Seth Warner and Remember Baker. The
little settlement was already showing signs of becoming a financial and
cultural center, concerned more with politics and the social side of war.
The city welcomed George Washington in June of 1775 when he was on
his way to take command of the Continental Army at Cambridge.
Major Thomas Y. Seymour of Hartford convoyed General Burgoyne to
Boston after the surrender.

Shipping grew to its zenith in the eighteenth century, and a fleet of vessels
plied between Hartford and English, Mediterranean, and West Indian
ports. The War of 181 2 caused a depression in shipping circles from which
the water-borne commerce was never to recover.

Hartford was a center of anti-slavery propaganda and, after the begin-
ning of the Civil War in 1861, its banks lent the Governor of Connecticut
half a million dollars to finance the recruiting and equipment of a regiment.
Following the Civil War most of Hartford's history concerns industry
and the development of machinery and transportation. As early as 1876,
the Hartford Fire Department purchased and operated a steam-propelled
fire engine with great success and only minor damage to the nerves of
drivers of horse-drawn vehicles. These pieces of fire-fighting equipment
remained in service for nearly fifty years and proved an excellent invest-
ment for the city.

In 1878, Colonel A. A. Pope built and popularized the Columbia bicycle,
which did not differ greatly from the British 'Ordinary' formerly im-
ported by Colonel Pope. The development of the pneumatic tire in 1889,

172 Main Street and Village Green

together with the drop-frame machine for lady riders (who were not
called ' ladies' after their first ride in public), boomed the business.
Pope employed five hundred workers in 1888 and had thirty-eight
hundred on his payroll in 1900.

Colonel Pope built and marketed a high-priced vehicle known as the
Columbia Electric Phaeton, in 1907. One of these cars is still (1937) in
operation in Hartford, driven by a very conservative person who looks
with suspicion on the internal combustion motors of the present day.
The Pope factory switched from electric-driven cars to gas-propelled
vehicles, but the Pope-Hartford motorcar was a short-lived venture in
quality automotive history.

In the early i89o's the Whitney Steam Car was seen on the streets of
Hartford. F. W. Manross startled the motor world in 1898 when he
drove a Winton from Forestville to Hartford, a distance of eighteen
miles, in fifty-five minutes. Motors became such a traffic problem in
1901 that the State enforced motor laws, limiting speed to fifteen miles
an hour in the open country and to twelve miles within the limits of towns
and villages.

The United States Rubber Company built tires in the old Hartford
Rubber Works, but closed the plant after the World War, when local
labor became too costly. Pipe organs were once an important Hartford
product, and the Austin Organ Company has been credited with many
important developments in organ manufacturing, such as the ' Austin
Universal Air Chest' for the great cathedral instruments such as the
Cyrus H. K. Curtis Organ in the Public Ledger Auditorium, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, often claimed to be the largest organ in the world, having
four manuals and two hundred and eighty-three stops.

Aircraft motors were developed by the Pratt and Whitney plant and
Hartford forged ahead in that line, hoping to hold its well-earned lead
over lesser competitors. The concentration of aircraft manufacturing
plants across the stream in East Hartford promises well for the future of
the Insurance City as a center of aviation.

The most unusual industry in Hartford today is gold-beating. Marcus
Bull started the work prior to 1819, as a pioneer in the gold-beating pro-
fession. Dentists patronized him and, in 1866, John M. Ney took over
sole control of the business. The company is still doing a modest business,
and there are interesting stories about its work. The gold leaf of the
dome of the State Capitol (440 square feet of it) was beaten in Hartford
by this concern. A Sioux warrior, killed in a Wyoming mail robbery,
was found to have all the buttons and metal on his clothing covered with
Ney's gold leaf. During the Civil War, the Confederacy was so in need
of gold that books with leaves of the Ney product were smuggled in
from Havana. Gold leaf takes its name from the fact that it is sold in
books.

Insurance was an outgrowth of the banks which grew with early trade
and commerce at this river port of entry. Marine insurance was written

Hartford 173

to cover shipping hazards, but the shifting of commerce to more favorable
ports resulted in a trend from marine insurance coverage to fire risks,
and, eventually, to the accident, life, and liability fields. Legislation in
Connecticut has been favorable to the growth of this business and today
forty-four companies have home offices in Hartford, and four hundred
and fifty licensed firms or benefit societies are represented here.

The growth of the insurance industry in Hartford dates from February
8, 1794, when a fire insurance policy was issued by the Hartford Fire
Insurance Company. The present company of that name was chartered
in 1810.

The dramatic manner in which Eliphalet Terry arrived at the scene of
the great New York fire, in 1835, an d, near the smoldering ruins of some
seven hundred buildings, is reported to have mounted a soapbox and
assured all of his policy-holders that they would get their money, estab-
lished public confidence in the firm's integrity. Terry's share of the total
$20,000,000 loss was only $64,973.34, but the pay-off was handled in such
a dramatic manner that an immediate rush of business came to the
Hartford companies. Weathering the Chicago, Boston, Jacksonville,
and Baltimore fires successfully, Hartford companies next met a severe
test in the San Francisco disaster of 1906 when they paid a total of
$15,000,000 in claims.

The first boiler insurance was issued in June, 1866, by the Hartford
Steam Boiler Insurance and Inspection Company. The first American
automobile insurance was also written in Hartford, February i, 1898, for
a $5ooo-$io,ooo coverage, at a premium of only $11.25.

Travelers, ^Etna, Phoenix, Hartford Fire, and Connecticut Mutual are
leading companies operating from Hartford, and their claims paid to
December 31, 1935, total about six and one-half billion dollars.

TOUR 1

W. from Washington Ave. on Capitol Ave.

i. The State Capitol overlooks the city from the landscaped crest of
Capitol Hill, with other State buildings standing at a respectful distance
to the south, and Bushnell Park sloping down to the business district
on the north. The marble and granite structure, designed by Richard Up-
john in 1878, was erected at a cost of $2,532,524.43. The architecture
might be considered Gothic from the profusion of crockets, finials, and
niches that rise above its somewhat pointed arches to the elongated dome;
but it is exuberant and eclectic in spirit, and does not confine itself to
the historical precedents of any one style. The mass of the building is
dignified and impressive. Two lofty, five-story wings, rising at the
east and west facades of the central main building, culminate in the

174

Main Street and Village Green

twelve-sided gilded dome, topped with a winged figure of the 'Genius
of Connecticut' by Randolph Rogers. The well-composed exterior is of
modified Venetian and French Gothic style with corner towers.

On the first floor are oifices, and in the lobbies the battle flags of Connecti-
cut troops hi different wars, Lafayette's army cot, the tombstone of
Israel Putnam, and a plaster model of the statue on the dome. On the
stairway to the House of Representatives, on the mezzanine floor, are
copies of the statues around the dome. The second floor contains the
offices of Governor, Secretary of State, the legislative halls, and the rooms
used for hearings. The presiding officer's chair in the Senate is hand-

HARTFORD. POINTS OF INTEREST

3-
4-

7-
8.

10.
ii.

12.

13-
14.

IS-

16.

17-
18.
19.

20.
21.

22.

23-
24.

25-
26.

27.

28.
2 9 .

State Capitol

Bushnell Park

Equestrian Statue of Lafayette

State Office Building

State Library and Supreme
Court Building

Timothy Steele House

County Building

Bushnell Memorial Hall

Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance
Company Building

Butler McCook Homestead

South Congregational Church

Charter Oak Memorial

Municipal Building

Burial Ground

First Church of Christ

Morgan Memorial Art Galleries

Wadsworth Atheneum

Avery Memorial Art Museum

Hunt Memorial

Daniel Wadsworth Barn

Hartford Steam Boiler Inspec-
tion and Insurance Company
Building

Travelers' Insurance Company
Buildings

Site of Oliver Ellsworth House

Old State House

Hartford Courant Offices

Christ Church Cathedral

Federal Building, Post Office
and U.S. Court House

Connecticut Mutual Life Insur-
ance Company Building

Hartford Fire Insurance Com-
pany Building

30. State Armory

31. Caledonia Insurance Company

Building

32. Site of the George Catlin House

33. ^Etna Life Insurance Company

Building

34. St. Joseph's Cathedral

35. Harriet Beecher Stowe House

36. Charles Dudley Warner House

37. William Gillette House

38. John Hooker House

39. Katherine Hepburn's Birthplace

40. Mark Twain's House and Memorial

Library

41. Children's Museum of Hartford

42. Hartford Seminary Foundation

43. Elizabeth Park

44. Hartford School of Music

45. Keney Memorial Tower

46. St. Justin's Roman Catholic

Church

47. Connecticut Institute for the Blind

48. Keney Park

49. Fuller Brush Company Building

50. Bulkeley Memorial Bridge

51. Pratt and Whitney Manufacturing

Company Plant

52. Pope Park

53. Trinity College

54. Colt's Patent Fire Arms Manu-

facturing Company Plant
Colt Park
Goodwin Park

55-
56.

57. Royal Typewriter Company Plant

58. Underwood Elliot Fisher Company

Plant

178 Main Street and Village Green

carved from the Charter Oak. The Attorney General has offices on the
third floor, and the fourth floor is devoted to committee rooms. From the
Dome (open 11 and 3.30) is a magnificent view of the city and surrounding
countryside.

The approach to the Capitol from the east passes the bronze equestrian
Lafayette Statue, the ugly 13-inch seacoast mortar used at the siege of
Petersburg by the ist Connecticut Heavy Artillery and known as The
Petersburg Express, a Statue of Governor Richard D. Hubbard, and the
Colonel Thomas Knowlton Statue, erected in honor of the officer in direct
command of Connecticut troops at Bunker Hill, the commander of
Knowlton's Rangers (see Tour 3, ASHFORD).

E. from Capitol Grounds into Bushnell Park.

2. Bushnell Park (1853), between the Capitol Grounds, Trinity, Ford, and
Asylum Sts. (41.27 acres), was purchased by the city of Hartford in
1853, from Horace Bushnell, for whom the park is named. The Park
River, winding along the eastern, northern, and western boundaries,
increases the beauty of the tree-lined walks, flower-beds, shrubbery, lily
pond, Music Shell, and children's playground. The most pretentious
statuary group here is the Corning Memorial Fountain, near the north
end (Asylum St.) of the park by the river, erected in 1899 by John J.
Corning, as a tribute to his father. Designed by Massey Rhind, the
fountain has a granite basin and column about which stand the full-
sized figures of four Indian maidens and four braves. The Spanish War
Memorial, at the corner of Trinity and Elm Sts., is the work of the
Windsor sculptor, Evelyn Beatrice Longman Batchelder. Its massive
central figure of golden bronze represents Columbia with an uplifted
torch above bas-relief figures of a soldier and sailor on either side. The
Soldiers' and Sailors 7 Memorial Arch, at Trinity St. approach to the Capi-
tol, was designed by Sylvester Bissell in 1 88 5 . A medieval arch, 30 feet wide,
supported by free-stone round towers at either end, each over 100 feet
high and 63 feet in circumference, the structure is enlivened by a terra-
cotta frieze representing Civil War soldiers in action. Among other
statues in the park are the Anders onmlle Prison Boy, a bronze memorial
by Bela Lyon Pratt, to Northern soldiers who died in Southern prisons
during the Civil War; the tall bronze Statue of General Israel Putnam,
just west of Trinity St.; and in the eastern section of the park, a Statue
of Dr. Horace Wells % the discoverer of the use of nitrous oxide gas as
anesthesia; and the Dahlgren Guns, taken from the warship ' Hartford. 7

S. from Bushnell Park on Trinity St.; R. on Capitol Ave.

3. The Equestrian Statue of Lafayette, center of Capitol Ave., at the
north end of Washington St., was cast from the plaster model of the
original by Paul W. Bartlett, the gift of American school children to the
city of Paris.

4. The State Office Building, Capitol Ave. (L), between Washington and
West Sts., erected in 1930-31, is of modern design. Bronze plaques
between the floors are in contrast to the limestone walls ; a course v of

Hartford 1 79

heavy dentils lines the cornice below the top floor. J. Henry Miller,
Inc. was the architect. The offices of various State departments are
housed here.

5. The State Library and Supreme Court Building, opposite the Capitol,
on Capitol Ave., between Lafayette and Oak Sts., was built in 1910 from
designs by Bonn Barber. It is of Italian Renaissance design, a style
popularized for public buildings by the great expositions, but is here
treated with a special vigor and nobility of proportions. An imposing
entrance pavilion, with Roman columns, arched doorways, and a heavy
superstructure, is flanked with two great sculptural groups over a pro-
jecting pair of columns at each end. A long broad flight of steps com-
pletes the composition.

The State Library (open weekdays 9-5), in the east wing of the building,
combines the State law, legislative, war, and archives libraries, and is
the depository of public records and official publications, and many
historical and genealogical collections per taming to towns, States, the
United States, and the British Empire.

The Connecticut Supreme Court occupies the west wing in which is
Albert Herter's mural, ' Signing of the Colonial Orders. 7

Memorial Hall, in the south wing, facing the main entrance, houses some
of the State's most cherished relics, among them the Gilbert Stuart
'Portrait of George Washington,' the historical duplicate of the original
charter of 1662, signed by Charles II, and complete except for the loss
of its green wax seal, portraits of Connecticut governors, the table on
which Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Mitchelson
Collection of coins and medals.
Return on Capitol Ave.; R. on Lafayette St.

6. The Timothy Steele House (private}, 91 Lafayette St., behind the li-
brary and erected in 1715, is the oldest building in Hartford. Its T-shaped
chimney rises behind a roof that was originally salt-box.

L. from Lafayette St. on Russ St.; R. on Washington St.

7. County Building, 95 Washington St., rising from a low stone terrace,
is a limestone building designed in a modified Roman style by Paul P.
Cret of Philadelphia, and Smith and Bassette of Hartford. It was com-
pleted in 1929. The austerity of the facade, with its flat columns and
heavy entablature, is relieved by a bas-relief in the center of the latter, by
grilles between the columns, and by four large Roman votive urns.
Unlike the usual building of its type, it has only a center entrance to its
long hall. Three Murals by J. R. L. St. Hubert, a French artist, adorn
the main lobby, and the corridor ceilings are decorated with Homeric
scenes.

Return on Washington St.; R. on Capitol Ave.

8. Bushnell Memorial Hall, 166 Capitol Ave. at Trinity St., a red-brick
and limestone building designed by Harvey Corbett, was erected in 1930
by members of the family of Dr. Horace Bushnell, D.D., and contains a

i8o Main Street and Village Green

large auditorium (seating capacity 3227). This building has provided
Hartford with a perennial topic of discussion. Neither conservative nor
modern, its architecture fails to achieve distinction except as a hybrid.
The Capitol Ave. facade, taken by itself, is a conservative rendering
of old forms, although the Bulfinch-inspired cupola bears little relation
to the big foyer building devoted to the many secondary purposes of a
community building. The gable end of the building, toward Capitol
Ave., with its raised pediment and unevenly spaced Ionic columns, is
distinctive, but loses force from the long mass of the auditorium stretch-
ing down Trinity St.

The interior of this hall, as large as the Metropolitan Opera House in
New York, is a surprise, a bizarre medley of gold leaf and barbaric de-
sign. The stage is rimmed in concentric circles of gilt ornament con-
ventionalized bossed stars caught in a seeming cobweb of cross-lines;
and finally, lifted above the center of the auditorium, a zodiacal composi-
tion gleams from a field of stars. Torchlike, indirect lighting at the sides
makes it all shine in fantastic brilliance, which dims gradually to a sort
of moonlight before the curtain goes up. It has a four-manual organ, and
complete stage equipment. Metropolitan operas, as well as a series of
concerts, are produced here every year. A smaller hall, the Colonial
Room, seating 300, is available for chamber music.

L. from Capitol Ave. on Clinton St.

g. Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Company Building, 79 Elm St., at
Clinton St. (1917), is a 7-story, dark green ornamental brick structure
with inlaid designs of red and blue tile, and a red, Spanish tile roof.
Chartered in June, 1851, as the American Temperance Life Insurance
Company, insuring only those who totally abstained from alcoholic bev-
erages, the firm in 1861 changed its name and policies, and is reputed to
be the first insurance company in this country to have conducted a
school for insurance agents.

Return on Clinton St.; L. on Capitol Ave.; L. on Main St.

10. The Butler McCook Homestead (private), 396 Main St., is a two-and-
a-half-story, central-hall, end-chimney house with four yellow, fluted
columns at the entrance, built about 1782. Dr. McCook, the present
occupant and great-grandson of the builder, has in his possession his
doctor-ancestor's record books, antiquated scales, and the old mortar
and pestle used for preparing drugs. This is the ancestral home of the
'fighting McCooks,' celebrated in the book of that name.

11. South Congregational Church, 307 Main St., at Buckingham St., was
organized in 1670 and the present church building, of red brick with
wooden trim, was built in 1827. While not of the exquisite proportions of
New Haven's churches, it has a restrained Georgian sophistication of
spirit that is very pleasing. Three fan-lighted doors in the projecting
pediment are separated by composite columns. The steeple rises in
several stages, the lowest of brick with clock faces on three sides.

TOWN AND COUNTRY

THE average Connecticut city is an overgrown town with
little evidence of planning beyond the central square. Irregu-
lar skylines show clusters of stacks, church spires, and an
occasional tall building rising above the roof-tops of the more
ordinary structures. Shade trees are evident everywhere.

The township is an important political and social subdivision
in the State. Every city retains certain town officers and the
old town boundaries. In the snug conservatism of the smaller
towns, the Yankee 'winds up the world.' The church, a gen-
eral store, sometimes a pre-Revolutionary inn, the town hall,
a Soldiers' Monument, and the village Green form a center
from which radiate shady streets lined with comfortable frame
dwellings, painted white with green trim. The picket fence is
vanishing, but lilac bushes mark the old fence lines. Back-
yard gardens bloom from spring until early fall, and the tiger
lily and lily-of-the-valley hug the foundation stones of mod-
est houses. The village barn is now a garage, and gayly
painted gasoline pumps stand in front of the Post Office. In
many of these small towns the socio-economic scheme of
things has changed but little since the last century.

LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, HARTFORD

THE STATE CAPITOL, HARTFORD

OLD STATE HOUSE, HARTFORD

OLD ACADEMY, BRANFORD

CEMENT KILN, WOODBRIDGE

ELY HOMESTEAD, KILLINGWORTH

^^fct '

IN SOUTH BRITAIN

TOWN HALL, SALISBURY

THE NEW HAVEN GREEN

HARTFORD SKY LIN!

RAILROAD STATION, WATERBURY

OLD IRON FURNACE, ROXBURY

WORLD WAR MEMORIAL, NEW BRITAIN

HART S BRIDGE, WEST CORNWALL

OLD NEWGATE PRISON, EAST GRANBY

STANTON STORE, CLINTON

Hartford 181

L. from Main St. on Charter Oak Ave.

12. Charter Oak Memorial (1906), at the junction of Charter Oak Ave.
and Charter Oak Place, a large granite column, a gift of the Society of
Colonial Dames, bears this inscription: 'Near this spot stood the Charter
Oak, known in the history of the Colony of Connecticut, as the hiding
place of the Charter, October 31, 1687.' The tree was 33 feet in circum-
ference when it was blown down in 1856. Mark Twain mentioned that
he had seen 'a walking-stick, dog collar, needle-case, three-legged stool,
bootjack, dinner table, tenpin alley, toothpick, and enough Charter Oak
to build a plank road from Hartford to Salt Lake City.'

TOUR 2

N. from Arch on Main St.

13. Municipal Building, 550 Main St., a four-story stone structure in
the French Renaissance style, was designed by Davis and Brooks, local
architects, in 1915. Rich and sophisticated, its style more delicate and
elaborate toward the upper stories, with its arched windows, Corinthian
columns and pilasters, it is an imposing structure.

L. from Main St. on Wells St.; R. on Gold St.

14. Burial Ground, Gold St. (L), next to Center Church House, is the
oldest cemetery in Hartford, used from 1640 to 1803. One and one-third
acres are enclosed by a high, block, iron fence, with two red-brick ports
at each side of the gate bearing inscribed tablets. Many of the early
governors of Connecticut are buried here.

R. from Gold Street on Main St.

15. First Church of Christ (Center Congregational) (1807), 675 Main St.,
is the oldest ecclesiastical society in the State (1632). The building
dates from the early days when experiments in design were being made.
The architecture of Hartford, influenced by that of Boston, never quite
fitted into the Connecticut style. The unusual features of this building are
the squared fronts disguising the pediments and the profusion of urns
and classical ornamentation. The steeple, too, is unusually tall and heavy,
with four wooden sections surmounting the square brick tower which has
clocks in all four faces. It is more elaborate, but not so perfectly pro-
portioned as the churches on the Green at New Haven. Seven of the
stained-glass windows came from England. One of them, called the
'Pastor's Window/ was installed in memory of Thomas Hooker, first
pastor of the church.

1 6. Morgan Memorial (temporarily closed to the public), 590 Main
St., built in 1910 of Tennessee marble from the plans of Benjamin Wistar
Morris, was donated to the city by J. Pierpont Morgan as a memorial to
his father, a former Hartford merchant. The square Gothic windows of

1 82 Main Street and Village Green

the first story are in contrast with the Renaissance pilasters, framing
medallions in the windowless portion above. A carved head of Minerva
in the keystone of the arched entrance and an ornate balustrade around
the roof-line are the only conspicuous embellishments.

The Morgan Memorial (1910) is connected, through the Colt Memorial
Wing, with the Wadsworth Atheneum. Designed by Benjamin Wistar
Morris in rough granite with marble trim to harmonize with the build-
ings on either side, this memorial in Neo-Classic Italian Renaissance style,
now housing paintings and objects of art from the Colt home ' Armsmear '
and the James B. Cone Collection of Firearms, was provided through the
bequest of Mrs. Elizabeth Colt, widow of Colonel Samuel Colt.

Return on Main St.

17. Wadsworth Atheneum, 624 Main St., covering one city block, was the
first of a group of buildings, including the Colt Memorial Museum, 1910,
the Avery Museum, 1934, and the Morgan Memorial, 1910. It was
designed in 1842 by Ithiel Town in Gothic Revival style to house a
gallery of fine arts, the public library, the Historical Society, and the
Hartford Young Men's Institute. The Yale Library had just been done
in a collegiate rendering of the style : this structure, somewhat reminiscent
of a castle, with its turrets and machicolations, was to be more secular.
Funds for the provision of this large Gothic creation of South Glaston-
bury granite were in the main donated by Daniel Wadsworth and added
to by public subscription.

The Hartford Public Library (open weekdays 9-9) (1844), first floor of
the Wadsworth Atheneum, has a collection of more than 208,000
volumes. Among these are about 4000 bound volumes of music, a col-
lection of over 50,000 photographs, engravings, and reproductions, and
10,000 books printed in foreign languages.

The Watkinson Reference Library (open weekdays 9.30-5.30) (1857),
in the east wing, second floor of the Wadsworth Atheneum, contains
approximately 118,000 volumes of reference books. Among the priceless
and important collections of this library, which was established in con-
nection with the Connecticut Historical Society through the bequest of
David Watkinson, a local merchant, are the Trumbull-Prime Collection
of looo rare books including 200 incunabula (printed before 1500), a
58-line German Bible, believed to be the first illustrated Bible, and six
copies of the Nuernberg Chronicle, printed in 1492, a library of American
Linguistics, and the Trumbull Documents on the Indian language.

The Connecticut Historical Society (open weekdays 9.30-5.30), on the
second floor of the Wadsworth Atheneum, is noted for its newspaper
files and books on Connecticut history and genealogy. Besides numerous
rare maps, manuscripts, and unbound pamphlets, the society has on
display a portion of the original Connecticut Charter, Mark Twain's
bicycle, Nathan Hale's Diary, two bricks from the Dutch fort on the site
of Hartford, and Elder Brewster's sea chest, on which the Mayflower
Compact was signed.

Hartford 183

R. from Main St. on Atheneum Sq. N.

18. The Avery Memorial Art Museum (open weekdays free, W-4, Oct.
March; 10-5, April Sept.; Sun. and holidays 2-5), 25 Atheneum Sq. N.,
is a three-story structure of gleaming Tennessee marble, completed in
1934. Its Prospect St. facade is unadorned, except for four sculptured
medallions designed in the conventionalized Greek style, wide fluted
pilasters, and a bronze grilled door. Funds for this building, designed by
Morris and O'Connor, in the modernistic style, were provided by the late
Samuel P. Avery. Benjamin Wistar Morris designed the Morgan Memo-
rial and the State Armory. Built around a central court in which stands
a marble statue done by Pietro Francavilla about 1600, the museum is
notable for its splendid indirect lighting effects. In rooms to the right of
the main entrance are prints and water-colors including the work of such
outstanding artists as Cezanne, Sargent, and Picasso; to the left of the
entrance are three rooms containing the Avery Collection of European and
Oriental objects of art. On the second floor is a notable collection of
paintings including Copley's portrait of Mrs. Seymour Fort and several
by Gilbert Stuart. In the Marine Room near the stairway, are paintings
and models of ships. The rest of the second floor is devoted to the Wallace
Nutting Collection of Early American Furniture, the gift of J. P. Morgan;
the Brainard Collection of signs from early Connecticut inns; and the
Pitkin Collection of pottery. In the third-floor galleries hang works by
Goya, Tintoretto, Whistler, Veronese, Poussin, Greuze, Bellotto, Cana-
letto, Guardi, Strozzi, Giordano, Magnasco, Reni, Rosa, Daumier, Tie-
polo, Longhi, Piero di Cosimo, Cranach, Largilliere, Murillo, David, and
Degas; in addition there is a section reserved for the Welch Collection of
works by William Gedney Bunce, one of Hartford's foremost artists, and
for the Diaghilew-Lifar Collection of designs for the Russian Ballet. The
auditorium is notable for the skillful suppression of all lines except the
horizontal curves of the ceiling.

L.from Atheneum Sq. N., on Prospect St.

19. Hunt Memorial (open free, 9-5) (1897), 38 Prospect St., opposite
Atheneum Sq. N., designed by McKim, Mead and White, is a three-
story, red-brick building in modified Georgian style, given by Mrs. E. K.
Hunt, in memory of her husband, Dr. Ebenezer K. Hunt, for use by the
Hartford Medical Society. The library of the Medical Society is on the
second floor and contains more than 17,000 books dealing with medicine
and medical problems.

20. The Daniel Wadsworth Barn, built in the early i9th century, is at the
rear of the Henry A. Perkins House, owned by the Hartford Public
Library (private) (1843), 43 Prospect St.

21. Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company Building,
56 Prospect St., cor. of Grove and Prospect Sts. was designed by Carl J.
Malmfeldt. This three-story limestone building has the flat facade,
square, plain windows, and fluted pilasters characteristic of many modern
buildings, but with notable references to traditional ornament in the

1 84 Main Street and Village Green

scroll course between the stories, the diaper panels between the second-
and third-floor windows, and fluted triglyphs and circles beneath a row
of conventional dentils in the Prospect St. cornice. This company wrote
the first boiler insurance policy in America in the year of its organization,
June, 1866.
L. from Prospect St. on Grove St.

22. Travelers Insurance Company Buildings (tower open free weekdays
9-1.30, 2.30 to sunset}, 26 Grove St., three in number, form a single
architectural unit. Designed by Donn Barber of New York, the building,
of pink Westerly granite (faced with a light brick on the courtyard side),
is the highest in New England (527 feet), its tower, rising from the gth
story, topping the structure above the south wing to the height of 34
stories. It is an architectural focal point in Hartford, a business capitol,
dwarfing even the old legislative capitol on the hill. On the i;th and
1 8th stories is a loggia, and above the 2oth, a recession in the long face
of the tower brings it into a square. It is very effective seen from the
broader sides, but suffers from its narrowness seen from the east or west.
Above the pyramidal roof is a metal cupola, the lower portions serving as
an outlet for the smokestack, and the upper portions supporting a finial
with a cluster of metal balls. The cupola is really a great lantern, 81 feet
high, constructed of copper, and covered with gold leaf. A beacon here
consists of 36 4oo-watt projectors and 8 of 2oo-watt power. The band
of white light cast skyward is visible for many miles.

A tablet on the wall of the Travelers Building states that here once
stood the Zachary Sanford Tavern, scene of many General Assembly
sessions and of the celebrated Charter hiding episode. Radio Station
WTIC (open), owned by the insurance company, operates from the 6th
floor of this building.

The first American accident policy was written by the Travelers
in 1863. It offered $1000 protection to James Bolter and covered only
the time he spent walking from the post office to his home. During 1866
the Travelers offered accident tickets to passengers on train, ship, or
coach; the first aircraft liability and property damage insurance was
issued in 1919. The company employs 4200 people.
R. from Grove St. on Main St.

23. Site of Oliver Ellsworth House (1790), 740 Main St., which was for-
merly a tavern and for a while the home of the famous jurist (see WIND-
SOR}.

24. Old State House (1796), Main St. at Central Row, contrasts the
epoch-making architecture of the early Republic with^such skyscraper
developments as its neighbor, the Travelers Tower. It was designed by
Charles Bulfinch, the architect of the State House in Boston (1798).
The entrances, on the west toward Main St., and the original main
entrance on the east, are unpretentious doors hi the substructure of
high enclosed porticoes. The dominant feature is the arched windows
over the doors. The balustrade, added in 1815, ties the whole together,

Hartford 185

and the cupola, without which the design would seem unfinished, was
added hi 1827; the clock was installed in 1848. The wide paneled stair-
case, with its elaborately turned balusters, rises on either side of the
hall, joining in one and turning back on itself. On the landing is the
Secretary of State's little office, outfitted by the Daughters of the
American Revolution in period furniture and containing the famous,
unsupported spiral staircase against the rounded north end. The Senate
Chamber, at the south end upstairs, is elaborate with fluted pilasters (a
combination of Ionic and Corinthian), and a false balustrade above them
around the whole room. Two fireplaces, which look totally inadequate
today, once heated the room from the side of the hall. The House of
Representatives' Chamber, opposite, contains a paneled gallery sup-
ported by fluted Ionic columns over the entrance doorway and the two
fireplaces. Downstairs, under this chamber, is the Supreme Court Room.
Fluted columns on paneled bases support the ceiling, and corresponding
pilasters divide the window spaces on the three outer walls. Only Rhode
Island, of the New England States, has an older State House, and nowhere
is there a finer example of the civic architecture of the early Federal
period.

R. from Main St. on Central Row.
L. from Central Row on American Row; L. on State St.

25. Hartford C our ant Offices, 64-66 State St. This 5-story, red-brick build-
ing houses one of the older daily newspapers in the United States, founded
by Thomas Green, on October 29, 1764. The Hartford Courant was
awarded the N. W. Ayer Cup in 1932, for having the best typographical
appearance of any newspaper in the United States.

R. from State St. on Main St.

26. Christ Church Cathedral (Episcopal), at 955 Main St., cor. of Church
St., is interesting as a Gothic Revival church built at a time (1829)
when the Post-Colonial style of church architecture in Connecticut was
reaching its peak. It is a dark, ornate building, neither as large nor as
early as Trinity Church, New Haven (1814-15). The parish was or-
ganized in 1762, and the church was declared a Cathedral in 1919.

L. from Main St. on Church St.

27. Federal Building, Post Office and U.S. Court House (1931), Church
St. between High St., Foot Guard Place, and Hoadley Place, is a long
modernistic structure of Indiana limestone. A square, heavy entablature
rests on a series of pilasters, with elaborate grille work over the interven-
ing windows. The facade would be monotonous if not broken by a long
inscription and a central bas-relief of a youth on horseback passing the
torch of life to another youth. Surmounting either end are huge bronze
eagles with folded wings. Adams, Prentice, and Malmfeldt were the
architects.

Church St. becomes Myrtle St.; R. from Myrtle St. on Garden St.

28. Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company Building (1926), 140
Garden St., cor. Myrtle and Collins Sts., houses the oldest life insurance

1 86 Main Street and Village Green

company in Connecticut, organized in 1846, and the sixth oldest in the
country, noted for having fought against speculative types of insurance
for many years.

Return on Garden St.; R. on Cogswell St.; R. on Asylum St.

29. Hartford Fire Insurance Company Building (1921), 690 Asylum St.,
between Summer and Collins Sts., Garden and Cogswell Sts., is one of
the oldest insurance companies in the city and State, organized in
1 8 10. Its portico of six columns and flat dome relieve the severity of
its mass. It stands on the site of the American School for the Deaf,
existent here from 1821 to 1921.

Return on Asylum St.; R. on Broad St.

30. State Armory (1909), Broad St. (R), on twelve and a half acres of
ground bordering Bushnell Park, is the largest armory in the State, with
quarters for thirteen units of the Connecticut National Guard, a divisional
headquarters, and an auditorium that seats 10,000. This building stands
just west of the Capitol where a railway roundhouse once stood.
Return on Broad St., which becomes Cogswell St.

31. The Caledonia Insurance Company Building (1936), Cogswell St.,
cor. of Garden St., is a branch of the oldest insurance company in Scot-
land. The structure, designed by Carl J. Malmfeldt, is of modified
Georgian design. A bronze bas-relief, representing the company arms in
the pediment, and slight flutings around the windows are the only orna-
mentation. The design of the building recalls the Leominster House in
Dublin, which is reputed to have been the basis for the design of the
White House in Washington.

R. from Cogswell St. on Garden St.; L. on Asylum St.; R. on Hurlburt St.

32. The Site of the George Catlin House (1820), 17 Hurlburt St. Here was
the former home of Lydia Huntley Sigourney (Mrs. George Catlin,
1791-1865), Connecticut's famous poetess (see Literature), who was
allegedly visited by every President in office during her lifetime with
the exception of Washington and Polk.

TOUR 3

W. from Asylum St. on Farmington Ave.

33. The &tna Life Insurance Company Building, 151 Farmington Ave.,
on 28 acres of landscaped grounds, at the geographical center of Hartford,
is the most monumental of the city's insurance capitols (1929). It was
designed by James Gamble Rogers, in a Georgian style. The building is
approached by a semicircular courtyard which. leads up to a colonnaded
portico. Here the main building, six stories in height, is topped with a
lofty cupola. The square cupola is designed with a high Greek pediment,
and a New England belfry above it. The plan consists of two main wings

Hartford 187

which cross the building like transepts, near the ends, and a larger one
at the center, from which rises the tower and cupola. The Colonial
lines are especially evident in the eighth floor.

The executive offices on the eighth floor are elaborately finished with
teak floors and paneling taken from an old house in Torrington. They
open on a roof garden. The hand-carved mahogany table in the directors'
room once belonged to Jefferson. The total floor space is 769,000 square
feet, so arranged that the building is a unified, though complicated plan,
without the usual recourse to a skyscraper solution. The 250-foot belfry
is illuminated at night.

34. St. Joseph's Cathedral, 150 Farmington Ave., a brownstone edifice,
is opposite the ^Etna Life Insurance building, and the center of the Ro-
man Catholic Diocese of Connecticut.

L. from Farmington Ave. on Forest St.

35. Harriet Beecher Stowe House (private) (about 1870), 73 Forest St.,
a mid- Victorian gray-brick structure entered through a gabled porch,
is famous as the home of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of ' Uncle Tom's
Cabin' (see Literature), who lived here during the last twenty- three
years of her life (1873-96).

36. Charles Dudley Warner House (private) (1872), 57 Forest St., a red-
brick structure with many gables and chimneys, was the home of the
former literary editor of Harper's Magazine, who was often hailed as
'the greatest literary man of his day' (see Literature).

37. William Gillette House (private) (1830), 49 Forest St., was the home of
the former U.S. Senator Francis Gillette and his noted son, the late
William Gillette, Shakespearian actor.

38. The John Hooker House (private) (1857), 34 Forest St., a red-brick
structure with yellow wooden trim, was a noted gathering place for literary
celebrities during the lifetime of Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker, pioneer
woman suffragist and the sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe. For several
years preceding the erection of the Twain House, now the Mark Twain
Memorial Library, Samuel Clemens and his wife boarded here with the
Hookers, occupying a western semicircular room, with fireplace and
French windows, that has been changed but little.

L. from Forest St. on Hawthorne St.

39. Katherine Hepburn's Birthplace (private), 133 Hawthorne St., was
the home of the motion-picture star, who lived here with her parents until
she began her career in the theater.

Return on Hawthorne St.; R. on Forest St.; L. on Farmington Ave.

40. Mark Twain's House and Memorial Library (open weekdays 9-5;
free) (1873), 351 Farmington Ave. This huge, rambling, twenty-room, red
and yellow brick structure of Victorian-Gothic architecture was built by
Mark Twain who resided here from 1874 to 1879. In 1929 it was ac-
quired by the Mark Twain Library and Memorial Commission and par-
tially restored. The stair hall is rich with quartered oak and inlaid paneled

1 88 Main Street and Village Green

walls of various woods. In the Memorial Room is a bust of the humorist
modeled from life by Louis W. Potter, and a large model of the Mark
Twain Memorial; the latter, representing characters from his books
flanking the seated figure of Clemens, is to be erected at Hannibal,
Missouri, the author's birthplace. Mr. Clemens had the kitchen and
servants' quarters built in the front part of his house so that they could
look out of the windows ' to see the parade go by.' As he commented, ' It
saves time and wear on the rugs.' Unusual features in the Mark Twain
House are a Tiffany window over the main fireplace and, in the rear, an
addition constructed like a pilot house, which served the elderly author
as a reminder that he had, at one time, been a Mississippi River steamboat
pilot.

41. The Children's Museum of Hartford (open weekdays 10-5; Sun. and
holidays 2-5), 609 Farmington Ave., at Oxford St., maintained by the
city, instructs and entertains young people with many fine exhibits,
lecture programs, and motion pictures. As floor space is limited, the
museum has adopted a system of rotary exhibits, displaying from time
to time a variety of collections of minerals, insects, plants, animals, and
birds, as well as dolls, stamps, handicraft, and articles from foreign lands.
Classes from the primary and grammar schools of the vicinity make
regular trips to the museum, which is particularly popular during sum-
mer vacations.

Return on Farmington Ave.; L. on Girard St.; R. on Elizabeth St.

42. Hartford Seminary Foundation (1926), at 55 Elizabeth St., was or-
ganized in 1833 by 36 Congregational ministers at East Windsor, and called
the Congregational Ministers College. It received its charter as the Theo-
logical Institute of Connecticut in May, 1834, and in 1865 removed to Hart-
ford. The Hartford School of Religious Education and the Kennedy School
of Missions are housed in the Foundation and continue to function as in-
dividual units of religious education. Special training is given students
seeking to qualify for a missionary career. The 35 acres of landscaped
campus contain administrative offices, library, dining-hall, dormitory for
women, dormitory for men, furnished apartments for missionary families,
and furnished apartments for married students. Parts of the building
program were carried out in 1924-25 by Allen and Collens. The buildings,
though as yet they seem unrelated, are in sturdy, unassuming Gothic
in the Perpendicular style, enlivened by some Elizabethan half-timber
work. The design of the tower at the entrance is based upon that of
Magdalen College, Oxford.

Case Memorial Library (open), Avery Hall, on the campus of the Hart-
ford Seminary, contains 140,890 volumes and 61,062 pamphlets of special
interest to students of theology and related subjects. Books in the
exceptionally fine Mission Department include, in addition to works on
history, philosophy, and religion, the classical literature of the Japanese,
Chinese, Arabic, Moslem, Turkish, and Armenian civilizations.

Return on Elizabeth St.; R. on Whitney St.; L. on Asylum St.

Hartford 189

43. Elizabeth Park (1895), entrance Asylum St., comprises 100 acres,
the gift of Charles M. Pond in memory of his wife Elizabeth, for whom it
was named. Thousands of people annually visit here during Rose Week
in June, to view the 500 varieties of roses in a natural setting of lily
ponds, streams, and groves. In hothouses and experimental houses not
far from the rose-beds, specialists continually develop more beautiful
varieties. National lawn bowling tournaments are held here annually in
June; other facilities include the children's playground, picnic groves,
tennis courts, and baseball diamond. Most of the park is in West Hart-
ford, but it is owned and cared for by the city of Hartford.

Return on Asylum St.

44. Hartford School of Music (1890), 834 Asylum St., reputedly the oldest
endowed school of music in Connecticut, is a non-profit corporation
providing musical instruction and encouragement to gifted students.
Junior and Senior string ensembles are maintained and concerts rendered
in both Bushnell and Avery Memorials.

TOUR 4

N. from Pleasant St. on Main St.

45. Keney Memorial Tower (1898), cor. of Main and Ely Sts., a French
Gothic tower like the Tour St. Jacques in Paris, was built to house a
clock and chimes, and to provide 'a monument to a Mother/ by Walter
and Henry Keney, Hartford merchants, on the site of their former home.
It is said to be the first monument erected to commemorate a woman
who had no other claim to greatness than that of being a true and self-
sacrificing parent.

L. from Main St. on Albany Ave.; R. on Blue Hills Ave.

46. St. Justin's Roman Catholic Church, 256 Blue Hills Ave., attached
to a convent, is the most interesting modern church in the city. Erected
in 1931, the design of the structure by Whiten and McMann is hard to
classify, having Gothic elements, such as its crossing tower and its per-
pendicular windows, and a Romanesque basilican interior, all treated with
a rigorous modern suppression of unnecessary lines. But the perfect
proportions, the light and shade concentrated at the altar, and the
facade, which might be called a composition of block surfaces, are admi-
rably handled in spite of stylistic inconsistencies.

R. from Blue Hills Ave. on Holcomb St.

47. Connecticut Institute for the Blind (open) (1911), 260 Holcomb St.,
at Blue Hills Ave., a three-and-a-half-story red-brick, Georgian-Colonial
structure, accommodates 60 blind and partially blind pupils, who re-
ceive general elementary education and board. Using the latest aids for
the blind, such as guide dogs, the Braille system of writing, and talking

190 Main Street and Village Green

books, every effort is made to make the students as self-supporting as
possible.

48. Keney Park (1924), entrance at end of Holcomb St., was donated to
the city by Henry Keney in August, 1924. This park contains a difficult
i8-hole golf course, clubhouse, archery, and lawn bowling grounds,
tennis courts, a children's playgound, a refectory, football, baseball, and
soccer fields, and bridle paths. Throughout its 694 acres, the scenic
drives wind past streams and ponds in acres of natural woodland.

Return on Holcomb St.; R. on Coventry St.; R. on Tower Ave.; L. on Main
St.

49. The Fuller Brush Company Building (adm. on application at office}
(1906), 3580 Main St., houses a firm founded in 1906 and incorporated in
1913; this three-story, yellow-brick building occupies more than 160,000
square feet and is the largest brush factory in the world, manufacturing
brushes for household use sold on a direct- to-consumer basis. These
brushes are sold from door to door by young men, who are as clever sales-
men as the original Yankee peddlers.

OTHER POINTS OF INTEREST

50. Bulkeley Memorial Bridge, at the end of Morgan St., erected in 1908
at a cost of $1,600,000, spans the Connecticut River between Hartford
and East Hartford. Named for Morgan G. Bulkeley, former Mayor of
Hartford, Governor of Connecticut, and U.S. Senator, the 9 spans and
approaches, 1192 feet long and 83 feet wide, include 100,000 cubic yards
of masonry.

51. Pratt and Whitney Manufacturing Company Plant (adm. on applica-
tion at office] (1860), 436 Capitol Ave., at Flower St., is noted for its
development of standard-length precision gauges and tools. The Sharps
rifle was first manufactured on this site by the Sharps Company (1851).
Through history-making Civil War and western pioneering days, this
early breech-loading arm established an enviable record for accuracy and
reliability. Arms machinery orders for export boomed the business in
1873-75, the firm made Hotchkiss guns in 1888, and a one-pounder in
1895. It became a leader in establishing standards, especially of screw
threads, and trained many excellent mechanics who became noted in their
own right. Among P. & W. 'graduates' who became nationally known
were such men as Worcester R. Warner, Ambrose Swazey, E. P. Bullard,
F. N. Gardner, and E. C. Henn. The noted 'Wasp' and 'Hornet' aircraft
motors were developed by this firm.

52. Pope Park t by Park St., was given to the city of Hartford in 1898
by Colonel Albert A. Pope. These 89 acres offer such recreational facil-
ities as a swimming and wading pool, playgrounds, an outdoor gym-

Hartford 191

nasium, a baseball diamond, a soccer field, a football field, tennis courts,
and a refectory. The pond, used in winter for ice skating, is the scene
of a model-yacht regatta every summer. Japanese cherry trees grow
here in an abundance.

53. Trinity College, between Summit and Vernon Sts., Broad St. and
New Britain Ave., a notable classical and scientific institution now
secular in character, is an outgrowth of the first Episcopal college es-
tablished in New England. Incorporated in 1823, it was first known as
Washington College, but adopted its present name in 1845. The long
range of older buildings, designed in 1874 by William Burgess and cen-
tered in a square turreted tower, is now being completed into a quad-
rangle by the introduction of newer buildings, the Chemistry Laboratory
on the south and chapel on the north. A swimming pool and gymnasium
building have been added also, down the hill by the athletic fields.
Trinity College Chapel, 1932, designed by Frohman, Robb, and Little, is
the most beautiful, as well as most authentic, piece of Gothic architecture
in the State. This authenticity applies, not only to the painstaking rendi-
tion of the English Perpendicular style, but to the spirit in which the
whole was conceived. Throughout its erection, weekday services were
held to unite the workmen in a common recognition of the spiritual
purpose of their task. Prizes were offered to the workmen for carvings, on
any subject they chose, which are now in all parts of the building, from
amusing bench ends referring to patriotic or collegiate history to stone
carvings of the Angelus or other subject, inset in cloister or porch.
The chapel is built as English college chapels usually are, like the
choir of a cathedral, the long side benches furnishing seats for the stu-
dents, while the general congregation sits in the crossing or what remains
of the nave. It is from the crossing that the best view of the interior can
be obtained. Clustered columns rise about sixty feet to the groined
vaulting, and the chancel arch frames the richly mullioned Te Deum
window at the east over a simple and dignified altar framed by blue
hangings. On the other end, a Rose Window, French rather than English,
is dedicated to the Mother of Our Lord. The Chapel of the Perfect Friend-
ship runs north from the crossing. But the feature which lingers long-
est in memory is the tall tower, buttressed by towering corner pinnacles
that give it a soaring quality. An outdoor pulpit adds a picturesque touch
on the quadrangle side.

54. Colt's Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company Plant (adm. on
application at office) (1855), 17 Van Dyke Ave., houses a firm organized
in Paterson, N J., by Samuel Colt in 1836, and removed to Hartford in
1855. Occupying nearly 1,000,000 square feet of floor space in the manu-
facture of firearms, this plant has been the training school for many of the
Nation's industrial leaders. The first successful revolving pistols in the
world were manufactured by this company and 'The Arm of Law and
Order ' is known around the world.

'Colt's Armory' was the training school for Francis A. Pratt and Amos
Whitney, founders of Pratt and Whitney. Prof. Charles B. Richards,

192 Main Street and Village Green

another Colt's student, became professor of Mechanical Engineering at
Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University in 1884 and remained in
that capacity for 25 years. George S. Lincoln, milling machine developer,
William Mason, George A. Fairfield, C. M. Spencer, and Charles E.
Billings were other Colt's students who left their mark in the world of
machines. Elisha K. Root, superintendent of Colt's, trained many of
these men and received the highest salary paid to any Hartford resident
in the year 1865. Root's jigs and fixtures, profile machinery, stock turn-
ing, boring and rifling machinery, were used not only in U.S. Government
armories, but in foreign lands as well. Transferring from the Collins
Company (axe-makers) in 1849, Mr. Root brought forging processes at
Colt's to a high efficiency, introducing, among other things, a 4-impression
die for drop hammers. Handwork was largely eliminated under Root's
management, automatic and semi-automatic machines were installed,
and the interchangeable-parts idea of manufacture was carried out to a
remarkable degree of efficiency.

The influence of Colt's Armory and of Mr. Root's management and me-
chanical training on the younger men who worked with him has been
notable throughout the machine-tool world. The Weed Sewing Machines,
Columbia Bicycles and motorcars, were built by Colt-trained mechanics.
The great washing machines that wash and dry dishes in the largest hotels
come from Colt's, as do the attachment plugs, cartridge fuses, entrance
switches, and molded panels of the electrical system in any household.

55. Colt Park (1905), entrance on Wethersfield Ave., a ii4-acre park, the
gift of Mrs. Elizabeth H. Colt, is a memorial to Samuel Colt, inventor
of the Colt firearms. In this park is an enclosed municipal stadium, a
quarter-mile running track, swimming pool, baseball, football and soccer
fields, bowling greens, tennis courts, and hockey rink. World War
Memorial trees planted along the numerous drives create an effect of
peace and quiet. A sizable Memorial to Colt, designed by Massey
Rhind in 1004, stands near Wethersfield Ave. This seated bronze figure
represents Colt as a sailor lad, whittling the cylinder for the first Colt
revolver model; bas-reliefs on the pedestal depict events in his tour
around the world when he and Mrs. Colt were honored by many reign-
ing monarchs of Europe and Asia.

56. Goodwin Park, cor. Maple Ave. and South St., comprises 237 acres
acquired hi 1901. Splendid drives wind around beautiful lakes and through
large groves of trees. Recreational facilities include a municipal golf
course, clubhouse, playground, tennis courts, a football field, picnic
groves, a refectory, and bridle paths.

57. Royal Typewriter Company Plant (adm. on application at office),
150 New Park Ave. at SE. cor. Francis Court, was established in 1906
by Edward B. Hess, Lewis C. Meyer, and Thomas F. Ryan, in Brooklyn,
N.Y., and moved to Hartford in 1908. The second largest typewriter
company in the world, it manufactures standard, portable, and noiseless
typewriters, which are shipped to all parts of the civilized world. The
factory consists of four- and five-story, red-brick structures with small

Litchfield 193

Norman towers at the corners of the buildings, facing New Park Ave.
The plant has nearly 500,000 square feet of floor space and employs more
than 4500 people (1937).

58. Underwood Elliot Fisher Company Plant, SE. cor. Capitol Ave. and
Woodbine St., houses a company organized in 1895 and first located in
New York City. In 1896 the firm moved to Bayonne, N.J., and in 1899
the plant was moved to Hartford, where it occupies the largest type-
writer plant in the world, with a floor area of 985,000 square feet. It
employs more than 5000 people and is a leader among Hartford's major
industries.

Points of Interest in Environs:

Birthplace of Noah Webster and the American School for the Deaf,
West Hartford, 5.4 m., US 44 (see Side Trip of Tour 3); Pratt and
Whitney Airplane Works, East Hartford, 2.7 m., State 2 (see Tour
3A).

LITCHFIELD

Town: Alt. 960, pop. 3574, sett. 1720, incorp. 1719.

Nearest Airport: Carey Field, Torrington, Torringford Road, 10 m. NE. of

Litchfield. Taxi fare, $2.50. Time, 30 min. Passenger service by chartered

plane to and from New York. Sightseeing trips.

Taxis: 50^ within town limits. $1 within 4 m. beyond the town limits.

Traffic Regulations: Speed limit 25 m. per hour within town limits. Ample

parking space, no time limit.

Swimming: Sandy Beach, Bantam Lake, 4 m. SW. of center on State 109.

Annual Events: Litchfield Horse Show, second Saturday in August. Litchfield

Grange Fair, early September.

LITCHFIELD, on a plateau above the Naugatuck Valley just east of the
Housatonic Valley, is a stately old Connecticut town, with majestic elms
bordering broad roadways, strips of well-kept lawn between sidewalk and
street, and many dignified Colonial homes.

An air of peace and contentment pervades the community. When the
mail comes in, townsfolk gather at the post office; on court days the local
gentry congregate on street corners and speculate on the length of the
term. Natives live to a ripe old age, untroubled by economic maladjust-
ment or crime problems. Just across the Green from the post office is the
county jail, seldom occupied except by some backwoodsman who has been

194 Main Street and Village Green

intemperate; the courthouse is under the same roof. The dog warden
usually basks in the sunlight near the harness store or the post office, his
golden badge polished bright. The county agent chats with two or three
young members of the 4~H Colt Club. Station wagons whisk in from Fal-
con Flight or Hardscrabble Hill for the day's marketing, and the rural
mail carrier pulls away from the curb in his mud-splashed flivver.

The lands, then known as Bantam, that make up the township of Litchfield
were bought from the Indians in 1715-16 for fifteen pounds. The town
was incorporated in May, 1719, the village in 1818, and the borough of
Litchfield was established in 1879.

In 1720-21, the first settlers arrived and named the town Litchfield, after
the old cathedral city of Lichfield in Staffordshire, England. Newcomers
were not permitted to take up a permanent residence until their charac-
ters were passed upon by the town fathers. Fears of Indian attack trou-
bled the settlers; palisades were built around five houses to furnish protec-
tion in case of raids, and sentries were stationed at the edge of the village.
In May, 1722, Captain Jacob Griswold, one of the founders, was attacked
and taken captive by the Indians but later escaped and returned to the
village. The following August, another inhabitant, Joseph Harris, was
captured and scalped by the Indians on a plain just west of the town,
which became known as Harris Plain.

Litchfield was an outpost and trading center for the northwest frontier.
Agriculture flourished, small mills were built along the streams, and iron
was forged into chains and anchors. The first French War passed almost
unnoticed, but during the second French War (1755-63), a regiment was
raised in Litchfield and near-by towns. At the outbreak of the Revolu-
tionary War, many of Litchfield's reinforcements were sent to Bunker
Hill, and Aaron Burr, who had spent the previous year studying law at the
home of his brother-in-law, Tapping Reeve, enlisted and served in Ar-
nold's expedition to Quebec. Oliver Wolcott was chosen a member of the
Continental Congress, and many other Litchfield citizens took a promi-
nent part in military and governmental activities. The town's protected
inland situation and extensive agricultural production made Litchfield a
concentration point for army stores and workshops, which became in-
creasingly important after the capture of New York when the northern
route through Litchfield was the principal military artery to Boston.
Night and day the village resounded with the creak of loaded carts, the
pounding of hammers, and the tramp of marching feet. At the close of the
war the town made rapid social and educational progress, escaping the
somewhat aimless industrial development of many Connecticut factory
towns.

Benjamin Hanks, an ingenious maker of clocks and watches, came to
Litchfield in 1780, and in 1783 secured a patent on a tower clock automat-
ically wound by air. Hanks built a foundry a 'few rods south of the
Court House,' where he carried on a 'Brazier's business' and began the
casting of church bells for which he later became famous.

Litchfield 195

Tapping Reeve (1744-1823) established the first law school in America in
Litchfield; after his death, his associates carried on the institution until
1833, when Yale, Harvard, Virginia, Columbia, and other colleges had
opened law schools of their own. Most historians date this school from
1784, but Lyman Beecher, in his sermon delivered at the funeral of Reeve,
stated that regular lectures were begun here in 1782. According to Simeon
E. Baldwin in his 'Great American Lawyers,' these lectures constituted
the first law school not only in America but 'in any English speaking
country, for the Inns of Court had long ceased to be seats of serious
instruction and the "schools" of Oxford and Cambridge were but a
form/

Among the graduates of Reeve's school were one Vice President, five
Cabinet Members, seventeen United States Senators, fifty-three members
of Congress, five diplomats, three Associate Justices of the United States
Supreme Court, four Justices of the United States District or Circuit
Court, seven Chief Justices of States, ten State Governors, seven Lieu-
tenant Governors of States, two State Secretaries of State, three State
Attorneys, three State Chancellors, four Speakers of the House of Repre-
sentatives of States, and three college presidents.

Tapping Reeve was among the first to champion an improvement in the
legal rights of married women, and imbued his students with a burning
desire to defend the oppressed. Many of them returned home to pioneer
in legislation that made it possible for married women to transfer their
property without permission of their husbands. Many stories are told of
Reeve's absent-mindedness. He would walk up North Street, leading a
horse that was no longer with him. Holding the bridle rein carefully, the
jurist would amble along, absorbed in thought, often reaching the hitch-
ing-post and making a knot before he discovered that his horse, having
slipped the bridle, was peacefully grazing some blocks behind.

Among the Acadian refugees who came to Litchfield, one found happiness
rather than sadness in exile. Sybil Sharway was this young 'Evangeline,'
who, in 1 764, married Thomas Harrison and lived happily ever after.

Litchfield church circles were once rent asunder by a controversy over a
stove. The elder church folk were convinced that the old-fashioned,heatless
churches were more conducive to salvation than the superheated edifices
in the city. But others were of a different mind. The congregation split
into the anti-stove faction and the pro-stovers. One bright September
Sabbath, arriving church folk found the leader of the pro-stove group
standing over a gleaming wood-burner and rubbing his palms content-
edly together. The anti-stove people perspired and mopped their brows
in great distress. One indignant lady fainted from the heat and had to be
carried to the open air. The sermon over, a bold pro-stove warrior walked
over to the cast-iron wonder and placed a hand on the lid. The stove was
stone cold.

Much of Litchfield's early affluence was due to the commercial enterprise
of Julius Deming, an energetic merchant and shipowner, who moved here

196 Main Street and Village Green

from North Lyme and formed the Litchfield China Company in partner-
ship with Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge and Oliver Wolcott. Their
vessel, the 'Trident,' made China voyages out of New Haven for fourteen
years. The cargoes were freighted overland by ox teams to Litchfield,
headquarters for the traders, who had a string of chain stores in the sur-
rounding towns.

The advent of Connecticut railroads, which were slow in building the
crooked little line, with its one hundred and forty-seven curves within
about twenty-five miles, up the Shepaug River Valley to Litchfield, marked
a transition in the town's history. The Housatonic and Naugatuck lines
diverted industry to the valley towns. Cotton mills, carriage and cabinet
shops, comb and hat shops, even the iron forges, eventually closed, and
the little town dozed while lively new cities boomed. Litchfield was left
sequestered in the quiet back-country, a genuine old New England vil-
lage, where the population still is 55 per cent of full native parentage. In
recent years Litchfield has become a popular summer resort.

In 1937, Litchfield was faced with the abandonment of all rail facilities, as
the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad has petitioned the
State Legislature for permission to abandon the Shepaug Branch. The
town is still paying off the indebtedness it incurred when the railway first
established a station here; an outstanding debt of $50,000 is being retired
at the rate of five thousand dollars per year. Thus Litchfield faces the
misfortune of paying for a railway ten years after service is discontinued.

As Litchfield is a leisurely community, the tourist should enjoy touring
the village on foot. There is little traffic, and all the points of interest in
the community are within easy walking distance.

TOUR 1

W. on East St. from the eastern end of the Green.

i. The Congregational Church (R), East St. facing the Green, was built
(1828-29) at the close of the best period of loth-century architecture. It
closely resembles the Southington Congregational Church, and was prob-
ably designed by Levi Newell of that town, but has a far more attractive
setting. It is the last of a series of almost identical edifices that included
the Congregational churches of Milford (1823), designed by Hoadley;
Cheshire (1826), and Southington (1828). It has the same four fluted
Ionic columns in the portico, the same three equal doors (this time with
square panels over their semicircular heads), the same graceful steeple
with two octagonal stages one open, one closed each crowned with
a decorative balustrade. The interior, though a modernized reproduction,
is worth seeing for its high barrel- vaulted ceiling, its elaborate candelabra
and mahogany pulpit reached by a double flight of steps. At one time its
beauty was not appreciated, for in 1873 it was replaced by the exotic but

Litchfield 197

then popular Gothic, and was moved away to serve the baser uses of
armory, dance hall and movie house. Reform came at last, however, and
private subscription restored the dignified old edifice to its former site and
service.

2. Phelps Tavern, East St. (R), next but one to the church, built by David
Buell and in continuous service, 1787-1937, is the most impressive ex-
ample of an early tavern in the State. In its unusual height, three and
a half stories, and in its pretentious piazzas that run up to the wide over-
hanging flare of the roof, it reflects the importance of Litchfield as a shire
town. It was erected only five years after a tavern of more ordinary pro-
portions was built in the town.

3. The Old Curiosity Shop, East St. (R), close to the tavern, one of the
few early shops still in existence, was built in 1781 as an apothecary shop
by Dr. Reuben Smith, a pioneer in the use of smallpox inoculation; with
its gable end to the street and two low windows flanking the entrance,
sheltered under a hood that stretches across the front, it is an unusual
relic.

4. The Collins House (1782), next door, on East St., with an end chimney
and a double overhang, was originally an inn managed by John Collins,
who kept the establishment with the approval of his father, Timothy
Collins, Litchfield's first parson, until his hostelry was displaced by the
Phelps Tavern.

R. from East St. on North St.

5 and 6. The Corner House (private) (1792), NE. cor. East and North Sts.,
was essentially a town house built for Charles Butler in the style now
associated with the early i9th century. It is replete with quoins and
bracketed cornices, has its doorways pressed close into the very corners of
the house, and experiments with fan-light and quadrant windows in the
gable. The two-story columns on the porch in the ell are a favorite feature
in Litchfield. Directly across the street (L), at the cor. of West and North
Sts., is the brick Litchfield County Jail (1811). In front of the jail is the
Whipping Post Elm, 1 2 feet in circumference. The sheriff once lashed law-
breakers in the shade of this great tree, but today it looks down on
more modern corrective measures. Prisoners from the jail clip the grass,
or rake leaves, suffering only from the confinement incident to the nor-
mally light sentences handed down by the judge of the County Court.

7. The old brick Bank Building (L), next north on North St., with a shal-
low two-story portico and stately colonnade, was built in 1815 as a branch
of the Phoenix Bank in Hartford.

8. The Benjamin Tallmadge House (private) (1775), next door on North
St., was built in 1775 and bought in 1782 by Colonel Tallmadge, Chief
of the Intelligence Service and a friend of Nathan Hale. He identified
Major Andre after his capture. The tall gambrel-roofed house is flanked
by two lower wings, with two-story columns, a mode that became popular
in Litchfield and Farmington. Its ' captain's walk ' is a feature which the
merchant prince borrowed from dwellings near the sea.

198 Main Street and Village Green

9. The Lindens (private), opposite on North St. (1790-93), is the most
pretentious old house in Litchfield. Designed by William Spratt, a Lon-
don architect who served in the British Army and was the designer of the
Samuel Cowles House in Farmington, this large house was decorated
with material brought from England by the owner, Julius Deming,
a merchant prince and shipowner. The cornices and window heads
have elaborate moldings, brackets, and dentils. Above the colonnaded
entrance portico is an excellently proportioned Palladian window. The
lines of the hip roof repeat the lines of the pediment over the entrance, and
four tall chimneys give a strong accent to the design, which is Spratt's
best. The south colonnade and the rear ell are later additions.

10. Sheldon's Tavern (private} (1760), opposite on North St., easily
recognized as Spratt's work, has an imposing hip roof which Spratt added
some time after 1790, when the house was sold to Senator Uriah Tracy.
Spratt also introduced the projecting entrance, without pilasters, fan-
light or quoins, characteristic of his work. The tavern, originally operated
here by Samuel Sheldon, is mentioned in Washington's diary, which tells
of his spending a night here.

11. Miss Pierce' 's Academy, opened in 1792, the first institution in Amer-
ica for the higher education of women, once stood on the plainly marked
Site (L), north of the Sheldon Tavern. During the 40 years of its existence
this school was attended by 3000 young women.

12. The Lynde Lord House (private} (1771), SW. cor. North and Prospect
Sts. (L), is a stately example of an early twin-chimney, gambrel-roofed
homestead.

13. On the corner of North and Prospect Sts. (L), is a covered well and a
large elm tree marking the Site of the Reverend Lyman Beecher Homestead,
which has been moved to Norfolk Road, where it is the main building of
the Spring Hill School, a co-educational institution for younger children.
In this building, erected in 1775 and now drastically remodeled, were born
the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher (1813-87) and his sister, Harriet Beecher
Stowe (1811-96), author of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' The Rev. Lyman
Beecher (1775-1863), their father, came to Litchfield in 1810 as pastor of
the Congregational Church, serving the parish for 16 years.

L. from North St. on Prospect.

14. Around the corner (L), on the south side of Prospect St., is the Quincy
Memorial (not open), built in 1904, a large reproduction of an old house,
left by Miss Mary Quincy to the Society for the Preservation of New
England Antiquities. Here are preserved collections of family heirlooms
and old laces.

Litchfield 199

FOOT TOUR 2

South from the Green on South St.

15. At the corner of East and South Sts. (L), facing the Green, is the two-
story, red-brick structure that houses the Wolcott and Litchfield Circulat-
ing Libraries (open weekdays 10-12.30, 2.30-6). In the eastern wing,
owned by the Historical Society, is a collection of portraits and Indian
relics.

16. The Tapping Reeve House (open weekdays 10-12, 2-5; Sundays and
holidays 2-5; June l-Nov. l;adm. 25^) (1773), South St. (R), is the former
home of Judge Reeve, whose wife, Sally, was the sister of Aaron Burr.
This hip-roofed dwelling has an excellent interior furnished by the Litch-
field Historical Society. The ventilators under the roof and the doors are
features added much later. Next to the dwelling stands the tiny Law
School (1784) on its original site. It looks like an early district school.

17. The Older Oliver Wolcott House (private}, (1753-54), South St., opp.
Wolcott Ave. and the Law School, has a porticoed ell, the earliest of this
Litchfield type. It differs little from the typical house of the period except
for the pediments over the windows. In the garden of this house, the
leaden statue of George III, torn from its pedestal in Bowling Green,
New York, by enraged patriots and smuggled to Litchfield in an oxcart,
was melted and molded into 42,088 bullets by the ladies of the Wolcott
family and their patriotic friends.

1 8. The Ephraim Kirby House (private} (1773), South St. (L), is directly
below the Older Oliver Wolcott House. The wings of this imposing
structure are supported by two-story columns. These wings and the
numerous Palladian windows in the gables were probably later additions.
Colonel Kirby compiled the first reports of law cases ever printed in
America, covering the years 1785-88; these served as a model on which
Connecticut and Massachusetts based subsequent reports.

19. The Second Oliver Wolcott House (private}, SW. cor. South and Wol-
cott Sts., built in 1799 by Elijah Wadsworth, was soon sold to Oliver
Wolcott, Jr., who succeeded Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the
Treasury in 1795. Wolcott was the first president of the Bank of America
and Governor of Connecticut for ten years (1817-27). This house, one
of the few private houses equipped with a ballroom, has been so altered
as to lose its original simple lines.

R. from South on High St.

20. The Birthplace of Ethan Allen (private}, High St. (L), a small gambrel-
roofed house, is reputed to be the oldest house in the village.

Ethan Allen, a lieutenant colonel in the Colonial service, was born in
Litchfield on January 10, 1737. His parents moved to Cornwall and later
to Vermont, and Ethan, a young firebrand and opportunist, took an ac-

200 Main Street and Village Green

tive part in Vermont's opposition to New York State rule. One hundred
and fifty pounds were offered for his apprehension as an outlaw, but Allen's
men, 'The Green Mountain Boys/ took good care of their leader. The
intrepid soldier was authorized and paid by the General Assembly of
Connecticut to raise a regiment of rangers and to proceed against Ticon-
deroga. Two hundred and thirty Connecticut Yankees accompanied him
on the expedition, more than were raised by Benedict Arnold in Massa-
chusetts; the Green Mountain Boys refused to acknowledge the 'foreign'
Arnold as their leader and Allen took the command. Ethan Allen forced
his way through the gates of the fortress at the head of his troops on May
10, 1775, formed his patrol on the parade grounds, routed out the com-
manding officer while that gentleman was still in his nightclothes, and
demanded surrender of the post ' In the name of the Continental Congress,
by God! ' The British capitulated, surrendering 49 prisoners and valuable
stores to the Green Mountain Boys without a fight. Crown Point fell the
same day, and the mastery of all Lake Champlain passed to the Americans.
Allen had unusual ideas about religion, believing that men's souls after
death entered the bodies of beasts, fishes, reptiles, and birds. His own
choice for a future life was a large white horse. Allen published works
ridiculing the doctrine of Moses and the Prophets, the State of New York,
and the British Army. Vermont has made him a popular hero; an army
post there is named for him, a highway in Connecticut bears his name,
and the exploits of his men are the subject of many folk tales throughout
New England. He died February 13, 1789, in Colchester, after a fall from
his horse, and was buried in Burlington, Vt.

M E R I D E N

City: Alt. 190, pop. 38,481, sett. 1661, incorp. 1867.

Railroad Station: Meriden Station, State St. near East Main St. for N.Y., N.H.,
& H. R.R.

Airport: Municipal Airport, Evansville Ave., between Main St. and Cheshire
Rd.; 2| m. from city; taxi fare approximately 75j, time 10 min. Sightseeing
trips offered by Stinson Aircab Service; $1.50 for 5 min. No scheduled service.

Accommodations: Two hotels.

Recreation: Swimming: Baldwin's Pond Municipal Pool and Beach, junction
North Wall St., Britannia St., and Westfield Rd.; free parking and showers, 10j
locker fee for adults; Dossin Park Beach, NW. corner Cheshire and Oregon
Rds.; free parking and showers, 15^ locker fee for adults; Y.M.C.A., no West
Main St., fee 25f; St. Rose's Community House, 24-26 Center St., fee 25^.

Stadia: St. Stanislaus Stadium, SW. corner Gale Ave. and Harrison St. ; Insilco
Field, West Main St.; Washington Park off Liberty k St; Columbus Park, foot

Meriden 201

of Lewis Ave.; baseball, football, and track events held at all four stadia,
admission from 25^ to 40^f.

Information Service: Meriden Chamber of Commerce, 7 Colony St.; no West
Main St.; Y.M.C.A., 32 Crown St.; Curtis Library, corner East Main and
Pleasant Sts.

MERIDEN, seat of an extensive silver-plating industry, lies in the
central Connecticut Valley. Flanked by the Hanging Hills on the west
and the scenic Mt. Beseck range on the east, it has one of the most at-
tractive natural settings of any city in the State.

Numerous large public parks with shady drives winding past woodland
lakes are quiet oases amid the industrial activity of the city. The business
district, in which are concentrated six of the plants of the International
Silver Company, said to be the largest manufacturers of silverware in
the world, is typical of most industrial communities. In addition to the
silver factories, about 75 other plants are engaged in the production of
such diversified products as ball bearings, electric lamps, fixtures and
household appliances, automotive accessories, and thermos bottles.

In 1 66 1, Jonathan Gilbert of Hartford was granted a farm of 350 acres
in this district by the General Court. Edward Higbee, who was put in
charge of the estate, 'was the first white man to take up his abode in
Meriden,' which was named for Gilbert's birthplace, Meriden Farm,
in the English county of Surrey.

The history of Meriden is closely identified with the development of the
silver industry which was an outgrowth of a small pewter shop. As
early as 1794, Samuel Yale, who had worked with the craftsman, Thomas
Danforth of Rocky Hill, commenced to produce pewter buttons. Nu-
merous button and tin shops soon followed. The manufacture of Britannia
ware was introduced here in 1808 by Ashbel Griswold. Griswold first
used a mixture of tin and lead that was little more than pewter. Teapots
were cast in two parts, and soldered together; spouts and handles were
cast separately and soldered in place. Each article was then put on a
lathe, turned and polished. Other small plants sprang up and by 1852
were so numerous that many of them combined to organize the Meriden
Britannia Company. Shortly afterward, improved machinery made
possible the rolling and pressing of metal by means of dies and forms. A
new alloy of tin, antimony, and copper produced a more durable metal,
which retained a more pronounced luster.

The first mechanical piano-player in the world was the Angelus, manu-
factured by H. K. Wilcox in Meriden in 1895. The former Angelus plant
is now a subsidiary of General Electric, producing molded plastics for
electrical equipment.

Although about 68 per cent of Meriden's population is either foreign-
born or of foreign or mixed parentage, the newcomers have been quickly
assimilated and there are no areas distinctly typical of any one nationality.
Several prominent literary and musical figures have been residents of
Meriden. Rosa and Carmella Ponselle, of the Metropolitan Opera Com-

2O2 Main Street and Village Green

pany, spent their childhood here and received their first training in music
from a local teacher. Gerhart Hauptmann, German dramatist, wrote his
poetic drama, 'The Sunken Bell,' while living in the city, and is said to
have derived his inspiration from Meriden's Hanging Hills (see Tour 2
Alt.). Ella Wheeler Wilcox was a resident for many years.

POINTS OF INTEREST

N. from East Main St. on State St.

1. At 48 State St. is the main office of the International Silver Company
(admission on application at office), largest manufacturers of silver and
silver-plated ware in the world, normally employing about 3000 people.
Six of the firm's 14 plants are in Meriden. In 1857, the Britannia Com-
pany bought the Rogers Plant in Hartford, which had been producing
silver-plated ware since 1847, and the Rogers Brothers took over supervi-
sion of local production. In 1898, the Meriden Britannia Company
merged with several independent concerns to form the International
Silver Company.

Return on State St. to East Main; L. on E. Main.

2. The Eli Birdsey House (private), SE. cor. E. Main and Broad Sts.,
with a two-story colonnaded portico, is a pretentious dwelling dating
from 1830.

At the junction of E. Main and Broad Sts. is the northern end of Broad
Street Memorial Boulevard which parallels the long Green, once a training
ground for Revolutionary soldiers.

3. The Center Congregational Church (1831), SW. cor. E. Main and
Broad Sts., is a white clapboarded structure with a portico of six fluted
Doric columns. The three large front doorways have eight-panel doors;
on each side of the building are six windows with molded window heads.
Above the portico gable rises a tower in three stages with a clock in the
first stage. The upper two stages are reminiscent of Hoadley's United
Church in New Haven. The open work of earlier church steeples has
been replaced with louvres flanked by classic columns supporting cornices
worked out in considerable detail. Above the upper stage, which is
octagonal, is a drum with wreath ornament and a small dome.

MERIDEN. POINTS OF INTEREST

1. International Silver Company 6. Ephraim Berry House

2. Eli Birdsey House 7. Site of the First Meeting-House

3. Center Congregational Church 8. Plumb House

4. Baptist Church 9. James Hough House

5. Benjamin Curtis House 10. Moses Andrews Homestead

2O4 Main Street and Village Green

R. from E. Main St. on Broad St.

4. The Baptist Church (1847), next door to the Congregational Church,
is severely plain except for the ornamental balustrade around its octag-
onal spire. Four smooth Doric columns support the wide portico. The
serenity of the front is due partly to the smooth boarding of the portico,
unbroken except for the single door. When ground was first broken for
this building, the Congregational Society resorted to an injunction to
prevent the erection of the Baptist Church. According to the records,
the Congregationalists had 'no objection to the Baptists as Christian
people, as good neighbors and as worthy citizens/ but the Reverend
Mr. Miller, pastor of the Baptist Church, had ' a peculiarly sharp ringing
voice' that the Congregationalists feared might disturb their society
in meeting.

L. from Broad on Curtis St.

5. The Benjamin Curtis House (private), 75 Curtis St. (1795, possibly
earlier), is a white clapboarded, peak-roofed dwelling with a double
overhang, which has been little changed through the years.

6. The Ephraim Berry House (private}, sometimes known as the Aaron
Higby House, recently moved to Curtis L St., at the corner of Ann, is a
stone-chimneyed, white salt-box dwelling with a double overhang, built
by Ephraim Berry in 1743.

L. from Curtis St. on Ann St.

7. At the end of Ann St. on Buckwheat Hill is the Site of the First Meeting-
House and the original burying ground, where stands a monument erected
by the town in 1857 in honor of the first settlers.

Return on Ann St.; L. from Ann on Gale Ave.

8. The Plumb House (private) (before 1733), SW. cor. Hall and Gale
Aves., a story-and-a-half cottage with but two windows downstairs
and three dormers, is one of the city's oldest buildings.

Other Points of Interest:

9. The James Hough House (private), Westfield Rd., 0.6 m. east of
Broad St. via Britannia St., a peak-roofed, clapboarded house with but
five windows on the front, was built before 1740 when the first transfer
of the building was recorded. The heavy brownstone chimney, which
is about 12 feet square at the base, gives an impression of sturdy
simplicity.

10. The Moses Andrews Homestead (private) (1760), 425 W. Main St.,
is a brick-chimneyed salt-box house of the later type, with a double
overhang and an unusually long straight rear roof. This building, now
used by the Meriden Board of Education, was in 1789 the first Episcopal
place of worship in Meriden.

Points of Interest in Environs:

Hubbard Park, including West Peak and Castle Craig, 1.8 m. (see
Tour 2 Alt.); Goffe House, oldest in town, 1.3 m., US 5 (see Tour 7).

MIDDLETOWN

City: Alt. 50, pop. 24,554.

Railroad Station: N.Y., N.H. & H. R.R. Station on Gilshenan Ave., at eastern
end of Rapallo St.

Piers: Public Dock, College St. at Water St.; Middletown Yacht Club, recipro-
cal pleasure craft privileges, 100 yds. upstream from Public Dock.
Accommodations: Four small hotels.

Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, Central National Bank Bldg.,
Main St.
Swimming: Pameachea Pond and Y.M.C.A., Crescent St.

Annual Events: Wesleyan University Commencement, 3d week in June. Apple
Blossom Festival, Middlefield (see Side Trip off Tour 2 Alt.).

MIDDLETOWN, shopping center of Middlesex County, the home of
Wesleyan University, once an important West Indies shipping port,
if often compared with the newer cities of the mid- West because of
its exceptionally wide main street and spaciously arranged business and
residential districts.

From the main street, which runs parallel with the Connecticut River,
about 45 feet above its banks, elm-shaded avenues climb a gradual hill
to an altitude of 190 feet, from which the University and stately residences
overlook the winding river. From 1750 to 1800 Middletown was rated
the wealthiest town in Connecticut; evidence of its prosperity is the large
number of bank buildings, usually constructed of solid Connecticut
brownstone, along the main thoroughfare.

Settled by Puritans from the colonies of Hartford and Wethersfield in
1650, the town was first known as Mattabeset, and in 1653 was named
Middletown because of the settlement's location midway between Hart-
ford and Saybrook. The early settlement was divided into sections by a
small tributary stream, later known as the Little River. The northern
section, which remained part of Middletown until it was incorporated
as the town of Cromwell in 1851, was known until that time as the
' Upper Houses/ as distinguished from the southern section, now Middle-
town, known as the 'Lower Houses.' Both lumber and farm products
were shipped to the West Indies at an early date, and maritime trade be-
came one of the principal industries of the colony.

Here Colonel Return Jonathan Meigs recruited a company for Revolu-
tionary War service, which fought at Bunker Hill and was cited for
bravery by Washington. Simeon North, the first official pistol-maker of
the United States Government (contract 1799), established his arms
factory here during the Revolution and is said to have introduced the
principle of line assembly and interchangeable parts in 1813.

206 Main Street and Village Green

Yankee peddlers carried Middletown elastic webbing, first produced here
in 1841, and at least one present-day manufacturing plant owes its
prosperity to this line of rubber goods. Rubber footwear was an early
product and still is manufactured here by the Goodyear Rubber Com-
pany. Marine hardware has been forged and cast in Middletown since
1847; metal pumps, silks, and silverware all bear a Middletown trade-
mark; and Remington Noiseless Typewriters are produced here.

Among the distinguished native sons were Commodore Thomas Mac-
Donough, hero of the battle of Lake Champlain during the War of 1812;
Captain Partridge, who founded here a military academy, later moved
to Norwich, Vermont; Richard Alsop (1761-1815), one of the ' Hartford
Wits'; Henry Clay Work (1832-84), author of the spirited Civil War
song 'Marching Through Georgia,' and the ballad 'Father, Dear
Father, Come Home with Me Now/ which became the theme song of
'Ten Nights in a Bar-Room'; Reginald DeKoven (see Music), composer
of 'Robin Hood' and famed for his 'Oh! Promise Me.'

TOUR 1

E. from Main St. on Washington.

1. The brick mansion of Benjamin Williams (private) (1791-95), 27
Washington St. (R), is a house of distinction stranded in mediocre
surroundings. The flaring stone lintels over the windows, the large 7X9
panes of glass (a novelty when the house was built), the delicate cornice,
and the group of three dormers in the hip roof, two with triangular and
one with a curved pediment as in Rhode Island work, all give the house a
touch of the statefiness and taste of the best Georgian design. But the
wide, flat-arched, open-pediment portico is distinctively of Connecticut,
an early and beautiful example of what is sometimes called ' the Connect-
icut porch.'

Return on Washington St.; L. from Washington on High St.

2. The Russell House (private) (1828), 350 High St., a dignified, massive,
brownstone structure fronted by a portico of fluted Corinthian columns,

MIDDLETOWN. POINTS or INTEREST

1. Benjamin Williams' Brick Mansion 8. Randolph Pease House

2. Russell House 9. Joseph Hall House

3. Gothic House 10. Samuel Mather House

4. Alsop or Dana House n. Union Green

5. Wesleyan University 12. Site of the Home of Colonel Meigs

6. Middlesex County Historical So- 13. Henry Clay Work Park

ciety 14. Wilcox, Crittenden and Company

7. Benjamin Henshaw House 15. Riverside Cemetery

208 Main Street and Village Green

was designed by David Hoadley. Surrounded by spacious lawns and
large shade trees, this outstanding example of the Greek Revival repre-
sents not only a later phase of the luxury of Middletown's day of prosper-
ity, but the very peak of the tendency to translate old forms (in this
case, that of a Roman temple) to any use, ecclesiastical or domestic. The
property was presented by the Russells to Wesley an University in 1936.

3 and 4. Along the other side of High St. the expanding eclecticism of
19th-century architecture may be traced. A dark Victorian Gothic
House of the iSyo's, opposite, has an air of rather studied romance, with
elaborate grapevine designs in the verge boards and oriel windows.
The famous Alsop or Dana House (1843), at 30 High St., runs to the
other extreme and is Mediterranean, if not Italian, in feeling. It has a
delicate iron grille outlined against its broad flat surfaces. In the middle
of the century the use of grilles was a favorite method of relieving the
heavy ugliness of the square, flat-roofed and cupolaed houses. The
interior was painted in muresco by imported Italian artists.

R. from High St. on Wyllys St.

5. The elm-shaded campus of Wesley an University, with its old brown-
stone and modern brick buildings, extends from Wyllys St. to Lawn Ave.
Founded here in 1831 by the Methodist Conference, the college has
continuously been non-sectarian, operating under a charter which forbade
a religious test.

L. from Wyllys St. on High St.

South College (W), High St., was the building originally occupied by
Captain Partridge's Military Academy, which was moved to Norwich,
Vermont in 1829. It is a three-and-a-half-story brownstone edifice, the
earliest in the college, and has a square militaristic tower, surmounted
rather awkwardly by an octagonal belfry which looks like that of a
church. Previously a dormitory, South College now houses the adminis-
trative offices. Chimes in the tower, presented by the Class of '63
in 1918, play each weekday evening at twilight.

In the Chapel, High St., are commemorative windows in honor of Wes-
leyan men who were killed in the Civil War and of seven former presidents
of the college.

Rich Hall, formerly the library, has been remodeled into a little theater,
where college assembly is held.

Judd Hall, now occupied by the College Museum (open daily 9-5), the
Departments of Music, Geology, and Psychology, is named for the
donor, Orange Judd, '47.

In the entrance hallway are slabs bearing dinosaur footprints, which
were found in Connecticut. The two upper stories are devoted to the
museum. On the second floor are located mineralogical, paleontological,
archeological, and ethnographic exhibits. The mineral collection includes
a comprehensive exhibit of specimens found in this vicinity; numerous
fossils of plants, animals, and fish representative of the different geo-

Middletown 209

logical ages were collected in the Connecticut Valley and in Wyoming
by S. Ward Loper, a former curator. The ethnological section contains
exhibits of Chinese life and customs, Egyptian, Mexican, and Indian
relics, and pottery from Peru.
R. from High on Church St.

Beyond Scott Hall, the physics laboratory, is Olin Library, erected
in 1928 largely through a gift of Mrs. Stephen Henry Olin. Its most
prominent external feature is the rather overwhelming renaissance
colonnade at the entrance. The architect was Henry Bacon, designer of
the Lincoln Memorial at Washington, D.C. Memorial Hall, finished in
Italian marble with mosaic floor, contains busts of President Stephen
Olin and Acting President Stephen H. Olin, in whose memory the building
was erected. Three Damson Art Rooms within this building provide
exhibition rooms for paintings, etchings, and prints. In the Gribbel Room
are exhibited first editions and other rare books. The Hallock Room is
devoted to Americana, and the Henry Bacon Room, furnished like the
original study of the famous architect, contains his books, furniture,
pictures, and scrapbooks.

In the Wesleyan Memorabilia Room is the Olin Collection of coins and
medals, the Rogers Collection of autographs, the Governor Winthrop
chair (1629), and a collection of 5000 maps.

TOUR 2

S. from Washington on Main St.

6. The Middlesex County Historical Society (open 3to5,ist and $d Fri. each
month), NW. cor. of Main and Court Sts., has a valuable collection of
early Americana.

R. from Main on College St.

7. The Benjamin Henshaw House (private), NE. cor. College and Broad
Sts., of brick, with a wide gambrel roof, shows through its modern stucco
walls the details of a stately house of about 1785. The little gambrel ell
on Broad St. dates from 1756.

8. The Randolph Pease House (1817), SW. cor. College and Broad Sts.,
is now a Christian Science church. The ecclesiastical windows are
modern. Originally it was a simpler and smaller forerunner of the Russell
House, with four Ionic columns instead of the eight Corinthian columns
of the latter.

9. The Joseph Hall House (1765), College St. (R), between High and
Pearl Sts., has a steep gambrel roof and an early porch with free standing
columns. The clapboards, graduated from narrow at the bottom to
broad at the top, increase the impression of height, as does the new
stone foundation to which the house has been moved.

2io Main Street and Village Green

Return on College St. to Main St.; R. on Main St.

10. The Samuel Mather House (private) (1810), at 151 Main St., is a
spacious brick example of the style of the early igth century. The well-
designed, arched open porch, covering the fan-light, and the picket fence
with ornamental posts add much to the picture.

11. Union Green, Main St. at Pleasant St., is a small community park
with a Civil War Soldiers' Monument.

Main St. becomes South Main; R. from South Main on Crescent St.

12. At 64 Crescent St. is the Site of the Home of Colonel Meigs, hero of
the Quebec and Sag Harbor campaigns in the Revolutionary War, and
later Governor of the Northwest Territory. The building was torn
down in 1936.

Return on Crescent St. to South Main St.; L. on South Main.

13. Henry Clay Work Park, South Main at Mill St., has a bust of the
composer of ' Marching Through Georgia,' for whom it was named.

14. Wilcox, Crittenden and Company (open; apply at main office), 8 South
Main St., annually produces about $600,000 worth of marine and indus-
trial hardware. The plant has preserved in the wall of one of the build-
ings a fragment of the Thomas Miller Gristmill, dating from 1655.

15. Riverside Cemetery, on the south side (R) of St. John's Square, which
dates from 1689, was the site of the first meeting-house in the Middle town
settlement. A boulder here commemorates the founding of the town.
Near the marker is the grave of Commodore Thomas MacDonough,
victor in the Battle of Lake Champlain, September n, 1814.

Points of Interest in Environs:

Dinosaur tracks in sandstone quarries, Portland, 0.7 m. (see Tour
2 Alt.).

M I L F O R D

Town: Alt. 10, pop. 12,660, sett. 1639.

Railroad Station: Milford Station, High St. and Railroad Ave., for N.Y., N.H. &

H. R.R.

Accommodations: Two hotels, 20 inns at the beach resorts, open in summer

only.

Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, i River St.

Recreation: Swimming: Gulf Beach (municipal), off River St., no bath-houses,
admission free; Tower Beach (municipal), near Trumbull Beach, no bath-

Milford 211

houses, admission free; Walnut, Laurel, and Silver Beaches, bath-house facilities,

small fee.

Amusement Park: Walnut Beach, southeast of center.

Theater: Plymouth Playhouse, West Main St., summer theater.

MILFORD, just off the busy traffic of the Boston Post Road, is a pleasant
residential community around a long, narrow, elm-shaded Green. The
little Wepawaug River flows through the village between wide land-
scaped banks to tumble in a waterfall over a dam into the shallow,
unnavigable bay where clam diggers work at low tide. Oyster fisheries,
the staple industry of the community, line the edge of the village on
Long Island Sound. In summer, the narrow, shaded streets are crowded
with summer vacationists from near-by beach resorts.

Oysters and clams have been important Milford products since the earli-
est days of the settlement. The Connecticut Oyster Farms Company of
Milford owns 7400 acres of undersea oyster beds, and many other large
oyster firms operate here. The shellfish are planted, cultivated, and
harvested like any other crop. Efforts are being made by State authori-
ties to eliminate the hazard of pollution by cleaning the tributary streams
that empty into the Sound.

Other present-day industries include the growing of vegetable and field
seeds, and the manufacture of brass fittings, locks, rivet machinery,
elastic fabrics, screw machine products, tools, and metal specialties.
The original township, named for the town in Pembroke, England, was
founded in 1639 by the Rev. Peter Prudden, who purchased the district,
known to the Indians as Wepowage, for 6 coats, 10 blankets, 12 hatchets,
12 hoes, 24 knives, 12 small mirrors, and a kettle. Later, five other
cities or towns were cut from this area. Controlled like the parent New
Haven Colony by the 'Seven Pillars,' who derived both name and
authority from the text: 'Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn
out her seven pillars/ Milford was a rigid 'Church State' in which only
church members had suffrage. Indeed, Milford's admission to suffrage
of six non-members barred her from admission to the New Haven
Jurisdiction until it was agreed in 1644 that none of the six might hold
office. In 1666, two years after the New Haven Colony was absorbed
by the Connecticut Colony, Robert Treat of Milford, later Governor of
Connecticut, led many of his churchmen southward where they helped
to found Newark, N.J.

The rather self-righteous religious feeling of the early settlers is mani-
fested in this perhaps apocryphal resolution which, the story goes, was
passed by the colonists in 1640:

Voted: That the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof.

Voted: That the earth is given to the Saints.

Voted: That we are the Saints.

Palisades enclosed a plot about a mile square. The Indians were nu-
merous and inclined toward hostility, but there is no record of any white
man in the settlement ever having been killed by them.

212 Main Street and Village Green

Milford is the home of Simon Lake, inventor of the even-keel submarine
torpedo boat, in 1894. In 1897, he made his trial run in the open sea
with the 'Argonaut,' the first submarine to be successfully operated by
an internal combustion engine. Mr. Lake has served as consulting en-
gineer for the United States Government and foreign powers. In recent
years, he has devoted his efforts to the perfection and promotion of sal-
vaging devices for the recovery of sunken cargoes.

TOUR

E. from the Boston Post Road on Broad St.

1. The Stockade Home (private) (R), Broad St. west of the Green, so-
called because it is supposed to have been the first dwelling built outside
the stockade, is easily identified by its recently truncated gables, reminis-
cent of an old German farmhouse. Any or all of the dates, 1659, 1690,
or 1700, given this house may be correct as they probably refer to the
date of the original building and of substantial additions; the builder
was Ensign George Clark. Its fine unpainted paneling dates from about
1740, its door from about 1840, and examination of the wooden-pegged
shingles on the outside walls shows them to be very old.

2. Milford Green, between Broad and Golden Hill Streets, stretching
east and west for about one-half mile, is said to have been replotted and
cut to the shape and dimensions of the hull of the ship, ' Great Eastern/
which laid Cyrus W. Field's first Atlantic cable. The original Green was
laid out many years earlier.

R.from Broad St. on High St.

3. Eels-Stow House, 32-34 High St., now owned by the Milford Historical
Society (open May to Nov., weekdays, 10-5; Sun., 2-5, 7-9; free), is a
17th-century house which has had many alterations, including the large
ell built in 1880 on the south end. Its most unusual features appear to
date from a remodeling about 1720, when the house seems to have been
enlarged to the south. The end chimney was then replaced by the present

MILFORD. POINTS OF INTEREST

1. Stockade House 9. Plymouth Church

2. Milford Green 10. Samuel Durant Homestead

3. Eels-Stow House n. Thomas Buckingham House

4. Colonel Stephen Ford House 12. Old Burying Ground

5. Gunn House 13. Memorial Bridge

6. Clark Tavern 14. Fowler Memorial

7. Town Hall 15. The Gulf

8. First Congregational Church 16. Indian Shell Heap

214 Main Street and Village Green

hallway and * dog-legged' stairs which double back on the handrail, a
feature not found elsewhere in this country. The ' coved ' cornice under
the front eaves is a restoration of a type of cornice that was not uncom-
mon. After 1754 this dwelling was the home of Capt. Stephen Stow,
whose heroic service as a volunteer nurse to 46 Revolutionary War
prisoners, the victims of smallpox, cost him his life. The soldiers, among
a group of 200 set ashore by a British prison ship on New Year's Eve,
1777, were cared for at the homes of settlers until the next day when the
Town Hall was converted into a hospital. All of the victims and Stow
were buried in a common grave.
Return on High St.

4. The Colonel Stephen Ford Home (private), 51 W. Main St., NE. cor.
of High and W. Main Sts., an impressive old house marked with a
17th-century date but probably built in the ornate era of the i8th
century, about 1765, has a huge chimney which might have been part of
an earlier house.

L. from High on W. Main St.

5. The narrow, steeply roofed little Gunn House, NE. cor. of W. Main
and Gunn Sts., now a grain store, is a 17th-century building. Inside can
be seen the heavy 'knees' of the carved corner posts, the low ceilings
and summer beams used in the earliest Connecticut houses.

Return on W. Main; R. from W. Main on W. River St.

6. The Clark Tavern (private), 46 W. River St., is reputed to have been
erected for the second minister, Roger Newton, in 1660, but was so
drastically remodeled between 1815 and 1875 that only a little of the
interior justifies the assumption of an earlier date. Washington stopped
here for supper in 1789 when the building was kept as a tavern by Andrew
Clark. A story of his visit relates that when Washington was served with
the milk and bread he had ordered for his meal, he objected to the
pewter spoon and asked for a silver one. When told that the tavern did
not afford silver spoons, he handed a shilling to an attendant and directed
that he 'go to the minister's and borrow one.'

7. The Town Hall, junction of River and W. River Sts., on landscaped
grpunds by a millpond and falls of the Wepawaug River, is a long, low,
modern brick and marble building with a colonnaded rotunda, topped
with a dome.

Return on W. River to W. Main; R. on W. Main St.

The charm of Milford centers about its two Congregational churches,
which stand on either bank of the Wepawaug River.

8. The First Congregational Church (1823), W. River St. (L), said to have
been designed by David Hoadley, is an example of the best period of
Connecticut church architecture. The design was copied in numerous
churches: in Cheshire (1826), by Levi Newell, in Southington (1828),
and in Litchfield (1829). It has a graceful Ionic portico projecting from
the body of the church and shielding three round-headed doors of ap-

Milford 215

proximately even height, and a belfry in two octagonal stages one
closed, and one open, under the spire. The interior has a finely pro-
portioned gallery and domed ceiling.

9. Plymouth Church (1834), W. Main St., on the opposite bank, is a
monumental structure in the heavier Doric of the developed Greek
Revival style. Its heavy domed cupola and fluted columns are in
contrast with the delicate detail of First Church. The parishes of these
two churches are now united, and Plymouth Church serves the community
as a summer playhouse.

L. from W. Main on North St.

10. Samuel Durant Homestead (private) (about 1725), 10 North St.,
behind Plymouth Church, attracts attention by its odd roof, straight
in the rear, and sloping in a steep but Dutch curve at the front to cover
a piazza. The small houses on the outskirts of Milford were built in this
fashion, a peculiarity which seems to have been purely local.

11. Thomas Buckingham House (private), 27 North St., has a traditional
date of 1640. If so, it rivals the Fyler House in Windsor and the Stone
House in Guilford as the earliest house in the State. As the building
stands, however, it is almost a mid-eighteenth-century house, with many
restorations in harmony with an earlier date.

Return on North St.; L. from North St. on Cherry; R. from Cherry on
Prospect.

12. Old Burying Ground, Prospect St., just north of the R.R. underpass
(L), is one of the oldest cemeteries in the State, in use since 1675. It
contains the graves of Jonathan Law, governor of Connecticut from
1742-51; Robert Treat, commander of the Connecticut troops during
King Philip's War, deputy-governor and governor of the State for
thirty-two years, and founder of Newark, N.J.; and the Rev. Samuel
Andrew who, besides serving as pastor of the church for 50 years, was
rector of Yale College from 1707 until 1719. A monument to Captain
Stephen Stow marks the common grave where he and his smallpox
patients are buried.

R. from Prospect St. on New Haven Ave.

13. Memorial Bridge, spanning the Wepawaug River, was opened in
1889 (replacing Fowler's Bridge on the same site) to commemorate the
25oth anniversary of the founding of Milford.

14. The Fowler Memorial, at the eastern end of the bridge (R), housing
the Milford Post of the American Legion, stands on the site of the first
mill in the New Haven Colony, erected in 1640 by William Fowler.
In this mill the regicides Goffe and Whalley were concealed for two
days before they fled to Judge's Cave. One of the original millstones
forms a seat on the bridge.

Return on New Haven Ave.; R. on Gulf St.

On Gulf St. are a number of old houses with Dutch gambrel roofs in

front and straight, sloping roofs behind, typical of Milford architecture.

2i6 Main Street and Village Green

15. The Gulf, on a bay on Long Island Sound, at the end of Gulf St., is
one of the most popular bathing beaches in the vicinity. Extending
eastward and westward from the Gulf are several other good beaches. Off-
shore due south of Milford and connected with the mainland by a narrow
,sand bar, Charles Island was the site of the summer palace of Anasan-
tawae, the Indian sachem who sold this area to the white men. Here,
tradition says, Captain Kidd once buried a vast treasure, although many
-efforts to discover it have failed. The fact that records show that the
famous pirate actually visited the town twice, boldly striding through
the village streets despite the price on his head, has stimulated many
treasure hunters. The most nearly successful, according to legend, were
two men who uncovered an ironclad chest on the Island but were fright-
ened away by the ghostly apparition of a headless body, swathed in
ilames, which came rushing upon them from the heavens. Next day the
searchers returned but found no trace of chest, hole, or spades.

16. An Indian Shell Heap, on both sides of Gulf St., north of New Haven
Ave., is the largest in Connecticut. Covering 24 acres, this tremendous
heap of shells testifies to the many aboriginal dinners eaten here. The
rows of oystermen's huts thatched with seaweed that lined the shore at
this point in the ipth century have fallen to ruins and disappeared.

NEW BRITAIN

City: Alt. 200, pop. 68,128, sett. 1686, incorp. 1870.

Railroad Station: Station on Church St. for N.Y., N.H. & H. R.R.
Airports: (see HARTFORD).

Accommodations: One modern hotel.

Information Service: N.Y., N.H. & H. R.R. Station; Chamber of Commerce,
300 Main St.; Burritt Hotel, West Main at Washington St.

Annual Events: Rose Week, Walnut Hill Park, in July. All Souls' Day Observ-
ance by Polish population, last Sunday in October, procession to cemetery with
lighted candles. Ukrainian Festival, held in March.

NEW BRITAIN is known as the 'Hardware City' because it produces
.almost half the State's output of builders' hardware. In the shallow basin
surrounded by a factory belt, the center of the city is frequently over-
shadowed by the smoky haze of industry. The railroad swings through
the main part of the town, creating many grade crossings, especially in
the factory district. In the center of the city a small central Green
-struggles for existence, dividing traffic on either side through rather
narrow streets where parking space is limited. The outer residential dis-

New Britain 217

tricts have been greatly beautified by the establishment of a fine park
system which has been steadily improved through the years.

First settled in 1686 by an overflow of Berlin colonists who drifted
northward into the area now known as the Stanley Quarter, New Britain
has been called 'the daughter of Berlin and the grand-daughter of
Farmington.' Later settlers went further south and formed the Great
Swamp Settlement. In 1754 the district became the New Britain parish
of Farmington. In 1785 the town of Berlin was incorporated and in
1850 the town of New Britain was organized from- a section of Berlin.
Part of the town became the city of New Britain in 1870, and in April
1905 the town and city were consolidated.

The city's industrial development received its first impetus about 1800
when James North and Joseph Shipman started the manufacture of
sleigh bells. Yankee peddlers marketed the bells and created a demand
for other articles of light hardware. Locks, tools, saddlery hardware,
cutlery and light metal articles were produced by numerous small shops
for the peddler trade, but the lack of adequate water power delayed the
growth of factories until about 1832, when steam power was introduced
'in the Stanley Lock factory.'

Most of the products of the first half-century of manufacturing in New
Britain are no longer made, but from the early industries have been
formed great corporations and combines, whose products in international
commerce have familiarized nearly all the civilized world with the name
of the city. After the panic of 1837 many of the small concerns were
consolidated and the organization of many large factories between 1839
and 1850 laid the foundation for the city's present-day industry.

Among the large present-day companies organized at that time were the
Stanley Works, steel and hardware; P. and F. Corbin, and Russell and
Erwin, builders' hardware; Stanley Rule and Level Co., carpenters'
tools; North and Judd, saddlery and automobile hardware; Landers,
Frary and Clark, household utensils; and the New Britain Machine
Company, automatic machinery. Such varied articles as electric ranges
and wood planes, sheet steel and wood rules, carpenters' levels and ball
bearings, cabinet locks and washing machines, lathes, chucks and paper
goods are turned out in quantity by New Britain factories. A large
number of the concerns now in business not only trace their beginnings
to the first enterprises, but draw their executive personnel from the
families of the founders, and in many cases, derive their names from the
same source.

Nils Nelson and Charles K. Hamilton of New Britain were pioneers in
early aviation ventures. Nelson designed a four cylinder, thirty horse
power motor in 1910 and on June i3th of the same year, Charles K.
Hamilton (sponsored by Curtis- Wrigh t) , demonstrated the commercial
possibilities of the heavier-than-air machine by flying the first air mail
from New York to Philadelphia, winning a prize of $10,000 for this first
cross-country flight.

218 Main Street and Village Green

About the middle of the ipth century, New Britain factories began to
attract foreign labor. In 1852 the population was only 5212; by 1870
it had increased to 9480 and in 1900 was 28,202. Today fully 48 per
cent of its population is of foreign or mixed parentage, representing
many racial groups.

Early immigrants were the English and the Irish; the Germans followed,
and at the beginning of the 2oth century a Slav migration created a
distinct change in the population. Many of the newcomers are said to
have purchased passage not to a port of entry, as was the custom, but
directly to New Britain; here they had little difficulty in obtaining em-
ployment before they had even the most elementary command of the
English language. As a result, New Britain is a city of many communities
with a diversity of interests and customs, assimilating, rather than being
assimilated by, the native stock. So pronounced is this condition that
travelers have humorously said that the visitor to New Britain 'needs
a passport.'

A picturesque celebration, the Ukrainian Festival, is held every March
in New Britain in honor of the great Ukrainian bard, Taras Shevchenko
(1814-61). Shevchenko's plays, or plays dealing with his life, are pre-
sented in Ukrainian. The most significant feature of the celebration is
a concert of Ukrainian music, the lyrics for which were written by
Shevchenko. The members of the chorus in their peasant costumes create
a colorful scene reminiscent of their native land.

Another Ukrainian custom, the annual Easter dinner, which has been
observed for centuries in Europe on the Sunday following Easter Sunday,
was celebrated for the first time in New Britain in 1936. Ukrainian folk
dances and century-old games followed the dinner.

TOUR 1

E. from Main on E. Main; L. from E. Main on Elm St.

i. Smalley Park, Stanley, Smalley, and Elm Sts., is the site of the first
meeting-house in the settlement and served as a drill ground for Con-
tinental soldiers.

NEW BRITAIN. POINTS OF INTEREST

1. Smalley Park 7. Franklin Square Park

2. Fairview Cemetery 8. Willow Brook Park

3. Teachers College of Connecticut 9. Hungerford Park

4. John Clark House 10. Remains of the Hart Gristmill Dam

5. New Britain Institute Museum n. Deacon Elijah Hart II House

6. Walnut Hill Park

22O Main Street and Village Green

R. from Elm on Smalley St.

2. Fairview Cemetery (L), on Smalley St. between Gladden and East Sts.,
contains many graves dating from Revolutionary times. Some of the
older monuments have been restored so that inscriptions are legible.

Return on Smalley St.; R. from Smalley on Stanley.

3. Teachers College of Connecticut (R), Stanley St. between Francis and
Wells Sts., which occupies a group of modern Georgian buildings (1924-
28), designed by Gilbert and Betelle of Newark, New Jersey, on 25
acres of landscaped grounds, was established in New Britain in 1850,
the first normal school in the State. Henry Barnard of Hartford, who
served as the first principal, later became the first U.S. Commissioner
of Education.

4. The John Clark House (private) (1745), on North Stanley St. (L), a
two-and-a-half-story white clapboarded salt-box dwelling with a double
overhang has a well-designed doorway with fluted pilasters. The porch
and ell have been added to the original structure built in 1745.

TOUR 2

W. from Main on West Main St.; R. on High St.

5. The New Britain Institute Museum (open weekdays 3.30 to 5.30),
8 High St., built in 1901 and designed by William S. Brooks, shares with
the public library a spacious two-story granite building fronted by a
limestone Doric portico. The Museum, housed in the upper story, con-
tarns many historical, natural history and art exhibits. Included among
them is a copy of the Bible printed in Hartford in 1829 by Hudson and
Goodwin; a collection of skulls of small animals; a miniature of Elihu
Burritt; a seal used on public documents in the reign of George III;
part of the wing of the N.C.-4, first airplane to cross the Atlantic
Ocean; and various relics of the Revolutionary and Civil War. In 1908,
a collection of minerals and a collection of mounted birds were presented
to the museum by the late James Shepard and Eugene Schmidt.

Included in the permanent exhibit is a collection of paintings by American
artists which includes the works of Walter Nettleton, Charles Noel
Flagg, George Innes, Robert Boiling Brandagee, Gardner Symons,
Frederick J. Waugh, William Gedney, William Sartain, Alexander H.
Wynant and Childe Hassam.

Return on High St. to West Main; R. on West Main; L. on Park Place.

6. Walnut Hill Park, the first of New Britain's parks, includes 90 acres
of rolling terrain in which the principal attractions are rose gardens, a
rock garden, and a tropical fish pool. Facilities are also provided for
tennis and baseball. At the highest point in the park stands the 97-foot
World War Memorial, a massive shaft of limestone surmounted by stone

New Britain 221

eagles, designed by H. Van Buren Magonigle and dedicated in 1928.
The shaft, reflected in a fountain-fed wading pool, lighted by floodlights
at night, is visible for many miles.

TOUR 3

S. from West Main on Main St. which becomes South Main.

7. Franklin Square Park (R), on S. Main at its junction with Glen St.,
is a small landscaped plot on which stands a granite memorial monument
to New Britain's most famous son, Elihu Burritt (1810-79), the 'Learned
Blacksmith' and 'Apostle of Universal Brotherhood.' At the age of 15,
Burritt apprenticed himself to a blacksmith and, while at the anvil he
studied Greek and Hebrew. At the age of thirty he had a working know-
ledge of nearly fifty languages. In 1846 he went to England to promote
interest in the * League of Universal Brotherhood.' Through his effort,
peace conferences were held at Brussels, Paris, Frankfort and London.
Burritt was Consular Agent for the United States at Birmingham, Eng-
land, from 1865 to 1869. In 1870, Elihu Burritt returned to America to
spend his declining years in New Britain.

R. from S. Main on Mill St.

8. Willow Brook Park (L) is the entire length of Main St., and covers 93
acres. At the eastern entrance is a Spanish-American War Memorial
(1927) designed by Perry and Bishop, a miniature reproduction of Morro
Castle at Havana. Near the northeastern corner of the park is a public
swimming pool.

9. Hungerford Park, adjoining Willow Brook Park to the south, is a
former private estate, bequeathed to the city. This park's facilities
include an archery field and seven miles of bridle paths.

L. on Mill St.; R. on Pond St.

10. Beside the road at the curve where Mill St. becomes Pond St., are
(L) the stone Remains of the Hart Gristmill Dam, one of the city's earliest
enterprises.

Pond St. becomes Kensington Ave.

11. The Deacon Elijah Hart II House (private) at 63 Kensington Ave., is
composed of two early salt-box houses. The northern end dates from
1757 and the southern end from 1787.

Other Points of Interest:

The Deacon John Osgood House (private), 5 Osgood Ave., erected in
1780, is the ell of the two-and-a-half-story main building which dates
from 1812. The most interesting feature of the house is the stairway
to the attic of the ell in which each step is a solid triangular block of
wood.

NEW HAVEN

City: Alt. 30, pop. 162,655, sett. 1638, inc. 1784.

Railroad Station: Union Station, Union Ave. and West Water St. for N.Y.,
N.H. & H. R.R.

Airport: Burr St., East Haven, near Townsend Ave., 3% m. from city, taxi fare,
$1.50; time, 20 min.

Piers: Municipal docks, New Haven Harbor, Water St. Bridge, \Y^ m. from
central Green, commercial. City Point Yacht Club, Hallock Ave., and New
Haven Yacht Club, Morris Cove; reciprocal pleasure craft privileges.
Taxis: Standard rate, 20^ first jf m., 10f each additional J^, one to five pas-
sengers.

Accommodations: Four first-class hotels.

Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, 152 Temple St.; AAA Conn.
Motor Club, 34 Whitney r Ave. ; N.H. Public Library, Elm and Temple Sts.
For information" pertaining to Yale University, Secretary's office, Woodbridge
Hall, Wall St.

Theaters: Shubert Theater, 71 College St., openings and road companies.
Athletic Fields: Edgewood Park, entrance Chapel St. or Whalley Ave.; Beaver
Park, Goffe St.; East Rock Park, State St.; Lighthouse Point Park, southeastern
section of the city,Jvia Water St., Forbes and Townsend Aves., 4 m. from center;
Yale Bowl, Derby Ave.

Swimming: Lighthouse Point Park, end of Lighthouse Rd., southeastern section
of city, bathhouse charge 25< except Thurs. (free) ; Clinton Park, Middletown
Ave. ; Nathan Hale Park, Townsend Ave. ; children at Beaver Park, Goffe St.
Golf: Municipal Golf Course, Clifton St., extreme eastern section of city, non-
residents weekdays only.

Tennis: Beaver Park, Goffe St.; East Rock Park, Orange St.; Clinton Park,
Peck St. near Middletown Ave. ; Nathan Hale Park, Townsend Ave. ; Kimberly
Playgrounds, Kimberly Ave.

Lawn Bowling: West Rock Park, near Whalley Ave.
Archery: Edgewood Park, Whalley Ave.; East Rock Park, State St.

Annual Events: Yale University Commencement, June, semi-public; Powder
House Day, Monday nearest April 24, on Green, colorful historical pageant
based on Revolutionary episode. Flower shows, spring and summer, Pardee
Gardens and Greenhouses, East Rock Park, State St.

Museums: Peabody Museum of Natural History, open weekdays, March to
October, 9-5; Nov. to Feb., 9-4.30; Sun. and holidays, 2-4.30, admission free.
Gallery of Fine Arts, Chapel St. at High, open daily, 2-5, admission free. New
Haven Colony Historical Society, 114 Whitney Ave., open daily 9-5, admission
free.

NEW HAVEN is an industrial city distinguished as the home of Yale
University and celebrated for its elm-lined streets. On a broad but very
shallow harbor, at the confluence of the Quinnipiac, Mill, and West
Rivers, New Haven is flanked by the red profiles of East and West Rocks.

New Haven 223

The outstanding feature of the downtown area is the broad sixteen-
acre Green, its trinity of churches standing in stately dignity with uni-
versity buildings forming a western background. Facing the other three
sides of the Green are substantial office, public, and commercial buildings,
well-kept shops and department stores. To the north and west of the
Green are the principal residential districts and most of the university
buildings; to the south and east are business and commercial buildings
and a more congested dwelling area broken by small parks and squares.
New Haven's shore front is largely given over to business structures,
tank farms, and wharves. To the southeast there is considerable beach
development at Nathan Hale Park, Morris Cove, and Lighthouse Point,
with its municipal bathhouses. The harbor entrance is protected by three
strips of breakwater with attendant lights. The harbor and its approaches
are difficult to navigate except at high tide.

The waterfront is only moderately active. Oil and coal come in by boat,
but there is little outgoing freight. A lumber schooner from the north
discharges fragrant spruce and pine, or a blunt-nosed tramp steamer
opens hatches and slings western fir to the dock. A barge loads scrap
iron, and a nitrate boat gradually shows a red waterline as clamshell
dippers transfer its load to a waiting string of gondolas on the siding.
A seamen's bethel stands on Water Street where sailors, between voyages,
can look toward the sea. A pork-packing plant on Long Wharf Road
sometimes offends the passer-by with odors hardly less unpleasant than
those formerly rising from the holds of the town's sealing ships, in from
Patagonia, where in the early nineteenth century they sun-dried seal-
skins on a tract of land called 'the New Haven Green.'
New Haven is perhaps best known as a cultural center, but industry
has been important here since early days. The Winchester rifle, Sargent
locks and hardware, New Haven clocks, pork products, toys, and fiber
boxes bear New Haven trademarks.

The city is an important produce market. Commission houses grouped
about the public market, in the area around the railroad station, do
business totaling about $6,000,000 annually. These markets are open at
night and transact a brisk business from 2 A.M. to midday, hucksters
bidding for produce, marketmen buying their stock, and the out-of-town
merchants and peddlers obtaining loads for distribution in outlying
towns. Heavy industry is not important, but all forms of light manu-
facturing and service industries prosper and offer excellent facilities
to expanding markets. The production of seed oysters is a business
worth about $2,500,000 annually. The New York, New Haven and
Hartford Railroad has its headquarters in the city, and rail service is
excellent.

The population includes many ethnic groups. The first and second
generation Italians number 41,858, giving New Haven probably a larger
proportion of these people than is found in any other American city.
The Irish number 18,351 in the first and second generations, and there
are at least as many of the third and fourth generations. New Haven is

224 Main Street and Village Green

the home of nearly 30,000 Jews, engaged largely in business and industry.
Other groups, though they include many races, are numerically less im-
portant.

Week ends are gay in the autumn when all roads lead to the Yale Bowl
and out-of-State cars outnumber local vehicles. Hucksters offer 'winning
colors' to the throng, parking lots bustle with activity, and a worried
local traffic squad shuttles back and forth trying to relieve conges-
tion at busy intersections as the football crowds pour in and out of
town.

Discovered in 1614 by Adriaen Block, who called it 'Rodeberg,' meaning
'Red Mount Place,' New Haven was not settled by white men until
April 10, 1638, when the Reverend John Davenport, a Puritan minister
of London, and Theophilus Eaton, a prominent merchant of his congrega-
tion, led a band of pioneers to this port from Boston. Shortly after the
Davenport party arrived in Boston on June 26, 1637, Colonial troops,
returning from their pursuit of the Pequot Indians (see WEST MYSTIC
and F AIRFIELD, Tour 1), brought news of an excellent harbor in the
district of the Quinnipiac Indians' hunting grounds. Eaton and his party
of scouts investigated, found that the harbor possessed the trading possi-
bilities desired by the colonists, and the following April the settlement was
established. At first called Quinnipiac, the name was changed in August,
1640, to New Haven, for the English seaport in Sussex.

The initial land purchase included not only the site of the present city,
but the districts now known as North Haven, Wallingford, Cheshire,
Hamden, Bethany, Woodbridge, and Orange, for which the Indians
were paid 23 coats, 12 spoons, 24 knives, 12 hatchets, scissors, some hoes
and porringers. To Montowese, the sachem, was given 'a particular
coat.'

The colonists had ambitious plans for their city and laid out the Colony
in nine squares. The central square was set aside as a common green for
a daytime market and a night pasture for stock, and about this green
they built their homes.

Shortly after their arrival the settlers gathered to adopt a Plantation
Covenant, binding themselves by signature to be governed solely by the
laws of Moses. This code of authority sufficed for a year, when more
permanent laws seemed necessary and a civil government was organized,
amenable in all things to the dictates of the church.

On June 4, 1639, a meeting of in men was held in 'Newman's Barn/
and a constitution was adopted that ignored allegiance to the King, all
English statutes of common law, and trial by jury. The 'Word of God'
was to be the absolute rule. 'Seven Pillars' from Proverbs 9:1,
'Wisdom hath builded her house; she hath hewn out her seven pillars'
were elected to head the church and State government. On October 25,
1639, the 'Seven Pillars' met with nine other citizens and elected The-
ophilus Eaton the first Governor of New Haven Colony. Until the actual
union of the Colony with Connecticut in 1664, only members of the church

New Haven 225

were allowed to vote, and the New Haven government remained largely
the crystallized thought of the Reverend John Davenport. Twelve church
members elected the 'Seven Pillars' and the resultant rulings of this
small select group limited the growth of the Colony during its early days.
This theocracy, based on the strict laws of the Old Testament, provided
the foundation for the Blue Laws of New Haven. The Reverend Samuel
Peters, in his work. 'A History of Connecticut,' exaggerated the Blue
Laws, but they did include ' Capital Lawes' providing a death penalty
for any child over sixteen who was found guilty of cursing or striking
his natural parents; a death penalty for an incorrigible son; a law for-
bidding smoking except in a room in a private house; another law de-
claring smoking illegal except on a journey five miles away from home,
which made it impossible for most servants to smoke; and many other
laws fully as unreasonable. Quakers were punished by branding, whip-
ping, and banishment from the Colony. Fines were freely imposed on
anyone bringing in heretics and on those who consorted with Quakers
or owned a Quaker book. Baptists were no more popular than the
Quakers, but they were not treated as roughly.

In 1643, Guilford, Milford, and Stamford were admitted to the Colony;
in 1651, Southold, L.I., where land, purchased by Connecticut residents,
was settled by a congregation from Hingham, England, and in 1656,
Branford also were admitted. Thereafter followed many disputes with
these confederate settlements because of their failure to enforce the
fundamental article of the New Haven Constitution, that only members
of the church might vote.

The boundaries of the Colony of Connecticut, as stated in the Charter
of 1662, included all lands held by the New Haven Colony. New Haven
vigorously objected and some outlying communities even took up arms
with the avowed intention of retaining their independence from the river
plantations. Meanwhile, the Duke of York held grants to the eastward
that caused considerable worry, as New York was under the rule of the
' Royalists, Romanists, and Stuarts,' more unattractive to New Haven
colonists than the Connecticut government. After prolonged negotiations
Davenport's Colony submitted and, on December 13, 1664, became a
part of the more liberal and democratic Connecticut Colony. The founder
complained that the Colony's independence had been ' miserably lost.'

The church held grimly to its privileges. Preachers asked for and re-
ceived authority to levy a town head tax on all citizens without regard
for church affiliation. The 'Halfway Covenant,' giving the citizenry
church privileges in return for their support of the institution, was adopted
in 1677.

The first of the city's elms were planted in 1686 when members of James
Pierpont's congregation gathered to present gifts and to furnish the
house of their pastor. One poor man, William Cooper, brought as his
donation two elm saplings, which he planted before the minister's door.
The two inner rows of elms on the east and west sides of the Green were
planted by the Reverend David Austin, member of the family which

226 Main Street and Village Green

founded Austin, Tex., and other elms on the Green were planted by
James Hillhouse in 1787, when he obtained subscriptions from the towns-
folk to beautify the Green.

New Haven shared with Hartford the honor of being the joint capital
of the State from 1701 to 1875. The first State House was erected on the
Green in 1717-19; a second in 1763-64, and a third in 1829-31.

In 1641, Captain George Lamberton, New Haven skipper, in an effort
to stimulate the fur trade, purchased Indian lands in Delaware. No
sooner had he built his trading post than the Dutch and Swedes ordered
him to leave and burned his establishment.

Pinched by the failure of their efforts in Delaware, and hoping to recoup
their fortunes, the New Haven traders in 1647 fitted out 'The Great
Shippe' for a commercial voyage to England. The finest products of
craftsmen and farms were loaded on board, but, by the time the ship
was ready to sail, it was January, thick ice had formed on the river, and
to the dismay of the superstitious sailors, she was towed stern-first to
open water through a path cut in the ice. As she swung before the wind,
a light fog obscured her canvas and carried the voice of the Reverend
Mr. Davenport in muffled, portentous tones to the crew as he prayed,
' Lord, if it be Thy pleasure to bury these, our friends, in the bottom of
the sea, take them; they are Thine; save them/

Day after day, through the hard winter and the spring, anxious eyes
searched the seaward horizon. Other ships arrived, raising false hopes,
but none brought news or had heard of 'The Great Shippe.' Then, on
one bright June day, a joyous cry echoed along the waterfront. With
every sail set, 'The Great Shippe' was running into port. As hurrying
feet echoed along every street, a hush of awe crept over the waiting
throng. The squarerigger was sailing free, into the windl Not a man
appeared on deck save a solitary figure at the bow who, with sword up-
raised, pointed unwaveringly toward the sea. Suddenly the maintop
snapped, hung an instant entangled in the shrouds, then masts and spars
were blown away. The hull, still making straight for shore, shivered and
plunged beneath the surface, enveloped in an enshrouding mist. When
the cloud lifted, no sign of wreckage floated upon the quiet waters.

Not until the beginning of the nineteenth century did New Haven be-
come an important commercial port, when more than one hundred ships
were regularly sailing on coastwise, West Indian, and Oriental routes.
Ships arriving from England often brought bricks as ballast, and these
bricks, bearing a London imprint, were found as late as 1860, when the
Atwater House was demolished. Nine years after the founding of the
Colony, shoes were being exported, and beef was shipped the following
year. Branded biscuits were shipped to the West Indies and to Virginia,
their weight and quality regulated by law.

In 1764, the brig 'Derby of Derby' arrived at New Haven with twenty
tons of coal and thirty-eight Irish servants. Shortly afterward the ad-
vertisement of 'A Parcel of Irish Servants, both Men and Women, just

New Haven 227

imported from Dublin in the brig Derby, and to be sold cheap/ was
broadcast by one Israel Boardman of Stamford.

From 1783 until 1786, the steps of the old State House were the scene
of annual auctions of paupers. These unfortunates were sold to persons
who would keep them at the lowest rates. Children were still indentured
in the 1 700*3, and the laws of the Colony always favored the master,
not the servant.

New Haven has a fine reputation for furnishing men, arms, and financial
support in all the country's wars. A volunteer artillery company was
formed as early as 1645. In 1654, fifty men were furnished for an ex-
pedition against the Dutch in Manhattan, and in 1656, general reviews
were held six times a year on the Green. Two to three hundred militia
attended and the clergy frequently complained about horseplay in the
military pews near the doors of the churches. A colorful event still
celebrated by the city was Benedict Arnold's demand for the keys to the
Powder House on the occasion of the receipt of news of the Lexington
Alarm. The community failed to celebrate the signing of the Declaration
of Independence, but later made amends by celebrating the defeat of
Cornwallis in 1781. In that year, three hundred horse, and a like number
of foot troops, under Lauzun, encamped on the Green.

The period of public improvement started in 1820, and a business boom
was anticipated when work began on the Farmington Canal. People
flocked to the offices to beg the company to accept their money. The
eventual failure of the canal (see Tour 6) cost New Haven investors more
than one million dollars.

The Log Cabin and Hard Cider campaign awoke the echoes of the
stately Green in 1840. The Maine Law (liquor control), in 1854, precipi-
tated violent partisanship. March of 1856 found anti-slavery speakers
spreading their arms in dramatic appeal for aid for 'bleeding Kansas.'
The Kansas Rifles were organized; Henry Ward Beecher delivered a
farewell address at the North Church, and twenty-seven rifles were
pledged the adventurers from the pulpit. When Lincoln was elected in
1860, cannon roared from the Green.

TOUR 1

CENTRAL NEW HAVEN

The Green with its three churches forms a spacious and distinctive civic
center surrounded by public, university, and commercial buildings. Orig-
inally a swampland where Indians cut their alder arrows and settlers pas-
tured their cattle, buried their dead, and gathered to trade, the Green has
been administered by a Proprietors' Committee since the ground was re-
ceived as a town common soon after the settlement of the Colony in 1638.

228 Main Street and Village Green

In 1639, the first meeting-house was built, followed by the erection of a
watch-house (1640), a schoolhouse before 1648, the town jail before 1660,
the State House and County Courthouse (1718), all of them long since
removed. Here, too, were the stocks, the Old Sign Post, which survives
(at a Church St. entrance), and the whipping post, at which stern-faced
Elder Malbone publicly flogged his daughter Martha for having attended
a house-warming with a young gentleman of her acquaintance. Gradually
the rough wooden buildings were replaced by brick structures, trees were
planted hi orderly rows, the park was enclosed by a fence, and the Green
of today evolved, with its triumvirate of churches, memorial flagstaff,
and marble corner drinking-fountain modeled after the Choragic monu-
ment of Lysicrates in Athens.

NE. from Chapel St. on Temple St.

1. Trinity Episcopal Church, south on the Green, designed in 1814 by
Ithiel Town, possibly with the assistance of David Hoadley, is the first
real attempt here at Gothic Revival, expressed in seam-faced traprock
with brownstone trim. Its original tower was square and short, with
corner buttresses ending in finials. Although the exterior is uncon-
vincing and somber, the interior, with its shapely clustered columns, has
much of Town's taste for good proportions. The successful design of this
church gave a great impetus to the Gothic Revival in America. Town, a
native of Thompson, Conn., came to New Haven in 1810.

2. Center Church (1812-14) on the Green, the fourth edifice of the Con-
gregational Society, was also designed by Town. His work, extending
over 34 years, represents the full development of the Classic Renaissance.
In designing this church he was undoubtedly inspired by St. Martin's-
in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, London, one of the most notable works
of James Gibbs. But Town, though a scholarly classicist, was by no
means a copyist: hence Center Church is a masterly translation from the
Georgian stone edifice to New England terms of brick and wood. The
steeple, entirely of wood, achieving a lightness and delicacy that is lack-
ing in the more solid stone tower of London, was constructed on the ground
inside the brick tower, and raised to its present position by a system of
windlasses.

The beautifully proportioned interior, with a gallery on three sides
supported by fluted Ionic columns, has a segmental vaulted ceiling en-
riched with delicate plaster ornament. Behind the pulpit, a great arched
Tiffany window portrays Davenport delivering his first sermon beneath
the oak tree that stood near the settlers' landing place; at the base, seven
columns and a seven-branched candlestick symbolize the 'seven pillars'
chosen to form the Colony's church and civil government. On the walls
of the church are tablets commemorating distinguished ministers of this
church: John Davenport and his assistant, William Hooke, who returned
to England to serve as Cromwell's chaplain; James Pierpont, one of the
founders of Yale College; and Leonard Bacon, an ardent abolitionist,
whose writings against slavery influenced Lincoln. A memorial tablet

New Haven 229

to Theophilus Eaton is on the exterior wall at the rear of the church,
near his burial place.

The Crypt, beneath Center Church, is a part of the original burying ground
that was used from the time of the first settlement (1638) until 1815.
In 1821, that part of the burial plot lying outside the church walls was
leveled off and the monuments removed to Grove Street Cemetery.
Covered with a cement floor in 1879, the crypt contains 139 stones, the
oldest of which, marking the grave of Mrs. Sarah Trowbridge, dates from
1687. Also buried here are the Reverend James Pierpont and his three
wives; the first Mrs. Benedict Arnold, who died while her husband was
yet a patriot; and Jared Ingersoll, a member of the Continental Congress
who, before the Revolution, served for a time as stampmaster, but re-
signed when his efforts to enforce the act were unsuccessful.

The Dixwell Monument, at the rear of Center Church, enclosed by an
iron railing, marks the grave of John Dixwell, one of the regicides, who
lived for many years in this city under the name of James Davids. The
rectangular granite stone, engraved with the important events of Dix-
well's career, was erected by his descendants in 1847. Two tablets on
the rear wall of the church commemorate the other regicides General
Edward Whalley, Cromwell's cousin, and General William Goffe who
also found refuge in this city.

3. United Church (1813-15), on the Green, formerly called North Church,
is the work of Connecticut's Yankee genius, David Hoadley, a much more
prolific and imaginative architect than Town, who designed Center
Church. It is much more typical of the local early 19th-century ecclesias-
tical architecture than that church. Its projecting portico framed with
pilasters, its three identical arched entrances, its central steeple set back
from the facade and built up in three stages, and its many-paned windows
in the two separate stories are characteristic of the Georgian Colonial.
The repressed delicacy of its general design stands up well beside the
masterly proportion and more resourceful technique of the cosmopolitan
Center Church. The interior, with its fine paneling and French-made
glass chandelier dating from the time of the building's erection, contains
tablets to David Hoadley; Roger Sherman, American statesman, signer
of the Declaration of Independence and first mayor of New Haven;
Governor Simeon E. Baldwin, Simeon Baldwin, and Governor Roger
Sherman Baldwin, eminent jurists.

It was in this church that Henry Ward Beecher delivered a sermon in
1855 to 80 men of Captain Line's anti-slavery band who were leaving to
join John Brown in Kansas. With funds donated by the congregation,
Beecher provided the entire company with Bibles and Sharps rifles.

4. At the SE. cor. of Church and Court Sts. stands the United States
Post Office, a classical marble structure erected in 1923. Authentically
designed by James Gamble Rogers, and beautifully proportioned in every
detail, it is, however, overlarge for its style.

5. The City Hall (1871), 169 Church St., of brownstone, designed by

230

Main Street and Village Green

NEW HAVEN. POINTS OF INTEREST

9-
10.
ii.

12.

16.

18.
19.
20.

21.
22.

23-
24.

25-
26.

27.

28.
29.
30-

32.

33-
34-
35-
36.
37-
38.
39-
40.

41.
42.
43-

44.
45-

Trinity Episcopal Church

Center Church

United Church

United States Post Office

City Hall

Union and New Haven Trust
Company Building

John Cook House

Bishop Homestead

County Courthouse

Ives Memorial Library

Governor Ingersoll House

Pierpont House

Bushnell House

Tory Tavern

First Methodist Church

Elizabethan Club

Southern New England Tele-
phone Company Building

Bacon Homestead

Bowditch House *

Weir House

Silliman Homestead

New Haven Colony Historical
Society Building

Ithiel Town Homestead

Dana House

Home of Noah Porter

President's House of Yale Uni-
versity

Professor James M. Hoppin
House

Sachem's Wood

Grove St. Cemetery

Site of First Settlers' Landing

Site of Roger Sherman's Home-
stead

Christ Church

Elisha Hull, or Bennett House

Old Campus

Memorial Quadrangle

Jonathan Edwards College

Weir Hall

Hall of Skull and Bones

Gallery of Fine Arts

Briton Hadden Memorial
Building

Wolf's Head Hall

University Theater

Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity
House

Pierson College

Davenport College

46. Yale Record Building

47. TrumbuU College

48. Berkeley College

49. Calhoun College

50. William L. Harkness Hall

51. Sprague Memorial Hall

52. Sterling Memorial Library

53. Sterling Law Buildings

54. Hall of Graduate Studies

55. Mory's

56. University Heating Plant

57. Payne Whitney Gymnasium

58. Ray Tomkins House

59. Hewitt Quadrangle

60. Scroll and Key House

61. 'Sheff Campus'

62. Timothy D wight College

63. Sterling Memorial Tower

64. Berkeley Divinity School

65. Osborn Laboratories

66. Peabody Museum

67. Sage Hall

68. Sloane Physics Laboratory

69. Sterling Chemical Laboratory

70. Farnam Memorial Garden

71. Marsh Hall

72. Sterling Divinity Quadrangle

73. University Observatory

74. Connecticut Agricultural Experi-

ment Station

75. Albertus Magnus College

76. East Rock Park

77. Punderson Homestead

78. Arnold College for Hygiene and

Physical Education

79. Monitor Square

80. Yale Bowl

81. Hopkins Grammar School

82. Edgewood

83. Edgewood Park

84. West Rock Park

85. Institute of Human Relations and

the Sterling Hall of Medicine

86. New Haven Hospital

87. Defenders' Monument

88. A. C. Gilbert Company Plant

89. National Folding Box Company

Plant

90. New Haven Clock Company Plant

91. Sargent and Company Plant

92. Winchester Repeating Arms Com-

pany Plant

234 Main Street and Village Green

Henry Austin, was erected in the era when the Venetian-Gothic style
was thought to lend dignity to any public building.

6. The Union and New Haven Trust Company Building,, NE. cor. Church
and Elm Sts., designed by Cross and Cross (1926-28), is one of the city's
modern skyscrapers. Of modified Georgian-Colonial style, the edifice
is constructed of red brick with white trim. The facade is cut at an angle
at the street intersection, and its 12 stories are topped with a tower of
excellent proportion.

R. from Church St. on Elm St.

7. The John Cook House (open), 35 Elm St., a large square brick mansion
occupied by the Visiting Nurses' Association, was built in 1807 on the
site of the former home of Governor Theophilus Eaton, whose high-
tempered, non-conformist wife, Anne, was expelled from the church and
eventually returned to England. This house, painted dull brown, with
stone quoins and lintels, was probably remodeled by David Hoadley for
Captain James Goodrich, when a pretentious ballroom with vaulted
ceiling and two fine Adam fireplaces were added on the third floor.

S. The Bishop Homestead, 32 Elm St., almost opposite the Cook House,
was built in 1815 on land which was the garden plot of the Rev. John
Davenport. Its simple triple window, a modification of the traditional
Palladian motif, and a fan-light over its pillared facade repeat on a large
scale the leaded fan-light of the entrance. The building is now used as a
store.

Return on Elm St.

9. The County Courthouse (1912), NW. cor. Elm and Church Sts., is
a massive marble structure designed by Allen and Williams, and modeled
after St. George's Hall (1838-54) in Liverpool. While somewhat ungainly,
chiefly because of its bulk, the austerity and impressiveness of its general
design are well suited to the dignity of the law.

10. The Ives Memorial Library^ (open 9-9 weekdays), NE. cor. Elm and
Temple Sts., H constructed of brick and marble and designed in the early
20th-century Neo-Classic style, was first occupied in 1911. The work of
Cass Gilbert, it was planned to mediate between the simple Georgian-
Colonial architecture of the three old churches on the Green and the
Neo-Classic style found in the newer public buildings.

11. The Governor Ingersoll House, built in 1830, NW. cor. Temple and
Elm Sts., the home of the Yale University Press, is a spacious hip-roofed
building, of impressive height. Its massive simplicity and recessed door-
way flanked by plain Doric columns are characteristic of the Greek
Revival period.

12. Pierpont House (private club}, 149 Elm St., with a central brick
chimney, was built by the Rev. John Pierpont in 1767 and is now used
by the Yale Faculty Club. Its only exterior ornamentation is in the
molded window caps, and in the restored doorway with its cross-paneled
double doors, a feature long hidden by a closed-in porch. Inside, there are

New Haven 235

rooms of excellent raised paneling, restored to iSth-century coloring, and
a shallow but wide ' porch ' or stair hall.

13. The Bushnell House (1800), 155 Elm St., once the home of Eli
Whitney Blake, the inventor of the stone crusher, is an excellent ex-
ample of the Federal style that developed in the ipth century. A central-
hall house with three end chimneys, it has a well-designed, open-pediment
porch, covering a narrow, round-headed door with plain tracery and
without side-lights. Above is an austere Palladian window which breaks
through the main cornice and is framed by a small gabled pediment.
The Graduates 1 Club now occupies the building.

14. Tory Tavern, 175 Elm St., built by Nicholas Callahan just before the
Revolution, a small building with a later two-story porch, was such a
notorious meeting-place for Tories that it was confiscated by the town in
1781. It is now used as a clubhouse by the Elihu Club, an undergraduate
society.

15. The First Methodist Church (1854), NE. cor. Elm and College Sts.,
an impressive, though rather stereotyped example of the Greek Revival,
has a colonnaded porch reached by a flight of steps on three sides. The
square-shaped interior has a domed ceiling supported by huge green
stone columns.

R. from Elm on College St.

1 6. The Elizabethan Club (private} (about 1815), 123 College St., is
another of the houses set end to the street that used the early Classic
Revival motif in a more elaborate and delicate form than in later periods.
A Palladian window is elevated to a place in the front gable. The club,
a meeting-place for literary-minded undergraduates and graduates,
houses one of the finest collections of Elizabethan literature in the world.
Alexander Smith Cochran, B.A., 1896, was the founder (1911) and bene-
factor.

R. from College on Wall St.

17. The Southern New England Telephone Company Building, SE, cor.
of Church and Wall Sts., is the administrative headquarters for this
pioneer communication service. Designed by R. W. Foote and Douglas
Orr, and built in 1937, this 1 7-story limestone and steel office building
makes use of simple modern lines. The first commercial telephone switch-
board in America was installed in New Haven on January 28, 1878.
Within less than threescore years the service has developed to a fully
automatic exchange with a remarkable record for efficiency and financial
stability.

L. from Wall on Church St.

1 8. The Bacon Homestead (private), 247 Church St., thought to have
been built by Joshua Chandler in 1760, formerly stood at the corner of
Church and Court Sts. Originally used as a coffee-house, frequented
in Revolutionary days by ardent patriots, it was moved in 1820 to its
present location by Dr. Leonard Bacon, pastor of the Center Church,

236 Main Street and Village Green

who occupied it until his death in 1881. It is a central-hall dwelling
with four end chimneys. The porch with an alcove over it was Dr.
Bacon's addition, and the building in general has the character of a house
of his period.

Return on Church St.; L. on Wall St.; R. on Orange St.

19. The Bowditch House (open) (about 1815), 275 Orange St., where
Eh" Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin, died in 1825, is the work
of David Hoadley. In the front room, which now serves as an art
store, is a fine mantel flanked by arched recesses.

L. from Orange St. on Trumbull St.

20. The Weir House (private), 58 Trumbull St., built by James Kingsley
about 1810, has had two former locations Temple St. at the corner of
Trumbull, and Hillhouse Ave., where it once served as a select girls'
school. The open portico shelters a doorway whose pilasters are orna-
mented with a design of rings, resembling wooden bull's-eyes, and the
window caps are designed with an entablature with a trio of plain blocks
supporting a molded top. Within, there is a variety of beautiful mantels.

21. The Silliman Homestead (private), 87 Trumbull St., was the first house
to be built on Hillhouse Ave., and was later moved to its present site. It
was bought in 1809 by the elder Professor Benjamin Silliman, a chemist
who was the founder of the first Collegiate Agricultural Experiment
Station in the country at Yale in 1847. Lafayette, on his last visit to
America, was a guest of 'Madame' Trumbull, widow of the second
Governor Jonathan Trumbull, and mother of Silliman's wife. Colonel
John Trumbull (1756-1843), noted artist, also lived in this house during
his later years.

R. from Trumbull St. on Whitney Ave.

22. The New Haven Colony Historical Society Building (open daily 9-5;
adm.free), 114 Whitney Ave., a handsome structure designed in Georgian-
Colonial style by J. F. and H. S. Kelly (1930), contains many relics of
the early days, including a snuffbox owned by John Dixwell; the apothe-
cary sign, mortar, and daybook of Benedict Arnold; Webster's writing-
desk; sidearms used by General Andrew Jackson at the battle of New
Orleans; and Eli Whitney's original model of the cotton gin. Especially
noteworthy are exhibits of pewter plate and old blue-and-white Stafford-
shire ware, collections of prints and early American portraits, and the
society's fine historical and genealogical library.

Return on Whitney Ave.; R. on Grove St.; R. on Hillhouse Ave.

Hillhouse Avenue was laid out in 1792 by Senator James Hillhouse,
whose desire to improve and beautify the city led to the planting of trees
throughout the community, winning for it the name of 'Elm City.'
Although less impressive than in the i9th century when it was sometimes
called the most beautiful street in America, its former splendor is re-
called by the spaciousness of the wide, elm-arched thoroughfare, with

New Haven 237

its imposing town houses, examples of the decadent period of the Greek
Revival.

23. The Ithiel Town Homestead (private), 4 Hillhouse Ave., was the
residence of the eminent architect who, after his success with churches,
was in great demand for planning the more impressive type of house. It
was remodeled by Joseph Earl Sheffield, benefactor of the Sheffield
Scientific School at Yale, who added the towers and wings at the time when
the Italian villa style in architecture began to appeal to romantic taste.

24. The Dana Home (private), 24 Hillhouse Ave., built in 1849 in the
Egyptian manner, with an extremely flat roof and wide overhang, was
for 40 years the home of the well-known geologist and mineralogist,
Professor James D wight Dana (1813-95).

25. The Home of Noah Porter, 31 Hillhouse Ave., a plain wooden dwelling
of 1826, later remodeled with a mansard roof, was originally built on
another street. Porter (1811-92), a philosopher, editor, and educator,
was president of Yale University.

26. President's House of Yale University (private), 43 Hillhouse Ave.,
a remodeled, half -medieval brick dwelling, was erected by Henry Farnam,
an engineer associated with Sheffield in the building of the Farmington
Canal in 1828 (see Tour 6). This canal cut diagonally across Hillhouse
Ave.

27. At the Professor James M. Hoppin House (private) (1862), 47 Hill-
house Ave., many distinguished men and women have been entertained,
including Phillips Brooks, Lady Fitzmaurice, and Von Herkomer. It
was the President's House during the Angell regime, 1921-37.

28. Sachem's Wood (private) (1829), facing the Avenue from the hilltop,
is a somber brown homestead built by James A. Hillhouse, poet. His
father, Senator James Hillhouse, called 'the Sachem' by his fellow mem-
bers in Congress because of his resemblance to an Indian, spent his
declining years in this house with his daughter, Mary Lucas, who, as a
child, frequently visited President and Mrs. Washington in Philadelphia.

Return on Hillhouse Ave.; R. on Grove St.

29. Grove St. Cemetery (1796), Grove St., entrance opposite High St., the
first burial ground in the country to be laid out in family lots, and con-
taining the graves of many illustrious dead, is entered through an impres-
sive Egyptian pylon gateway (1845-48), designed in brownstonejby Henry
Austin (1804-91), an apprentice of Ithiel Town. Attached to this gate
is the old bell from the first cemetery on the Green, which was formerly
rung during burial services. The large golden butterfly on the front of
the caretaker's building is the Egyptian symbol of immortality. ,

The grave of Jehudi Ashmun (1794-1828), first Colonial agent to Liberia,
is left of the entrance; beyond is that of Benjamin Silliman (1779-1864),
chemist. On Cedar Ave. are buried James D. Dana (1813-95), geologist;
General David Humphreys (1752-1818), Revolutionary diplomat, pioneer
industrialist, and the first man to introduce merino sheep in America;

238 Main Street and Village Green

Jedediah Morse (1761-1826), American geographer; Theodore Winthrop
(1828-61), novelist, and one of the first officers killed in action in the
Civil War; Noah Porter (1811-92), eleventh president of Yale; the
Rev. Lyman Beecher (1775-1863), reformer and father of Harriet
Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher; Eli Whitney (1765-1825), and
Noah Webster (1758-1843), compiler of the first American dictionary.
Paralleling Cedar Ave. is Locust Ave. with the graves of Timothy
Dwight, 2d (1829-1916), one-time president of Yale; Elias Loomis
(1811-89), mathematician; Arthur T. Hadley (1856-1930), another Yale
president; and Josiah Willard Gibbs (1839-1903), founder of the science
of physical chemistry.

In the northwest corner of the cemetery on Sycamore Ave. are buried
Chauncey Jerome (1793-1868), pioneer clockmaker, and Charles Good-
year (1800-60), inventor of vulcanized rubber. Lining the walls of
this section are 400 brownstone markers that were removed from the
burial ground on the Green.

On Ivy Path, bordering the northern wall of the cemetery, are monuments
to President Theodore D. Woolsey (1801-89), and General Alfred Howe
Terry (1829-90), the hero of Fort Fisher.

South on Linden Ave. are the graves of Eli Whitney Blake (1795-1886),
inventor; Edward E. Salisbury (1814-1901), orientalist; and William
Dwight Whitney (1827-94), linguist; and the poetically inscribed stone
of Governor Theophilus Eaton, whose body lies in the crypt on the Green.
On Maple Ave. are buried three Yale presidents, Ezra Stiles (1727-95);
Timothy Dwight (1752-1817); and Jeremiah Day (1773-1867); Admiral
Andrew H. Foote (1806-63); Senator James Hillhouse (1753-1832);
Roger Sherman (1721-93).

On Cypress Ave. are the graves of two Yale presidents, Thomas Clap
(1703-67), and Naphtali Daggett (1727-80), who died as a result of
injuries received at the hands of a British officer during the English
invasion of New Haven.

Return on Grove St.; R. on College Sf.

30. The Site of First Settlers' Landing, cor. College and George Sts.,
is marked by the First Settlers' Tablet. Stepping from their heavily
burdened little vessel which had forced its way with some difficulty up
a narrow inlet, long since filled in, these pioneers knelt beneath a mighty
oak, while the Rev. John Davenport preached on 'The Temptations in
the Wilderness/

Return on College St.; L. on Chapel St.

31. The Site of Roger Sherman's Homestead, 1032 Chapel St., has a
Marker on the wall of a brick building to indicate the home which Sher-
man occupied from 1761 until his death in 1793. Sherman was the only
man to sign all four fundamental documents on which the United
States Government is based: the Articles of Association in 1774; the
Declaration of Independence, 1776; the Articles of Confederation in 1778;
and the Federal Constitution of 1787.

New Haven 239

R. from Chapel St. on High St.; R. on Elm St.; R. on Broadway.

32. Christ Church (1895), conspicuously situated at the triangular inter-
section of Broadway and Elm St., is more nearly designed in the old
English tradition of Gothic than more recent forms that have raised
their towers in neighboring college yards. The simple, tall, brownstone
tower with four large pinnacles is modeled after that of Magdalen
College, Oxford. The interior of the church is of brick, in a rather severe
Perpendicular style, relieved by the delicate tracery of the rood screen
and altar. Henry Vaughn was the architect.

33. The Elisha Hull, or Bennett House (private), 86 Broadway, a buff-
colored clapboard dwelling, is one of the few homes designed by Hoadley
(about 1812) that survive in the city. The fan-light above the door is
surrounded by a pattern of interwoven circles peculiar to New Haven
architecture, and the high flat window heads have a delicate diamond
design.

TOUR 2

YALE UNIVERSITY

A college in New Haven Colony was one of John Davenport's ambitions,
but his hopes were not fulfilled during his lifetime, as Harvard's facilities
were sufficient to supply the needs for higher education in the New
England Colonies. By the end of the seventeenth century, however, it
became clear that there was room for another college, and in 1701 several
Connecticut clergymen, all Harvard graduates, met at the house of the
Rev. Samuel Russell, in Branford, to consider the founding of a ' collegiate
school.' According to tradition each of them laid some books on a table
with the words, ' I give these books for the founding of a college in this
colony.' Whether this be true or not, in 1702 the college, officially located
at Saybrook, began its existence with one student in the house of the
Rev. Abraham Pierson, its first rector, in Killingworth, now Clinton.
On Pierson's death, in 1707, the classes were moved to Saybrook, and in
1716 the college was transferred to New Haven. About the same time,
Elihu Yale (1648-1721), born in Massachusetts, later a merchant prince
of the East India Company, and Governor of Madras, was persuaded to
contribute a gift of merchandise later sold for 562, in gratitude for which
the institution was named in his honor.

Early in the nineteenth century, professional schools were organized in
connection with the college, but the title ' Yale University ' was not offi-
cially adopted until 1887. There are (1938) ten professional and graduate
schools, in addition to the original Yale College. In 1933, the college,
together with the other undergraduate units of the Sheffield Scientific
School, and the School of Engineering, reorganized in so far as their
residential system was concerned, into nine colleges of about one hundred

240 Main Street and Village Green

and eighty students each. This was made possible chiefly through a gift
of Edward S. Harkness, class of 1897, who gave an endowment to
Harvard for the same purpose. Although superficially similar to the
colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, the Yale colleges are substantially
different, being merely residential units under centralized control, with-
out individual endowments. Each college has its separate dining-hall,,
common rooms, and library, and also a rapidly growing set of traditions.
Since its beginning, Yale has been notable for the scientific scholarship
of its faculty. Benjamin Silliman in chemistry, James Dwight Dana in
geology, Willard Gibbs in physical chemistry, Othniel Marsh in paleontol-
ogy, William Graham Sumner in sociology, and Ross Granville Harrison
in zoology have made contributions of major importance in their various
fields. A remarkable number of Yale men have become the first presidents
of other colleges and universities. Among them are Jonathan Dickinson
(Princeton), | Samuel Johnson (King's College, now Columbia), Eleazer
Wheelock (Dartmouth), Ebenezer Fitch (Williams), John H. Lathrop
(Missouri and Wisconsin), Henry Durant (California), Daniel Coit
Gilman (Johns Hopkins), William P. Johnson (Tulane), Andrew D.
White (Cornell), and William R. Harper (Chicago).
Other distinguished graduates include Jonathan Edwards, 1720, the-
ologian; Samuel Seabury, 1738, first bishop of the American Episcopal
Church; David Humphreys, 1771, Washington's aide and subsequently
minister to Spain; Nathan Hale, 1773, the patriot martyr; David Bush-
nell, 1775, inventor of the torpedo; Noah Webster, 1778, lexicographer;
Joel Barlow (1754-1812), poet and diplomat; James Kent, 1781, jurist,
author of Kent's Commentaries; Eli Whitney, 1792, inventor of the cotton
gin; John C. Calhoun, 1804, Vice-President of the United States; James-
Fenimore Cooper, expelled, 1805, novelist; S. F. B. Morse, 1810, artist
and inventor of the telegraph; William M. Evarts, 1837, Secretary of
State; Samuel J. Tilden, 1837, who lost the Presidency of the United
States to Rutherford Hayes, in a contested election; Morrison R. Waite,
1837, Chief Justice of the United States; William H. Taft, 1878, Presi-
dent, and later Chief Justice of the United States.
Campus Tour

Guide Service, June Sept., Phelps Gateway, College St., bet. Chapel
and Elm, free. Weekdays 10.30, 1.30 and 3; Sun. 1.30 and 3. Sept.
June; guides furnished at the Bureau of Appointments, 144 Grove St.

N. from Chapel St. on College St.

34. The Old Campus, bounded by Chapel, High, Elm, and College Sts.
(entrance on College St., Phelps Gateway), has been the nucleus of Yale
life since the college was moved from Saybrook in 1716. Here can be
seen examples of the four chief architectural periods through which the
University has passed the i8th century, the Victorian age, the first
era of the so-called 'collegiate Gothic' of the 1890^ and early i9oo's, and
the great building period of 1919-35, chiefly Gothic, and dominated by
the personality of James Gamble Rogers. More than two centuries of
constant use, and its fine trees, rather than architectural merit, have

New Haven 241

given the Campus an air of distinction. Connecticut Hall (1752), near
the southeast corner, is the oldest of extant Yale buildings, and sole
remnant of the Old Brick Row, which formerly extended from Chapel to
Elm Sts. Unfortunately, those buildings had to be destroyed in order to
utilize the square on which they stood. Nathan Hale, class of 1773,
roomed in Connecticut Hall, though his room has not been identified.
A Statue of Hale, by Bela Lyon Pratt, stands in front of the building.
Just south of Connecticut Hall, formerly stood Mother Yale, the first
and for many years the only Yale building in New Haven, erected in 1717.
The other brick building of Georgian-Colonial design is Edward McClellan
Hatty erected in 1925. On the west side of the Campus is the second
oldest Yale building, built in 1842 and now the headquarters of the
University Y.M.C.A., Dwight Hall. The middle section of the building,
now Dwight Memorial Chapel, with a fine west window, was originally
the University Library; the wings to north and south housed the collec-
tion of the two debating societies, Linonia and Brothers in Unity. South
of this are Linsly and Chittenden Halls, later additions to the old library,
now used as recitation halls. Chittenden is the sole remaining example
at Yale of the Richardsonian Romanesque style of architecture of the
late i Qth century. South of Chittenden, on the corner of Chapel and
High Sts., is Street Hall (1866), the original home of the School of Fine
Arts, the first art school in the world to be incorporated as part of a
university. It is still used for this purpose. Durfee Hall (1871), and
Battell Chapel (1876), on the north side of the Campus, and Farnam
(1869), and Lawrance (1886) Halls, on the east, all designed by Russell
Sturgis, Jr., represent the mid- Victorian Gothic. Phelps (1895), and
Welch (1892) Halls on the east side, and Vanderbilt Hall (1893), on the
south, were all built during the first period of collegiate Gothic. Bingham
Hall, on the southeast corner, and Wright Hall, on the northwest, both
in collegiate Gothic, were built in 1928 and 1911 respectively.

Exit from Campus on Elm St.; L. on High St.

35. The Memorial Quadrangle, Elm, High and York Sts., was designed
by James Gamble Rogers, and built in 1917-21 as the gift of Mrs.
Stephen V. Harkness. This structure, now divided into Branford and
Saybrook Colleges, marked an era in American collegiate architecture.
Its most original features are the warm yellowish, naturally weathered
sandstone of which it is composed, and its many charming decorative
details, reminiscent of Yale history and Yale men. The passageways,
or slypes, are named in honor of early benefactors of the college, and the
entries for prominent graduates. Harkness Tower, on High St., 221 feet
in height, built in memory of Charles W. Harkness, class of 1883, is the
most conspicuous feature of the group, and perhaps the most distin-
guished structure in the University. It is a 'crown' tower, showing the
influence of such European Gothic models as St. Botolph's in Boston
(Lincolnshire), and the 'Tour de Beurre' of Rouen Cathedral, with the
difference that the octagonal crown is extended to two stories and the
whole unified into a coherent mass. On the ground floor of the tower is

242 Main Street and Village Green

a lofty room with a fine window and fan-vaulting. Carvings around the
top of the wainscot portray the history of many incidents and customs
of the University. Branford Court (entrance at the south), now a part
of Branford College, is the largest and most beautiful of the seven quad-
rangles enclosed by the structure. Wrexham Tower, a copy of that at
Wrexham in Wales, under which Elihu Yale lies buried, rises above the
small Wrexham Court, now a part of Saybrook College (entrance on
Elm St.). A stone from the original Wrexham Tower is built into the
wall over the doorway.

36. Jonathan Edwards College, 70 High St., is named for the eminent i8th-
century divine. A bronze statue of a slave boy holding a sundial (1708),
that once belonged to Elihu Yale, stands in the west end of the court.

37. Beyond Jonathan Edwards College, on High St., is the entrance to
Weir Hall, a building of eccentric charm, with its romantic stairway and
a grass court raised 30 feet above the surrounding level. This is now the
home of the department of architecture of the Art School. It was built
of stones from Alumni Hall, a Gothic building of the i85o's, and sold to
Yale University by the alumnus who designed it.

38. Next, beyond, is the Hall of Skull and Bones, the oldest of the college
senior societies.

R.from High St. on Chapel St.

39. The Gallery of Fine Arts (1928) (open daily 2-5), cor. Chapel and
High Sts., entrance on Chapel St., connected with Street Hall by an
arched bridge over High St., was designed by Egerton Swartout in a
style reminiscent of the Italian medieval period, and built of sandstone.
The main entrance and the basement windows are covered with intricate
wrought-iron grilles, and the facade, as yet unfinished, is broken by five
large arched windows that light the gallery. In the first-floor lobby, a
tablet marks the place beneath which the first distinguished Connecticut
artist, Colonel John Trumbull (1756-1843), is buried beside his wife. To
the left of the entrance is The Sculpture Hall, exhibiting fine examples of
Babylonian, Assyrian and French Romanesque statuary; the Elihu Yale
Tapestries, woven in London in the late i7th or early i8th century by
John Vanderbank in the ' Indian manner,' which is a variation of the
popular chinoiserie style; and a hall for temporary exhibits of art. Ad-
joining the main hall is the assembly room, hung with tapestries and
paintings, where public lectures are held during the academic year.
On the second, or mezzanine floor, are the administrative offices, class-
rooms, and photograph and lantern slide collections. Here among
reproductions of medieval sculpture and metal work, is the original group,
Jephthah and his Daughter (1853), one of the earliest pieces of American
sculpture in marble, by Hezekiah Augur, who began life as a wood
carver (see ART). The third floor contains Flemish confessionals from a
Ghent museum, carved in the 17th-century Baroque style; exhibits of
early American glass; and the Mabel Brady Garvan Collection of American
silver (1650-1825), the most representative and finest collection of its

EDUCATION

CONNECTICUT has had a distinguished record in the field
of education from the days of Edward Hopkins and John
Davenport, when Oxford and Cambridge scholars helped to
lay the first foundations of sound learning, to the present
time, when Yale University has made New Haven a city of
towers and colleges. Bred in a tradition of service to 'Pub-
licke State/ Nathan Hale found the path short that led him
from a country schoolmastership to a martyred hero's death.
Figures such as Bronson Alcott with his radical theories of
child education, Prudence Crandall with her school for negro
girls, the solid Emma Willard, and the fertile Henry Barnard
are part of this long and progressive history.

One of the first public school systems in the world was estab-
lished in Connecticut only eleven years after the first white
settlement. From the sale of her lands in the Western Re-
serve the State drew funds to support these schools. The
nineteenth century academies have become public high
schools housed in buildings of modern design or developed
into the many private preparatory schools, some of them
nationally known.

The graduates of Connecticut institutions of higher learning
have contributed abundantly to American education.

NATHAN HALE SCHOOL, NEW LONDON

AVON OLD FARMS SCHOOL POST OFFICE

BULLET HILL SCHOOL, SOUTHBURY

ANSONIA HIGH SCHOOL

DAVENPORT COURT AND PIERSON TOWER, YALE UNIVERSITY

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PAYNE WHITNEY GYMNASIUM, YALE UNIVERSITY

TERLING MEMORIAL LIBRARY, YALE UNIVERSITY

CONNECTICUT HALL, YALE UNIVERSITY

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TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL, HARTFORD

COAST GUARD ACADEMY, NEW LONDON

STERLING DIVINITY QUADRANGLE, YALE UNIVERSITY

New Haven 243

kind. Among the silversmiths whose work is represented are: Hull and
Sanderson, Jeremiah Dummer, John Coney, Edward Winslow, John
Dixwell, Peter Van Dyck, Jacob Boelen, Philip Syng, and Joseph Richard-
son. The especially noteworthy Jarves Collection of Italian primitives
includes important paintings by Pollaiuolo, Piero di Cosimo, Sassetta, and
Titian. In the smaller rooms off the main gallery are exhibits of ancient
and Oriental art; a reconstruction of a Christian chapel of the third
century, A.D., with original frescoes from Dura-Europos; and prints,
paintings, and drawings of the Renaissance and modern periods. East of
the stairway is the American Room, with choice pieces of early American
furniture by Thomas Affleck, John Goddard, Samuel Mclntyre, and
Duncan Phyfe, and hung with Colonial and early Republican portraits
the work of such artists as John Singleton Copley, Charles Willson
Peale, Gilbert Stuart, Thomas SuUy, Ralph Earl, and Samuel F. B. Morse.
Off this are two paneled rooms from the Rose House of North Branford
(1710), and above them a bedroom and sitting-room from the Joel
Clark House in East Granby (1737). In the Trumbull Room, beyond
these, are canvasses and miniatures largely from the Revolutionary
period, by Colonel John Trumbull, son of Governor Jonathan Trumbull,
artist and patriot, friend and aide to Washington. It was with these
works and the gift portrait of George I as a nucleus, that the Trumbull
Gallery, the first collegiate art gallery in America, was established in 1831.
Recent acquisitions include the Hobart Moore Collection of textiles, chiefly
from the Near and Far East, and a collection of paintings and drawings
by Edwin Austen Abbey.

R. from Chapel St. on York St.

40. Briton Hodden Memorial Building (1932), York St., between Chapel
and Elm Sts., houses the Yale Daily News, the oldest college daily in the
country. Briton Hadden, B.A., 1920, a News editor, was co-founder of
Time and Fortune magazines.

41. Surrounded by a high stone wall, Wolfs Head Hall, York St., housing
a senior society, stands beside Briton Hadden Memorial Building. It
was designed by Bertram Goodhue in 1925. There are several fraternity
buildings in the Tudor style behind it.

42. Next beyond, University Theater (open during college session), on
York St., the seat of the Department of Drama of the Art School, was
built (1926) when Professor George Pierce Baker came to Yale from
Harvard. Students engage in the various phases of dramatic production,
from playwriting and directing to stage lighting, scene, and costume
designing. Major plays are produced about once each month in the upper
theater, which has a remarkable mechanical and electrical equipment. In
the experimental theater, downstairs, an average of three student-plays
are produced each week.

43 . Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity House, York St. , adjoins the University
Theater.

244 Main Street and Village Green

L.from York on a passageway beside Delta Kappa Epsilon House.

44. Pierson College, Park St., between Elm and Chapel Sts., entered
under a fine Colonial clock 1 tower, is built of brick in the Georgian style
At the south end of the quadrangle are the dormitories humorously
named 'slave quarters/ a group of low buildings surrounding a small
paved court, with attractive doorways and ironwork.

Return to York St.; L. on York St.

45. Davenport College, York St., between Chapel and Elm Sts., has a
stone Tudor-Gothic front masking interior courts of brick Georgian-
Colonial architecture.

46. The Yale Record Building, York St., is the home of the college
humorous publication, the Yale Record.

R. from York St. on Elm.

47. Trumbull College, Elm St. between York and High Sts. (L), has an
impressive court backed by the mass of the University Library.

48. The southern half of Berkeley College, NE. cor. Elm and High Sts.
This building has been divided into two sections in order to permit an
unobstructed view of the Sterling Memorial Library. It was named after
the philosopher, George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, who was an early
benefactor of Yale.

49. Calhoun College, NW. cor. Elm and College Sts., was designed by
John Russell Pope and named for John C. Calhoun, class of 1804 and
Vice-President of the United States.

L. from Elm on College St.

In the middle of the block between Elm and Wall Sts., the Cross Campus
affords a fine vista from College St. It passes between Calhoun College
(L) and William L. Harkness Hall (R), reaches an axis at Blount Ave.,
and then passes between the southern and northern halves of Berkeley
College, which are joined by an underground passage, to the main en-
trance of Sterling Memorial Library on High St. At the Cross Campus,
the work of the landscape architect of the university, Beatrix Farrand,
appears to advantage.

50. William L. Harkness Hall (1927), on College St., between Elm and
Wall Sts., is a recitation building, designed by William Adams Delano.

51. S prague Memorial Hall (1917), SW. cor. College and Wall Sts., of
which Coolidge and Shattuck were the architects, is the main building
of the School of Music. Its handsome auditorium, with excellent acous-
tics, seats 728 and is used for chamber music and small orchestral concerts.

L. from College on Wall St.; L. on High St.

52. The Sterling Memorial Library, High, Wall, and York Sts., was com-
pleted in 1931 from designs by James Gamble Rogers. It is the chief
memorial to John W. Sterling, B.A., 1864, who left a large endowment
to Yale for building and other purposes. The main exterior feature is the
impressive Stack Tower, rising 14 stories above street level, best seen from

New Haven 245

York St. The interior is a model of good planning. The Reserve Book
Room, and Linonia and Brothers , an open-shelf room for general reading,
stand to the left and right of the main entrance respectively. Beyond
the former, to the south is the Yale Memorabilia Room, and on the second
floor in this part is an interesting collection of the books of the library as
it existed according to a catalogue of 1742, arranged, so far as possible,
in their original shelf distribution. In this room also are preserved the
front doors of the Samuel Russell House in Branford in which the founders
of Yale met in 1701. The impressive, nave-like entrance hall, with sculp-
tures in relief showing the history of the library, leads past the catalogue
on the left and an exhibition space on the right, directly to the delivery
desk. Over this is a mural painting, ' Alma Mater,' by Eugene F. Savage,
N. A. At the left of the desk is the long Reading Room, its fine proportions
impaired by unfortunate lighting fixtures. To the right of the desk is
the periodical reading room and a glazed cloister, used for temporary
exhibitions, with a view into an attractive court on the right. The
tympani of the eastern windows of this court have carved on them colo-
phons and signatures of great printers and engravers from all lands.
Down the cloistered passage is the Rare Book Room with ample working
space for special students. At the east end, in an elaborately vaulted,
shrine-like room, is a copy of a Gutenberg Bible of about 1460.
Return on High St.; L. on Wall.

53. The Sterling Law Buildings, facing the library on Wall St., were
designed by James Gamble Rogers and completed in 1931. On the top
floor of the east portion along High St., is the Law Library,^ high,
dignified room with traceried windows and a polychromed ceiling. An
interesting view of gables, chimneys, and roofs is obtained from the
cloister in the main court, or from the windows above it.

54. Hall of Graduate Studies, at end of Wall St., on York St., also de-
signed by Rogers, was completed in 1932. There are two courts and a
high tower of brick and limestone.

L. from Wall on York St.

55. Mory's, 306 York St., occupies a small white house. Originally a
bar and chop-house on the corner of Temple and Center Sts., under the
proprietorship of one Moriarty, it was so popular among Yale under-
graduates of many generations that on the destruction of the old building
in 1912, the whole interior, with all its furnishings and decorations, was
moved to a similar house on the present site, and the management in-
corporated as a club.

L. from York St. on Tower Parkway.

56. The University Heating Plant (1917), Day and Klauder, architects,
NW. cor. York St. and Tower Parkway, is an interesting example of
modernized Gothic with two handsome tall chimneys.

57. Payne Whitney Gymnasium (open during college year), on York Sq.,
facing Tower Parkway, was completed in 1932 from designs by John
Russell Pope. The central tower contains rowing tanks, a trophy room,

246 Main Street and Village Green

a practice swimming pool 50 meters long, and many rooms for exercise and
indoor sports. The north wing contains the main amphitheater, and the
south wing, the exhibition swimming pool; on the floor above are squash
and handball courts. The Francis P. Garvan Collection of sporting prints
is distributed among the rooms and corridors.

L. from Tower Parkway on York Sq.

58. Ray Tompkins House, NW. cor. York Sq. and Broadway, completed
1932, is of Briar Hill sandstone in Gothic style. John Russell Pope was
the architect. In it are the offices and headquarters of Yale athletic de-
partments and quarters for visiting teams.

Return on York Sq.; R. on Tower Parkway, which becomes Grove St.

59. Hewitt Quadrangle, SW. cor. Grove and College Sts., consists of the
University Dining-Hall, Memorial Hall, Woolsey Hall, and Woodbridge
Hall. They were all erected in 1901 to commemorate the 2ooth anni-
versary of Yale's founding, and all except Woodbridge Hall were de-
signed by Carrere and Hastings. The Colonnade on the south side of the
Dining-Hall, with a stone cenotaph, was added in 1928 in memory of
Yale men who died in the World War. The long interior, finished in brick
and sandstone, has a handsome open timber roof decorated in poly-
chrome. Memorial Hall, on the corner of College and Grove Sts., with a
baroque dome, forms the main entrance for the Dining-Hall and Woolsey
Hall. On the ground floor are marble tablets, upon which are inscribed
the names of all Yale graduates who have fallen in six wars. On the
second floor is a circular reception room; in the hall outside are pictures
and autographs of eminent Yale men, collected and presented by the Rev.
Anson Phelps Stokes, a former secretary of the University. On the third
floor (open Sun. aft., or by permission) is a collection of early keyboard
and stringed instruments of the iyth and i8th centuries, presented by
the late Morris Steinert of New Haven. An addition to the collection is a
Piano that belonged to Beethoven. Woolsey Hall is an auditorium seating
about 2800; it contains the Newberry Memorial Organ, one of the largest
in the country. Woodbridge Hall, Wall St., between High and College Sts.,
is a small building somewhat reminiscent of the Senate House at Cam-
bridge, England. It contains the offices of the president, secretary, and
treasurer of the University, and a meeting room for the corporation, its
governing body.

R. from Grove on College St.

60. Scroll and Key House, NW. cor. College and Wall Sts., designed in
the Moorish style, is occupied by the senior society of that name.

61. The 'She/ Campus,' College St. (L), between Grove and WaU Sts.,
is occupied by buildings designed by Charles C. Haight between 1904
and 1913. It is expected that this group, when completed, will be in-
corporated as Silliman College, the only unfinished unit of the college
plan.

L. from College on Wall St.; L. on Temple St.

62. Timothy Dwight College (1935), Temple St. between Wall and Grove

New Haven 247

Sts., is a brick Georgian-Colonial structure with a graceful clock tower,
named for two men of the same name, grandfather and grandson, who
were both presidents of Yale.

L. from Temple on Grove St.

63. The Sterling Memorial Tower, NE. cor. Grove and College Sts., for
which Clarence C. Zantzinger was the architect, was completed in 1932.
It forms a unit with Sheffield Hall, in which are the administration of-
fices of the Sheffield Scientific School, and with Strathcona Hall, built from
a bequest of the late Lord Strathcona, containing a lecture-hall and class-
rooms for the study of transportation. An Inscribed Stone, from Mt. Sir
Donald in the Selkirk Mountains of British Columbia, named for Lord
Strathcona, formerly Sir Donald Smith, is built into the exterior of the
east wall.

R. on Prospect St.

64. Berkeley Divinity School (Episcopal), Prospect and Sachem Sts.,
is affiliated with Yale University. The school was located in Middletown
from its founding in 1854 until 1928.

65. Osborn Memorial Laboratories (1914), NE. cor. Prospect and Sachem
Sts., devoted to zoology and botany, have a pleasant vista through the
archway. Charles C. Haight was the architect.

R. from Prospect on Sachem St.

66. Peabody Museum (open daily 9^4. 30; free), NW. cor. Sachem St. and
Whitney Ave., designed in 1925 by Charles Z. Klauder and built of brick
and artificial sandstone in the French Gothic style, is one of the most
notable natural history museums in the world. A small mineralogical
exhibit was assembled more than a century ago by Benjamin Silliman;
to this were added the fossil and meteorite collections of Othniel C.
Marsh, Yale's first professor of paleontology. The museum, which origi-
nally stood at the corner of Elm and High Sts., was formally established
in 1866 through the gift of George Peabody, a London banker and the
uncle of Marsh, whose interest in the institution was stimulated by the
enthusiasm of his nephew. The present building is three stories high
with a 93-foot tower and an octagonal entrance hall that rises two stories
to a stone-vaulted roof, modeled after the Chateau Coucy in France. On
the first floor of the museum the exhibits are chronologically arranged,
showing the progress of life from its earliest forms to man. Directly in
front of the entrance hall, where a pendulum swings back and forth
throughout the day indicating the earth's rotation from west to east, is
the Hall of Invertebrates, with fossil exhibits arranged in two series
geologic and biologic. The first, occupying cases 5-15, beginning at the
left of the entrance, includes specimens that inhabited the earth during
the five major geologic eras, while the second, cases 16-43, classifies these
animals according to their structural development. Here, also, will be
found several habitat cases, and in case 47, on the right, a panel depicting
the Tree of Life, in which man's development is traced as it is believed
to have occurred.

248 Main Street and Village Green

In the Great Hall are exhibits of the earliest vertebrates fishes, am-
phibians, reptiles, and birds and one of the most complete dinosaur
collections in the country, gathered by Professor Marsh, the first man to
discover the bones of these prehistoric reptiles in America. Standing in
the center of the hall is a huge brontosaurus that weighed more than 35
tons in the flesh, and was 70 feet long and 15 feet high at the hips. In
habitat cases along the walls, other dinosaur types have been reproduced
in their natural settings. In the First Hall of Mammals, adjacent to the
Great Hall, exhibits illustrate the next step in the development of the
vertebrate series, including the warm-blooded mammals, which from
the standpoint of intelligence far surpassed the reptilian species. Of
special interest is the skeleton of the early ground sloth (case 8), with
patches of hide and hair still clinging to it, found in a New Mexican cave
after thousands of years of burial; at the eastern end of the hall are speci-
mens showing the evolution of the horse, perhaps the most important of
Professor Marsh's paleontological discoveries. In the Second Hall of
Mammals , the carnivora, represented chiefly by archaic and contemporary
game and sea animals, are outstanding. The Hall of Man traces the story
of man's physical development from the apes, and in case 2, compares the
human embryo with those of other animals. Here also, is shown man's
cultural progress as demonstrated by the products he has fashioned with
his hands.

The third floor of the museum includes the Hall of Meteorites, with 300
* chips of other worlds,' the largest of which is a specimen found in Texas
weighing 1635 pounds; the Hall of Minerals, containing an extensive
collection, one of the most unusual features of which is the ultra-violet
exhibit showing unsuspected colors in ordinary stones; the Halls of
Economic Zoology and Local Zoology, pertaining chiefly to contemporary
animals indigenous to southern New England; and the Hall of Anthro-
pology, containing exhibits illustrating man's cultural development.
Return on Sachem St.', R. on Prospect St.

67. Sage Hall, Prospect St. (R), between Sachem and Edward Sts., de-
signed by William Adams Delano (1923), a four-story brownstone build-
ing in Tudor style, is the home of the School of Forestry.

68. Sloane Physics Laboratory, Prospect St. (R), designed by Charles C.
Haight (1912), is of Longmeadow brownstone, in collegiate Gothic style.

69. The Sterling Chemical Laboratory (1922), Prospect St. (R), was
designed by William Adams Delano, incorporating the Gothic forms
used in Cambridge University.

70. The Farnam Memorial Garden, NE. cor. Prospect and Edward Sts.,
formerly the property of William Whitman Farnam, treasurer of Yale,
was donated to the University by his widow in 1930.

71. Marsh Hall, Prospect St. (L), just beyond Hillside Place, is the
former home of Othniel C. Marsh, an early authority on paleontology and
collector of much of the material now in the Peabody Museum. The
grounds, laid out chiefly by Marsh himself, are kept as a Botanical Garden

New Haven 249

and contain many rare trees and shrubs, as well as a collection of irises,
native American plants, and a rock garden.

72. The Sterling Divinity Quadrangle, Prospect St. (R), between Edward
and Canner Sts., completed in 1932, was designed by William Adams
Delano. In plan it is reminiscent of Jefferson's for the University of
Virginia, at Charlottesville, with symmetrically placed buildings con-
nected by colonnades leading up to an important central mass; but the
general effect, as well as many details, is quite different. The two small
octagonal buildings fronting on Prospect St. are a porter's lodge and a
guest house. The eight gabled buildings beyond these contain living
quarters and offices; each unit is named for a prominent Yale divine.
Beyond these the vista broadens out into a quadrangle; at the right are
the libraries and at the left an auditorium; in the center, flanked by wings
containing classrooms and administrative offices, is Marquand Chapel,
with its rather severe but beautifully proportioned lantern tower. The
interior is a modified reproduction of an old New England meetinghouse
without galleries. Back of the chapel is another quadrangle, with a large
common room, refectory, gymnasium, and squash courts. The Divinity
School, which is inter-denominational, has about 220 students; the quad-
rangle accommodates about 170.

73. University Observatory (R), Prospect St., has in its buildings several
telescopes, a heliometer, and an astronomical camera.

TOUR 3

E. from Prospect St. on Huntington St.

74. Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, 123 Huntington St., the
first State-supported agricultural experiment station in America, was
established at Middletown in 1875, an d removed to New Haven in
1877. It is devoted to research on plant breeding, pest control, and soil
chemistry.

Return on Huntington St.; R. on Prospect St.

75. Albertus Magnus College, 700 Prospect St., offers courses in liberal
arts and science, and a pre-medical course leading to a Bachelor of Arts
degree. It is a Roman Catholic college for women, founded in 1925 by
the Sisters of Saint Dominic, of Saint Mary of the Springs, East Colum-
bus, Ohio. New Haven was selected because there was no other Catholic
college for women in this section, and because of the unusual educational
facilities available.

The college property includes 21 acres with 4 buildings, formerly private
estates: Rosary Hall, containing a temporary chapel, library, dining-
room, recitation rooms, and offices; Imelda Hall, the residence hall;
Walsh Hall, with fully equipped modern laboratories for chemistry and
biology; and the Students' Building, containing a cafeteria, auditorium,

250 Main Street and Village Green

scenery rooms, dressing-rooms, and showers. There are tennis courts and
a hockey field on the property. Plans have been drawn for a chapel in
the Georgian-Colonial style to be dedicated to Saint Thomas Aquinas.
In 1937 the enrollment was 143.

OTHER POINTS OF INTEREST

76. East Rock Park, 1.5 m. NE. of the Green, end of Orange St., con-
taming 446 acres of woodland, landscaped gardens, and expansive fields,
with 8^2 m. of drives and bridle paths, affords the best outlook over the
city. A wide panorama discloses magnificent views of New Haven, its
commodious harbor, and the residential and business districts. At the
foot of the abrupt precipice, Mill River meanders in its serpentine course,
forming ox-bows and little islands. At the summit (accessible by car)
stands the ii2-foot granite Soldiers' and Sailors 7 Monument (1887),
visible for many miles.

There are many romantic legends about this rock, including that of Seth
Turner, said to have owned the property early in the igth century.
Disappointed in love, he built here a stone house, where he lived as a
hermit, tending his walled-in garden and caring for his goats and sheep.
Since he rarely spoke with anyone, the townspeople concocted many
fantastic tales about him. But his real story remains untold, as he froze
to death in his hut during the winter of 1823. In 1855, Milton J. Steward
is reported to have purchased the top of the rock, where he built a house,
and, believing that a second flood was imminent, began work on a 4o-f oot
steamboat, an amazing contraption built without regard to the practical
necessities of navigation. Later, when the city bought the summit, this
vessel (no longer extant) was filled with earth and utilized as a mammoth
flower pot.

The Pardee Rose Garden, near State St., presents in spring an impressive
scene of multi-colored and fragrant blooms. Within the grounds are also
Blake Field, Rice Field, and College Woods, all well equipped for various
forms of recreation, including tennis, football, baseball, basket and volley
ball, boccie, quoits, and horseshoe pitching; and an archery field, the only
municipally owned full-sized range in Connecticut.

Indian Head Peak, a wild section at the eastern end of East Rock Park
(footpaths only), was used by the Quinnipiac Indians as a signal point.
At the top of the rock there are several cement emplacements, used in
the World War for anti-aircraft guns.

77. The Punderson Homestead (private), 338 Whalley Ave., a Dutch-
roofed dwelling, was erected in 1787 by descendants of one of the first
settlers in New Haven, but has been somewhat remodeled by the addition
of a narrow piazza across the entire front, and a large central dormer
window. The heavy, five-panel double doors, however, are original.

New Haven 251

78. Arnold College for Hygiene and Physical Education, 1466 Chapel St.,
is a co-educational institution offering a four-year course in physical
culture, supplemented by summer work at the college camp at Silver
Sands.

79. In Monitor Square, at the junction of Chapel St., Derby and Winthrop
Aves., a small triangle of greensward, enclosed with an iron and stone
fence identical to that which surrounds the Green, is a Monument to
Cornelius Scranton Bushnell commemorating a former citizen of New
Haven who was chiefly responsible for the successful construction of the
' Monitor ' from plans devised by John Ericsson. The ship is pictured in
bas-relief above the inscription. The memorial, designed by Charles A.
Platt, architect, and Herbert Adams, sculptor, represents a large bronze
eagle, wings outspread in a gesture of defiance, surmounting a globe of
the same metal supported by four dolphins, emblematic of the sea.

80. The Yale Bowl (open) (1914), Derby Ave., between Yale and Central
Aves., an amphitheater covering 25 acres of ground and seating about
71,000, is approached through the imposing Walter Camp Memorial
Gateway (1928), erected in memory of the dean of modern American
football, with funds donated by alumni of Yale and 593 other colleges
and schools. Designed by Charles A. Ferry, the Bowl has 30 entrances,
only one of which, portal 10, is kept open for visitors. Surrounding it are
the Yale tennis courts, baseball diamond, practice football fields, polo
grounds, track field, and cross-country track course.

The Charles E. Coxe Memorial Gymnasium, adjacent to the Bowl, a brick
building with marble trim, erected in 1928, provides facilities for indoor
athletics.

The Lapham Field House, cor. Derby and Tryon Aves., an athletic club-
house containing lockers, showers, and dressing-rooms for 2000, was
built in the Georgian-Colonial style of red brick with marble trim in 1924,
the gift of Henry T. Lapham, an alumnus.

81. The Hopkins Grammar School, 986 Forest Rd., a preparatory school,
is a development of the third oldest school in the country, founded in
1660 with funds provided by Governor Edward Hopkins.

82. Edgewood (private), Forest Rd. (L), opposite end of Edgewood Ave.,
was the home of Donald G. (Ik Marvel) Mitchell, author, whose descend-
ants still possess it.

83. Edgewood Park, Chapel St., between Boulevard and Yale Ave., in-
cludes 121 acres of heavily wooded slopes, rolling meadowlands, winding
paths and drives bordered with fragrant flowers, ornamental shrubbery,
and sparkling lagoons. On the upper terrace are colorful flower beds, a
playground with sandboxes and doll-houses, and another with swings,
teeters, and merry-go-rounds for older children. Excellent facilities for
football, baseball, soccer, soft ball, and archery are provided on the lower
terrace.

84. West Rock Park, Blake St., an attractive public park, affords an ex-
tensive view from the summit. In it is Judges 1 Cave, the hiding place of

252 Main Street and Village Green

the regicides, Whalley and Goffe, who, after signing the death warrant of
Charles I, were forced to flee from England. Landing in Boston on July
27, 1660, they remained there until the following year when, fearing
apprehension, they fled to New Haven, arriving on March 7, 1661.
They lived unmolested until news reached the city of the proclamation
issued by Charles II, ordering their arrest and deportation to England.
They fled to Milford, but returned on March 27, and were for a while
concealed at the home of the Rev. John Davenport, whose sermon, ' Hide
the outcast, betray not him that wandereth,' aroused sympathy for the
condemned men. Whalley and Goffe, however, realizing they would in-
volve Davenport with the British authorities if they continued to accept
the safety of his home, were about to forfeit their liberty when West Rock
was suggested as a shelter. A tablet there is inscribed: 'Resistance to
Tyrants is Obedience to God.' Frightened from the sanctuary by wild
animals, the regicides escaped to Milford, where they remained for two
years, returning again to New Haven in 1664 before taking up permanent
residence in Hadley, Mass.

Near the beginning of the Summit Drive is the entrance to Baldwin
Parkway which extends for more than six miles to Bethany Gap. The
parkway winds to the north over the forested top of the West Rock ridge
and affords superb views of New Haven and the surrounding country.
When the Merritt Highway is completed, it is expected that this parkway
will form a main approach to New Haven.

85. The Institute of Human Relations, and the Sterling Hall of Medicine,
Cedar St. at Davenport Ave., designed by Grosvenor Atterbury, 1930,
and Day and Klauder, 1923, respectively, occupy two sections of a large
brick and limestone building, three to five stories high, and extending
along two sides of a city block. Established in 1929 by gifts from the
Rockefeller Foundation and the General Education Board, the Institute
of Human Relations is administered jointly by the University and the
New Haven Hospital, and promotes cooperative research in the social
sciences. It has facilities for the study of psychiatry, mental hygiene,
psychology, anthropology, and has a clinic of child development.

86. The New Haven Hospital, 789 Howard Ave., organized in 1826, was
one of the first in the country (1873) to establish a school of nursing,
which has become the Yale School of Nursing. Conducted in conjunction
with the Yale School of Medicine, the hospital is the only one in the
State conducting diagnostic ambulatory clinics for general service.
With the Yale School of Medicine, it maintains the New Haven Dis-
pensary, where approximately 50,000 persons are cared for annually.

87. Defenders' Monument (1911), at the junction of Davenport, Congress,
and Columbus Aves., honors the citizens and Yale students who joined
in repulsing the British invaders in 1779. Designed by James E. Kelley,
this monument consists of three bronze Colonial figures: a student,
farmer, and merchant, defenders of their homeland.

88. A. C. Gilbert Company Plant (adm. on application at office), Blatchley

New Haven 253

Ave., between Peck and State Sts., manufactures Erector Toys as its
best-known product.

89. National Folding Box Company Plant (adm. on application at office),
Alton and James Sts., engaged in the production of folding paper boxes
and lithographing, employs several hundred persons.

90. New Haven Clock Company Plant (adm. on application at office), 133
Hamilton St., is a leading producer of clocks and watches. Thomas
Nash, Colonial gunsmith and clockmaker, handled all the Colony 's time-
keeping problems in 1638, but Chauncey Jerome (1783-1868), the Henry
Ford of the clockmaking industry, brought his designs for brass-wheeled
clocks to New Haven and developed the industry now known as the New
Haven Clock Company in 1845. Jerome's use of standard metal parts
for clocks was an innovation, and his initial success with a cheap, one-day,
all-metal clock brought many changes to the industry. The New Haven
Clock Company took its name in 1853 and has remained in business since
that date.

91. Sargent and Company Plant (adm. on application at office). Water and
Wallace Sts., occupies approximately four city blocks. This hardware
plant was started in 1813 at Leominster, Mass., moved to New Britain,
Conn., in 1840, and to New Haven in 1864. Joseph Denney Sargent
founded the business, which was eventually incorporated by Joseph
Bradford Sargent. The plant has more than 30 acres of floor space,
manufactures builders' and casket hardware, employs about 2000, and is
credited with introducing Italian labor into New Haven industry.

92. Winchester Repeating Arms Company Plant (adm. on application at
office), 275 Winchester Ave., manufactures firearms and ammunition,
sporting goods, cutlery, and tubing. In 1638, Thomas Nash was the only
gunsmith in New Haven Colony. Nash * mended' clocks and repaired
fowling pieces in his backyard shop. In 1798, Eli Whitney secured an
order from the government for 10,000 rifles, set up a system of inter-
changeable parts in his armory, and invented a milling machine and
gauges for the standardization of manufacturing. This Whitney Arms
Company was the forerunner of the Winchester Repeating Arms Com-
pany, organized by Oliver Winchester in 1866, removed to Bridgeport,
and returned to New Haven in 1871, where it has remained.

Points of Interest in Environs:

Eli Whitney Gun Shop and Barn, Whitney Ave., Hamden, 1.6 m.
(see Tour 6); Lighthouse Point and Morris House (Colonial mu-
seum), Lighthouse Road (see Tour 1).

NEW LONDON

Town: Alt. 40, pop. 29,640, sett. 1646, incorp. 1784.

Railroad Station: Union Station, foot of State St., for N.Y., N.H. & H. R.R. and
Central Vermont R.R.

Accommodations: Two hotels.

Information Services: Chamber of Commerce, 12 Meridian St.

Airport: Trumbull Airport, Eastern Point, Groton; no scheduled service.

Piers: Passenger steamers dock at foot of State St. Trips to: Block Island,

July 1 to Labor Day, $2 Round trip, automobile rate $5 to $7. Fisher's Island,

N.Y. (from Ferguson's Wharf) 50 and $1 one way; automobile rate $2.50.

Runs year round. Montauk Point, Long Island, July 1 to Labor Day. Round

trip $1.75; automobile rate $5; round trip $9. Orient and Greenport, Long

Island, May to October. Round trip $1.75; automobile rate $5; round trip

$9. Public Landing, foot of State St.

Recreation: One legitimate theater.

Swimming: Green Harbor Beach, Pequot Ave. (for children); Butler Beach;

Indoor pool, Y.M.C.A., Meridian and Church Sts., 25^ fee; Ocean Beach, Long

Island Sound (State 213 from city) ; Riverside Park, Crystal Ave.

Skating: Caulkins Park, Riverview Ave.; Bates' Wood (fireplaces).

Golf: New London Country Club, 9 holes, fee $1.

Annual Events: Yale-Harvard Boat Race Day, Friday of Commencement week,
June. Includes freshmen, combination, and junior varsity crew races in fore-
noon. Yale-Harvard baseball game at Mercer Field in afternoon and the Varsity
Race (Yale-Harvard) at 7 P.M. Graduation exercises of both the Coast Academy
and Connecticut College, annually in June. Easter Sunday, 7 A.M. Sunrise
Service in Coast Guard Academy Bowl, usually attended by 3000 or 4000 people.

NEW LONDON, at the mouth of the Thames River where a drowned
valley forms one of the deepest harbors on the Atlantic coast, is a beauti-
ful city that stretches three miles along the river, to Long Island Sound.
Up rolling hills to the northwest, the narrow crooked streets are gay with
the uniforms of Coast Artillerymen from the island coast defense posts
outside the harbor, and sailors and officers from the submarine base,
the Coast Guard Academy just up the river, and the Coast Guard Base 4
at Fort TrumbuU.

Rendezvous of privateers during the Revolution, home port of a mighty
fleet of whaling vessels in the nineteenth century, headquarters of mine-
layers, submarine chasers and submarines during the World War and of
the Coast Guard's swift ' rum-chasers' in the prohibition era, New Lon-
don offers much of historic and maritime interest.

The annual Yale-Harvard Boat Races are held over a four-mile course
north of the Thames River bridge each June. Yachts and schooners,

New London 255

cabin cruisers and speed boats, flying code flags and college banners, come
from many ports to line the course and herald with a gathering crescendo
of whistles the progress of the slim racing shells.

Industry in New London has never intruded on the residential area. The
mills are either on an unattractive section of the waterfront or in secluded
parts of the town. The chief products are silk, machinery, printing
presses and garments.

The second smallest township in the State (only 3452 acres), New London
was settled in 1646 by John Winthrop, the younger, who had previously
established a residence on Fisher's Island. By 1648 there were more than
forty families in the area, known to the Indians as 'Nameaug,' but to the
white settlers as ' Pequot.' In the belief that the city would become a great
commercial center, the settlement was named New London, in March,
1658, and the river, formerly 'Monhegin,' was called the Thames. The
town was incorporated in 1784.

Whaling dates from the sailing of the 'Rising Sun/ on May 20, 1784.
When the ships which sailed to the Brazil banks returned in 1785 with
more than three hundred barrels of whale oil, the New London Gazette
enthusiastically exhorted, ' Now my horse jockeys, beat your horses and
cattle into spears, lances, harpoons and whaling gear, and let us all strike
out; many spouts ahead! Whale plenty, you have them for the catching. 7
For the next hundred years most able-bodied New London men and boys
went down to the sea in ships. In 1864, New London's whaling fleet was
only one ship less than New Bedford's, with seventy-two ships and barks,
one brig and six schooners, representing an invested capital of $2,500,000.

Many local fortunes were founded by the sturdy captains who sailed to
the Arctic and Antarctic. The profits on successful voyages were high.
One voyage of the 'Pioneer,' the first steam whaler afloat, commanded
by Captain Ebenezer Morgan, which left New London, June 4, 1864, and
returned September 18, 1865, yielded $151,000 net. The 'MacClellan'
of New London is credited with having captured the largest right whale
recorded, which gave 362 barrels of oil and 40,000 pounds of bone. In
1850, over $1,000,000 worth of whale oil and bone passed through the
New London customs. The last whaler to make this port was the schooner
'Margaret,' in 1909, commanded by Captain James Buddington.

Captain Dudley Saltonstall of New London was the first to unfurl the
Stripes, the first national flag of the Colonies, on the high seas, December
3, 1775, when with a fleet of four vessels outfitted at New London, he
stormed and captured New Providence, Nassau, B.W.I. \

The first commission ever granted to an officer in the U. S. Marine Corps
was granted to Samuel Nicholas of New London on November 28, 1775.

More privateers sailed from New London during the Revolutionary War r
than from any other port in New England. They wrought such havoc to
British shipping that the town was burned and the port blockaded by the
English in an attempt to curb their activities. Among the three hundred

256 Main Street and Village Green

prizes were the 'Lively Lass 7 of London, with a cargo valued at $125,000,
and the ' Hannah,' worth $400,000.

The 'Spy,' a tiny schooner engaged in privateering in English waters,
sailed undetected through the English fleet anchored in the Channel, as
the British never suspected that so small a ship could be an enemy vessel
from across the ocean. Another New London vessel, captained by Ebene-
zer Dayton and Jason Chester, sailed across Long Island Sound to Long
Island. The crew disembarked and traveled overland, towing their boat
on wheels to Southampton. Launching the schooner, they set sail for
Fire Island where they captured five British ships.

On September 6, 1781, the town was attacked by a British force led by
Benedict Arnold. When two warning guns were fired from Fort Trumbull,
the British fleet, evidently apprised of the signal, fired a third. As three
guns were the local signal for a celebration, the militia was not assembled
in time and Fort Trumbull fell almost without a struggle. The town was
burned and the British crossed the river to attack Groton Heights (see
GROTON).

Thomas Short of New London established the first printing press in
Connecticut here in 1709. His successor, Timothy Green, specialized in
almanacs, and in 1753 published an 'Astronomical Diary' written by
Roger Sherman, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. When
Green died hi 1793, Nathan Daboll carried on the work with his series
entitled, 'The New England Almanac and Farmer's Friend.' This
almanac is still published.

The Munsey Magazine was printed in New London in a plant established
by Frank Munsey in the annex of the present Mohican Hotel. When a
change in laws made it necessary to imprint the location of the printing
plant of a magazine, Munsey turned the plant into a hotel.
Eugene O'Neill once wrote a daily column hi the New London Telegraph,
a morning paper that has since been discontinued ; and Richard Mansfield
II, son of the famous Shakesperian actor who lived in ' The Whaling City,'
produced a volume of poetry here.

TOUR 1

N.from Water St. on State St.

i. The Parade, a small square at the foot of State St., was long the center
of village activities. Just beyond it were the wharves where townsfolk
greeted the whalers returning from their long voyages. In 1691, during
the Indian Wars, the Parade was fortified with six six-pounder guns from
Saybrook. In the tavern which once faced the parade, Nathan Hale made
an impassioned speech on the day news came from Lexington. Shortly
afterward he closed his schoolhouse on the hill and left to join Knowlton's
Rangers.

New London

257

On the Parade, S. of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, a Memorial
to Whalemen of New London, designed by P. Leroy Harwood and executed
by Gorham and Co., was dedicated September 4, 1937.
On a circular stone base, flanked on either side by capstans to which
it is connected by anchor chains, the Memorial is an authentic whale-
man's try-pot (kettle used on board ship in trying the oil from the
blubber), surmounted by a tripod of bronze replicas of two types of
harpoons and a lance, or killing iron. Hanging from the center of the
tripod is a reproduction of a whaleman's lantern. On one of the two
bronze plaques at the sides of the try-kettle, is inscribed the whalemen's
slogan, 'A dead whale or a stove boat.'

2. The Union Bank, NW. cor. Main and State Sts., established in 1792,
shares with the Hartford Bank, founded in the same year, the honor of
being the first bank in Connecticut.

R. from State on Main St.

3. The Captain Stevens Rogers House, 294 Main St., which has been con-
verted into a tenement and stores, was the home of one of the two com-
manders of the 'S. S. Savannah,' the first steamship to cross the Atlantic
(Savannah to Liverpool, 1819) . Captain Stevens Rogers, a sailing master,
was engaged to take charge if the steam power should fail. His brother-
in-law, Moses Rogers, also of New London, was the steamship captain.
The initial trip of the l Savannah,' a full-rigged ship of 350 tons, equipped
with an 80-90 horse-power engine, was made without cargo to test the
practicability of steam power in ocean navigation. The ship reached
Liverpool in 22 days, 14 by steam and 8 under sail, the sail being
used to conserve fuel against a possible emergency. Before returning to
this country, the ' Savannah ' visited Stockholm and St. Petersburg, where
she was inspected by the King of Sweden and the Emperor of Russia.
The logbook of this voyage is in the National Museum, Washington, D.C.

R. from Main on Mill St.

4. Old Town Mill (open daily 9-5), in a rocky glen shielded by a grove

NEW LONDON. POINTS OF INTEREST

1. The Parade

2. Union Bank

3. Captain Stevens Rogers House

4. Old Town Mill

5. Lyman Allyn Museum

6. U.S. Coast Guard Academy

7. Connecticut College

8. Connecticut Arboretum

9. Whaling Museum

10. County Courthouse

11. Public Library

12. Jedediah Huntington House

13. Coit Houses

14. St. James Episcopal Church

15. Site of the First New London Pound

1 6. Statue of John Winthrop, Jr.

17. Nathan Hale School

1 8. Shaw Mansion

19. Shepherd's Tent

20. Huguenot House

21. Hempstead House

22. Fort Trumbull

23. Old Powder House

24. Gardiner's Cemetery

25. Ocean Beach

26. New London Light

THAMES

260 Main Street and Village Green

of elms from the shops and homes of a closely built-up section, is a low
gambrel-roofed gristmill established by John Winthrop in 1650 and rebuilt
in 1742. Its overshot wheel, churning the waters of Jordan's Brook, is a
replica of the original. The beveled weather-boarding at the west end is
probably original. Inside, the flared corner posts, the beams, and the
gears and grinders of the mill itself remain. Winthrop's home once stood
beyond the mill (L) on the Knoll occupied by the Winthrop School, a
public grade school.

Return on Mill St. to Main St.; R. on Main which becomes Williams St.;
R. on Mohegan Ave.

5. Lyman Allyn Museum (open weekdays except Mon. 10-5 ; Sun. 2-5), 100
Mohegan Ave., a memorial to an old whaling captain, designed by Charles
A. Platt, of New York, and built of Connecticut granite trimmed with
Vermont marble in a modern adaptation of the Greek style, is beautifully
situated on landscaped terraced grounds. Permanent exhibits include the
Miner Collections of American and European furniture, pottery, iron-
work, pewter, and textiles; the Benjamin collections of Mediterranean
antiques; and small collections of drawings, sculpture, and Chinese pot-
tery.

6. U.S. Coast Guard Academy (open weekdays, 1 to sunset, guides furnished
upon application to the sentry at the gate), Mohegan and Park Aves., cover-
ing 45 acres on the Thames River, is the $2,500,000 ' Annapolis' of the
Coast Guard Service, appointments to which are made on a competitive
basis. The 15 buildings include barracks, infirmary, observatory, gym-
nasium, and an armory which houses the Perham collection of small arms
and weapons of historical value. A battalion review is held at 3.30 P.M.
every Thursday in April, May, October, and November. On the river-
front is the Academy's seaplane landing with a ramp, wharf, and boat
sheds. Floating equipment includes cruising cutters, surf and whale boats,
eight-oared shells, sailing sloops, schooners, and patrol boats.

The first school for training officers for the Coast Guard (then the Revenue
Cutter) Service was established July 31, 1876, aboard the schooner
'Dobbin,' based at New Bedford. In 1900 the school was transferred
ashore to Arundel Cove, Maryland, and in 1910 was moved to Fort
Trumbull, at New London. The present quarters were completed and
occupied in September, 1932.

7. Connecticut College, Mohegan Ave. (State 32), on a spacious hilltop
campus of 352 acres with an extensive view of the harbor and Long Island
Sound, is a women's college of liberal arts and sciences. At the entrance
is the Washington Memorial Gateway, a gift of the D.A.R. in 1932. The
ivy-covered buildings of native granite are arranged in quadrangle for-
mation between Mohegan Ave. and Williams St., but the campus slopes
from Mohegan Ave. to the river on the east, and west, beyond Mohegan
Ave., through a rocky wilderness. Opened in 1915, with an original
endowment of $1,000,000 presented by Morton F. Plant, the college has
a student body of 689, representing 27 states and four foreign countries,

New London 261

and a faculty of 67. East of the campus the Caroline A. Black Botanic
Garden includes an iris collection, rock garden, and pool.

8. Connecticut Arboretum (open daily), Connecticut College campus, Mo-
hegan Ave., opposite the Washington Memorial entrance, is a yo-acre
tract maintained by the college, which contains about 300 varieties of
trees and shrubs native to Connecticut. Open to the public, it is used as
a recreation spot by the college students. Wide, grassy steps, flanked on
either side by laurel bushes and red cedars, lead down the hillside to an
amphitheater by a tiny lake and a bird sanctuary.

A well-marked trail leads from the Arboretum into Bolles Wood. This
ancient hemlock forest, practically untouched since Indian days, includes
trees which are probably 450 years old. The remarkable preservation of
the forest is due to the care of the Bolles family, in whose possession it re-
mained from Colonial days until presented to the college by Anna Hemp-
stead Branch, the poetess. Most of the oldest trees stand near a small
clearing at the top of a ravine strewn with great boulders. Carved on one
tree is a copy of the deed to this land by Chief Owanoco of the Mohegans
to the first of the Bolles family. The original deed is now in the possession
of Connecticut College.

TOUR 2

W. from Main St. on State St.

9. Whaling Museum, in Mariner's Savings Bank (L) (open during banking
hours, adm.free), at 224 State St., a modern red-brick and white marble
structure, was founded in 1876 by men associated with the whaling in-
dustry. It houses more than 200 whaling relics, large mural paintings,
and whaling prints of exceptional merit.

10. The County Courthouse (open during business hours), at the head of
State St., of Georgian design, was built in 1784, and renovated in 1909.
Its size is accentuated by its hill-crest location. It is almost more a Rhode
Island building than one of Connecticut design, with its high, rather
peaked, flaring, gambrel roof, its free use of quoins, and the marking off
of wooden clapboards to look like stone. In its time few courthouses as-
pired to such architectural dignity, but New London was then a seaport
second only to Newport and Providence on the southern New England
coast. The two stories are horizontally distinct, a Rhode Island charac-
teristic, even to the difference in the corner pilasters. The rather flat, cen-
tral pediment frames, in the second story, a debased Palladian window
with rounded tops in all three sections. A small, neat cupola tops the
whole.

11. The Public Library (open 9-9), SE. cor. State and Huntington Sts., is a
small, but typical example of the work of Richardson, the Boston architect
who exerted a great influence on American architecture in the last quarter

262 Main Street and Village Green

of the igth century. His buildings were, like this one, essentially massive
and heavy with Romanesque detail, built of sandstone of two contrasting
colors, with ordinarily an entrance doorway framed in a semicircular
arch. For contrast, the railroad station at the foot of State St., a more
conventional product of his office, may be compared with it.

R. from State St. on Huntington St.

12. The Jedediah Huntington House (private} NW. cor. Huntington and
Broad Sts., an imposing, hip-roofed, brick structure painted white, on
a wide triangular lawn, was built by Huntington in 1790 when he came
from Norwich to become Collector of Customs. A two-story colonnade of
free-standing square columns covers both the southern and eastern sides.

13. The Coit Houses (private) ,'Nos. 105, 111,115, an d 119 Huntington St.
(R), are four large, almost identical homesteads with two-story porticoes,
built about 1830 in the Greek Revival style. They are locally known as
'Whale Oil Row' because their builders were leaders in that industry.
The first house (No. 105) has wings, which the others do not, and wider
cornices and corner boards, as if afterthought had decided to free it in
part from the family uniform. It is probably the latest, as its detail is
simpler and heavier. The doorways of all four vary considerably.

14. St. James Episcopal Church, SE. cor. Huntington and Federal Sts., is
a brownstone building of Gothic feeling, with a high spire and heavy
buttresses. It is the second successor of the church of which the Right
Rev. Samuel Seabury, the first Episcopal bishop in America, was rector.
His body is buried in the chancel.

15. The Site of the First New London Pound at Huntington St. and Bul-
keley Place is occupied by the Bulkeley School.

16. The Statue of John Winthrop, Jr., opposite, on Bulkeley Sq., facing
Huntington St., a memorial to the founder of New London, who served
his Colony as Governor for 18 years, was designed by Bela Lyon Pratt,
a descendant (see Art). On April 23, 1662, Winthrop secured Connecti-
cut's charter from Charles II. The form of government established by
this charter was the fundamental law of Connecticut for 156 years.
Known as the Father of American Chemistry, Winthrop spent much
energy and money in trying to develop the mineral resources of the
State, and promoted the settlement of many remote areas.

17. Nathan Hale School (1774) (open weekdays; Tues., and Thurs. free;
other days ICtyf) is in a corner of ' Ye Ancientest Burying Ground,' Hunt-
ington and Richard Sts. The school, moved to its present site and re-
stored in 1901, is the building in which the Revolutionary hero taught from
March, 1774, to June, 1775. Tradition says that on the high ground near-
by, where the tomb of Jonathan Brooks stands, Benedict Arnold sat on
horseback and watched the destruction of the city by the British in 1781.
The burial ground, laid out in 1653, contains graves of the ancestors of
many persons prominent in the life of this country.

New London 263

TOUR 3

S. from State on Bank St.

18. The Shaw Mansion (open daily 10-12, 2-4; adm. 25f; free on Wed.}
(1756), 287 Bank St., cor. Blinman St., is a stone building with almost a full
story basement under its long porch. The granite for its construction was
quarried from a ledge on the site by 35 Acadian refugees, quartered
at that time in New London. The house was remodeled about 1840, when
the porches, the long balustrade along the roof, and the marble mantels
within, were added. Shaw's son, Nathaniel, in charge of naval affairs for
Congress during the Revolution, used his home as naval headquarters for
outfitting privateers. The house was also a hospital for prisoners of war,
from one of whom Mrs. Shaw contracted a fever which ended her life.
When it was fired by the British in 1781, vinegar, stored in the attic, ex-
tinguished the flames. The room in which Washington spent the night,
in 1776, remains intact. The mansion, maintained by the New London
Historical Society, has been restored and furnished. In the old-fashioned
gardens at the rear is an authentic iSth-century summer house.

R. from Bank St. on Blinman St.; R. on Truman St.

19. The Shepherd's Tent (private], 77 Truman St., is a steep-roofed little
dwelling. Dated 1739 by some authorities, the building served as the
meeting place and theological seminary of the disciples of the Rev. John
Davenport and the Rev. George Whitefield. Here on March 6, 1743,
Davenport preached the frenzied sermon in which he exhorted the con-
gregation to burn their most precious possessions as a demonstration
of their freedom from worldly covetousness. After the service, the
zealous church people hastened home and then to the Parade, where
they kindled a fire and heaped upon it not only their treasured satin
cardinals, calashes, silk stockings, and silver buckles, but all their religious
tracts and sermons.

20. The ivy-covered, broad shouldered Huguenot House (open as a tea-
house), 75 Truman St., at the junction of Jay, Hempstead, and Truman
Sts., was built, it is said, in 1751, of split granite quarried on the grounds by
Huguenot refugees. With narrow chimneys at either end, the moderately
pitched gambrel roof is pierced by two dormers and a hatchway door.
The builder, Nathaniel Hempstead, was a descendant of Sir Robert
Hempstead, who was granted a large estate by King James I.

L. from Truman St. on Hempstead St.; R. on Hempstead Court.

21. The Hempstead House (1678, c. 1710), directly behind the Huguenot
House at ii Hempstead Street, is undoubtedly New London's oldest
dwelling. In it the development of the 17th-century house can be
traced with unusual clearness. The first section built was the west end,
a one-room, end-chimneyed structure with a single summer beam running

264 Main Street and Village Green

from front to back. Later, a room with two summer beams was built
on the other side of the chimney and at that time or later, a lean-to was
built across the rear. A curious feature is that, in the oldest part, the sills
extend into the room, as do the rude corner posts, the end girts, and the
summer beams. In its position facing south, its two-foot overhanging
cornice, its heavy framing, and primitive lines, the house still shows its
early date, despite the later shingles and the new brick chimney-top
that shows behind the ridge. The house was once a station in the Under-
ground Railway. Joshua Hempstead wrote his often quoted ' Diary ' in
this house, which was occupied by a descendant, Anna Hempstead
Branch, a distinguished poetess.

The Hempstead House will be opened to the public by the Antiquarian
and Landmarks Society, Inc. The New London County Historical
Society and the Hempstead Family Association will each nominate a
member of the Society's Committee on Ancient Structures which will
have charge of this landmark.

TOUR 4

S. from Bank St. on Howard St.; L. from Howard on Walback St.; L. on
East St.

22. Fort Trumbull (open on application to sentry at gate), East St., on the
grounds of U.S. Coast Guard, Base 4, is a low fortification of millstone
granite, which occupies the site of two earlier garrisons on an isthmus
jutting into the Thames River. The building, long since outmoded
and considered obsolete for coast defense, serves as Coast Guard patrol
headquarters for this district.

23. The Old Powder House (1775), near-by, 'stands like a sepulchre on
which the old forts lie entombed.' Powder was stored here during Revolu-
tionary days.

R. from East St. on Trumbull St.; L. on Pequot Ave.; R. on Plant St.;
L. on Ocean Ave.

24. In Gardiner's Cemetery, Ocean Ave. at Gardiner's Lane, is the grave
of Richard Mansfield (1857-1907), famous Shakespearian actor.

25. Ocean Beach, at the foot of Ocean Ave., one of the finest white sand
beaches on the Sound, affords excellent bathing, with lifeguards in attend-
ance and the usual amusement concessions.

Return on Ocean Ave.; R. from Ocean on Mott which becomes Pequot Ave.

26. The New London Light (not open), on Pequot Ave., a white, flat-sided
masonry lighthouse, 89 feet high, was the first on the Connecticut coast
and one of the oldest in the country. The original structure of 1760 was
rebuilt in 1801 from the proceeds of a public lottery. The old oil lamp

Norwalk 265

and the foghorn have long since been replaced with an automatic light
and reflector, though the beacon's value has become negligible since the
construction of the brick Southwest Ledge Light, erected on a bare ledge,
outside the harbor, commemorated by F. Hopkinson Smith in his ' Master
Diver' immortalizing Tom Scott of New London. Scott headed a wreck-
ing company that was later absorbed by the Merritt, Chapman & Scott
Corporation.

Points of Interest in Environs:

U.S. Submarine Base, Groton, 6.4 m. (see Tour IG).

NORWALK

Town: Alt. 60, pop. 36,019, sett. 1649, incorp. 1893.

Railroad Stations: Norwalk Station, Railroad Ave., and East Norwalk Station,
East Ave., bet. Point and Winfield Sts., for N.Y., N.H. & H. R.R.
Taxi: Flat rate 50^ within central zone; 25^ each additional \ m.
Steamship Pier: Water St. Excursion boat runs between Bell Island and New
York during summer months; rates on weekdays $1 round trip; 75f one way;
Sundays and holidays $1.25 round trip; $1 one way.

Accommodations: One hotel.

Recreation: Studio Playhouse in Norwalk Library; Theater-in-the-Woods,

legitimate productions during summer.

Swimming: Y.M.C.A.; fee 30^.

Amusement Parks: Roton Point, 2 m. south of South Norwalk center; Calf

Pasture Point, East Norwalk.

Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, Frost Building, US 1.

NORWALK (Ind.: Norwaake, or Naramake) is an industrial city,
spreading across both sides of the island-fringed harbor of the Norwalk
River. Manufactures include such diversified products as Dobbs Hats,
Cash Woven Name Tapes, Norwalk Tires, Binner Corsets, and Church
Expansion Bolts. Oyster culture has been a leading industry of the town
since the friendly Indians showed the first settlers the natural beds off
the Norwalk shores. A Norwalk oysterman, Captain Peter Decker, was
the first in the industry to introduce steam power in oyster dredging
(1874). This local industry once shipped three-fourths of the trans-
Atlantic oyster export in addition to an extensive domestic supply
(1870-90). Handicapped for many years by the careless depletion of the
natural beds, the pollution of waters, and differences between State and

266 Main Street and Village Green

town authorities, it is rapidly regaining its former status, and in the
year 1936-37 had its most productive season in recent years.

The consolidated city of Norwalk covers the entire territory of the town
of Norwalk, including the former cities of Norwalk and South Norwalk,
originally known as Old Well because of the spring which supplied water
to West Indian trading ships, and the communities of Rowayton, East
Norwalk, West Norwalk, Cranbury, Winnepaug, Silvermine and Broad
River.

To the north, in the gently rolling rural districts and along the shady
banks of Silvermine Brook, is a widespread settlement of artists, sculp-
tors and writers. Along the fine beaches of the southern coast are nu-
merous summer colonies.

Settled in 1649 by colonists from Hartford under the leadership of Roger
Ludlow and incorporated as a town in 1651, Norwalk is one of the two
towns in the State having Indian names. Many evidences of an earlier
Indian habitation (probably of the Mohawk tribe) have been found
west of the harbor on Wilson Point. During the Revolutionary War,
Norwalk was harassed by the depredations of British raiders. Rowayton
offered a sheltered landing place for marauders who, working with
Tory sympathizers living within the town, crossed from Long Island to
steal cattle, grain and vegetables for their troops. On the eve of July n,
1779, 26 British vessels, carrying a land force of 2500 men, disembarked
on Calf Pasture Beach. The patriots, scarcely more than 400 in number,
were no match for the Redcoats who took possession of the town and
fired both the Congregational and Episcopal churches, 80 dwellings, 87
barns, 22 storehouses, 17 shops, 4 mills, 5 vessels, and all the stores of
wheat, hay, and grain.

Norwalk's development as an industrial center dates from before the
Revolution, when the manufacture of clocks, watches, shingle nails and
paper was started between 1767 and 1773. A few years later, probably
as early as 1780, a pottery kiln, the first of several which produced the
stoneware pottery for which Norwalk became famous, was erected at
Old Well. Among collectors' pieces are examples of red, yellow, brown
and black ware, all of simple design with the exception of the early pie
plates, now museum pieces, which were distinguished by their Oriental
decoration, showing the influence of the China trade on home industry.

TOUR 1

E. from the center on US 1 (Westport Aw.).

1. The Town House (private), atop the hill (R), a one-story brick build-
ing erected in 1835, is now a D.A.R. Chapter House.

2. Beyond the Town House stands a Monument commemorating the
burning of Norwalk by General William Tryon.

Norwalk 267

3. The Norwalk Green, at the circular traffic intersection, was the starting-
point of a little band of Norwalk families who left in 1820 to take up
' Fire Lands ' in Ohio. Homesteads were granted by the General Assembly
in 1792 as a recompense for the destruction of their homes and supplies
in the burning of Norwalk by the British, during the Revolution, but
not until 28 years later was the migration organized. On a chill November
day, as the wagon train of prairie schooners wound down Barkmill Hill,
the cheers of those who were left behind merged into the chant of the
doxology. Those who watched remained standing on the Green for
a long time after the wagons had disappeared, some talking of the dangers
that awaited the expedition, others still trying to decide whether or not
they too should have gone. The colonists were evidently well satisfied
with their Ohio homesteads, for none ever returned. Their new settle-
ment prospered and was named Norwalk, Ohio.

R. from US 1 on East Ave.

4. The old Governor Fitch Home (private), 173 East Ave., the ell of which
dates from 1754 and the main house from 35 years later, stands behind
spreading lilac bushes. Thomas Fitch was governor of Connecticut,
1754-66.

R. from East Ave. on Hendricks Ave.

5. Site of the Yankee Doodle House (R), Hendricks Ave., only the cellar
of which remains, was once the home of Colonel Thomas Fitch, whose
shabbily dressed troops, which he led from here to the French and Indian
War, inspired a British army surgeon, Dr. Shuckburgh, to write the
derisive 'Yankee Doodle/ According to local tradition, Elizabeth Fitch,
on leaving the house to bid good-bye to her brother was dismayed by the
ill-assorted costumes of the 'cavalry.' Exclaiming, 'You must have uni-
forms of some kind,' she ran into the chicken yard, and returning with a
handful of feathers announced, ' Soldiers should wear plumes/ and directed
each rider to put a feather in his cap. When Shuckburgh saw Fitch's
men arriving at Fort Cralo, Rensselaer, New York he is reputed to have
exclaimed, 'Now stab my vitals, they're macaronis!' sarcastically apply-
ing the slang of the day for fop, or dandy, and proceeded to write the
song, which instantly caught popular fancy.

Return to East Ave.; R. on East Ave.

6. The Old Red School House, 185 East Ave., now a private residence,
stands behind a low stone wall, sheltered by a towering elm. Believed
to have been built in 1700, although its arched ceiling is certainly of later
date, it was one of six buildings on the route of Tryon's march which
escaped destruction when the town was burned.

7. The Holes-Fitch House (private), 195 East Ave., was set on fire but
saved. The ell of this gambrel-roofed house, with two chimneys strangely
placed near the rear corners, is said to have originally been a house built,
facing south, by Thomas Hales in 1652.

L. from East Ave. on Gregory Blvd.

Norwalk 269

8. At the intersection of Gregory Blvd. and Fifth St. is a granite Me-
morial to Roger Ludlow, deputy governor of the Connecticut Colony, who
in 1640 purchased Norwalk by a treaty with the Indians for the price
of '8 fathams of wampum, 6 coats, 10 hatchets, 10 hoes, 10 knives, 10
scizers, 10 juse harps, 10 fathams tobacco, 3 kettles (3 hands about), and
10 looking glasses/

L. from Gregory Blvd. on Ludlow Parkway.

9. Calf Pasture Point, at the end of the Parkway, once used by the Indians
as a pasture ground, is developed as an attractive city park, from which
there are splendid views of the Sound and the Norwalk Islands.

Here, among the reefs offshore, 'Rock Scorpions,' Continental whaleboat
crews, retaliating against the depredations of Tory ' Sand Spaniards ' of
Long Island, plotted their raids and secreted their boats. At Cedar
Hammock Island, Nathan Hale, who had stealthily made his way by the
Old Shell Path to Wilson Point, embarked on the sloop 'Schuyler' on
the courageous mission from which he never returned. Near-by on the
Fort Molly Rocks stand the ruins of a Civil War fort. Tradition persists
that on Pilot Island, at the entrance to the western channel, Captain
Joseph Merrill found pirate gold after three successive dreams that re-
vealed its location; among the aged residents are several who insist that
they heard him tell the story and saw him spend Spanish coins. In the
group beyond the eastern channel, Goose Island, entirely stripped of
vegetation, is reputed to owe its dreary waste to the zeal of treasure
hunters; in 1895 the island became an experiment station for the Carnegie
Institute, which used a species of rat to develop a serum for yellow fever.
On Ram Island, the Mormons established an unsuccessful settlement in
1842. Chimons Island, largest of the group (63 acres), was formerly the
site of an extensive summer colony; here three meteorites lie where they
fell: one on the hotel porch, one in the garden, and one near the sea wall.
Sheffield Island has an ancient lighthouse tower rising steeple-like above
an old stone house; it was sold by the Government in 1914 when Green's
Reef Lighthouse was erected, and is, like the other islands, privately
owned. Jesuit priests from other sections of New England spend their
summers at the Retreat on Manresa Island, formerly named for John
H. Keyser, a member of the Boss Tweed Ring of New York, who owned
it from 1859 to 1887.

NORWALK. POINTS OF INTEREST

1. Town House 8. Memorial to Roger Ludlow

2. Monument 9. Calf Pasture Point

3. Norwalk Green 10. Flax Hill Memorial

4. Governor Fitch n. Studio Playhouse

5. Site of the Yankee Doodle House 12. Theater in the Woods

6. Old Red School House 13. Crofut and Knapp

7. Hales-Fitch House 14. Matthews Estate

270 Main Street and Village Green

TOUR 2

S. from US 1 on West Ave.; R. from West Ave. on Flax Hill Road.

10. Flax Hill Memorial, Flax Hill Road, rear Bayview Ave., marks the
site of the Battle of the Rocks (July 12, 1779) where the colonists took
cover behind boulders while attempting to stop the British march. The
memorial is a boulder in which is embedded a British cannonball.

Return via Flax Hill Road and West Ave. to Belden Ave.; L. on Belden
Ave.

11. The Studio Playhouse, in the basement of the Norwalk Library,
Belden and Mott Aves., first sponsored as an FERA Project and then
taken over by the WPA (1936), won the respect of metropolitan
critics as a 'little theater' under the direction of Cleveland Bronner.
Truly a little theater (the lobby will accommodate only four persons),
every available inch of the playhouse is utilized. The professional,
dramatic, and artistic groups of the community have aided in assembling
remarkably effective settings and stage equipment at a minimum cost.

12. At the Theater in the Woods, Oakwood Ave., the Norwalk Civic
Opera Company presents operettas with casts of Metropolitan Opera
stars during the summer months.

13. Crofut and Knapp, Van Zant St., East Norwalk, are successors of
the firm of James Knapp who produced the first derby hat ever made, in
South Norwalk in 1850. The early beaver hats were made on square
blocks. The price was usually about seven dollars and they were expected
to last a lifetime. However, the square corners often wore through.
Knapp experimented with an oval block and finally produced the first
derby hat, founding one of Connecticut's important industries.

14. Opposite the Armory, on the corner of US 1 and West Ave., is the
Mathews Estate (private}, covering 32 acres, with a great stone mansion
of Italian marble, erected by LeGrand Lockwood at a cost of $1,200,000,
in 1864. After the death of Lockwood, who lost his fortune on the Wall
Street ' Black Friday' of September 24, 1869, the property was sold to
Charles O. Mathews of New York and is still owned by his family.

Points of Interest in Environs:

Buttery's Mill, Silvermine Road, oldest sawmill still operating in
the United States (1688) (see Tour 4).

NORWICH

City: Alt. 100, pop. 23,021, incorp. 1784.

Railroad Stations: North Main St. (opp. No. 291) for New York, New Haven &

Hartford Railroad; West Main St. at North Thames St. for Central Vermont

Railroad.

Taxis: 35^ anywhere within city limits, one to four passengers; $2 per hour for

shoppers; $3 per hour sightseeing anywhere.

Accommodations: Two hotels.

Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, Main St.

Swimming Pool: Y.M.C.A., 25^.

Camping Facilities: Fort Shantok, 3 m. from Norwich on Route 32.

NORWICH, a busy industrial city at the junction of the Yantic and
Shetucket Rivers which merge to flow into the drowned valley known as
the Thames River, is on terraced hillsides at the head of navigation on
that stream. In the crowded downtown section the narrow, crooked
streets, always climbing a hill or detouring around one, are lined with com-
mercial buildings dating from many different periods, and on the river
front factory buildings crowd close to the old wharves. Many of the
streets are paved with cobblestones, slick with ice in winter, reflecting
the heat in summer, scarred with calk marks made by generations of
draft horses that have clawed for a toe-hold as they hauled heavy drays
from the docks. The hillside residential section of impressive nineteenth-
century mansions on elm-shaded streets to the northwest, and Norwich
Town, site of the original settlement, where fragrant old-fashioned gardens
surround mellowed old homes, justify the city's traditional sobriquet,
'The Rose of New England.' Across the Shetucket, a broad granite cliff
overlooks the city, and behind it to the north and east are ever-rising
terraces of sparsely wooded country.

Mrs. Lydia H. Sigourney, prolific writer (see Literature), who lived in
Norwich, described the view from the east, 'like a citadel, guarded by
parapets of rock, and embosomed in an amphitheatre of hills whose
summits mark the horizon with a waving line of forest green.'
But there was little except natural beauty to inspire the pioneers who
first tried to wrest a livelihood from the stony soil in colonial times. The
Mohegans and the Narragansetts battled desperately for this territory.
To Thomas Leffingwell, an ensign from Saybrook, who brought aid to
Uncas, chief of the Mohegans, when he was besieged by the Narragan-
setts in "his Thames River fortress in 1645 (see Tour 9), Uncas gave a deed
to the ' Nine Mile Square ' on which Norwich was founded. This deed did
not convey lands to the south between New London township and Nor-
wich, and the intervening three-mile no-man's land was a source of con-

272 Main Street and Village Green

stant difficulty for lawyers, settlers and surveyors for many years. A
later deed, June 6th, 1659, conveyed practically the same lands to Leffing-
well, John Mason, the Reverend James Fitch and others. In the spring
of 1660, the Reverend James Fitch led a portion of his congregation from
Saybrook into the Norwich lands. Three or four persons joined them from
New London, and others came from Plymouth and Marshfield, Mass.
The town was incorporated in 1784. Early Indian reservations in the
vicinity totaled four or five thousand acres.

The area was infested with rattlesnakes, and land was of such little
value that the Reverend Gurdon Saltonstall of New London, in 1697, re-
ceived a grant of land to the west of the settlement for preaching an elec-
tion sermon in Hartford. An early Norwich Pied Piper used a violin
to charm rattlesnakes and is reported to have come into town from Wa-
weekus Hill with assorted snakes, varmints, and goats trailing him.
Many settlers raised goats because those animals could resist rattlesnakes
and subsist on the rocky pastureland. In 1 7 2 2 one flock of fifty-four goats
was impounded for straying into town and held until their owner paid
for his carelessness in not repairing fences.

Acadians, driven from their homes in Nova Scotia, swarmed into the
impoverished little settlement in such numbers during 1755 that they be-
came an early social problem. Conversely, Norwich residents seeking
fertile land, after the peace of 1763, migrated to Nova Scotia, where they
founded the towns of Dublin, Horton, Falmouth, and Amherst. One
hundred and thirty-seven sailed together in one group. Other discouraged
Norwich farmers settled in Delaware. In 1767, two hundred and forty
Acadians were corralled by a Norwich skipper, loaded onto a boat, and put
ashore at Quebec. Norwich, N.Y., and Chelsea, N.H., drew their early
settlers from Norwich, Conn., and many other widely scattered settle-
ments in the Midwest became the homes of pioneers who despaired of
making a living on the Thames. Those who remained were troubled by
religious as well as economic and social problems. The Rogerenes, a
Quaker sect, caused much agitation in the early eighteenth century. In
July, 1726, six of them were arrested for traveling on Sunday, tried and
committed to prison. T v/

Following the success of New London boat yards, Norwich turned to
shipbuilding and in 1760 had seven ships making regular trading voyages
to the West Indies. A road, laid out before 1700 by order of the General
Assembly, connected New London with Norwich, but the river was for
many generations the chief route of communication.

Mediterranean Lane probably was named by an early skipper. In the

late eighteenth century the Landing became the business section of the

settlement. By 1795, forty-two ships were regularly clearing from the

port, usually for the West Indies, with cargoes of horses, oak staves and

produce, Many Norwich skippers later turned to whaling and some to

slave-trading.

An unusual custom observed in the old city was the election of an

Norwich 273

African governor. The affair was conducted with considerable pomp and
circumstance, parades were held and the 'reigning' monarch assumed a
patriarchal attitude toward his people. Among the best-known African
monarchs were ' Boston' Trowtrow (about 1772), and Sam Hun' tin, who
held the Negro governorship for more years than his master and name-
sake, Samuel Huntington, who was actually governor of the State
(1786-96).

Early industry did not attain any importance until 1772 when a Bean
Hill blacksmith, Edmund Darrow, produced from barrel hooping the first
cut nails in America. Richard Collier, a former Boston brazier, made
warming pans about this time, and Noah Hidden manufactured combs
in 1773. Ships knees and cordwood were cut and shipped to the New
York market. Thomas Harland arrived from London in 1773, established
a business of watch and clock making, and trained a number of Connecti-
cut clockmakers who later established their own mills. Harland, a man of
considerable genius, made Norwich's first fire engine. Before 1750, Dr.
Daniel Lathrop opened an apothecary shop, believed to have been the
first in the State, which was patronized by country doctors from as far
away as Waterbury. Joseph Lathrop successfully spun cotton in 1790.

During the Revolutionary War, cannon were manufactured by Elijah
Backus, who welded together pieces of iron and made a fieldpiece that is
reported to have stood up under the weak charges used in that day.

The War of 1812, with its blockade of the New England ports, left its
mark on the community. Norwich men fought at the Battle of Bridge-
water (Lundy's Lane), July 25th, 1814, and her skippers ran the blockade
of the Thames on dark, stormy nights. Social affairs were enlivened by
the presence of men from the blockaded American ships who made merry
at dances, ' tripe' suppers, and 'turtle entertainments.'

One of the most interesting legends of Norwick and a favorite story of
Aaron Cleveland, great-grandfather of Grover Cleveland, concerns the
freshet of March, 1823. The sudden rise of water washed away the Metho-
dist Chapel, which, with lights still burning, is reported to have sailed
serenely down the river and past astonished skippers on Long Island
Sound. The elder Cleveland was a noted politician, speaker, writer, Con-
gregational minister and abolitionist.

In 1842 Ethan Allen and Charles Thurber set up a pistol shop at The
Falls. Smith and Wesson, who later moved to New Haven, established
a pistol and rule factory here in 1853, and patented a 'volcanic repeating
pistol' in 1854, and Christopher C. Brand made possible an important ad-
vance in the efficiency of whaling by his combination ' whaling gun and
bomb lance' patented in 1852.

During the Civil War three full volunteer companies were raised in
Norwich, and the demand for supplies brought a boom to trade and manu-
facturing interests. Joseph D. Mowry took a contract to produce thirty
thousand Springfield rifles in 1862, and the tanneries had more leather
orders for military knapsacks, boots, belts, cockades, whip lashes, snap-

274 Main Street and Village Green

pers, cartridge-boxes, and drumheads than they could fill. Apprentice
boys were sent from shop to shop in search of l stirrup oil/ 'limbering
oils,' and 'green lampblack/ The Norwich Arms Company was formed
and filled many Government orders.

The Adams Express Company was an out growth of personal package
delivery services between Boston and New York, originated by Alvin
Adams of Norwich in 1840, and by Fred Harnden, a conductor on the
Boston and Worcester Railroad in 1 839. Adams and Harnden consolidated
and formed the Adams Express Company in 1854.

Today, Norwich produces thermos bottles, velvets, woolens, awnings,
clothing, table cutlery, silks, leather goods, shoes, and metal products.
Its industry has spread far beyond the city limits into many of the sur-
rounding mill towns.

Norwich has been the home of many prominent persons, including the
ancestors of Presidents Fillmore, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, and Cleveland.
Donald G. Mitchell ('Ik Marvel') (see Literature), and Daniel Coit Gil-
man, president of Johns Hopkins University, were born in Norwich.

TOUR 1

W. from Park St. on Main St.

i. Buckingham Memorial (private], 307 Main St., was the home of Wil-
liam A. Buckingham, Civil War Governor of Connecticut from 1858 to
1866. On receipt of news from Fort Sumter on April 13, 1861, Governor
Buckingham, confronted with the fact that he had no power to order
militia to leave the State, called for a regiment of volunteers. When the

NORWICH. POINTS OF INTEREST

1. Buckingham Memorial 15. Gov. Samuel Huntington House

2. Nathaniel Backus House 16. Jedediah Huntington House

3. Glebe House 17. Joshua Huntington House

4. General Rockwell House 18. Old Burial Ground

5. Slater Memorial 19. Site of the First Meeting-House

6. Boulder 20. Simon Huntington House

7. Joseph Teel House 21. Andre Richards House

8. Uncas Monument 22. Dr. Daniel Lathrop School

9. Uncas Ravine 23. Joseph Carpenter Store

10. Site of the Birthplace of Bene- 24. Norwichtown Congregational

diet Arnold Church

11. Reynolds House 25. Eleazer Lord Tavern

12. Lemngwell Inn 26. Diah Manning House

13. Thomas Harland House 27. Post Gager Burying Ground

14. Dr. Daniel Lathrop House 28. Adams Tavern

276 Main Street and Village Green

First Connecticut Regiment reached Washington, May 13, it was so well
equipped that its teams were borrowed by the Government, and General
Scott is said to have exclaimed, 'Thank God, we have one regiment ready
to take the field ! Colonel Tyler is prepared not only for a battle but for a
campaign.' For many years this house was used as headquarters by the
Grand Army of the Republic, but the last Norwich member of that organ-
ization died in 1937.

R. from Main St. on Broadway.

2. The Nathaniel Backus House (private), 49 Broadway, between taller
buildings in a commercial district where it was long used as a store, is a
two-and-a-half-story peak-roofed frame structure with two end-chimneys
on the south; it appears to date from about 1825-30. Its most notable
feature is a square doorway richly embellished with pineapple and acan-
thus leaf carving, a decoration typical of Norwich doorways of 1825.

L. from Broadway on Church St.

3. The Glebe House (private), 62 Church St., was built (1748) by the Rev.
John Tyler, rector of Christ Episcopal Church for fifty-four years and one
of the clergymen who met at Woodbury in 1783 to elect the Right Rev.
Samuel Seabury, D.D., the first Bishop of an Episcopal Diocese in Amer-
ica. During the Revolution, services were held in this house. It later be-
came the residence of William Tyler Olcott, the astronomer, who founded
the Society of Variable Star Observers. The building is a two-and-a-half-
story dwelling, quite plain except for an elaborate wide cornice with very
heavy dentils. The wooden observatory with a revolving hexagonal tower,
perched behind the roof, was added by Olcott.

Return on Church St. to Broadway; L. on Broadway; R. on Rockwell St.

4. The General Rockwell House (open 3-5.30, June to Oct., adm. free), 42
Rockwell St., a two-story stone dwelling surrounded by heavy porches,
with a mansard roof and two wide, thin chimneys, was built by Major
Joseph Perkins, a member of the Committee of Safety in 1814. It was
later occupied by Brigadier General Alfred Perkins Rockwell, who served
at James Island, Fort Darling, and Fort Fisher during the Civil War.
It is maintained as a museum by the Daughters of the American Revolu-
tion.

Return on Rockwell St. to Broadway; R. on Broadway.

5. The Slater Memorial (open weekdays S. 30-5; Sun. 2-4, free), Broadway
at Chelsea Parade, is a stone building of Romanesque design, on the
grounds of the Norwich Free Academy.

The Norwich Free Academy, endowed and chartered in 1854, with the
status of a private school, is the public high school of the city of Norwich.
The Memorial, center of the aesthetic interests of the city, was erected by
William Slater in honor of his father, John Slater, early cotton manu-
facturer, and presented to the Academy in 1885.

On the main floor to the right of the entrance is the Peck Library, founded
in 1859 by Mrs. Harriet Peck Williams in honor of her father, Captain

Norwich 277

Bela Peck of the Continental Army. The library departments of Art,
Education, General Literature, and History are well equipped and many
additions have been made to the rare books of the original collection.

On the first gallery is an extensive exhibit of plaster casts of Classic and
Renaissance sculpture, Greek coins, and Renaissance metal work.

On the second gallery is the notable Vanderpoel Collection of Oriental
wood-carvings, textiles, stencils and art, recognized as one of the best
private collections of Japanese art in America. This collection was
presented to the Academy by Mrs. John Vanderpoel of New York City in
1936.

In the basement, at the foot of the main staircase, is the Edmond Indian
Collection, which includes 5400 arrow heads from 23 states, 250 spear-
points, 500 stone implements, ceremonial articles, pipes, beadwork, and
pottery. Other Indian exhibits include a Mound Builders' idol from
Tennessee, Aztec pottery, jasper and copper flakes and implements, and a
number of prehistoric relics from Labrador and Europe.
Annexed to the Slater Memorial is the Converse Art Gallery (adm. as
above). The lower floor is devoted to the Art Department of the Academy.
The large gallery on the upper floor is reserved for the many temporary
art exhibitions held during the year.

In connection with the museums, the Academy conducts a system of
traveling exhibits that are loaned to the grammar schools of the adjacent
rural area.

6. On Chelsea Parade, a small triangular green at the junction of Broad-
way and Washington St., are a number of monuments, including a mod-
est Boitlder to gallant Captain Samuel Chester Reid, hero of the naval
battle of Fayal and designer of the present American flag. Reid originated
the idea of having thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, with a blue
union containing a star for every State. His design was approved and a
resolution of thanks passed by both houses of Congress on April 4, 1818.
Previously the number of stars in the flag had equaled the number of
stripes.

Reid was the son of a British naval officer who was captured by the
Continentals during the Revolution. The elder Reid fell in love with a
New London girl, but she refused to marry him until he resigned his com-
mission in the British Navy. The younger Reid entered the U.S. Navy
and commanded the U.S.S. 'General Armstrong,' September 26, 1814, at
Fayal, Azore Islands, where he engaged three British ships, 'Carna-
tion/ 'Plantagenet,' and 'Rota' bringing infantry reinforcements to the
British command at New Orleans. Although beaten, with his ship a
shambles at the end of a twenty-four-hour battle, Reid refused to sur-
render, blew up his ship, and with his remaining men escaped ashore.
The British ships were so severely damaged that they had to refit and
delayed so long that the American forces were able to assemble, fight, and
win the decisive battle at New Orleans. Upon Captain Reid's return to
this country, he was honored by many States for his gallant conduct.

278 Main Street and Village Green

L. from Broadway on Chelsea Parade, S.

7. The Joseph Teel House (private) (1789), on Chelsea Parade South
between Washington St. and Broadway, set back among shaded lawns, is
an imposing three-story brick house, with four tall chimneys buttressing
the corners and a heavy balustrade around the edge of the hip roof, an
excellent example of the early Federal period. Painted white with green
shutters and used as the parsonage of the historic Park Congregational
Church, the building was originally built as an inn, At the Sign of General
Washington.

Chelsea Parade S. becomes Sachem St.

8. The Uncos Monument (L), cor. Sachem and Washington Sts., in a
small plot enclosed by a chain fence, was formerly maintained by the red
men as a royal burying ground for the graves of Mohegan sachems and
their offspring. In 1833, President Jackson laid the cornerstone of the
monument, a straight shaft of granite finally erected in 1842 by descend-
ants of the white settlers whom Uncas befriended (see Tour 9). Near-by
are the smaller gravestones of other Indian rulers, and a boulder marks
the grave of Mamohet who died in England.

L. from Sachem St. on Grosvenor Place.

9. Uncas Ravine, at the corner of Grosvenor Place and Yantic Ave., has an
impressive natural beauty despite the encroachment of near-by industrial
plants. Through the narrow gorge, between steep cliffs, known as Indian
Leap, the Yantic River rushes southward to tumble over the Yantic Falls
where it meets the tidewater of the Thames.

Return on Grosvenor Place and Sachem St. to Washington St.; L. on Wash-
inton St.

10. The Site of the Birthplace of Benedict Arnold (1741-1801), Revolution-
ary War general and American traitor, at NE. cor. Washington St. and
Arnold Place, is indicated by a wooden marker.

TOUR 2

N. from Sachem on Washington St.

n. The Reynolds House (private), 328 Washington St., a two-and-a-half-
story grayish-brown salt-box house, bears a shield with the date 1659,
marking the traditional date of its construction by John Reynolds, one of
the first settlers. It is probable that a single-room, end-chimney house of
that time is incorporated in the present dwelling which has suffered many
additions and modernizations. The location of the chimney behind the
ridge indicates an early date.

12. The Leffingwell Inn (private), 344 Washington St., is an added lean-to
salt-box house, with a long ell to the south which gives it the appearance
of a hip-roofed structure. The oldest section was built by Stephen Backus,

NORWICHTOWN

280 Main Street and Village Green

probably in 1666; it was sold in 1701 to Sergeant Thomas Leffingwell, who
added most of the present structure when he was appointed ' Ensign ' and
given permission to keep a 'publique house.' This section has a chimney
back of the ridgepole ; in the interior is some exceptional raised paneling.
The northeast room is known as the Washington Room because the General
dined there. According to tradition, slaves were auctioned off at the north
door. This house was later occupied by Christopher Leffingwell, who en-
gaged in many early enterprises including the establishment of a paper
mill, a fulling mill and dye house, grist, chocolate and pottery mills. He
probably added the southernmost part of the ell, and embellished the
house with its richest features.

13. The Thomas Harland House (private) (1779), at 357 Washington
Ave., was the home of Thomas Harland, early Connecticut clockmaker
to whom Daniel Burnap (see Industry] was apprenticed. Harland learned
his trade in England and came to Boston in 1773 in the ship from which
the tea was thrown overboard in the Boston Tea Party. He settled in
Norwich where he had a shop until 1807 and made 'spring, musical and
plain clocks/ with brass works and a 4o-inch pendulum that swung every
second. The cases were about 6 ft. high. Sometimes the clocks were
hung up, without cases, and were called wag-on-the-wall clocks. The
house has been frequently remodeled.

14. The Dr. Daniel Lathrop House (private) (1745), 380 Washington St.,
a big, four-chimneyed, gambrel-roofed house with a completely modern-
ized interior, was the home of one of the Lathrop Brothers, who were
among the earliest druggists in the State and amassed a fortune import-
ing drugs. This house was the childhood home of Lydia Huntley Sigour-
ney, the poetess. It was also the home of Daniel Coit Gilman (1831-1908),
president of the University of California, of Johns Hopkins University
(1875-1901), and of Carnegie Institute (1901-04).

L. from Washington on East Town St.

15. Gov. Samuel Huntington House (private), 34 East Town St., was built
in 1783-85 by that statesman, who signed the Declaration of Independ-
ence, served his State as member of Congress, Chief Justice of Connecti-
cut, and Governor. He was President of Congress through three years
of the Revolution. The large white clapboarded structure has been exten-
sively modernized. Only the central dwelling with the corner pilasters is
original.

16. Jedediah Huntington House (private) (1765), 23 East Town St., is a
broad two-and-a-half-story white clapboarded house with an unusually
flat gambrel roof, two chimneys back of the ridgepole, a wide cornice and
heavy gable overhang. Now masked by an added porch, the projecting
central panel, which includes the doorway, is a feature frequently found in
dwellings built in the eastern part of the State in succeeding decades.
Huntington, who later moved to New London to become Collector of
Port, entertained both Washington and Lafayette here.

Norwich 281

R. from East Town St. on Huntington Lane.

17. The Joshua Huntington House (private) (1719 or earlier), 16 Hunting-
ton Lane, a two-and-a-half-story, central-chimney, clapboarded house
with a long gambrel-roofed ell, is one of the three remaining structures
built by a founder of the town. The huge stone chimney and part of the
framing are probably all that is left of an original one-room house built by
John Bradford, son of the Plymouth governor. In 1691 the house was pur-
chased from the Bradfords by Simon Huntington, whose son Joshua built
the gambrel-roofed section in 1719. The heavy, plain box cornice, the attic
overhang, and the pediments over the end windows are all primitive fea-
tures of the 1719 addition. The broad rear ell along Huntington Lane was
built by Joshua's son, General Jabez Huntington, a wealthy West Indian
trader and officer, who came into possession of the property in 1745, and
at that time installed much of the fine interior paneling.

Some of the shutters have heart-shaped openings, and the double door on
the ell is studded with nails in diamond patterns. The interior hardware
is notable, and a few of the doors have wooden locks. Leaden sash weights
from this old house were cast into bullets to be used against the British
during the Revolution.

Return on Huntington Lane to East Town St.; R. on East Town St.; L. on
Cemetery Lane.

1 8. Old Burial Ground, end of Cemetery Lane, entered through the Hub-
bard Gates inscribed with the names of Revolutionary soldiers buried
within, dates from 1699 and contains the brick tomb of Governor Hunt-
ington and a memorial boulder marking the graves of 20 French soldiers
who died in Norwich during the War of Independence.

Return on Cemetery Lane to East Town St.; L. on East Town St.

19. Site of the First Meeting-House (1660), on Norwich town Green, East
Town and Elm Ave., was used as a training ground for Continental
troops. At the southern end stood the old Court House where the Mutual
Assurance Company of the City of Norwich, the first insurance company
incorporated in the State, was established in 1795. This company issued
local policies on a mutual basis for dwelling houses within a risk limited
to $1000.

L.from East Town St. on Elm Ave.

20. Simon Huntington House (private), 2 Elm Ave., was a tavern in 1706
and was probably built before 1700, but was rebuilt and enlarged in
1782-83. It is now a long, red house with a double overhang, handsome
double raised-panel doors and excellent paneling within.

21. The Andre Richards House (private), 8 Elm Ave., was built in 1737,
probably around the ' great room and lean-to' dwelling of Madame Sarah
Knight, a tavern keeper long remembered for her sprightly journal which
recounts the story of her journey alone on horseback from Boston to New
York in 1704. Enlarged and rebuilt, the house was bought in 1757 by
Joseph Peck, who operated it as a tavern that was a gathering place for

282 Main Street and Village Green

both drovers and notables. The present structure has few distinctive
features other than a recessed interior overmantel such as is found in other
early Norwich houses. On the grounds stands a great elm tree beneath
which the early tavern keeper built a large arbor, reached by a plank
gallery that extended from a second-story window of the house.

Return on Elm Ave., to East Town St.; L. on East Town St.

22. Dr. Daniel Lathrop School (private} (1783), East Town St. (R), be-
tween Mediterranean Lane and Town St., with a gambrel roof and small
wooden belfry, is one of the earliest brick schoolhouses still standing in
the State. The school was named for Doctor Lathrop because of his efforts
in fostering its erection.

23. The Joseph Carpenter Store (open Wed. and Sat. afternoons, during
the summer, free), East Town St. next to the school, a small gambrel-
roofed structure recently restored by private subscription, was built in
1772 as a silversmith shop, and the upper end was used by Joseph's
brother, Gardner, as a general store. The shutters are original.

24. Norwichtown Congregational Church (1801), East Town St. (R),
opposite the head of Town St., representing the period when the huge
barn-like structures of the i8th century were becoming more ornate, has
a square two-story tower and a projecting portico which repeats the
rather flat lines of the roof and the corner quoins of the main building.
The chief ornaments of the facade are one square, and two round-topped
beaded doors on the first floor, and one round, and two square-topped
beaded windows on the second. The building was remodeled in 1845
and at later intervals. Brooding over the rear church lawn are Meeting-
House Rocks. Atop this mass of stone once loomed the second meeting
house whose tower served as a lookout against Indian raids.

L. from East Town St. on Town St.

25. Eleazar Lord Tavern (private) (about 1760-73, date uncertain), 86
Town St., standing four-square with the points of the compass, is a plain
clapboarded structure that from all outward appearances might have
a date as late as 1870. New sash, doors, and a hooded entrance have been
added to this old tavern, which, according to tradition, was built in forty
days. As the court house stood on the opposite corner until 1833, the
inn was formerly the gathering place of lawyers who were attending court
sessions. The ell of the inn served as a postofnce from 1836 to 1907.

26. The Diah Manning House (private), 85 Town St., a little gambrel-
roofed house built in 1750, was the home of the boyish drum major of
Washington's bodyguard. Manning was detailed to serve breakfast to
Major Andre on the day the British spy was executed.

Return on Town St. to East Town; L. on East Town St. which becomes West
Town St.; L. on Lee Ave.

27. Post Gager Burying Ground, end of Lee Ave., is an oblong plot pur-
chased by the town in 1661 for a common burial ground. Here are buried
many of the town's early leaders. The John Mason Monument was

Old Lyme 283

erected in 1872 as a memorial to Captain Mason, leader of colonial troops
in the Pequot War (see WEST MYSTIC, Tour 1).

Return on Lee Ave. to West Town St.; L. on West Town St.
28. Adams Tavern (private), 112 West Town St., a small gambrel-roofed
house on a high brick foundation, was built as a hat shop by Aaron Cleve-
land, religious and political leader, great-grandfather of President Grover
Cleveland. The early date claimed for the hat shop, 1647, twelve years
before the founding of the town, is not confirmed by any of the architec-
tural features. From the light framing to the slope of the roof, the con-
struction indicates that it was erected about 1780.

Points of Interest in Environs:

Miantonomo Memorial, 3.6 m. (see Tour 9).

OLD LYME

Town: Alt. 10, pop. 1313, sett. 1665.

Accommodations: Several hotels and inns. Both American and European plans.

Cabins, with electricity, on US 1, $1 per person.

Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, Main St.

Annual Events: Exhibits of arts and crafts during the late summer, adm. free,
Old Lyme Guild. Exhibits of water colors and etchings, June; paintings and
sculpture, end of July through first week in September 9-5, adm. 50ff, Lyme
Art Gallery.

OLD LYME, an elm-shaded village steeped in seafaring tradition,
peacefully dozes beneath the white spire of the Congregational Church.
Here 'a sea captain once lived in every house.' In dignified old dwellings
their descendants treasure teak-wood chests, Paisley shawls, ivory
images and exquisite tapestries collected in the Orient. The variety of
Old Lyme's landscape, combining shady streets with stretches of marsh
land and tranquil meadows with a rugged shore line on Long Island
Sound, has attracted many artists. Today there are no industries in
Old Lyme. The permanent residents are largely elderly people of modest
incomes, content to live with their memories, although numbers of sum-
mer residents bring life and gaiety to the community.
The town of Old Lyme, once known as Black Hall (see Tour 1C), was
named for Lyme Regis in Dorsetshire, England, the port from which
Matthew Griswold, the first settler, sailed for America. The town of
Lyme was set off from Saybrook in 1665 and the present Old Lyme was
incorporated from Lyme as South Lyme, a separate town in 1855.

284 Main Street and Village Green

present name was adopted in 1857. Many tales are told of the pranks of
the eight sprightly Griswold daughters, who were known as 'The Black
Hall boys.' Phoebe took special delight in embarrassing her husband,
the parson. One day she removed a leaf from his Bible and was delighted
by the embarrassment of minister and congregation when he read 'and
the wicked shall flourish like a green bay' and turning to the opposite
page, added 'mare.' A Griswold son was one of the champions who
took part in the wrestling match which determined the town line (see
Tour 1C).

Among the early industries, fishing, shipping, shipbuilding, and the
manufacture of salt, in which Lyme had a state monopoly, were impor-
tant. Graceful clipper ships slid down the ways on the Lieutenant River
to set sail for the Pacific and return with rich cargoes and fabulous
tales of foreign ports. Here were born two governors, Roger and Matthew
Griswold; a Chief Justice of Connecticut, Henry Matson Waite; a Chief
Justice of the United States (1874-88), the Hon. Morrison R. Waite; an
American Minister to Austria, Charles Johnson McCurdy; a Justice of
the United States Circuit Court, Judge Walter C. Noyes; and many
lawyers who have gained distinction throughout the country.

TOUR

S. from Boston Post Road on Neck Rd. which becomes Ferry Rd.

1. The Green, a triangular plot at the junction of Lyme St., Shore Rd.,
and Ferry Lane, has been the center of town life since the first settlement.
Here stood the old whipping-post and stocks, and here on March 16, 1774,
Lyme had its own little ' Tea Party ' when a traveling peddler was found
to have sacks of tea on the back of his donkey and the townsfolk burned
his wares on the Green. On this spot in July, 1778, the Stars and Stripes
waved beside the white fleur-de-lys of France over the brilliant uniforms
and tricornes of Lafayette's men.

2. The Congregational Church, SW. cor. Ferry Rd. and Lyme St., is
recognized as one of the most perfect early igth-century churches in New
England. The present structure is a copy of the original church, built
1816-17, by Colonel Samuel Belcher, who, according to tradition, followed
plans of a Christopher Wren church in London; the actual contract, how-
ever, seems to disprove this. The church, burned on the night of July 3,
1907, was reproduced as faithfully as possible in the present building
which was dedicated June 19, 1910, when the principal address was made
by Woodrow Wilson, then president of Princeton University. Above the
Ionic portico, which has a rich and delicate cornice, the white steeple
rises with a square clock-tower, one closed stage, and one octagonal stage
to the slender spire. The general lines of the building have been repro-
duced in Saint Mary of the Lake, chapel of the Catholic Training School

Old Lyme 285

at Area, 111. The church has frequently served as a subject for the paint-
ings of Childe Hassam and other artists.

3. The John McCurdy House (private}, NE. cor. Lyme St. and Shore Rd.,
shows, in its pedimented windows and the fine arch pediment above the
doorway, that it was a house of much distinction, though it has been
considerably changed in appearance by the addition of a new roof and
numerous ells. Like some other Old Lyme houses, it has a projecting
closed porch. The paneled entrance doors are flanked by fluted pilasters
which are topped with delicately carved rosettes, characteristic of the
Connecticut Valley from 1740 to 1770. The interior walls are handsomely
paneled. John McCurdy, the merchant who bought it in 1753, enter-
tained Washington here in 1776, and Lafayette in 1778.

R. from Lyme St. on Shore Rd.

4. The Ludington House (private), Shore Rd. (R), a large, modern dwelling
with a rounded porch entrance, stands on the Site of the Old Parsons
Tavern, the birthplace of General Samuel Holden Parsons, a Revolution-
ary leader. In the garden is a large rock from which George Whitefield,
noted iSth-century evangelist, preached a sermon at the time of the
1 Great Awakening.'

5. Duck River Cemetery, Shore Rd. (L), one of the oldest burying grounds
in the State, contains the graves of many men who were prominent in the
early life of the settlement, including five veterans of King Philip's War.

Return on Shore Rd.; R. on Lyme St.

6. The Samuel Mather House (private), Lyme St., now the Congregational
Parsonage, built about 1 790, is a dignified, gambrel-roofed house, with two
chimneys and little exterior ornament except the corner pilasters and a
perfectly proportioned front doorway. The door is framed by fluted
pilasters and a heavily moulded entablature. The width of the clapboard
siding is graduated.

7. Boxwood Manor (R), Lyme St., operated as a hotel, a massive square
three-story structure of brick and clapboard, was built in 1848 for
Richard Sill Griswold, a prominent shipping merchant of New York and
Lyme. The original homestead, two stories in height and constructed of
brick, has had many additions, including an elaborate porch across the
front, and numerous ells.

8. The Captain Daniel Chadwick House (1830) (private), Lyme St., was
built for the 'Admiral of the steampacket fleet.' The facade is adorned
with heavy pilasters which rise to the balustraded roof. At the entrance, a
small flat-roofed porch is supported by Tuscan columns; narrow side-
lights flank the door. The frame dwelling is unaltered with the exception
of two second-story front rooms, added in 1905.

9. The Moses Noyes II House (private] (L), cor. Lyme St. and Beckwith
Lane, probably built about 1712, is a plain white dwelling which might
easily be overlooked. Although some of its distinguishing features have
been altered, it is one of the oldest and most interesting houses in town.

286 Main Street and Village Green

The present structure illustrates in brief the history of Colonial architec-
ture. Built at the time when it was the custom to panel every room in
feather-edge boarding, the house was evidently ' modernized ' in the days of
the richest 18th-century paneling (about 1750), and when moved in 1816
from its original location on the site of the present William Noyes house,
acquired a new door, new roof, chimney, and windows.

10. The Captain John Sill House (1818) (private), Lyme St., is a square
yellow frame structure with white trim, its doorway now somewhat ob-
scured by a later piazza. As originally designed by Belcher, a flight of
steps led up to the door. The quoins at the corners and the wide balus-
trade around the roof show what an effect of dignity and simplicity
Belcher could achieve without the use of columns. In a closet hidden
within a cupboard the Captain was believed to have concealed smuggled
silks and satins. He was removed to New Haven and placed under bond
not to leave that town. But, according to tradition. Captain Sill often
sped by night on horseback to Saybrook, thirty-six miles distant, where a
cousin rowed him across the river to his young wife who was waiting on
the opposite shore.

11. The Avery House (private), Lyme St., believed to date from 1726, is a
small gambrel-roofed structure sometimes known as the Deming House.
Recently, when the fireplace in the north room was repaired, a sampler
was discovered which was embroidered in the center with a Magna Charta
and bore the words 'King' and 'Constitution.'

OTHER POINTS OF INTEREST

12. At the Lyme Art Gallery, Boston Post Road, are exhibited the
canvases of the many artists who have a colony here.

13. Peck Tavern, in the fork made by the Post Road and Sill Lane, is
headquarters of the Old Lyme Guild. The main part, built before 1675, is
one of the town's earliest buildings. The projecting closed porch is
characteristic of Old Lyme architecture and that of Massachusetts.
Many of its features are later additions, for example, the old taproom and
a second-floor ballroom with a partition that hooks up to the ceiling. In
this building John McCurdy opened his first modest store, then the only
one on the Boston Post Road between New London and Guilford.

14. The William Noyes House (1817) (private), Post Road, known locally
and to many artists as 'Miss Florence's,' was the headquarters of the art
colony to which Miss Florence Griswold was patron saint from the time
Henry W. Ranger first came to board in 1900 until her death in Decem-
ber, 1937. Soon afterward Willard Metcalf, then unknown, went to Miss
Florence's 'because he was poor and had heard of the four vegetables
she was famed for serving with each meal.' Metcalf painted the exte-
rior of the Griswold house in the moonlight, called it ' May Night, ' and
entered the canvas in the annual competition in 1907 at the Corcoran
Gallery, Washington, where it was awarded a $2500 first prize.

Old Saybrook 287

This impressive early igth-century house, designed by Colonel Belcher,
has a handsome two-story, colonnaded portico on the front, its two middle
columns being widely spaced to permit a view of the fan-lighted door.
Under the central pediment a plain window with side-lights is substituted
for the usual Palladian window. Within are fine fireplaces with mantels of
native pine. Many of the panels have been painted by artists who have
boarded here, including Walter Griffin, Paul Dessar, Chauncey Ryder,
Carleton Wiggin, and William S. Robinson.

15. Almon Bacon House (1817), Ferry Rd., an inn, is a large, rambling
brick structure, with many white frame additions and a two-story Tuscan
portico with fluted columns at the doorway. It was built by a partner of
Cornelius Vanderbilt, who operated it as a Ferry Tavern in connection
with the company's Hartford-New York steamship line.

16. Judge MatthewGriswold House (private) , Black Hall Rd. (off State 156),
built in 1798, the earliest of the Griswold houses in the vicinity, is plain,
except for an elaborately carved doorway and cross-panel doors. This
house, still in the possession of the Griswold heirs, was built by the son of
Matthew the fourth, and his cousin- wife Ursula, daughter of Governor
W T olcott. In this house, built on the site of his grandfather John Gris-
wold's homestead, erected in 1713, Judge Griswold taught law to a group
of young men, many of whom became prominent jurists.

17. The Colonel Charles Griswold House (private), Black Hall Rd., ad-
joining Judge Griswold's House, is a brick structure with an end entrance
and four chimneys. It was built in 1822 by a son of Governor Roger
Griswold

Points of Interest in Environs:

Hadlyme Landing, 4.7 m. (see Tour ID) ; Bride's Brook, 8.6 m. (see
Tour IF).

OLD SAYBROOK

Town: Alt. 5, pop-. 1643, sett. 1635, incorp. 1854.

Railroad Station: N.Y., N.H. & H. R.R. station just north of US 1 at center.

Taxis: 10^ within village limits.

Accommodations: Several small hotels and inns.

OLD SAYBROOK, at the mouth of the Connecticut River, the fourth
oldest town in the State, is a quiet, elm-shaded village that has changed
but little in the last century. Summer colonies have sprung up at Fen-

288 Main Street and Village Green

wick and Cornfield Point, and along the broken shoreline of Long Island
Sound, but the little coastal town retains its air of simplicity.

The Connecticut River flows past the eastern edge of the township and
numerous tidal inlets reach long fingers into the salt marshes. Residents
rent small boats during the duck-hunting season. In summer, sailing
craft keel to the lee rail in a spanking breeze, jockeying for position at
the start of a race, or cruise about trolling for bluefish. Along the water-
front, lobstermen are busy with their traps and bait, and in the spring
the teeming activity during the run of shad recalls the early importance
of Saybrook's fisheries, when thousands of shad were caught daily, salted
down and shipped inland.

Saybrook Point was first occupied by white men in 1623 when 'two
families and six men' were sent by the Dutch of Manhattan Island to
take possession of lands at the mouth of the river. Evidently they were
soon frightened away by the unfriendly Indians, as there was no evidence
of the settlement in 1633 when a party from a Dutch ship landed here,
named the point 'Kievet's Hook,' because of the cries of the sandpipers,
and affixed the coat of arms of the States General to a tree. Wishing to
eliminate the danger of Dutch occupation, the English granted a patent
to Lord Say and Sele, and Lord Brooke, who commissioned John Win-
throp, Jr., as agent and governor of the ' River Connecticut, the harbors
and places adjoining these unto.'

Arriving at Boston in October, 1635, Winthrop immediately dispatched
a party of men, who reached Saybrook November 9. Winthrop arrived
shortly afterward and named the settlement Saybrook. Lion Gardiner, an
engineer formerly in the employ of the Prince of Orange, came several
months later. The Dutch shield was torn from the crotch of the tree
and in its place was carved a grinning face. The English had barely
thrown up earthworks and mounted their guns when a Dutch fleet
sailed into the harbor. The little fort broke out the Union Jack and
manned its guns, and the Dutch withdrew without firing a shot.

The settlement was originally planned as a baronial center of landed
estates for the few aristocratic sympathizers of Oliver Cromwell who were
expected to seek refuge here. According to Macaulay, Hampden and
Cromwell had actually boarded a ship in the Thames to embark for this
country, but were not permitted to sail. Colonel George Fenwick was
the only Puritan aristocrat to settle here. He served as governor of
Saybrook from 1639 to 1644, and after the death of his wife, Lady
Boteler, returned to England.

The band of defenders had to endure the privations of bitter winters
and the terrors of marauding Indians. During the Pequot War the
colony lost nine men and nearly all of its cattle, buildings and corn.
When Captain Gardiner's contract expired, he moved to the island in
the Sound which now bears his name.

In 1675, Governor Andros of New York attempted to take possession
of Saybrook. Hoisting the King's flag over his ship, he demanded the

Old Saybrook 289

fort's surrender. Captain Thomas Bull, then in command, promptly raised
His Majesty's colors over the fort, and Andros, not daring to fire on a
British flag, was persuaded to settle the matter at a conference with the
General Court.

Saybrook was the original site of Yale College, which was established
here as The Collegiate School in 1701. Although some of the early
classes were held at the home of the Rev. Abraham Pierson, the first
rector, in Killingworth (now Clinton), Saybrook was the official site of
the college. Here the first commencement was held September 13, 1702,
when the master of arts degree was conferred upon five graduates of
Harvard. On April 4, 1716, the trustees met to consider complaints of
Hartford and Wethersfield students as to the ' insufficiency of instruction
and inconveniences of the place,' but after a debate of several days,
'the trustees were no better agreed than the students,' and 'leave was
given to the students to go to such places of instruction as they pleased.'
A smallpox epidemic soon scattered the student body, some going with
their tutors to Wethersfield, others to Hartford. On October 17, 1716,
the trustees voted to move the college to New Haven. But Saybrook
did not part with the institution without a struggle. Delegates sent to
move the books found the house in which they were stored fortified and
guarded by townsmen. Aid was called and an entrance forced, but
while the delegates gathered up the books, their horses were freed and
their carts damaged. Even when new wagons were obtained and the
procession set out for New Haven, the way was beset, for the men of
Saybrook had taken the planking from the larger bridges and had entirely
removed the smaller ones.

In 1708, a council of twelve ministers and four laymen met here to draw
up the Saybrook Platform, a general plan of church government and
discipline under which the Congregational Churches of the State were
united. The articles drawn up were approved by the Legislature in 1709
and were a legally recognized standard until 1784. Printed by the New
London Press in 1710, the Platform was the first volume to be published
in Connecticut.

Washington passed through the town April 9, 1776; local troops marched
away July 7, 1776; and on August n of the same year, the fort at the
point was strengthened and a saltpeter works was established. On August
30, 1777, records show that nearly threescore ships passed the settlement,
and it was believed that most of them were British. One patriot allowed
his son, a lad of 15, to substitute for another man during the defense of
Fort Griswold (see GROTON), for the price of one barrel of cider. In the
fall, after the lad was killed, the cider was delivered as per agreement.
The first resort development here was recorded in 1870 when a company
was formed to build cottages and hotels at Lynde's Farm, or Light House
Point. The temperature at this point has seldom been known to rise above
84 degrees, and sea breezes blow from three points of the compass. This
early development set a new standard for seaside resorts by restricting
building specifications and prohibiting amusement concessions.

290 Main Street and Village Green

MOTOR TOUR

S. from the junction of US 1 and US 1A, on Main St. (US I).

1. In the Elisha Hart House (private), Main St., a gambrel-roofed dwelling
of 1783, the seven beautiful and talented Hart daughters entertained
distinguished guests, including Washington Irving, Fitz-Greene Halleck,
and the South American patriot, Bolivar. One of the Hart daughters
married Commodore Isaac Hull, commander of the frigate ' Constitution '
in the capture of the 'Guerriere,' and her sister married his nephew,
Commodore Joseph Hull. Another Hart daughter fell in love with Bolivar
during his visit here, but the marriage was prevented by the objections
of her father.

2. Ye Old Saybrook Inn (1800), at the corner of Main St. and the Old
Boston Post Rd. (R), has a low hip roof surrounded by a simple balustrade
over an elaborate cornice of Greek detail. The building was erected by
Major Richard William Hart, a son of General William Hart, who was
one of the company that purchased lands of the Western Reserve from
the State of Connecticut in 1795. Later, while the house was owned by
Captain Morgan, a famous shipmaster, many distinguished guests were
entertained here, including Charles Dickens, in 1867-68, who depicted his
friend Captain Morgan as Captain Jorgen in 'A Message from the Sea.'
R. from Main Street on the Old Boston Post Rd.

3. The Acton Library (open daily), Old Post Rd., near Main St., a two-
story modern structure, houses in the upper floor a small museum in
which are displayed relics of the early Saybrook settlement and several
rare books.

Return to Main St.; R. on Main St.

4. Pratt Tavern (R), Main St., a large central-hall building of fine propor-
tions, with a three-inch overhang at the second floor and gables, was built
in 1785 and visited by Lafayette and other dignitaries in 1824. The
handsome front door of many small raised panels is somewhat obscured
by a square portico added in 1840. The most attractive feature of the
house is its two-and-a-half-story gambrel-roofed ell, which contains on
the second floor an unpainted ballroom in its original condition.

5. On the Drugstore (R), Main St., a tablet advises the passer-by that
'In this shop Lafayette made a purchase in 1824.'

6. The General William^ Hart House (private), Main St. (L), erected in
1767, a dwelling of gracious proportions, with end chimneys and a later
open pedimented Doric porch, is distinguished by its beaded clapboards
and fine cornice. The nine windows on the front have the original sash of
1 2 lights each.

7. The plain white Congregational Church, Main St. (L), built in 1839, is
of heavy construction. Its small, square two-stage tower rises above

Old Saybrook 291

a portico with four impressive Tuscan columns. On the church a plaque
is inscribed, ' This church was organized in the Great Hall of the Fort in
the summer of 1646.'

8. Beside the road (L) is an Old Mill Stone, Main St., removed from the
gristmill which operated at Saybrook Point. According to tradition the
stone was brought from Holland about 1638.

L. from Main St. on North Cove Rd.

9. The William Tully House (private), North Cove Rd. (L), sometimes
called the Captain John Chauncey Whittlesey House (1750), a two-and-a-
half-story house with its original huge off-center chimney, has an excep-
tionally well-designed front doorway flanked by narrow pilasters which
are topped with the carved English rose. The side lights and top-lights
are narrow, and at the center of the top-lights is an odd sash, shaped like
two hearts lying on their sides. Here, on August 8, 1774, occurred William
Tully's skirmish with Tories, which has been roguishly referred to as ' the
most successful battle of Revolutionary times.' Tully had been left hi
charge of contraband goods seized from a Middletown vessel that at-
tempted to run out of the river to trade with the British. When eight
Tories forced an entrance, Tully aimed his flintlock and fired. The ball
passed through the first man, but the second man in line dropped dead.
As the first man reached for a chest of tea, he too fell dead. The rest of
the raiding party fled in terror. Tully was credited with a victory in
which the British sustained 25 per cent casualties while the local force
was unscathed.

10. The Black Horse Tavern (private) (L), built about 1720 for John Bur-
rows, long enjoyed a profitable business when steamboat passengers
landed at the wharf in its back yard to transfer to the Connecticut Valley
Railway. Although the building has been remodeled, the old parlor re-
tains its two old summer beams and burnt oystershell plaster. The fire-
place has some plain, though excellent, wide paneling.

11. The large brick, two-and-a-half-story George Dickinson Home
(private) (L), built in 1790, with pilasters at the center which seem to
divide it into two sections, has two doors, an elaborate one to the east
with heavy cross panels and a brass knocker, and a plain door to the west.

Return on North Cove Rd. to Main St.; L. on Main St.

12. An arbor-sheltered Boulder (R) bears a bronze plate marked 'The
First Site of Yale College,' but recent research seems to indicate that the
original college building stood on the site of the William Willard House,
400 feet away on Willard Ave.

13. In Cypress Cemetery (R), surrounded by an iron fence, is the Tomb
of Lady Alice Boteler Fenwick, wife of Colonel George Fenwick, the only
titled person to brave the dangers of the Indian-harassed settlement, who
died shortly after the birth of her daughter in November, 1645. Among
the many old graves in this cemetery is that of Ellen Gold, whose three
husbands were Continental officers killed during the Revolutionary War.

292 Main Street and Village Green

A widow three times, she was awarded three pensions for the services of
her husbands.

14. Opposite the cemetery on the site of the old fort, the Statue of Lion
Gardiner, in cuirass and helmet, straight and stalwart, symbolizes the
personality of the builder and commander of the fort which once domi-
nated the harbor and the river mouth.

15. The Causeway, from the end of Main St., extends across South Cove,
connecting Saybrook Point and the Cape of Fenwick, at the eastern
extremity of which stands the white, flat-sided masonry Lighthouse of
Lynde Point (private), built in 1839 to replace an early wooden structure.

1 6. Beyond, at the far end of a breakwater, may be seen another, the
Jetty or Saybrook Lighthouse (private), built in 1866 and more favorably
placed than the Lynde tower for the guidance of ships at the river mouth.
There is excellent snapper bluefishing in the waters offshore during
August and September.

Points of Interest in Environs:

The Sill House, in the ell of which David Bushnell, inventor of the
submarine torpedo (1777), carried on his experiments State 9 A
(see Tour 8) ; site of old Ferry Landing in continuous use from 1662-
1911 (see Tour 1).

STAMFORD

City: Alt. 20, pop. 46,346, sett. 1641, inc. 1893.

Railroad Station: 521 Atlantic St. for N.Y., N.H. & H. R.R.

Taxis: 15^ for first one-quarter mile; 5fi each additional quarter mile within

town limits; flat hourly rate.

Accommodations: One principal hotel; tourist accommodations at private

homes.

Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, 417 Main St., Stamford Historical
Society, 16 Fourth St.; Town Clerk's Office, Town Hall; Ferguson Library,
Broad and Bedford Sts. ; Stamford Guide, weekly pamphlet obtainable at lead-
ing stores, the library, and post-office.

Recreation: Woodside Park, reached via Summer St., baseball facilities.

Swimming: Cummings Park on the Sound, reached via Elm St., admission free.

Golf: Cummings Park, admission free; Five Ridges Country Club, fee $1.50;

Hubbard Heights Golf Club, fee $1.50.

Tennis: Cummings Park, admission free; Five Ridges Country Club, 50^ per

hour.

Stamford 293

Annual Events: Annual regatta, end of July; Vineyard Haven sailing race over
Labor Day week-end.

STAMFORD, a manufacturing center on a wide bay crossed by two
tidal inlets, is a city of contrasts. There are many landscaped estates in
the residential section of Stamford's hills. The workers' dwellings are
scattered through many sections of the city. In an effort to improve
housing conditions among the workers, an appropriation of $800,000 has
been made for a Federal Housing Project, the only one in Connecticut.
Neither railway nor highway offers an approach that does the city justice.
The central square is clean but congested and the better shops are often
on the side streets. Traffic is too heavy for the narrow streets and park-
ing is a problem. The factory district is well hidden behind the railroad
embankment. Long Island Sound crowds in along an indented shoreline
where there is considerable salt marsh and a few good sandy beaches: the
Rippowam River meanders across country to split the township and
eventually to join with the water of the Sound.

Stamford is closely linked to New York City with excellent express
service by rail on a forty-eight and fifty-three minute schedule. The
New York State Line is only eleven miles away and 104 passenger trains
daily carry large numbers of commuters to New York and back.
The outlying sections of Stamford have interesting place names. At
Turn of River, which is north of the business center, the Rippowam
flows past many small estates and pleasant homes. In 1825 an English
metal worker, William Lecon, was associated with a local mechanic
named Davenport in the operation of what is claimed to be America's
first wire factory. Their mill workers, who lived at Turn of River, made a
reputation as gay, carefree folks, spending the Sabbath drinking and
singing rather than in proper worship, and earned the name of ' Sodom '
for their little community. Bangall Road took its name from the noise
made by a pioneer tin shop. Strawberry Hill now produces no straw-
berries, but there are beautiful homes there and flower gardens that do
not hide behind fences.

Glenbrook, called New Hope in Colonial times, is an attractive residential
section to the northeast, occupied chiefly by commuters whose business
interests are in New York. The hilly section through which Courtland
Ave. runs was the common pasture land, known as 'Cow's Delight'
until 1750 when the land was parcelled and sold. The Charles H. Phillips
Chemical Company has operated in Glenbrook for several generations.
High Ridge, close to the New York Line on the north, is one of Stamford's
most exclusive sections, claiming as residents such well-known persons as
Dr. Robert T. Morris, surgeon; Deems Taylor, composer; Hey wood
Broun, author; and Peggy Wood, actress. To^the east of High Ridge
is Long Ridge, formerly the site of a large shoe industry, now known for
its extensive estates and magnificent scenery.

Captain Nathaniel Turner, agent for the New Haven Colony, explored
this Rippowam area in 1640, purchased land from Ponus, Sachem of the

294 Main Street and Village Green

Siwanoys, and sold out to twenty-eight pioneers from Wethersfield who
took possession in 1641. By 1642 the newcomers had named the place
Stamford, for the English town in Lincolnshire, and soon afterwards
furnished the nucleus of a settlement across the Sound at Hempstead,
Long Island. Stamford was in the New Haven Colony until two years
before the latter was merged with Connecticut. Stamford submitted
to the jurisdiction of Connecticut in October, 1662.

The railroad came to Stamford in 1848. The city was incorporated in
1893. Business improved as transportation facilities advanced and com-
muters discovered the little city on the Rippowam. Industry expanded
as Stamford builders' hardware, electric hoists, ball bearings, postage
meters, rubber goods, brass, druggists' supplies, oil burners, cocoa,

Eaints, bronze powders, machinery, lacquers, stoves, boats, and garments
3und a world-wide market.

There are many historic and noteworthy points of interest in the city,
although most of Stamford's older houses lie on the outskirts.

TOUR 1

1. Atlantic Square, in the heart of the business district, formerly the
site of the first meeting-house and the whipping-post, stocks, and pillory
is now an attractive parkway, planted with shade trees. Opposite is the
gray stone Town Hall, built in 1907, and designed by Mellon and Josselyn.

E. on Main St. to Elm; R. on Elm St.

2. Cummings Park, at the end of Elm St. on the Sound, was named for
the U.S. Attorney-General, Homer S. Cummings, a resident of Stamford.
In the park are a Children's Museum of Natural History (open Tues.,
Wed., Thurs., Fri., Sat., 10-4,free), a small harbor known as Halloween
Basin, and the Halloween Yacht Club. To the west and east of Cummings
Park stretch several fine public beaches.

R. from Elm St. on Leonard St. to McGee Ave. which becomes Shippan
Ave.

STAMFORD. POINTS or INTEREST

1. Atlantic Square 8. Frederick Webb House

2. Cummings Park 9. Ferguson Library

3. Low and Hey wood School 10. Barnum House

4. Shippan Point n. Davenport House

5. Washington Building 12. Ingersoll or Block House

6. Site of Abraham Davenport's 13. John Brush Farmhouse

Homestead 14. Yale and Towne Manufacturing

7. Site of the Stage House Company

296 Main Street and Village Green

3. The Low and Heywpod School (L), 873 Shippan Ave., boarding-school
for girls, was founded in 1855 by Miss Catherine Aiken. The late Georges
Clemenceau, one-time Premier of France, taught French and philosophy
here, and married one of his pupils, Mary Plumly.

4. Skippan Point y jutting into the Sound at the foot of Shippan Ave.,
is Stamford's most exclusive residential section. First used by the colo-
nists as a common pasture ground for horses, it was developed as a pleasure
resort in the summer of 1845. During the Revolution, American troops
under the command of Colonel Tallmadge encamped here.

TOUR 2

W. on Main St. from Atlantic Square.

5. The Washington Building (L) cor. Main and Bank Sts., stands on the
Site of Webb's Tavern, where, one morning in October, 1789, General
Washington, according to an entry in his diary, stopped for breakfast.
Mrs. Washington, too, is said to have stopped here for refreshment in
1775 when on her way to Massachusetts to join her husband.

6. At the northwest corner of Main and Summer Sts. (R) is the Site of
Abraham Davenport's Homestead, now occupied by a hotel. Abraham
Davenport, grandson of the Rev. John Davenport, founder of the
New Haven Colony, was for many years a member of the State Legisla-
ture. A man of remarkable character and integrity, his strong sense of
duty is extolled in a legend of Connecticut's 'Dark Day' May 19,
1780. At that time the Legislature was in session at Hartford, and the
members, noting with fear the increasing darkness, thought that Judg-
ment Day had come. In the House of Representatives, a motion for
adjournment was made and carried, but when the same motion came
before the Council and Davenport was asked for his opinion, he replied :
' I am against adjournment. The Day of Judgment is either approaching
or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment; if it is, I choose
to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought.'

7. At the southeast corner of Main and Relay Place (L) is the Site of the
Stage House, a hotel built in the first decade of the i9th century, which
remained in business for almost 100 years. Relay Place derived its name
from the fact that in the days of stagecoach travel it was one of several
stops between Boston and New York regularly used for the relaying or
changing of horses.

8. The Frederick Webb House (private), SE. cor. Main and Clinton Sts.,
almost hidden behind a gas station (L), is one of the two iSth-century
dwellings in town. The salt-box roof has a curious flare both back and
front.

Stamford 297

OTHER POINTS OF INTEREST

9. The Ferguson Library (open weekdays 9-9 ; Sunday and holidays 2.30-6) ,
cor. Bedford and Broad Sts. (L), a handsome modern Colonial building
in red brick, has frequent exhibitions of paintings, sculpture, and sketches.

10. The Barnum House (private)^ 913 Bedford St., a salt-box dwelling
with stone chimney and sash dating from the mid-eighteenth century, is
smaller than the Webb House and probably older.

11. The Davenport House (1775), 4.5 m. north on Davenport Ridge
Road, a low, one-and-one-half-story cottage with three dormer windows,
stands on a hilltop, surrounded by trees and shrubbery, in a superb
rural estate setting. The stone chimney is well forward of the ridge, an
indication of a comparatively late date.

12. The Ingersoll or Block House (private), Farens Road, 0.5 m. west of
Riverbank Road, encircled by a stone wall, is built of large blocks of gray
stone 20 inches thick, with arched red brick caps over the doorway and
windows. The brick, differing from any made in this country at the
time, is believed to have been part of a consignment from Swansea,
England. Although usually given a date of 1721, it has many features,
such as the two end chimneys, the corner hall, the high space between
windows and cornice, the fan-light and block-like laying of the stone,
which indicate a later date. The ell was built in 1821.

At the rear are the ruins of an old stone workshop where, according to
legend, fleeing Continental soldiers were sheltered after the battle of
White Plains. Here Simon Ingersoll invented the friction clutch, spring
scale, and steam-driven wagon. This steam-wagon, a forerunner of the
automobile, was demonstrated on the streets of Stamford in 1858.

13. The John Brush Farmhouse (private), on East Middle Patent Road, by
a millpond, is sheltered by tall lilac bushes and an arbor vitae over 200
years old. Though much of the detail seems later, the frame, central-
chimney house is said to have been erected in 1770.

14. Yale and Towne Manufacturing Company, 200 Henry St., manufac-
tures Yale locks, electric hoists, and builders' hardware. The first re-
volving crane built in this country was made in Stamford in 1833 by the
two inventors, Yale and Towne. Linus Yale made the first cylinder
lock in the world at Stamford in 1848, revolutionizing an industry which
dates back to the Egyptians and laying the foundation for a branch of
the hardware business in which the United States leads the entire world.
Yale's invention made the heavy keys of older locks unnecessary, as it
separated the key mechanism from the lock by adapting the old Egyptian
principles to modern use, making it unnecessary for the key to pass through

298 Main Street and Village Green

the door. The Yale lock made it possible to use as many as 32,768
different keys in one lock mechanism.

Point of Interest in Environs:

Mianus Gorge on State 104, 8.5 m. (see Tour 1).

STONINGTON

Town: Alt. 5, borough pop. 20x36, sett. 1649, incorp. 1801.
Railroad Station: N.Y., N.H. & H. R.R., on Water St.
Accommodations: Six inns.

Recreation: Swimming in season on three public beaches, two boating clubs, one
golf course.

STONINGTON is a quiet old town of modest, shady streets on a narrow,
rocky point. It lies so close to the eastern State boundary that Dr. Dwight
once wrote in his ' Travels in New England and New York' (1825),
'Stonington and all its vicinity suffers in religion from the nearness of
Rhode Island.' Off the Boston Post Road, quite by itself on a long point
that juts out into the ocean with magnificent marine views, the com-
munity has an atmosphere of old whaling days. Dreamy seaside lanes,
large white houses where former sea captains came at last to a safe an-
chorage, a white Congregational church, and row on row of elms that cast
long shadows under sun and moonlight all are typical of Stonington.
Some houses have a 'captain's walk' around the chimney, from which
shipowners and anxious wives watched for the glint of sails, hull down on
the horizon. Fishing gear and lobster traps are piled on the docks at the
end of the side streets; and activity offshore during the summer months
brings back something of the old seafaring past. The fishing fleet comes
in with bluefish, swordfish, and haddock; summer residents cruise in power
boats or set sail on schooner and yawl; and clam-diggers swarm on the
flats at low tide.

The point of land on which the community stands, called by the Indians
Pawcatuck and Mistack, was occupied by Narragansett Indians before
the arrival of William Chesebrough and a group of colonists from Ply-
mouth in 1649. Ownership of the territory was disputed for several years
by Massachusetts and Connecticut. Massachusetts named the settlement
Souther Towne in 1658. Connecticut renamed it Stonington in 1666,
after the agreement of 1662 under which the town again came within the
boundaries of the Nutmeg State. The name is descriptive, for there are
many stones in the area and little profitable agricultural acreage.

Stonington 299

Although the scene of considerable Indian warfare, there were few white
casualties in the early fights around Stonington. On April 9, 1676, during
King Philip's War, Canonchet was captured on the Pawcatuck River and
sentenced to die. When advised of his fate the chief said: 'I like it well
that I should die before my heart is softened and I say things unworthy
of myself.' Thereupon this son of Miantonomo was carried to Stonington
and executed by Indians who were friendly to the white men.

Little remains of the early shipbuilding that made Stonington a center of
such importance in the Colony of Connecticut that the village was popu-
larly known as a ' Nursery for Seamen.' Masters from the little town
sailed the Seven Seas with merchant vessels, opening up new markets for
the infant industries of the colony; and whalers with a Stonington registry-
searched uncharted oceans, returning with heavy cargoes of oil and whale-
bone to lay the foundations of many fortunes. One of the first whaling
franchises ever granted in America was issued to a Mr. Whiting for the
waters between Stonington and Montauk Point in 1647. Stonington be-
came an important port of entry, as more and more ships cleared from
the harbor that was protected by a breakwater for which the Federal
government expended $34,766 in 1828-34. Shipbuilding continued until
after the Civil War, but declined with the introduction of steamships.

Captain Edmund Fanning of Stonington served as a midshipman under
John Paul Jones. When he was but eighteen years of age, he discovered
the Fanning Islands, on June 15, 1798. These islands are now of great
importance on the trans-Pacific route of the Connecticut-built Sikorsky
Clipper ships. Captain Farming's brother, Nathaniel, was maintopman
of Jones' 'Bonhomme Richard,' and took part in the fight with the
'Serapis.' In 1820, Nathaniel B. Palmer, commanding the sloop 'Hero,'
sailed for the Antarctic Ocean with a squadron of whalers; in 1821, the
twenty-one-year-old sea captain discovered the Antarctic Continent, and
an archipelago has been named l Palmerland ' in his honor.

During the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, the town was twice
attacked from the sea. The first British attack, made by a foraging party
landed by H.M.S. 'Rose,' August 30, 1775, was met by local militia who,
with one casualty, repulsed the invaders. From August 9 to 12, 1814, the
village was bombarded by a British fleet made up of H.M. ships 'Ramil-
lies,' 'Terror,' 'Pactolus,' 'Despatch,' and 'Nimrod,' under the command
of Admiral Nelson's favorite officer, Captain Thomas Masterman Hardy,
who had been one of the heroes of the battle of Trafalgar. Mounting a
total of 140 guns, the attacking fleet engaged without success a shore
battery of only two cannon, a six-pounder and an eighteen-pounder,
manned by the Connecticut militia. Cannon balls from the King's navy,
which fell harmlessly in the fields and woods about the town, are among
Stonington's most valued relics. The British casualties totaled ninety-
four, and the ship ' Despatch ' was badly damaged. The militia reported
only three men wounded. Abandoning the attempt to take the town, the
British sailed away, and Stonington has chanted through the years, 'It
cost the King ten thousand pounds to have a dash at Stonington.'

3OO Main Street and Village Green

Present-day Stoning ton has an involved government peculiar to some
Connecticut towns, consisting of a borough within the township, with
two separate taxing units and two sets of municipal officials administering
civil affairs. The borough was the first incorporated in the State (May,
1801).

The industry of the community is varied. One factory produces fine silk-
throwing machinery, one mill makes velvet, and another produces various
forms of rubber molds.

TOUR

SW. from Broad on Elm St.

1. The Dudley Palmer House, built in 1765, 14 Elm St., a white
clapboarded, two-and-a-half-story, peak-roofed house, with a brick cen-
tral chimney, has a delicately designed cornice with capped corner
boards. The heavy paneled front door is flanked by fluted pilasters and
topped with a transom of five square lights. The owner, Dr. J. H. Weeks,
who is an authority on local history, has collected many relics of whaling
days and uses a part of his home for a Whaling Museum (open weekdays,
free).

2. The Congregational Church (1829), SE. cor. Main and Elm Sts., repre-
sents one of the last stages of the architectural development known as the
Greek Revival. In contrast with an iSth-century church its tower is low
and set within the main building. It is built of two square stories, each
framed with pilasters, and the horizontal lines are the heaviest and most
prominent. The portico is shallow but heavy. The windows extend the
whole two stories and are filled with stained glass. Each part may be cor-
rectly worked out as a single unit, but a building of this period always
lacks grace.

L. from Elm St. on Main St.

3. The Captain Lodowick Niles House (not open), 68 Main St., a sub-
stantial two-and-a-half-story clapboarded dwelling built early in the ipth

STONINGTON. POINTS OF INTEREST

1. Dudley Palmer House 10. Old Stone Customhouse

2. Congregational Church n. Stone Bank

3. Captain Lodowick Niles House 12. Old Breakwater

4. Eells House 13. Elkanah Cobb House

5. Colonel Joseph Smith Homestead 14. Old Stone Lighthouse

6. Samuel Denison House 15. Amos Sheffield House

7. Doctor Lord's Hall 16. Peleg Brown House

8. Amos Palmer House 17. Polly Breed House

9. Colonel Oliver Smith House

302 Main Street and Village Green

century, has an elaborate Doric portico enlivened with carved wreaths
in the entablature, a successful adaptation of the style used in ecclesias-
tical architecture.

4 and 5. On the corner of Main and Grand Sts. (L), are two well-preserved
white houses. The Eells House, built in 1785, NE. corner, is a simple
two-and-a-half-story clapboard dwelling with a well-designed doorway
of later date. The transom is delicately ornamented with leaded grill
work and is surmounted by a heavy cap. The Colonel Joseph Smith
Homestead , SE. cor., is a hip-roofed, square house. Its fan-lighted door is
set in a slightly projecting pediment that breaks through the roof and
shelters a similar fan-light above the cornice line. The Longfellow house
in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has the same design. Colonel Smith built
the house about 1800, adding to it over a period of years; he is credited
with being the designer-builder of several other Stonington houses.
In a fence post at the corner is embedded a cannon ball fired by the Brit-
ish warship 'Terror/ August 10, 1812.

Left from Main on Grand St.

6. The Samuel Denison House (not open) (L), on Grand St., across from
Cliff St., is an ornate two-and-a-half-story hip-roofed dwelling built
prior to 1811, distinguished by its ' cap tain's walk' around the large
central chimney.

Return on Grand St. to Main St.

7. Doctor Lord's Hall (not open) (R), 34 Main St., a long, two-story
building with three front entrances of very simple design, was used as a
schoolhouse and also as a meeting place during a revival period when
dancing was prohibited in the community. It may be only a coincidence
that the hall stands near the corner of Harmony St.

8. The Amos Palmer House (not open), built in 1787, NW. cor. Main and
Wall Sts., a very high house with a huge gable breaking the roof, and two
circular flights of steps, was severely damaged by the British bombard-
ment of 1814. Repaired and remodeled, it was the boyhood home of
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (born at Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1834).
Whistler's father was an engineer of repute, builder of the Providence to
Stonington railway line, and owner of a horse-drawn vehicle in which he
took the family to church over the twin rails of the road he built.

9. The Colonel Oliver Smith House (private), 25 Main St. (L), was erected
in 1761 by Colonel Smith, a shipbuilder of local fame. It is a small, un-
spoiled story-and-a-half gambrel-roofed dwelling with two small dormer
windows and an exceptionally large chimney, recently re topped.

10. The Old Stone Customhouse (private), 16 Main St. (R), a small build-
ing of split stone on a high stone foundation, has a Doric portico and a
roof of rather flat pitch. Built in 1823 as Stonington's first bank, it was
taken over by the Government in 1842 when the harbor became a port of
entry. In 1895, the port of entry was transferred to New London.

R. from Main St. on Cannon Square.

Stonington 303

11. Facing Cannon Square, the southern center of the borough, where
are placed two of the guns used in defense of Stonington during the
British attack of 1814, is the solid little Stone Bank (1850), the first Na-
tional Bank. A heavier version of the customhouse, the structure is built
of dressed granite, with free-standing Doric columns, long windows, and
triglyphs in the entablature.

Left from Cannon Square on Water St.

12. Extending 740 feet into Stonington Harbor, from behind the Atwood
Machine Company plant (manufacturers of silk-throwing machinery),
is (R) the Old Breakwater, built by the Government, 1828-34, of riprap
stone with a coursed stone top. Old stone posts, where whalers and sealers
tied their craft, are still standing. Fully 100,000 sealskins were unloaded
here during a good year.

13. The one-and-a-half-story Elkanah Cobb House, which was built in
1760, close to the sidewalk, at 35 Water St., now a store, is one of the more
attractive of the smaller gambrel-roofed seamen's cottages that stood in
the direct line of the British bombardment. The unusual windows have
nine lights in the bottom sash and six in the top.

14. The Old Stone Lighthouse (open; no fee) (L), at the end of Water St.,
now a museum and tearoom, is a squat, granite building once painted
white, with an octagonal tower topped with a windowed hood from
which the light shone. The heavy window caps and diamond-paned
casement windows give a hint of unexpected Tudor influence.

Among the historic maritime exhibits is the figurehead of the ' Great Re-
public,' the largest ship of the mid-nineteenth century, and one of the first
to be rigged as a four-masted barque. Built in Boston by Donald McKay
in 1853, her registered tonnage was 4555. She caught fire and had to be
scuttled while loading for her maiden voyage, and never went to sea as
originally designed. Under modified rigging, she was a failure commer-
cially, but did good work as a troop ship in both the Crimean and Ameri-
can Civil Wars. As the ' Denmark ' out of Liverpool, she foundered in the
North Atlantic in 1872.

Other exhibits include a Liverpool pitcher made in celebration of 'The
Gallant Defense of Stonington,' several pieces of old pewter, spinning and
weaving implements and equipment, nautical instruments, old books,
bank notes, bedspreads, fabrics, portraits, and documents.

Return N. on Water St.

15. The Amos Sheffield House (not open), 73 Water St., corner of Wall,
a severe white clapboarded dwelling, built prior to 1783, stands close to
the sidewalk on a high brick basement that served Aunt Honor States as
a store for the sale of dry goods, light groceries and fruit. The building
has been kept in excellent repair and is little changed. The doorway,
reached by a double flight of stone steps flanked by a delicately hand-
wrought iron rail, is designed in excellent proportions and ornamented
with fluted pilasters, a five-light transom, and a heavily molded cap. Fluted

304 Main Street and Village Green

pilasters, carried up through the second story at the corners of the build-
ing, and a deep, elaborate, molded cornice give this house a dignity its
otherwise plain exterior lacks.
Other Points of Interest.

16. Peleg Brown House (open, no fee), built in 1798, 94 Water St., a long,
two-and-a-half-story clapboarded dwelling with two entrance doors,
topped with simple three-pane transoms, is the birthplace of Captain
Nathaniel Palmer (1799-1877), the discoverer of Palmerland in the Ant-
arctic. This old house contains the log books of the skipper, mementos
of his life and accounts of his voyage.

17. The early iSth-century Polly Breed House (not open), at the west end
of Church St., is probably the oldest house in the borough. A long, low
one-and-a-half-story gambrel-roofed cottage, on a stone foundation, is
typical of the homes of seamen found in the outlying parts of the town.
The stately houses of a later generation of sea captains and shipowners
stand facing Wadawanuck Park, which lies between Water and Main Sts.,
in the northern part of the village.

Point of Interest in Environs:

Wequetequock Cemetery, with old wolf stones, 2.9 m. (see Tour 1).

WATERBURY

City: Alt. 280, pop. 99,902, sett. 1674, incorp. 1853.

Railroad Station: Union Station, Meadow St. for the N.Y., N.H. & H. R.R.

Accommodations: One first-class hotel.

Information Service: Chamber of Commerce, 7 Field St.

Swimming: Municipal Pools, free at Hamilton Park, 1334 E. Main St.; Chase

Park, Chase Park Ave.; Public Pools, 25^ fee at Boys' Club, 22 Cottage Place,

and Y.M.C.A., 136 W. Main St.

WATERBURY, the center of the brass industry in the United States,
lies in the valleys of the Naugatuck and Mad Rivers, and on the some-
what abrupt, brown hills that rise from the streamsides. Black iron and
yellow firebrick stacks tower above the casting shops and rolling mills,
throwing off saffron-yellow and greenish clouds of smoke. The railway
follows the river, with spurs running into the side valleys, where the
flat cars and gondolas, like strings of square beads, are switched to the
brass shops. In spite of the fact that the speckled-brown and granite-
gray hillsides have been stripped of all except third-growth saplings to
provide 'muffle wood' for the annealing and heat treatment of brass,
exposed ledge outcroppings of granite prevent erosion.

Waterbury 305

Waterbury is a Yankee industrial town that has grown without a city
plan. Office buildings of an imposing character were built along Grand
Street by the brass companies before their mergers with western copper.
A great fire in 1902 burned the entire business section of the city, but
the rebuilding was done with little idea of plan.

Known by the Indians as Mattatuck, meaning ' badly wooded region/
Waterbury was settled as a part of Farmington in May 1674, incorporated
and named, May 1686, from the 'abundant waters.' The township
was so rugged and sterile that, after a four-day survey, scouts made the
report, 'our apprehensions are that it may accommodate but 30 families.'
Rough estimates place the initial population at 150. There was no
increase in the population for 35 years, and not until 1840 was there any
appreciable growth. It was chartered as a city in 1853, and the town and
city were combined in 1901.

Waterbury's entire industrial development has been built around the
brass industry. The early braziers bought scrap brass, bronze, copper
and zinc, melted their own metal, rolled it in the crude iron rolls of the
day, and often blanked out brass buttons by footpower or even hammered
them out by hand. Early button shops flourished in 1790, and in 1802
James Harrison built a water wheel and applied the power thus developed
to the manufacture of clocks. By 1814 there were four clock shops in
the community. Despite a heavy migration from Waterbury to the
western lands between 1810 and 1820, many new shops sprang up, and
the production of Yankee notions was added to that of clocks, brass,
pewter, bone and ivory buttons. The community furnished much of the
stock for Yankee peddlers.

If a new finish was needed, if a new pin or a new fastener was market-
able, Waterbury mechanics found a way to produce it. Imported hooks
and eyes sold for $1.50 per gross in 1810, but by 1836 the Waterbury
mills produced them for 40 cents. Competition was keen but there was a
margin of profit of about 47 cents per pound during the golden years of
the brass business.

The brass industry owes much to imported English labor. James Croft,
a British subject, was hired by Leavenworth, Hay den & Scovill in 1820
to produce the striking orange tint that Americans then favored on
their brass buttons. Heavier rolls were imported from England in 1823,
and an expert British mechanic came to Waterbury to assist the Yankee
millmen in copying them. A variety of better finishes became possible
after electro-plating was developed in 1837. In 1842 the brass masters
discovered the right mixtures and annealing methods and made still
further advances in their craft. Wire-forming experts turned to the
manufacture of pins in 1842, and created a market for the overproduction
of brass wire that was first drawn by Israel Holmes in 1831. Holmes also
produced brazed tubing that was shipped to the New York Gas Company
in 1836.
The disks for U.S. nickels are blanked by Waterbury mills, and coins for

306 Main Street and Village Green

many South American countries are produced here. Cartridge brass
forms a large percentage of Waterbury's tonnage whenever war brews
anywhere in the world. Shell cases of assorted sizes, time fuses, even the
hydraulic speed gears that turn battleship turrets are made behind
carefully guarded gates. A quarter-million pounds of copper and copper
alloys were shipped from Waterbury mills for the great Boulder Dam
power plant. The American Brass Company which owns and controls
exclusive patent rights for the construction of hollow and ventilated
busses from rectangular copper bars, channels or angle shapes, originated
many new processes and mixtures, advancing the science of metallurgy
as applied to nonferrous metals.

The production of dollar watches furnishes employment for the wives and
daughters of Waterbury brass workers. Formerly a department of a
brass mill, but made a separate unit on March 27, 1857, the Waterbury
Clock Company designed, tooled-up, and manufactured the first success-
ful cheap timepiece. Robert H. Ingersoll contracted for the entire out-
put of the plant in 1892, advertised his wares, and was successful in
marketing about 5,000,000 Yankee watches per year until his death
in 1922.

A State law authorizing the formation of stock companies in Connecticut
was passed in 1837, enabling the pioneer industrialists to expand and
perfect the capital structure of their organizations.

The American Brass Association, formed in February 1853 to control
the output of brass in the Naugatuck Valley, became the first trade
association in America. The first large consolidation came in 1899 with
the formation of the American Brass Company. In 1917 the company
started the assembly of fabricating units in other regions, and in 1922
the Anaconda Copper Company, buying into the American Brass
Company, completed the first of the 'mine to consumer' outfits. The
second such combination came in 1929, when the Chase Companies,
Inc., outgrowth of the enterprise and genius for organization of A. S.
Chase, joined with the Kennecott Copper Company. But Waterbury
still keeps her independent brass mills; the Scovill Company combina-
tions, the Somers Brass and Waterbury Rolling Mills retain their inde-
pendence and their position in the industry.

Only 26 per cent of Waterbury's population is of full native parentage.
A variety of racial types can be seen in a poor district called 'The Dogs'
Nest,' in the * Catherine Lane' area, or in Brooklyn, just across the
bridge.

TOUR

N.from the Green on North Main St.; L.from N. Main on Cooke St.

i. The Cooke Homestead, NE. cor. of Cooke and Grove Sts., a tiny white
gabled house with green trim, is Waterbury's only remaining ' old house '

Waterbury 307

(private). Some of its timbers are from the original 1741 structure, but it
has been altered and enlarged until there is no evidence of its age other
than the roof lines of the older one-and-a-half-story portion of the dwelling.

2. Fulton Park, Cooke St., is a fine expanse of grassy lawns, flowering
shrubs and flower gardens, especially noteworthy for its rock garden,
beautiful with sedums, Alpines, and dwarf evergreens. Tennis courts,
baseball diamonds, swimming pools, and children's playgrounds are
among the facilities provided.

Return on Cooke and North Main Sts. to the Green; R. from North Main
St. on West Main St.

3. The long central Green, W. Main and N. Main Sts., once a frog pond,
is shaded by tall elm trees. On the SE. corner, the Town Sign Post
reminds strangers that town government is still of major importance
in Connecticut. At the western end is a very elaborate Civil War
Memorial (1885), by George E. Bissell, surrounded by cannon, a typical
monument of the era. At the eastern end of the Green is a large Memorial
Fountain (1885), presented by Caroline J. Welton (born, Waterbury,
1842), an organizer of the Connecticut Humane Society. Topping the
fountain's many basins for horses and dogs is a great bronze figure of
'Knight,' who is affectionately remembered as 'Carrie Welton's Hoss.'
The sculptor is unknown, and the fountain is a simple memorial to a
lover of animals.

4. The Church of the Immaculate Conception (1928) facing the Green from
the NW. corner of W. Main and Prospect Sts., is an ornate, white marble
structure of monumental proportions designed in the manner of a
Renaissance basilica. It is the work of Maginnis and Walsh. The dim
interior is impressive in its simplicity. The rounded apse centers atten-
tion on the baldachino covering the altar.

L. around the Green.

5. St. John's Episcopal Church W. end of the Green, designed by Richard
Upjohn, was destroyed by fire December 24th, 1868. It was rebuilt of
granite in 1870, and is a consistent, though not an outstanding, example
of the middle Victorian Gothic period.

6. Facing the south side of the Green is the Mattatuck Historical Society
(open weekdays 10-5; free), 119 W. Main St. In the room to the right
of the entrance is exhibited a collection of clothing and furniture of the
Victorian period. The room to the left of the entrance is devoted to
temporary exhibits. In the rear, is the main exhibition hall that includes
the Pritchard Alcove, furnished as an early American kitchen-living
room; an Industrial Loft, a reconstructed Colonial attic with crude tools
used in home industries; and varied collections of pottery, platters,
pitchers, old guns, kits and instruments used by early doctors and den-
tists. The second floor is devoted to the genealogical library, offices of
the Society, and a larger hall for temporary exhibits and lectures. A
Children's Museum in the basement includes Indian relics, a collection
of antique dolls, and geological exhibits.

308 Main Street and Village Green

Return to SE. corner of Green; L. from the Green on Leavenworth St.; L.
from Leavenworth on Grand.

7. The brick and limestone Chase Brass & Copper Company Office
Building (L), cor. Grand and Leavenworth Sts., an entire city block
wide, was designed by Cass Gilbert and erected in 1917. This four-story
building, with wings extending to the streets at both ends, is designed
with more restraint than the City Hall opposite.

8. The Municipal Building (1914), W. side of Grand St., also designed
by Cass Gilbert's office, is of the combined marble and brick, so often
associated with Gilbert's work. The three-story structure, with a
formal garden and fountain at the front, is topped with a delicate belfry.
The lower story of white marble, laid in rusticated courses, has windows
with square heads set in shallow surface arches. The second and third
stories are of red brick with white marble Corinthian pilasters which
extend from the second floor level to the cornice. The Chase Infirmary,
the Waterbury Bank, and Waterbury Club are also from Cass Gilbert
plans, making Waterbury an unusual monument to one of the greatest
of American architects.

9. On the grounds of the Silas Bronson Library, 267 Grand St., a balanced,
conventional brownstone structure, is a bronze Statue of Benjamin Frank-
lin, by Paul W. Bartlett (see Art).

10. The Railroad Station, at the end of Grand St. on Meadow, facing
Library Park, was the work of McKim, Mead & White. Its slender
clock tower is an adaptation of the Torre del Mangia in Siena. President
C. W. Mellon of the New Haven Railroad traveled in Italy, the story
goes, noticed the tower, and decided to put it on the next depot he built.

R. from Grand on Meadow St.; L. from Meadow on Freight St.

11. Beyond the rolling and wire mills of the American Brass Company,
on Freight St., across the Naugatuck via the concrete bridge, is the
Pilgrim Memorial designed by Herman MacNeil, a carving of Pilgrim
figures on granite.

Straight ahead from the foot of the Memorial on Chase Parkway.

12. The Settlers Village (no longer open), behind a sturdy stockade on

WATERBURY. POINTS OF INTEREST

1. Cooke Homestead 8. Municipal Building

2. Fulton Park 9. Silas Bronson Library

3. Green 10. Railroad Station

4. Church of the Immaculate Con- n. Pilgrim Memorial

ception 12. Settlers Village

5. St. John's Episcopal Church 13. Town Plot

6. Mattatuck Historical Society 14. Hamilton Park

7. Chase Brass & Copper Company

Office Building

310 Main Street and Village Green

Chase Parkway, was erected in 1935 by the city with the help of Federal
funds, in observance of the Connecticut Tercentenary. To the left of the
entrance are buildings representing early Colonial dwellings, with a
typical early Town Hall in the center. In the Town Hall is an industrial
exhibit.

The International Group of houses, including dwellings planned by the
Irish, Italian, Polish, French, Lithuanian, and Russian residents of the
Brass City, are reproductions of the types of homes in the countries from
which these groups have migrated.

13. The Town Plot, Chase Parkway at Sunnyside Ave., at the top of
the bluff west of the river, was the site of the first settlement. A tablet
on a roadside boulder commemorates the event. The best view of the
city as a whole may be obtained from this point.

14. Hamilton Park, at East Main and Silver Sts., is the largest in the
Waterbury municipal park system. Many fine drives, a zoo, a dance
hall, swimming pools, nature trails, and sports fields offer facilities for
recreation. At the extreme eastern end of the park is an old Waterwheel
dating from 1845 that formerly furnished power for an early brass mill.
Points of Interest in Environs:

Mattatuck State Forest, Jack's Cave, Indian Heaven (see Tour 5).

WETHERSFIELD

Town: Alt. 40, pop. 7512, sett. 1634.

Airport: Brainard Field, Hartford, 6 in. from Wethersfield for American Airlines.
Accommodations: Tourist homes in the center, and cabins on the Berlin Turn-
pike.
Boating: On Wethersfield Cove.

Annual Events: Horse Show, September, Griswold Road; Flower Show, middle
of June, 371 Wolcott Hill Road; Grange Fair, last week in September, Grange
Hall, Hartford Ave.

WETHERSFIELD, a suburb of Hartford on a plain along the west
bank of the Connecticut River flanked by partly wooded western ridges,
is one of the State's earliest settlements. The shady main street, with a
Common at the north end of the village and a central Green nearer the
southern limits of the community, is a typical Yankee thoroughfare.
Large elms border the Green and older streets; the bank occupies a
Colonial mansion; the general store furnishes very nearly everything man

Wethersfield 311

requires; seed warehouses are modestly set back from the road, and a
chain store shoulders close to the sidewalk in the only block of modern
buildings in the business section.

Across the fields is the river. Occasionally a bright oil barge passes,
seemingly afloat on the grass itself. A passenger steamer formerly passed
the town twice daily. Residents used to set their watches by the clumsy
old river boat and relied upon the frantic toots of the captain's whistle
to warn them of fire at an isolated farm, or of river boatmen in distress.
Today, pleasure craft and freight carriers dock not far from the wharves
where West India sailors loaded their vessels with staves, fish, onions,
and salt beef.

The newer buildings in Wethersfield are grouped to the west of the older
plains sections of the town and on the western hills. The village is a
community of home-owners with few tenant houses. Fully fifty-four
per cent of the population is of native parentage and only seventeen
per cent is foreign-born. Suburban residents have fitted gracefully into
the life of the older community, and the social pattern of the town re-
mains practically unchanged.

In 1634, John Oldham, an adventurer of Watertown, Mass., who had
explored the region during the previous year, settled here with a following
of ten men. Later they were joined by additional colonists from Water-
town, Mass., many of whom came by boat. On this colonization, Wethers-
field bases its claim to the honor of being the first English settlement
in Connecticut, because it was the only one of the 'Three River Towns'
(Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield) which was originally founded as
a permanent settlement rather than as a trading post.

Here, as recorded in Irving's 'Knickerbocker's History of New York/
the colonists 'extended their plantations of onions/ for which the town
is noted, 'under the very noses of Fort Goed Hoop, insomuch that the
honest Dutchmen could not look toward that quarter without tears hi
their eyes.' In 1637 the village was given its present name in memory of
the English birthplace of many of the settlers. The Indian name for the
area was Pyqiiug.

Although the Podunk Indians were friendly, the Pequots, determined to
recover their traditional hunting grounds, kept the settlers in continual
fear of raiding parties. In April, 1637, the Wethersfield Massacre, in
which six men and three women were killed and two girls taken captive,
precipitated the Pequot War.

Wethersfield witnessed the first demonstration of the American people
for independence, when, on April n, 1640, the citizens held a public
election in defiance of the Royal Courts. The town was fined five pounds
for its indiscretion and refused to pay. Later, during the Stamp Act
Controversy, Jared Ingersoll, a newly appointed collector, was surrounded
on the Broad Street Green and forced to march, under escort of the Sons
of Liberty, to the General Assembly at Hartford to resign his office.
When the witchcraft hysteria swept through New England in the middle

312 Main Street and Village Green

of the seventeenth century, Mary Johnson of Wethersfield was hanged
after her confession of 'familiarity with the devil,' and John Carrington
and his wife were convicted of witchcraft and hanged.

The rapid growth and early prosperity of the town was fostered by its
shipping activities. The 'Tryall,' first Connecticut-built ship, launched
here in 1649, led the way for Connecticut's great merchant fleet of river
vessels. Trade with the West Indies and other ports was begun here in
1648. Exports included furs, hides, bricks, onions, fish, and salt beef.
At the height of the export trade, more than one million bunches of onions
were shipped annually. At one time there were as many as six ware-
houses in the village, one of which, built between 1661-91 is still standing.
A carding and fulling mill, said to be the first established in New England,
was built by Jacob Griswold in 1680 at Griswoldville, Wethersfield, and
was operated until 1839. A plow factory established in 1820 for many
years shipped one thousand plows annually to Carolina planters.

The importance of Wethersfield as a center of commerce and industry
declined when shipping activity was attracted to coastal ports, and came
to an end about 1880. Of the early industries, only market gardening
and two large seed concerns, operated since the days of the town's mer-
chant marine trade, survive.

TOUR 1

E. from Main St. on Marsh St.

1. The Congregational Church, NE. cor. Main and Marsh Sts. (1761),
like the Old South Church in Boston, is an 18th-century church of brick.
Although its interior was, unfortunately, remodeled in 1882 and the tall
stained-glass windows and ugly main entrance added, the building has
retained much of its exterior beauty in the diamond patterned brickwork,
like that of some old church in Holland, and in its open belfry and slender
spire. The two pairs of cross-panel doors in the tower are among the
best of a type popular in the Connecticut Valley.

2. In the Burial Place, Marsh St., behind the church, are the graves of
many of the early settlers. The oldest stone, that of Leonard Chester,
crudely engraved with his family coat of arms, is dated 1648. An Indian,
interred in a sitting position, facing east, was uncovered here in 1832,
confirming a previous belief that the Indians also used this plot as a
graveyard.

A Boulder, on a small triangular plot at the junction of Marsh, Ferry and
Broad Sts., was placed here in memory of Richard Smith, Jr., the first
licensed ferryman who operated the little boat that plied across the Con-
necticut River from the foot of Ferry St. (Wethersfield) to Silver Lane
in the town of Hockanum. The ferry was operated by Smith and his
descendants from 1674-1762.

Wethersfield 313

R. from Marsh St. on Broad St.

3. The Older Williams House (private) (1680), 249 Broad St., on an elm-
shaded lot where the road narrows at the end of the Green, is one of the
best preserved 17th-century dwellings in the State. This structure is the
best existing example of the transition in New England's Colonial archi-
tecture from the original end-chimney, single-room house to the central-
chimney house, by the addition of a second room on the other side of the
chimney. Usually these houses, two-stories high but one room deep,
were completed by the addition of a lean-to at the rear, and converted
into ' salt-boxes.' The huge chimney back of the ridge, its two-fot
overhang at cornice and gable-end, and its original, unpainted condition,
make it a stark and impressive reminder of its period.

4. Broad Street Green, at the south end of the village, was the center of
the residential section of the old town. The original Wethersfield Com-
mon is now under water, having been inundated many years ago as a
result of the shifting channel of the Connecticut River. This Green,
which served as a training ground for colonial militia, is surrounded by
many plantings of elm and maple that have grown to immense size.

5 and 6. The Skaats House (private), 138 Broad St., a wide-roofed wooden
building with one window to the left of the door and two to the right,
is half of a large tavern built by the Chester family before 1750. The
other half, its windows arranged in the opposite way, stands across the
Green at 25 Garden St.

7. The Wethersfield Elm (L), on the east side of the Green, is the largest
elm in America, 102 feet high, 41 feet in circumference, with a spread of
146 feet. According to an old diary this tree was planted about 1758.
Continue around the Green to Garden St.; L. on Garden St.

8. The Michael Griswold House (private) (1730), 116 Garden St., is an un-
altered example of a salt-box house of the 'integral' type, in which the
rear rafters extending from the roof-tree are in one piece. The unusual,
raised panels of the double front doors are old, but are a type used a
century after the house was built. This dwelling is now owned by the
family of the builder.

R. from Garden St. on Main St.

9. The Ashbel Wright House (private) (1787), 133 Main St., became in
1824 the 'commodious academy' of the Rev. Joseph Emerson who moved
here from Saugus, Massachusetts. Mary Lyon, founder of Mt. Holyoke
College, was one of the first pupils to attend this 'Female Seminary/
which attracted nearly 100 pupils a large number in the days when
higher education for women was deemed unnecessary.

10. The Academy (1801-04), 150 Main St., typical of the public schools
built by the more prosperous towns in the early Federal period, is a long
plain brick building, with little ornament but the bell-shaped cupola at
the center of the roof, the stone lintels over the windows, and fan-light
over the simple door. This building, in which the Rev. Mr. Emerson

314 Main Street and Village Green

conducted many of his classes, became a public school in 1839, and now
serves as the Town Hall and Library.

n. The Historical Society, 196 Main St. (small fee), occupies four rooms
in the Welles School, where it maintains an exhibition of records and
antiquities.

12. The Silas Deane House (private), 203 Main St. (L), is set rather
inconspicuously behind lilacs close to the sidewalk and half disguised
by a long modern porch across the front. It was built by Silas Deane,
a wealthy merchant, in 1 764, after his marriage to the widow of Joseph
Webb, who lived in the big house next door. She was used to a house
of much elegance, and this house, though smaller, was in its spacious and
informal rooms one of the most gracious homes of the northern Colonies.
Its unusual corner hallway has an elaborate staircase with balusters of
three different turnings on each tread. The six paneled interior walls are
equally rich and varied; and the entrance doorway is handsomely pro-
portioned. Washington spent the night here, June 29, 1775.

Deane, known as the 'Father of the American Navy,' because of his
efforts in developing the naval strength of the Colonies, was the first
American diplomat and commercial agent. In 1774-76 he was sent to
France to secure military supplies and French support. While still
abroad in the service of his country, he was charged with embezzlement
of Government funds. Broken in health and courage, Deane died in
1 798, when, completely exonerated, he was about to return to his home-
land.

13. Next door is the Webb House or Hospitality Hall (open weekdays 10-5;
adm. 25^f; children 10) (1752), 211 Main St. (L), now the headquarters
of the Connecticut Society of the Colonial Dames. A tall, imposing house
with a steep gambrel roof, the impression of height is increased by the
graduation of its clapboards, which are very narrow at the bottom. A
narrow, pedimented porch one of the earliest shelters the Dutch
door. Inside, the central hall, with a floor painted in a pattern of blocks,
runs through to a colonial garden. The north parlor, with arched cross-

WETHERSFIELD. POINTS OF INTEREST

1. Congregational Church 13. Webb House

2. Burial Place 14. Henry Deming House

3. Older Williams House 15. Simeon Belden House

4. Broad Street Green 16. Sergeant John Latimer Homestead

5. and 6. Skaats House 17. The Warehouse

7. Wethersfield Elm 18. Titus Buck Place

8. Michael Griswold House 19. Standish Park and Athletic Field

9. Ashbel Wright House 20. Wethersfield State Prison
10. The Academy 21. Lemuel Deming House
n. Historical Society 22. Jonathan Deming House
12. Silas Deane House 23. Ichabod Welles House

316 Main Street and Village Green

panel doors flanking the fireplace, is one of the most beautiful iSth-century
rooms in the State. The south parlor, though supplied by Wallace Nutting
with later paneling from a Rhode Island house, is interesting as the Coun-
cil Chamber where, in May 1781, Washington, Rochambeau, and De
Ternay held their historic four-day conference to plan the Yorktown
campaign. Upstairs, Washington's bedchamber is preserved with the
original wallpaper.

14. The Henry Deming House (1790), opposite, now the Wethersfield
Bank, contrasts with the earlier simplicity of the Webb house. The
Tudor rose, so often used over pilasters in Connecticut Valley houses
between 1740 and 1770, appears in the abbreviated Palladian window over
the door. The window heads are each elaborated with a dentil course
over a half-round member, a mode that was prevalent after the Revolu-
tionary War.

15. The Simeon Belden House (private) (1767), 251 Main St., is a gambrel-
roofed house with well-preserved detail, including narrow clapboards and
a broken-pediment doorway that ranks among the best in the town.

1 6. The Sergeant John Latimer Homestead (private), 580 Main St., a steep,
narrow gambrel-roofed house, which was later enlarged into a rather
awkward salt-box, has been in the Latimer family since its erection in
1690. Like those around it, this house suffered greatly in the flood of
1936, which revealed that the outer walls were built of rough vertical
planking, two inches thick, but finished with a feather-edge on the inside,
a unique piece of 17th-century workmanship.

17. The Warehouse (open), at the end of N. Main St., on the edge of
Wethersfield cove behind the Latimer House, a plain, broad gambrel-
roofed house, built of 1 5-inch sheathing, is the last of six similar structures
erected at the bend of the river prior to 1691, when Wethersfield was a
'Port of Exchange between the Interior and the Old World.'

18. The Titus Buck Place (private) (1767), 583 Main St., opposite the
Latimer House, is a typical mid-i8th-century house, with a central brick
chimney, and an old ell with exceptionally narrow clapboards. Here
Sophia Woodhouse Welles made fine leghorn bonnets from grasses she
found growing on the Common. A bonnet of red top and spear grass
made by Mrs. Welles was awarded a prize of 20 guineas at the Society of
Arts in London when exhibited there in 1820, and was patented in this
country in 1821. These Wethersfield hats were much admired by Mrs.
John Quincy Adams, who ordered several.

TOUR 2

NW. from Main St. on Hartford Ave.

19. Standish Park and Athletic Field, Hartford Ave., Nott, Garden, and
Francis Sts. In the northeast corner of the grounds, near the highway,

Wethersfield 317

is a sandstone seat made of a stone slab more than 21 feet in length,
bearing the imprint of a dinosaur's foot. This stone was originally used
as a doorstep at the store owned and operated by Silas Deane, Revolu-
tionary diplomat, and later served as the stepping-stone to the old Post
Office on Main St.

R. from Hartford Ave. on State St.

20. The Wethersfield State Prison, State St. (L), operated on the Auburn
plan of penology, was opened in 1827 when 127 prisoners were marched
here from Newgate in East Granby. The prison buildings stand well
back from the street and are surrounded by well-kept lawns.

Within the Prison Chapel is a fresco painted by Miss Genevieve Cowles.
Her interest in the prisoners was aroused when she visited the peniten-
tiary in search of a model for panel designs on each side of the altar in
the chapel of Christ Church, New Haven. Her design is based on the
chant :

*O Key of David and Scepter of the House of Israel, Thou that openest
and no man shutteth, and shuttest and no man openeth; come and
loose the prisoners from the prison house and him that sitteth in the
darkness and the shadow of death.'

A life prisoner volunteered to be the model. During her many visits to
the prison, Miss Cowles came to know many of the prisoners and to
take a deep interest in their problems. Desiring to bring solace and in-
spiration to them, she offered to paint a fresco for the chapel and asked
the inmates to choose the subject. After much interested discussion they
decided upon the 'Sea of Galilee.' Miss Cowles spent several months
in the Holy Land preparing for this work.

On the prison grounds stands the hip-roofed Solomon Welles House (1774),
220 Hartford Ave. Completely changed from its original appearance by
the addition of dormers and a porch, it serves as the Warden's home.
Near-by is the site of the home of Governor Thomas Welles, who wrote
the first State Constitution.

21. The Lemuel Deming House {private) (1750), at 74 State St., somewhat
modernized, was erected on the site of the first hat factory in New England
(1724), where Captain Deming turned out hat shapes of beaver, coon,
otter, and other skins.

Return to Hartford Ave.; L. from Hartford Ave. on Jordan Lane.

22. The Jonathan Deming House (private), NW. cor. Jordan Lane and
Silas Deane Highway, is a restored salt-box. With five narrow windows, a
projecting hood over the door, and added lean-to, this old farmhouse is
known to have been erected before 1733. The slight flare of its eaves
adds to its piquant character.

23. The Ichabod Welles House (private), cor. Jordan Lane and Ridge Rd.,
on the site of the Wyllys Welles House of 1684, dates from 1715. The
chimney, 16 X 18 feet at the base, a record size, may be a relic of the
earlier dwelling. The fine paneling throughout dates from the early i8th

31 8 Main Street and Village Green

century. Of greater interest, however, is the Barn at the rear of the house.
Primitive in construction, this building probably dates back to the time
of the original homestead. Its roof is gambrel on one side and cut on
the other to form a two-story front; and its corner posts, crude and heavy,
support the girts by means of natural tree-branches which serve as brack-
ets.

WINDSOR

Town: Alt. 60, pop. 8290, sett. 1633.

Railroad Station: N.Y., N.H. & H. R.R. Station at n Central Ave.

Airports: See HARTFORD.

Accommodations: Hotel.

Information Service: Custodian of the Walter Fyler House, 96 Palisado Ave.,

will supply information on places of historical interest.

Amusements: Trotting races at Sage Park (western part of town) for one week

in season.

Boating: Boats for use on the Connecticut River can be rented from the Loomis

Institute boat-house, or from the Hartford Y.M.C.A. The Camp Rainbow

Committee rents boats on the Farmington River.

WINDSOR, stretching along a river plain on the western bank of the
Connecticut River, was one of Connecticut's three earliest settlements.
Still a village of considerable charm, the old community is traversed
by heavy traffic and, influenced by the extending metropolitan area of
Hartford, has the appearance of a suburb of that city. The new
Americans, who now till the loams of the river plain, erect stands at
the roadside for the sale of farm and garden produce. Northward, the
town tapers off to scattered farms and a few orchards beside the road.

Windsor has been a tobacco town since 1640. Normally three thousand
acres are devoted to tobacco cultivation. The State maintains an Experi-
ment Station here to aid tobacco-growers, and a large sorting plant is
operated under Lorillard management. Some tomatoes and squash are
also produced for canning in a local plant. The barns are small, unlike the
larger structures of the dairying countryside to the west. Green carpets
of seed rye cover the tobacco-fields that are frequently close to the center
of this village. Away from the road many tobacco sheds with their red
paint or weathered gray unpainted sidings seem to merge into the back-
drop of distant hills. When the ' vents ' are open and the leaf is curing,
the sheds look like many-legged prehistoric animals, standing in the
rear of the fields as if guarding the fertile acreage.
The center of Windsor conforms to the New England pattern of houses

Windsor 319

clustering around a Green. South of the Farmington River is Broad
Street Green, the business center of modern Windsor; and north of the
river is the church and Palisado Green. Along the streets that join
above Broad Street Green, forming a sprawling Y Poquonock Road,
the left branch; Windsor Avenue, Broad Street and Palisado Avenue
(US 5 A), the stem and right branch are numerous old houses, sur-
rounded by unfenced lawns that stretch down to the street and are
shaded by venerable elms and maples (the Windsor Historical Society
has marked old buildings with placards, giving dates and names of
original owners). Windsor is remarkable for the variety of its architec-
ture, which includes examples from the simplicity of the seventeenth
century to the diversity of the nineteenth, as well as handsome twentieth-
century buildings.

On September 26, 1633, Captain William Holmes and a small band of
men from the Plymouth Colony, who had brought with them the frame
of a house ready to raise, sailed up the river and established a trading
post at the mouth of the Tunxis (Farmington) River, on land previously
bought from the Indian tribe who had lived there until driven out by
the Pequots. Previously, the Dutch, led by Adriaen Block, had dis-
covered and claimed this valley of the Long River (Quinatucquet) and,
when 'messages of friendly kindness and good neighborhood were
passing between New Amsterdam and Plymouth,' commended this
region to the English as a 'fine place for both plantation and trade/
In response to an invitation from the local Indian chief, Governor
Winslow and a group of men investigated the territory, claiming it in
the name of England. When Holmes sailed up the river, he was hailed by
the commander of the Dutch fort on the present site of Hartford, who
ordered, ' Strike your colors or we will fire/ Holmes replied, 'I have
the commission of the governor of Plymouth to go up the river and I
shall go.' Later the Dutch sent a force of seventy men from Fort Amster-
dam to drive the newcomers away, but found the English post so well
fortified that they withdrew. In June and November of 1635, Holmes
was joined by English Puritans from John Warham's parish in Dorchester,
who were displeased by the political restrictions in Massachusetts.
This group settled on the great meadow north of the Farmington River.
A second group of colonists, who came from England under the sponsor-
ship of Sir Richard Saltonstall and led by Stiles, settled further upstream
in the vicinity of the present Ellsworth home. These settlers called the
Dorchester group ' pious bandits' because they settled on the best
lands. The new settlement, at first called Matianuck, then Dorchester,
was named Windsor in 1637 after the Berkshire residence of the English
sovereigns.

The original town of Windsor comprised what is now the towns of
Windsor, Windsor Locks, Granby, East Granby, Simsbury, the southerly
part of Suffield, and part of Bloomfield on the west bank of the Connec-
ticut River, and East Windsor, South Windsor, Ellington, and the
northern part of Vernon on the east side of the river.

32O Main Street and Village Green

Nature was not kind to the little colony. The first winter saw the river
frozen tight by mid-November and snow so deep that the pioneers
despaired of ever getting through to Plymouth Colony to secure rations
and aid. The 'Rebecca/ a sixty-ton rescue ship from Boston, narrowly
escaped being ice-bound, but finally succeeded in reaching Saybrook,
where it picked up seventy Windsor colonists, who returned to Massa-
chusetts. Those who remained here throughout the winter to care for
livestock at the Palisado suffered severely. Many tales of fortitude are
told in Windsor regarding the early herdsmen and soldiers who kept the
feeble embers of colonization aglow when there seemed little likelihood
that the settlement would ever succeed. Yankee grit was developed,
perhaps, behind the crude stockade which stood on the land now Palisado
Green.

Although the local Indians befriended the settlers, the little town was
in constant fear of Pequot raids. Finally, after the Pequots attacked
Wethersfield in April, 1637, the colonists organized a band of ninety
men under the leadership of Captain John Mason of Windsor who
swooped down on the Pequots and burned them in their Mystic encamp-
ment (see Tour 1, MYSTIC). Thereafter the community was com-
paratively untroubled until King Philip's War in 1676, when the palisades
of Windsor gave refuge to the fleeing farmers of Simsbury.
Communications were established between the right and left banks of
the river in 1639; John Bissell operated a ferry hi 1648. A school was
provided for in 1647, and a church was raised the same year; the school to
the south of the Farmington River was not built until 1674. In 1760,
Benjamin Franklin's newly established mail coach line went through the
village on the Philadelphia-Boston run that took six days, for a record-
breaking, average daily travel of about fifty miles. At the mouth of the
Farmington River, in a meadow beyond Island Road, a boulder marks
the site of the old Plymouth Trading Post. Between the river and the
road, a dirt lane leads eastward opposite 546 Palisado Avenue to the
site of the old Bissell Ferry and Stoughton's Fort. Both are on private
property.

Sergeant Daniel Bissell was cited by General Washington, May 9, 1783,
and became one of the three Connecticut men to receive the Purple Heart.
Charged with desertion while he was serving with Benedict Arnold's
regiment and gathering valuable information, Bissell became a Colonial
hero immediately on his return to the American lines. Only three Purple
Hearts were awarded during the Revolutionary War and all of these went
to Connecticut soldiers.

Christopher Miner Spencer, inventor of the Spencer repeating rifle, the
piece that Confederate soldiers said, 'the Yanks loaded on Sunday
for the rest of the week/ conducted a factory where the P. Lorillard
and Company now maintains a warehouse for the sorting, storage, and
packing of wrapper-leaf tobacco. Harvard (water-struck) brick has
been exported from Windsor for nearly a century. This face brick has
been extensively used in many Yale University buildings in New Haven.

Windsor 321

Many citizens of Windsor have attained prominence. Roger Ludlow of
Windsor, who shares with Thomas Hooker the honor of framing the
Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (January 14, 1639) ; Oliver Ellsworth,
appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court by Washington and sent
in 1 799 as Envoy Extraordinary to Paris where he successfully negotiated
a treaty with Napoleon; Roger Wolcott, Governor of Connecticut,
1751-54; John W. Barber (1798-1885), historian; and the poet Edward
Rowland Sill (1841-87), known as 'The American Shelley/
Windsor today is an interesting example of suburbanization. The Hart-
ford residential area overlaps the town line, Lithuanian and Polish
farmers have come to work in the tobacco-fields, and Danish truck
farmers operate their own vegetable farms. The descendants of the
original settlers have, in many cases, moved farther back into the sur-
rounding country.

TOUR 1

i. On Broad Street Green, beside the World War Memorial, stands
Windsor's Constitutional Oak, presented by General Joseph R. Hawley
to the Windsor delegate to the convention which revised the constitution
of the State in 1818.

2 and 3. Two of the houses on Broad Street Green present the contrast
of the two prevailing types found frequently throughout Windsor. The
Dr. Alexander Wolcott House (private}, facing the Green on the north,
built in 1745 by a son of Governor Roger Wolcott, is the typical simple,
white, peak-roofed, central-chimney house of the eighteenth century,
while the brick James Loomis House (private) (1822), on the west side of
Broad Street Green, its gable end to the road, and its door in one corner,
is duplicated many times on Windsor Avenue to the south.
R. from Broad St. Green on Elm St.

4. The John Moore House (private}, 35 Elm St., built in 1664, though it
might now pass for a modern building, is the oldest house in town. It is
one of six in the State that show the framed overhang of the Hartford
Colony. Under the piazza roof are two of the original ' drops' or pendants
beneath the overhang.

Return to Broad Street Green; R. on Broad St.

5. At the southern end of Broad Street Green is the Oliver Mather
House (1777), now the Public Library (open weekdays 9-5), a white
house with graduated clapboards, which was remodeled about 1840
with a heavy balustrade across the front of the house and over the
square hip-roofed entrance porch. These alterations have wholly changed
the character of the house.

L. from Broad St. on Island Rd.

6. The Loomis Institute, at the south end of Island Rd., an endowed

Windsor 323

school for boys, occupies a group of modern buildings on the 'Island/
Northeast of the main buildings stands the old Joseph Loomis House
(private) in excellent condition. In digging for the Institute buildings,
remains were found of a dugout cabin, the earliest type of refuge made
by the settlers. Records show that Joseph Loomis took up his claim
here in 1639 and died in 1658. Whether he built the dugout the only
one which has remained to modern times or even the salt-box ell of
the house, is a matter of conjecture. But tradition states that this was
his house, built before 1652, and that the main part of the house was
erected in 1688-90. These dates seem early for some of the features,
which may have been added later. The i8th century has left its mark
on the house, in its paneling, the molded window heads, the slight
flare to its roof lines, and the cased framing within. The most curious
feature of the building is the window sash, two and one-half panes in
height. The foundations of both parts are of cut stone, unusual in Wind-
sor, and transported probably from Portland, but both of the chimneys
are of brick throughout, which has been made in Windsor since Colonial
times. On the school grounds is the Studio of Mrs. Evelyn Beatrice
Longman Batchelder, sculptress.

7. Near the river, south of the school, a Boulder marks the spot where
the colonists, under the leadership of Captain Holmes, first settled.
Return on Island Rd. to Windsor Ave. (Broad St.); L. on Windsor Ave.

8. The Captain Thomas Allyn Homestead (private), 573 Windsor Ave.,
is curious in that it is of brick, originally built in salt-box form, as an
examination of its end walls clearly indicates. Though assigned by
tradition a 17th-century date (1670), it bears a resemblance to the Day
House (1758) of West Springfield, Massachusetts, which is also a brick
salt-box; the earlier date is now accepted by authorities to be a trans-
position of figures for 1 760. The end chimneys, the central hall, and the
paneling inside all point to this later date.

9. Hidden in the brush at the entrance to the Clayton P. Chamberlain
Estate, 1228 Windsor Ave., is a Monument erected (1907) by the Hartford
Dental Society to Dr. Horace C. Hayden of Windsor (1769-1844), who

WINDSOR. POINTS or INTEREST

1. Constitutional Oak n. First Congregational Church of

2. Dr. Alexander Wolcott House Windsor

3. James Loomis House 12. Lieutenant Walter Fyler House

4. John Moore House 13. Monument to Original Settlers

5. Oliver Mather House 14- Hezekiah Chaff ee House

6. Loomis Institute 15. Eighteenth-Century Houses

7. Boulder 16. Rev. William Russell House

8. Captain Thomas Allyn Home- 17. Martin Ellsworth House

stead 18. Elmwood

9. Monument 19. Tobacco and Vegetable Field Sub-
10. Warham Gristmill Station

324 Main Street and Village Green

established the first dental school in America (at Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity, Baltimore, Maryland, February i, 1840), and founded the
American Society of Dental Surgeons (1840). The monument is a
square, brick pillar, 12 feet high, topped by an illuminated glass globe.
A bronze tablet on the face records memorable events in Dr. Hayden's
career.

TOUR 2

NW. from Broad Street Green on Poquonock Ave.

10. The War ham Gristmill (open), corner Poquonock Ave. and East St.,
the earliest mill in the State, was the gift of the town to its minister,
the Rev. John Warham, in 1640. Although the exterior was remodeled
in the early ipth century, the original frame with its old beams and heavy
rafters still remains. Here are many of the old grist stones used by the
mill in grinding corn for almost 300 years.

Return to Broad St.; L. from Broad on Palisado Ave.

11. The First Congregational Church of Windsor (1794) stands (L) just
past the north bank of the Farmington River. Despite the very heavy
Greek Revival Doric portico and square tower, added in 1844, it still
retains much of its iSth-century appearance in its corner quoins, and
the large key blocks over the round-headed windows. One of the windows
still has the 35-paned sash. Inside are the old box pews.

Behind the church is the Palisado Cemetery, containing the graves of
such eminent Windsor citizens as Oliver Ellsworth (see Elmwood) ; the
Rev. John Warham, leader of a group of early settlers; Roger Wolcott,
Governor of Connecticut; and the Rev. Ephraim Hait, who died Septem-
ber 4, 1644; his tombstone is thought to be the oldest in the State.

12. The Lieutenant Walter Fyler House (open Mondays and Thursdays,
1-5, May to October; at other times by appointment; adm.free), 96 Palisado
Ave. at the foot of the Green, is now the property of the Windsor Histori-
cal Society. The story-and-a-half ell toward Palisado Avenue is per-
haps the oldest frame building in the State, since records show that
Lieutenant Fyler had built here in 1640. The original dwelling was of
the one-room, end-chimney type and faced south. The chimney on the
end toward the street was removed, probably at the time the larger,
gambrel-roofed section was built in 1772-73. The new brick chimney
built at the intersection of the two structures affords diagonal fireplaces
in some of the rooms. These and the sliding shutters, and fluted pilasters
with rosettes lend to the interior a touch of the romantic that was
characteristic of the height of iSth-century architecture. The long
added ell to the south is a still later addition. A Colonial garden has been
planted on the grounds.

13. Around Palisado Green, the center of the old settlement, are a

Windsor 325

number of interesting buildings and monuments, including the Ship
Monument to Original Settlers (1930), designed by Mrs. Evelyn Beatrice
Longman Batchelder, and the Grant Memorial Tablet to a keeper of
early town records. The Site of the Matthew Grant Homestead, where an
ancestor of General U. S. Grant once lived, is marked, as is the James
Hooker House (private], built in 1772; in the latter Edward Rowland
Sill (1841-87), Connecticut poet, educator, and one-time professor of
English at the University of California, was born. It is now a part of
the Chaff ee School, the girls' department of the Loomis Institute.

14. The Hezekiah Chaff ee House, built in 1759, 108 Palisado Ave., occu-
pied by the Chaffee School, is one of the oldest brick houses in the State.
R. from Palisado Green on Meadow Rd.

15. On Meadow Rd., which winds down to the river, are a number of
Eighteenth-Century Houses (private) with a wide variety of roofs and door-
ways. The last house on Meadow Rd. is the 18th-century cottage of
Captain Samuel Cross, the ferryman.

Return to Palisado Avenue.; R. on Palisado Ave.

16. The Rev. William Russell House (private) (1753) across the Green, at
101 Palisado Ave., has a beautiful doorway, the best in Windsor. It re-
flects the rather Jacobean formality of the mid-eighteenth century with its
rusticated setting of imitation stone, its elaborate entablature, and the
fluted pilasters topped by rosettes which were popular in the Connecticut
Valley from 1740 to the Revolution.

17. Next, north, stands the Martin Ellsworth House at No. 115, built by
Oliver Ellsworth in 1807 for his son, which represents the conflicting
tendencies which characterized early 19th-century architecture. Detail
was much more carefully studied, and the general composition of the
broad gable facing the street has more sophistication and dignity, but
there is also greater informality within the rigid framework.

18. Elmwood (open Sundays and Mondays, 9-5; May-Nov., adm. 25<f)
(1740), 778 Palisado Ave., the home of Oliver Ellsworth, minister to
France and third Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
In the front yard is a wooden stump which is all that remains of the
famous 'Old Hunting Tree' beneath which Indian chiefs held their coun-
cils. Two of the 13 elms planted by the great jurist to commemorate the
adoption of the Federal Constitution stand near the road. The house
is now owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

The house itself is interesting as one of the earliest in Connecticut to
have two chimneys and a central hall. It had so long been the practice
to cramp the stairway of a house into a narrow space that despite the
central hall, the stairs in this house were not even visible, but were hidden
away behind a partition. Builders did not immediately discover how
effective a feature the stair could be made. The colonnaded addition
to the plain country farmhouse was added when Ellsworth returned to
his native village from the courts of Europe. The woodwork of the spa-
cious, lofty drawing room is mahogany-grained. Yet with all the splendor

326 Main Street and Village Green

of this elaborately paneled room, it is worthy of note that the old Chief
Justice slept in a room unheated by any fireplace. His room had wall-
paper imported from France in 1802.

Among the interesting exhibits are the Shepherd Lad tapestry presented
to Ellsworth by Napoleon at the time Ellsworth negotiated a treaty with
France. Upstairs is a rare musical instrument, brought from France
by the envoy, which plays tunes with the tone of a piano, though turned
by a hand crank.

19. The Tobacco and Vegetable Field Sub-Station of the Connecticut
Agricultural Experiment Station, at Cook Hill, puts scientific methods
to work in the field for the commercial agriculturist, and offers facilities
to all growers in the vicinity. On a i5-acre plot, the plant of the Station,
which is the only tobacco experiment station in New England and one
of four or five of its kind in America, includes a laboratory, greenhouse,
warehouse and tobacco barns.

Organized in 1922, after experiments dating back to 1880, this station
conducts tests to determine the best methods of curing tobacco in
storage, tests to eliminate or control tobacco diseases, and to determine
the chemical content of the soils best suited to tobacco culture. A disease
study unit offers advice on pre-treatment of tobacco seed-beds to elimi-
nate ' Wild Fire ' and other destructive tobacco diseases. The lysimeter
equipment measures the seepage of plant elements through various types
of soils, and provides accurate information for soil conservation through
fertilization, crop rotation, liming, and the planting of cover crops. A
field soil testing unit extends this service; Windsor bulletins circulate in
Russia, Japan, and Australia as well as throughout the United States.
Visitors from Europe and Africa have studied the experiments at this
station.

Windsor fertilizer experiments have been especially helpful to growers of
cigar-leaf tobacco. The quality of cigar leaf is governed largely by the
magnesium content of the soil. Black ash indicates magnesium deficiency ;
white, flaky ash shows too high a magnesium content. With the aid of
the Experiment Station, Windsor growers have been able to control the
quality of their cigar tobacco within very close limits and are able to
command good prices for a uniform leaf.

The Windsor Station encourages diversified farming and rotation of
crops and develops species best suited to climatic and soil conditions
in the Connecticut Valley.

Potatoes are a popular rotation crop on all tobacco soils, and the Windsor
Experiment Station is encouraging sweet potato culture, too. New
vegetables are developed in the Plant Breeding Department under Dr.
Lawrence C. Curtis, the originator of an improved sweet pepper plant,
known as the ' Windsor- A,' which is now rated among the highest pro-
ducers grown in Connecticut soils. Trial plots at this station are also used
in the development of disease-resistant varieties of vegetables, sweet
corn and tomatoes.

III. HIGH ROADS AND
LOW ROADS

All Historic Houses mentioned in the following Tours as Points
of Interest are private unless otherwise specified.

TOUR 1: From NEW YORK LINE (New York City) to
RHODE ISLAND LINE (Westerly), 117.1 m., US 1 and US IA.

Via (sec. a) Greenwich, Stamford, Norwalk, Bridgeport, New Haven; (sec. b)
New Haven, Guilford, Old Saybrook, New London, Groton, Stonington.
N.Y., N.H. & H. R.R. parallels the route.
Four-lane concrete highway over large part of route.
Excellent accommodations of all types at frequent intervals.

Sec. a. GREENWICH to NEW HAVEN, 47.8 m.

THE first post rider on the American continent was dispatched over this
route, from New York to Boston, in 1673, following the old Pequot Path,
then only a blazed trail through the wilderness. Later, post and coach
routes traveled via Hartford. As described by Madam Knight, who made
the trip on horseback in 1704: 'The Rodes all along this way are very
bad, Incumbred with Rocks and mountainos passages, which were very

disagreeable to my tired carcass; in going over a Bridge under which

the River Run very swift, my hors stumbled, and very narrowly 'scaped
falling over into the water; which extreemly frightened mee. But through

God's Goodness I met with no harm, .' Near Stamford, she passed

* thro' many and great difficulties, as Bridges which were exceeding high
and very tottering and of vast Length, steep and Rocky Hills and preci-
pices (Buggbears to a fearful female travailer.) '

Over this route in December, 1773, Paul Revere, spurring his foam-
flecked horse, dashed on his way to Philadelphia with confidential news
of the Boston Tea Party. When the half -frozen horseman paused at
Guilford to 'bait' his horse, the astonished natives gaped wide-eyed at
the streaks of war paint on his face.

Today, this highway, the ' Roaring Road, ' varied in width and surface,
is the only direct route across southern Connecticut from border to bor-
der; it is a section of the chief vehicular highway through the North At-
lantic States, and the most heavily traveled road between New York and
the cities of the New England seaboard. Although this route parallels
the shore, numerous by-passes short-cut past picturesque coastal villages
and permit but occasional views of Long Island Sound. A number of
short side tours and the longer alternative routes of Tour 1A (west of the
Connecticut River), and Tour IF (east of the river), lead to old settle-
ments along the shore and inland, rich in scenic charm and in relics of
Colonial life and historic events.

US 1 crosses the State Line from New York State into Connecticut, 26.6
miles east of Columbus Circle, and 21.5 miles from the George Washing-
ton Bridge.
Beyond the Connecticut bank of the Byram River (New York-Connecti-

330 High Roads and Low Roads

cut boundary) the shortened 'Buy Rum' River of the Indians who
traded there is (R) the weathered Thomas Lyon House (1670), now
headquarters of the local Lions Club. Originally on the other side of the
highway, it faced south as did many 17th-century dwellings. It is an
added-lea.n-to salt-box dwelling covered with long, round-headed
shingles, which form an unusual scalloped pattern. Inside, instead of the
feather-edge sheathing found throughout most of New England, there is
beaded-edge board, which the Dutch preferred.

GREENWICH (town pop. 33,112) (see GREENWICH), 2 m.
At 2.4 m. US 1 descends Put's Hill (see GREENWICH).

At 2.5 m. (L) is Boxwood (private), a large house of 1799 built by Ebenezer
Mead. Although considerably remodeled, it is noted for its two magnifi-
cent old box trees, flanking the door, which have grown as high as the
modern piazza, added across the front of the house.

COS COB (Town of Greenwich), 4 m., bears the name of an Indian chief
and is noted for its production of fine marine motors.

On the plains immediately to the right of US 1, by the millpond, is a large
Burial Mound, and the Site of the Indian Village of Petuquapaen. Here
the Dutch and the English united to annihilate the Siwanoy tribe which
had resisted the encroachments of the white settlers upon the Indians'
best hunting ground. According to a contemporary account, 'the Lord
having endued the colonists with extraordinary strength,' not a man,
woman or child of the several hundred inhabitants escaped the fire set to
their wigwams on a bitter February night in 1644, 'nor was any outcry
whatsoever heard.' Public thanksgiving and general rejoicing was the
order of the day when this news reached New Amsterdam.

To the right, conspicuously situated on the west shore of Cos Cob Harbor,
is the Power-House which furnishes electricity for the main line of the
New Haven Railroad.

Right from Cos Cob on Strickland Rd. to the junction with River Rd., 0.3 m.
Here (R), almost concealed from the roadway by an old lilac hedge, is the H alley
House, which was built in the mid-eighteenth century by Captain Justus Bosch, a
Dutchman. Its high ceilings, profuse paneling and lack of summer beams preclude
any likelihood of an earlier date usually claimed, which is based chiefly on the age
of the stone chimney resting on an arch in the cellar. The original windows and
beaded clapboards have been retained.

At 4.3 m. is the junction with Orchard St.

Left on this street is iheObadiah Timpany House (private), 33 Orchard St., 0.1 m.,
a salt-box dwelling built in 1700. Although the house is covered with modern
shingles, a portion of the rear wall is exposed showing what appear to be the original
shingles of cedar, weathered and worn but retaining the strong odor of the wood.
Stone steps, hand-hewn from solid rock, lead from the front hall into the cellar.

At MIANUS (Town of Greenwich), 4.8 m., named for Chief Mayannos,
the highway crosses the river below a dam impounding the raised waters
of old Dumpling Pond (L).

When the British raided this section in 1779, some of the soldiers tarried
at the gristmill, then a century old, about 1.5 m. upstream from the

TOUR 1: From New York City to Westerly, R.I. 331

present bridge. They invited themselves to a meal of dumplings which
the miller's wife chanced to be making; she told them to wait a few min-
utes until the food was cooked. Taking advantage of a lapse in their at-
tention, she threw the dumplings into the millpond, an act that is com-
memorated in the name.

At 5.7 m., on SE. corner of US 1 and Sound Beach Ave., is the Adams
House, a tiny salt-box dwelling which dates from 1721. Unusual interior
decorative features are the small heart-shaped openings in panels over
some of the doorways.

Right on Sound Beach Ave., through the section known as Old Greenwich. The
Peck Homestead (private) (1703), 0.1 m., 44 Sound Beach Ave., with a modern
porch and six columns at the front, is a two-story salt-box house originally built
without the use of plaster; it has the same openings in the panels above the doors
as are found in the Adams House.

The Perrot Library (open 2-5, 2d and 4th Tuesdays'), at 0.5 m., is headquarters of the
Greenwich Historical Society. It has a varied exhibit of antiques.
The First Congregational Church, on Sound Beach Ave. (L), 0.6 m., is one of the
square-towered little buildings that were built of rough hewn stone, about 1800,
and called Gothic because of their battlemented parapets and wooden-mullioned
windows shaped like those in stone in English Perpendicular work.
At 0.7 m. is the junction with Webb Ave. Left on this road is Arcadia (open daily),
headquarters of the National Agassiz Association, an organization devoted to
nature study. Several acres, with a 48o-foot road frontage, are devoted to a dis-
play of wild flowers. One of the largest apiaries in the country is conducted for
educational purposes. A section, known as 'Little Japan' is planted with Japanese
cherry trees. On the grounds is a small observatory equipped with a 6-inch Alvan
Clarke telescope.

Farther south on Sound Beach Ave., at 1.4 m., is the Quintard House (private), NW.
corner of Sound Beach and Quintard Aves., said to be the oldest house in Old
Greenwich (about 1700). On well-kept grounds in a setting of trees and shrubs,
this one-and-a-half-story house with a one-story lean-to has been somewhat re-
modeled but retains the old red shingles on one end.

At 1.8 m. is the junction with Shore Road. Right on this road, 1.2 m., is the
Keojferam Lodge (about 1735), at the NW. corner of Shore and Hawthorne Rds., a
central-hall-type house with two chimneys, named for the Dutchman who first
purchased this land from the Indians. If the date assigned to the house is correct,
the structure is one of the first of the type erected.

At 6.3 m. is the Conde Nast Press, a fine example of a modern industrial
plant in landscaped surroundings. Here are published House Beautiful
and Vogue.

At 6.4 m. (R), midway between the railroad and the Post Road, along the
Greenwich-Stamford town line, is Laddin's Rock, in a private estate.
According to local legend, Indians attacked the home of an old Dutch
settler, Cornelius Labden, who was forced to see his family scalped. Es-
caping, he leaped on his horse and galloped through the hemlocks toward
the brink of the cliff crying, 'Come on, ye foul fiends; I go to join your
victims.' In the rush of pursuit, the Indians blindly rode their horses over
the rock and all went crashing to their deaths at the jagged base.
During the Revolution this entire district was preyed upon by lawless
bands of bushwhackers called 'skinners,' who owed allegiance to neither
side.

332 High Roads and Low Roads

STAMFORD (city pop. 46,346) (see STAMFORD), 7.6 m. Throughout
this area a large proportion of the residents are commuters to New York.
At Stamford is a junction with State 104.

Left from Stamford on State 104, 8.3 m., to a junction with a cross-country path
that leads (L), 0.2 m., to the precipitous gorge of the Mianus River on the New York
Line. Within the twilight shade of primeval hemlocks the narrow river swirls
through dark pools and tumbles over shoals strewn with boulders of pink quartz,
forming one of the wildest spots near New York City.

The traveler soon becomes aware of the importance of the Connecticut
township. Signs indicate town lines, but the town center is often many
miles away.

Just east of the Stamford-Darien town line, on the north side of the high-
way, stands Darien's oldest house, built in 1680, the Weed Homestead, or
'House Under The Hill.' Its huge stone chimney back of the ridge, the
wide cornice overhang, and the break in the back line of the roof, all be-
speak its lyth-century origin. The house is open as an antique shop, and
inside can be seen the ' gunstock ' corner posts, the huge summer beams,
and the stone chimney front exposed on the stairs.
NOROTON, 10.6 m., a village in the western part of the town of Darien,
is called for Chief Rooaton, whose name is also preserved in the nearby
localities of Rowayton and Roton Point. At Noroton is a Soldiers 1 Home.
Beside the road is a military cemetery where the solid, uniform head-
stones, stretching away on a battalion front, mark the graves of Connecti-
cut men who have served their country in all of the Nation's wars.

Right from Noroton on Ring's End Rd. to Swift's Lane (L),0.3 m., where a minia-
ture Colonial Village {private), a collection of small buildings of that period moved
from various New England towns, is plainly visible from the roadway. At the
end of Ring's End Rd., 0.5 m., on the waterfront, are the Old General Store and
Custom House, both erected in 1737.

DARIEN (town pop. 6951), 12.2 m., is a residential town within the
metropolitan district of New York City, where local constabulary are
especially efficient. To the south, winding lanes go down to the shores
of Long Island Sound; north of the main road the wooded countryside
is dotted with homes. Separated from Stamford in 1820, formerly the
parish of Middlesex, this town was named for the Isthmus of Darien.
The highway is narrow on this older 'bottleneck' section of the Post
Road, and the work of the old turnpike builders has had to contend
with the ever-increasing flow of traffic. Darien was the scene of Tory
raids, the worst on July 22, 1781, when the Rev. Dr. Mather and 50
prisoners were spirited away from the parish.
At Darien is the junction with State 136 (see Tour L4).

Left from Darien on State 29 is NEW CANAAN (town pop. 5456), 5.1 m., a com-
munity of carefully tended country estates and polo fields. This town is exclusively
u residential community, situated on high ridges, which in many places command
views of the Sound.

i. Left from New Canaan on Mead St. (one block) is the New Canaan Bird
Sanctuary in Mead Memorial Park, one of the first established in the United
States.

TOUR 1 : From New York City to Westerly, R.I. 333

Left from New Canaan on Railroad Ave. ; right on Weed St ; left on Wahackme
Rd. to its termination in Ponus Rd., and right on that highway, is Ponus Monu-
ment, 1.3 m. y erected in honor of Chief Ponus, to mark the old Indian trail
which led to the Hudson River.

NORWALK (town pop. 36,019) (see NORWALK), 16.3 m.
At Norwalk is the junction with US 7 (see Tour 4).

Right from Norwalk at the traffic rotary on a side road is SOUTH NORWALK,
1.2 m. (see Tour L4), where the manufacturing enterprises of the town are con-
centrated.

WESTPORT (town pop. 6073), 19.9 m., is chiefly a residential commu-
nity; a number of artists and literary folk have established studios and
permanent homes along the seashore and about the countryside.

Separated from Fairfield, Norwalk, and Weston in May, 1835, this town
was formerly known as Saugatuck. As early as 1645, Thomas Newton,
smuggler, put out from this port to trade with the hated Dutch; he was
jailed in 1650 when his activities were reported by Dame Goody John-
son, but escaped and lived happily on his ill-gotten wealth. The town
was twice invaded by loyalists during the Revolution; and during Tryon's
Raid, April 25, 1777, seventeen green militiamen actually fired one
volley at 2,500 British regulars before taking to their heels.
'Pedlar' ships operated from Westport and developed a l commission
trade ' as romantic as that of the Mississippi steamboat era. The wharves
are now crumbling and only pleasure boats use the harbor.
Among Westport residents are Van Wyck Brooks, author; Lillian Wald,
founder of the Henry St. settlement; Rollin Kirby, cartoonist, William
McFee, author; and Rose O'Neil, originator of the Kewpie doll.
At the brow of the hill west of Westport stands the Bedford High
School (L), gift of E. T. Bedford, a native son. Here in the high
school are murals, painted by John Steuart Curry, a prize winner in the
Carnegie International Exhibit of 1933, whose work is also represented
at the Metropolitan Museum, New York. The Curry murals here depict
' Tragedy ' and ' Comedy ' and include such recognizable figures as Little
Eva, Uncle Tom, Charlie Chaplin, Sherwood Anderson, Theodore
Dreiser, Eugene O'Neill, Mickey Mouse, Will Rogers, Hamlet, a Kewpie
doll, and Mr. and Mrs. Curry.

On the hill which US 1 climbs from the center is the well-proportioned
Congregational Church (R), built in 1830, shining white behind tall spruces.

Left from Westport on State 57, through rough hill country is WESTON (town pop.
670), 5 m. From this high ground are fine views of the surrounding countryside,
especially from the lawn of the Congregational Church (1830), 0.2 m. (R), from
State 57, at the cross road, a simple, well-proportioned structure of the Federal
period, with small window panes now turning violet with age. At the entrance to
a residence across the way are old gas lamp posts that once lighted the New York
street corners. The street names can still be discerned.

At 5.7 m. State 57 intersects State 53.

Left on State 53 to the intersection with a side road, 7.7 m.

Right on this side road, 0.4 m., is Music Hill, a natural amphitheater, seat-
ing 3000 people, where concerts are given throughout the summer months

334 High Roads and Low Roads

under the direction of Nikolai Sokoloff of the New York Symphony Orchestra.
On Mr. Sokoloff's property, near-by, concerts are also presented at The Barn.

State 53 joins US 202 at Grassy Plain (see Side Trip of Tour 4).

At 23.7 m. (R), just east of the Westport-Fairfield town line among
some willows, is a granite monument marking the Site of the Great
Swamp Fight which ended the Pequot War in July, 1637, when the
survivors of Mason's West Mystic attack on that hostile tribe were
either killed or sold into slavery. Subsequently, this fertile territory
was settled in comparative peace.

At 24.7 m. is the junction with Bronson Rd., where US 1 crosses the
railroad on a concrete overpass.

Left on Bronson Rd., which turns north through an underpass to the colonial
settlement of GREENFIELD HILL (Town of Fair-field), 3.3 m., site of the Acad-
emy conducted by the Rev. Timothy D wight from 1786 until 1795, when he
became president of Yale College. Grouped about the old Green are numerous old
houses and taverns, and near-by is the Hubbell House (1751), on the west side of
Hillside Rd., where Dr. Dwight held his first classes before the erection of the
Academy building, now gone. In spring the village streets are beautiful with pink
and white dogwood and there are extensive marine views from the hilltops.

On Bronson Rd. (R) is the Old Greenfield Cemetery, now filled to capacity and no
longer in use. Here are buried 98 Revolutionary soldiers and the two earliest
Greenfield preachers, the Rev. John Goodsell (d. 1763) and the Rev. Seth Pome-
roy (d. 1770).

From Greenfield Hill came Abraham Baldwin, recorded in history as 'The Savior
of Georgia ' and honored with a State holiday. The monument to Mr. Baldwin in
the Old Greenfield Cemetery bears the inscription: ' Abraham Baldwin lies buried
at Washington. His memory needs no marble. His country is his monument, her
constitution his greatest work. He died a Senator in Congress, March 4, 1807,
aged fifty- two.'

The gambrel-roofed house at the southern end of the Green, the Rev. Seth Pomeroy
House, was built in 1757. The Dr. Rufus Blakcman House of 1822 has a wide,
open portico, a delicate diamond pattern on the cornice and, within, a circular
staircase. The Squire Samuel Bradley Jr. House (1750), just around the corner
on Old Academy Rd., has a handsome portico and shallow windows beneath the
cornice. On Hillside Rd. straight ahead from the Green, is the Rev. Richard
Varick Dey House (about 1823) with a Dutch roof sloping over long porches, and
the Zalmon Bradley House (about 1/50), with a porch which, unlike those of the
Dey House, is a later addition.

Across the road from the church was a store, kept continuously for about 200 years
until 1925. This store was the customhouse for the Fairfield District for many
years. Whenever a ship arrived in Black Rock Harbor (then a part of Fairfield)
it was necessary for the master to make the four-mile trip uphill to Greenfield
to have his papers put in order.

For nearly 100 years, until 1796, all the little schools in the outlying districts of
Fairfield were under the control of the citizens of Greenfield Hill. Eight scattered,
widely separated, one-room schools, some of them heated by fireplaces and taught
by spinsters who believed implicitly in the efficacy of the birch rpcj, made up the
primary educational facilities of the older settlement. School meetings were violent
affairs, attended by everyone in the township and, sometimes, in the case of a tie
vote, men ran from house to house, routing out the hired men to vote and break
the tie.

Old sailormen returned to Greenfield Hill to raise chickens and plant a flower
garden in the back yard of their snug harbor. Privateersmen, whaleboat warriors,
the * rock scorpions' of the shore who preyed on all passing vessels during the Revo-

TOUR 1 : From New York City to Westerly, R.I. 335

lution, finally cast anchor in the fastnesses of this beautiful hill country to bask
in the sunshine and live on in memory forever, because old sailors, like old soldiers,
never die they fade away.

At 24.9 m. (R), is the intersection with a dirt road (see Tour IA).
FAIRFIELD (town pop. 17,218) (see FAIRFIELD), 25.8 m.
The outskirts of Fairfield merge into those of Bridgeport.

BRIDGEPORT (city pop. 146,716) (see BRIDGEPORT), 30.5 m.,
foremost industrial city of the State.

At Bridgeport is the junction with State 58 (see Tour IB).

US 1A by-passes the center of the city as well as that of Stratford, but
US 1 leaving Bridgeport on the newest of the many bridges which gave
the city its name, proceeds to the town of Stratford.

STRATFORD (town pop. 19,212), 33.8 m., a town with many well-pre-
served old houses, now principally a residential suburb of Bridgeport,
also has considerable manufacturing. Settled in 1639, and named for
' Stratford-on-Avon,' the town's early activities were confined to ship-
building and oyster fisheries.

US 1 enters Stratford on Stratford Ave. and turns left onto Main St.
Proceeding north on Main St. this route passes (R) the conspicuous
David Judson House (open daily, adm. 25 f) (1723) now owned by the
Stratford Historical Society, which has in the doorway the earliest bull's-
eye glass in the State. In the cellar is a great cooking fireplace with two
Dutch ovens; the oak beam which forms the cellar lintel is 18 inches
square. The paneling upstairs is a notable example of the early use of
fluted pilasters.

On Elm St. one block right of Main St. and parallel with it, are many
well-preserved old houses dating from the i8th century and earlier.

Here in Stratford the Rev. Samuel Johnson founded the first Episcopal
Church in Connecticut (1723-43). Atop the present Christ Church (R),
is a weathercock from the spire of the original building, which still bears
the bullet holes of British marksmen under Colonel Frazier who, when
quartered here in 1757-58, amused themselves by using the chanticleer
as a target.

Right on Main St. to the Sikorsky Airplane Plant (L), 1.1 m., where amphibian
airships are made. From Stratford come the huge Sikorsky trans-Pacific Clipper
ships 'Frisco to China!' now spanning the western ocean on a seven-day schedule.
Few people outside of the Sikorsky plant in Stratford have heard of Pointe Noire or
Dakar, towns on the African West Coast. Today, although 3000 miles apart, these
outposts are linked together by a fleet of Hornet-powered Sikorsky amphibians
carrying mail, passengers and express. The Bridgeport Airport opposite (R), pur-
chased by that city in 1937, was formerly MoIIison Airport named for the British
fliers who crashed here in 1935, after having successfully flown across the Atlantic.
Across the most extensive salt meadows in Connecticut, is the solitary old Light-
house (1822) at Stratford Point, 3.3 m. Off in Long Island Sound, 6.5 miles due
south, is the famous Stratford Shoals Lighthouse.

On a knoll behind the church is the Oldest Episcopal Burying Ground in
the State, laid out in 1723.

336 High Roads and Low Roads

Main St. northward becomes State 8 (see Tour 5).

US 1 turns right at Stratford and rejoins US 1 Alt. at 34.8 m.

The Washington Bridge, 35 m., carries US 1 over the Housa tonic River
into New Haven County. This point on the river was the site of the ferry
which started operations in 1650 under Moses Wheeler, who was born
in England in 1598 and died in Stratford in 1698, said to be the first
white centenarian in the country. South of the bridge was the scene,
in 1649, of the cross-river swim of a Milford man who escaped from a
public lashing imposed for breaking the Blue Laws forbidding a man to
kiss his wife on the Sabbath. He was later rejoined by his family in
Stratford, where he became a leading citizen.

East of the bridge is the village of DEVON (Town of Milford), 35.7 m.,
a residential community with beaches and cottages on the shore to the
South.

At 37.2 m. is the western junction with US 1 Alt., the Milford by-pass.

Right on the old road; US 1 leads to the business section of MILFORD (town
pop. 14,870) (see MILFORD), 0.5 m., a historic village. At the village center is the
junction with State 122. ,

Right on State 122; this route passes sandy flats where shore birds may be seen
feeding. From the tiny bays and coves along this shore oystermen put to sea to
harvest a crop from submerged lands that have been productive since the first
actual cultivation of shellfish in 1845. There are records of these oyster-beds having
produced profits in excess of $1000 an acre in one year. Indians came here to feast
and dry the shellfish. The industry today flourishes and the oyster fleet is seen
offshore almost any day during the season.

Crossing Oyster River, 2.1 m., which might, like Powder River, be described as
being 'a mile wide and an inch deep,' State 122 follows the coast line to WOOD-
MONT, 3.6 m., a summer colony.

Leaving Woodmont, the road passes a succession of beaches (R), and rows of
summer cottages (L) en route to Savin Rock, 6.1 in., 'the Coney Island of
Connecticut,' a widely known amusement resort. A plaque near a concession
marks the spot where Tryon's Redcoats disembarked in 1779.

Leaving the shore, State 122 turns left to West Haven.

WEST HAVEN (town pop. 25,808), 8 m. The business center is concentrated on
the east side of the large Green which was presented to the town by Shubael Painter
in 1711. West Haven was the home of General Tom Thumb, celebrated midget,
and was the scene of a raid by the British on July 5, 1779, when General Tryon
brought 3000 Redcoats ashore, pillaged the church, burned documents, and
looted the town. Facing the Green on the south is Christ Episcopal Church (1909) ,
designed by Cram, Goodhue, and Ferguson, one of the finest Gothic churches in
Connecticut. It is in restrained Perpendicular style with a short, square tower and
cloister. Right on Main St., opposite the High School, stands the Painter, or
Peter Mallory House which is dated 1695, but is possibly of even earlier construc-
tion. This large salt-box house, with narrow windows and a huge chimney, shaded
by giant maple trees, stands on the very edge of the sidewalk. It is an example of
the larger 17th-century houses, and has the unbalanced window arrangement
common to this region.

On Elm St., just east of Campbell Ave., stands the Ward Heitman House, a very
old (1684) salt-box house with a central-chimney and an added lean-to. It has
the old stair but later mantels and paneling.

State 122 rejoins US 1 at 9.8 m,, 2 miles west of New Haven at the foot of Ailing-
town Hill.

TOUR 1: From New York City to Westerly, R.I. 337

At 38.8 m. is the western junction with US 1A.
At 41.2 m. is the junction with State 152.

Left on State 152 past the extensive Fairlea Farms (R), where acidophilus milk was
first developed, and traversing fertile farming country to the center of ORANGE
(town pop. 1530), 1.7 m.y overshadowed by its white Congregational Church (1810).
The Racebrook Country Club, off Derby Rd., one of the outstanding golf courses in
Connecticut, is the only country club in the State with two i8-hole golf courses.

At 45.8 m. at the top of Allingtown Hill is the junction with Prudden St.

Left on Prudden St., one block, is a small triangular Green (L), with a Monument
to William Campbell, a British adjutant, who, among other acts of mercy, saved
the life of the local pastor who had broken a leg while fleeing from the Redcoats
when they invaded the town on July 5, 1779. That same day the officer was
mortally wounded.

At 46 m. is the junction with State 122 (see above). ^

NEW HAVEN (town pop. 162,655), 47.8 m., a university community
(see NEW HAVEN}. At New Haven are the junctions with State 10
and 10A (see Tour 6), US 5 (see Tour 7), State 15 (see Tour 7 A) and State
67 (see Tour 1C).

Sec. b. NEW HAVEN to RHODE ISLAND LINE (Westerly), 69.3 m.

US 1, in NEW HAVEN, follows Water St. E. and crosses the northern
cove of New Haven Harbor on Bridge St., at 1 m.

The Old Stone House, 153 Forbes Ave., 1.5 m., now the parsonage of
the Forbes Ave. Church, was built in 1767, but retains little of its original
appearance. An eastern wing, a new portico, and triple windows at the
main entrance have been added.

At 1.9 m. is the junction with Woodward Ave.

Right on Woodward Ave. to Fort Hale Park, 1.8 m., with spacious, hilly, wooded
grounds and a public bathing beach. The park includes 51 acres of smooth tree-
sheltered lawns, bold rock bluffs, and sandy beaches. Named for the martyred
Continental spy, this park was the site of a fort twice destroyed by the British
(1779 and 1781), but rebuilt in 1809 and so re-equipped that it successfully kept
off the enemy during the War of 1812. Enlarged on several later occasions, the
fort was permanently dismantled during the latter half of the i9th century and
turned over to the city for use as a public park.

Morris Cove, 2.4 m., is one of the better, less crowded shore resorts. Here (L), at
325 Lighthouse Rd., is the Morris House (open May-October 1, weekdays 10-5,
Sundays 2-5, free), a conspicuous clapboard and stone structure (1670, 1767,
and 1780). Most of the present dwelling dates from the rebuilding in 1780 on the
ruins of a 17th-century house burned by the British July 5, 1779. The stone wall
and chimney nearest^the street are all that is left of the earlier house, which was
probably a two-chimney structure. The kitchen wing, known to have been built
in 1767, survived the fire. The lean-to toward the street contains an earlier kitchen
on the ground floor and a ballroom added about 1800.

Lighthouse Point, at 3.4 m., is a popular municipal park and beach resort for those
who seek a safe, clean beach with ample parking space and the usual forms of shore
amusements. The Old Lighthouse (admittance on application to park supt.\ Light-
house Point Park, Lighthouse Rd., a tall octagonal structure, was erected in 1840-
45 on the site of an earlier lighthouse, built in 1804. The present building, 90 feet
high, was constructed of East Haven sandstone, painted white, and lined with
North Haven bricks. A spiral staircase of granite leads to the large circular light,

338 High Roads and Low Roads

visible over a radius of ten miles. Government operation of the light was discon-
tinued in 1877 when the offshore light on the breakwater at New Haven was com-
pleted. Since that time the older building has served as a signal station of the
United States Weather Bureau.

At 3.3 m. is the junction with State 142.

Right on State 142, 1.3 m. to the junction with a side road.
Right on this road, 1.1 m. to Momauguin, a beach resort.

Farther east on State 142, beyond several beaches lined with summer cottages, is
Short Beach, 2 m.

EAST HAVEN (town pop. 7815), 3.4 m., includes comparatively level
agricultural land devoted to truck gardening to the north, and numerous
residential colonies and summer resorts along the shore of Long Island
Sound to the south. The town is now receiving the overflow from many of
New Haven's expanding activities.

At the NE. cor. of Main and High Streets is East Haven's Old Stone
Congregational Church (1774). It was built of local dark red sandstone,
laid with shell lime mortar, from designs by George Lancraft, one of the
few pre-Revolutionary architects known by name. The present interior
(entered through the tower at the west end, and not, as originally through
the side) dates from 1850, and the present spire from 1858.
Right from the center on Thompson St. is New Haven's municipal air-
port, opened in 1931, which has a field capacity of 200 ships, a hangar,
and modern equipment.

Facing the Green, at 298 Hemingway Ave., is the Stephen Thompson
House, which dates from 1760, with its stone end-walls and overhanging
eaves. The Abraham Chidsey House, standing on the north side of the
Green, is a Dutch-roofed structure of one-and-a-half stories. It is the
earliest (1750) and the best preserved old house in the town.
Right on Hemingway Ave., four blocks, is the central-chimney Elnathan
Street House, which is a splendidly preserved example of early 19th-
century construction, with an entrance porch in the Greek Revival style
said to have been built at the tune of the original structure (1810).
At 57 Main St. stands a house that was built in 1694, so remodeled as to
be scarcely recognizable as a colonial structure, but interesting neverthe-
less because the stone end-walls and first story are parts of the structure
which tradition says was the John Winthrop Forge. This building was
continuously in use as a blacksmith shop until 1920.
US 1 descends a hill to Lake Saltonstall, at 4 m. Here, on the Beaver
River (L), stands an old Mill with hewn timbering, on the site of the
first iron mill in Connecticut (third in America), though undoubtedly
it is not the original building; bog ore was refined here. A clause in the
deed, making it mandatory for the owner to grind corn or any grain
brought to him by a property owner of East Haven, might prove embar-
rassing to the present owner as only one millstone now remains.
Mr. Saltonstall was a choleric gentleman who was often on unfriendly
terms with his neighbors. The old fellow was put in his place one day

TOUR 1: From New York City to Westerly, R.I. 339

when attempting to ferry over Stony River after bargaining with the
ferrywoman, Deborah Chidsey. Dame Chidsey, dissatisfied with his
terms, stranded her craft in midstream, stepped over the side, gathered
her skirts high and waded ashore, flapping her arms like an excited
gander. Saltonstall was especially dressed for a trip to New Haven and
demanded immediate relief, but Dame Chidsey advised him to wait for
a tide or wade ashore. Saltonstall sat sunburned and fuming, until the
moon, calling the waters home, at length released him.

At 5.6 m. is the junction with US 1 Alt. which bears left, by-passing the
center of Branford.

US 1, no longer than the cut-off, passes through the center of Branford.

BRANFORD (town pop. 7022), 6.7 m., named for Brentford in the Eng-
lish county of Middlesex, is a pleasant residential town, formerly a busy
center of shipping. Here is the site of an important salt works, the product
of which was used in the preservation of meat for the Revolutionary army.

At 112 West Main Street is the salt-box House of Nathaniel Harrison]
this dwelling was built in 1690 when very simple paneling was just com-
ing into use. The original clapboards can still be seen in the lean-to attic.

On a knoll overlooking a small green is the James Blackstone Memorial
Library, a marble building of 1896, which, if pretentious, is an uncom-
monly fine library for so small a town.

Beyond, grouped around the Green, a large triangular plot (R), are the
town's public buildings, churches and monuments.

On the south side of the Green stands the little old Branford Academy
building of 1820, which is topped with a cupola. It is occupied by the
local historical society. On the SE. corner is a small commemorative
tablet near the Site of the Reverend Samuel Russell House, where in 1701
ten clergymen met and donated books for the founding of the Collegiate
School, later Yale College.

In this township, where the ministerial house lot was on 'Pig Lane,'
the citizens felled the fluted pillars of the old Meeting-House and cut
them up for well curbings. These peculiar well curbings can still be found
in the farming country around Branford.

In the eastern section of the town are many fine old houses, among which
one of the best is the Samuel Frisbie House, on East Main St. (US 1),
a red, two-story, clapboarded structure (R), unaltered since it was built,
in 1792.

Right from Branford on State 143, which traverses the pleasant residential sec-
tion of Indian Neck and passes through the attractive summer colony of PINE
ORCHARD, at 3.3 m. The harbor here, at which some of the finest yachts and
sailing craft on the Sound are anchored, is noted for its clear waters, its pink
granite breakwater, and its narrow sandy beach broken by smoothly worn rocks.
From this point, Rogers' Island to the east and the Blackstone Rocks scattered to
the south are seen to the best advantage; the wide view of ships, sea, sand and
rocks, is not often surpassed.

34-O High Roads and Low Roads

A nine-hole golf course extends north of the bay, giving the resort a verdant back-
ground, and shaded streets about the vicinity are lined with estates and land-
scaped gardens.

Eastward, State 143 follows a winding roadway which climbs and descends gentle
slopes, with pine woods to the left and marshland dotted with large boulders to
the right. Right from State 143 on State 146, at 6.5 m.

State 146 enters the Stony Creek District^ of Branford, at 7.3 m.', one of the oldest
fishing villages of the vicinity, now primarily a summer resort with the Stony
Creek Playhouse, where professionals entertain during the summer season.

Offshore, like a section of the Maine coast drifted into Long Island Sound, is the
rocky, green-crowned archipelago of the Thimble Islands. Passenger launches
plying between the scores of large and small islands afford delightful marine views
and opportunities to visit the larger islands, occupied by summer colonies and
hotels. On Money Island, Captain Kidd is traditionally believed to have buried
treasure.

At 9 m. is the intersection with a dirt road.

Right on this dirt road to Hoadley Point, 1 m., where from the top of an old
granite quarry, a fine view is obtained of the Thimble Islands, scattered to the
west.

State 146 continues over the swampy district known as Leete's Island, at 9.5 m., the
scene of a spirited encounter between the Guilford Militia and the British who
landed here in 1777. The settlement, now chiefly an artists' summer colony, has
moved slightly west from its original location to more solid and rugged ground
overlooking Island Bay.

At 10.7 m. (at the railroad underpass), is the junction with a dirt road.

Right on the dirt road to Sachem's Head, 2 m., on a rocky promontory of
historical interest. Here a bloody battle of the Pequot War was fought in
1637. Tradition says that the head of an Indian, slain in combat, was placed
by Uncas in the fork of a tree where the skull remained for many years, giving
the point its present name. The ledge-lined harbor rimmed with well-kept
estates affords a protected anchorage for a large yachting fleet; the yacht club
is built on the outermost promontory.

From here this route follows a meandering course along the irregular coast line
to the Guilford Green, 13.5 m., where it rejoins US 1.

At 7.6 m. US 1 Alt., by-passing Branford, rejoins US 1 (see above).

At 7.8 m. US 1 crosses the Branford River which empties into Branford
Harbor, 2 miles to the south.

On a hillside, at 10.1 m., is the large, red Edward Frisbie Homestead (R),
now known as the Hearthstone Tea Room, marked 1685, although its
architecture suggests that the present structure is mid-eighteenth century,
possibly built about the chimney of an earlier house. The interior is well
preserved and interesting, with an unusually large stone slab hearth.
Beyond, US 1 swings north around Moose Hill (alt. 260), affording a
fine view of the countryside.

US 1 now crosses the upper section of the village of Guilford. At 15 r,i. is
the junction with State St.

Right on State St. into the village.

GUILFORD (town pop. 3117) (see GUILFORD),Q.3 m., is an early Colonial vil-
lage which has preserved the most varied collection of authentic early houses in
New England.

TOUR 1: From New York City to Westerly, R.I. 341

Left from Guilford on State St. to the intersection of North St., 0.2 m. Here at
i North St. stands the Home of Samuel Lee, Captain of the Coast Guards in Revolu-
tionary days. During Captain Lee's absence, Tories often raided the house in
search of contraband articles which had been seized by the Coast Guard, but they
were always outwitted by the Captain's wife, Alice. It was she who fired a cannon
in the yard to warn the colonists who were working in their northern fields when
the British landed at Leete's Island, in 1777. Northward on State St., which be-
comes Nut Plains Rd., is the delightful sequestered village of NUT PLAINS, 2.7
w., where hickory and walnut trees shade the quiet main street. Here lived General
Andrew Ward, Revolutionary hero who covered Washington's retreat by keeping
the campfires at Trenton burning, thus successfully deceiving the British until the
Continental army had safely withdrawn. Among the ten grandchildren in General
Ward's household was the studious Roxana who tied her French textbook to the
spinning wheel, so that she might study as she worked. She became Mrs. Lyman
Beecher, mother of Henry Ward Beecher, noted clergyman, and Harriet Beecher
Stowe, author of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.'

At 3 m. (L), stand two Hall Houses (1740), the frames of both of which were raised
on the same day. One, in a dilapidated condition, boasts an 'ell '-plan chimney.
The other, built by a brother on adjoining property, is in excellent condition, al-
though it has never been painted. Most of the interior woodwork is original and,
as the timbering is exposed, offers a good opportunity to study early framing.

At 15.2 m. is an unusually large single-unit greenhouse (L), 1200 feet
long, which is devoted exclusively to the cultivation of roses.

At 17.1 m. is a highway picnic area, Clear-view Rest (R).

At 18.3 m. is apparently the lyth-century salt-box William Shelley House
built in 1 730, with a sweeping roofline and T-shaped chimney. The frame
of an old casement is still to be seen in the lean-to attic.

MADISON (town pop. 1918), 20.2 m., a village by the sea, incorporated
in May, 1826, contains many old landmarks grouped about a long, dig-
nified central Green. Here lived Cornelius Scranton Bushnell, builder of
Civil War battle craft and financial sponsor of Ericsson's 'Monitor/
Early industries were fishing, shipbuilding, and the burning of charcoal.

Overlooking the Green from the west is the stately Congregational
Church (1838), whose gilded, cylindrical spire, thrusting above the trees,
guided returning seamen straight to Madison Harbor. The six fluted
Doric columns of the portico uphold a high entablature decorated with
triglyphs, and the pilasters on the side of the building have birds' beak
capitals. The whole structure shows a freedom and imagination seldom
found in Greek Revival work.

A series of houses along the south side of the Green illustrates the develop-
ment of domestic architecture in the i8th and igth centuries. The
Gilbert Dudley House, on the SW. corner of Wharf Rd., is a salt-box
house (1740), with a peculiar double featheredged siding and lamb's
tongue stops on its chamfered summer beams, typical of the lyth century;
but here in Madison such details persisted later than in most communities.

The Colonel J. S. Wilcox House, standing next west, representative of
the other end of the architectural scale, was erected in 1830. Its features
include the 'waffle-course' of augur holes in the cornice and the mid-
nineteenth-century iron grill on the veranda.

342 High Roads and Low Roads

The Graves House, located east of the Green (L), a weather-worn shingled
salt-box dwelling (1675), is the best preserved lyth-century house in
Connecticut. In the house are still to be found family records that give
a complete contemporary account of the building of the dwelling and
of the court that John Grave, as magistrate, held here. The large south-
east room, where court was held, is still known as the Judgment Chamber.
Many of the rooms are sheathed in featheredged boarding that has
never been painted and has aged to a soft brown.

The Nathaniel Allis House, now the headquarters of the Madison Histori-
cal Society (open weekdays 2-6, June-Oct.; adm. 25ff), was built in 1739;
it is a long low building at the center, much remodeled. The interior
is maintained as an old dwelling of its period, with each room appro-
priately furnished.

Many Madison houses include one of Connecticut's usual domestic
features, the cat-hole. The Yankee, always thrifty, deplored the necessity
for holding doors open on cold wintry nights for the house cat to go out
and in. Some early craftsman cut a round opening in the lower panel
or rail of the door, fitted a swinging cover over it and solved the problem
by teaching the family tabby to push her own door open. Some cat-holes
have a little peak-roofed portico to protect them from the weather.

Left from the Green on Scotland Rd., 1.5 m. to Duck Hole, at Four Corners, near
a bridge over the Hammonasset River where an old milldam in a sylvan setting
offers the visitor a quiet resting-place.

Beyond Madison at a large traffic rotary, 22.4 m., is the junction with a

firm dirt road.

Right on this road is Hammonasset State Park, a tract of 954 acres with bathing,
boating, and camping facilities for more than one and a half million visitors an-
nually. The sandy beach, extending 5 miles along the shore, is the largest public
beach in Connecticut.

Beyond the entrance to Hammonasset State Park, US 1 proceeds past
many restaurants and hotels where ' shore dinners ' are a specialty. Oc-
casional water scenes and rural landscapes offer diversified scenery. Long
Island, 25 miles distant, may be seen across the Sound where pleasure
craft spread white sails, coastwise steamers ply between New York and
New England ports, and tugs with strings of barges fling plumes of smoke
across the sky.
At 23.9 m. is the junction with Swain town Rd.

Left on Swaintown Rd., at its intersection with Cow Hill Rd., 1.4 m., is a Little
Red Sckoolhousc, an example of the early New England school. This one-room
building, erected in 1800, has windows fitted with batten shutters.

Left on Cow Hill Rd., at 1.5 m., is the Stevens Farm, cultivated since 1675 by nme
generations of the Stevens family. The salt-box homestead, with exposed timbers
in some of the rooms, was built in 1699. Among the many heirlooms preserved by
the family, is a copy of the original grant to the property received by John Stevens
from King Charles II of England, as well as rifles used by members of the family
in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, and in hunting forays on Roast Meat Hill to
the west.

CLINTON (town pop. 1574), 24.1 m., a clean, quiet village, one-half
mile inland from its harbor, was once busy with shipping and shipbuilding,

TOUR 1 : From New York City to Westerly, R.I. 343

but is now disturbed only by the unhurried arrival and departure of pleas-
ure boats and trawlers. The manufacture of Pond's Extract from native
witch hazel cut in back-country brush lots and sometimes distilled in
backwoods stills, is the town's chief industry. This most populous por-
tion of the old town of Killingworth was incorporated as a separate town
in May, 1838, and named for Governor De Witt Clinton of New York.
On the small triangular Green (L) is a cannon used by Gideon Kelsey in
his single-handed defense of the local coast line against the British inva-
sion in 1812.

In the center of the Green, opposite the church, is a Monument commem-
orating the early years of the Collegiate School, later Yale, 1701-07 (see
below). Across the way is a Milestone (R), one of many placed along the
highways by Benjamin Franklin. Stanton House (L), built in 1789, is a
Colonial museum (open weekdays 2-5, adm. free). Within is displayed
an excellent collection of old china and furniture. The paneled walls on
either side of the hall are hinged, and may be raised to hooks in the ceiling,
making the front of the house one large room. The original wall paper, a
handsome French product, covers two walls of the southwest room. The
Adam Stanton Store, in the ell with a long veranda, has been restored
to its early condition, with its original counter, shelves, and drawers, still
bearing the printed labels of their contents. The accountant's desk and
ledgers occupy their place by a rear window. Behind this house is the
Old Well used by the Rev. Abraham Pierson, first rector of the Collegiate
School. The famed clergyman's homestead formerly stood on this site,
and the first Yale students attended classes in it until the opening of the
college in Saybrook. At 95 E. Main St. is the Wright Homestead, which
was built in 1807, birthplace of General Horatio G. Wright, commander
at the battle of Winchester, whose skillful rallying of his panic-stricken
troops made possible Sheridan's Ride, the subject of the poem by that
name. Fort Wright on Fisher's Island was named for him. At 101 Main
St. is another Wright House; this dwelling, built in 1819, has a fan-light
and cornices of unusual delicacy. A side trip down the garden-bordered
Waterside Lane, lined with fishermen's tiny cottages, some of great age,
leads to a sleepy little hamlet, presided over by the Farnham House
(1800).
At 25.1 m. is the junction with the western end of State 145.

Right on State 145 to the summer colony at Kelsey Point, and Grove Beach, a mile-
long stretch of sand which forms one of the finest bathing beaches in the State.
This road rejoins US 1 at 2.6 m.

At 26.5 m. is the eastern junction with State 145 (see above).
US 1 passes a fine State-maintained picnic area (L), at 26.9 m., and crosses
Patchogue and Menunketesuck Rivers just north of their confluence at
Menunketesuck Point, where sand bars across the marshy district made
it possible to ford the streams before the building of bridges.
WESTBROOK (town pop. 1037, inc. May, 1840), 28.7 m., is the birth-
place of David Bushnell, torpedo and submarine inventor. In the west-
ern part of Westbrook (R), is the David Bushnell House (adm. 35^), the

344 High Roads and Low Roads

home of BushnelPs uncle, where the inventor often visited while a youth.
This story-and-a-half red cottage, erected in 1678-79, has been restored,
and is now maintained as a museum. Among the exhibits are parts of
BushnelPs original ' turtle ' submarine.

At 28.9 m. is the intersection with a dirt road.

Right on this road to the shore of Long Island Sound, 0.4 m. ; a short distance off-
shore is Salt Island, affording an anchorage for fishing schooners and other small
craft. Accessible on foot by sand flats at low tide, this islet was formerly the site
of extensive salt and fish-oil works.

At 30.4 m., just east of the Old Saybrook town line, is (L) the Elisha Bush-
nell House which, built in 1678-79, has been recently restored. It is now a
salt-box house, with irregular window arrangement and rooms less than
seven feet high. Originally a one-room central-chimney house, it is be-
lieved to be the only house in New England, with the exception of the
Fairbanks House in Dedham, Mass., that still shows the old wattle-and-
daub construction.

At 31.9 m. is the junction with US 1 Alt., which by-passes Old Saybrook.
US 1 following the old Post Road, bears right to the center of Old Say-
brook.

OLD SAYBROOK (town pop. 1643) (see OLD SAYBROOK}, 33 m., is
a coastal village at the mouth of the Connecticut River, and one of the
oldest towns in the State.

At 33.2 m. y US 1 Alt. rejoins the main route. At 33.8 m. is the junction
with State 9 (see Tour 8). At 35.1 m. is the junction with State 9 Alt.
(see Tour 8), and at 35.8 m. (middle of bridge), US 1 crosses the Connect-
icut River. Good views of the broad stream unfold at this point. The
Ferryhouse on the site of the old landing, which handled all cross-river
traffic here from 1662 to 1911, stands below the eastern approach to the
present highway bridge.

At 36.3 m. is the junction with State 86 (see Tour IE), and State 156 (see
Tour IF).

At a rotary, 37 m., US 1 turns abruptly left avoiding the elm-shaded cen-
ter of Old Lyme (see OLD LYME).

On the outskirts of Old Lyme, the highway passes the beautiful Mile of
Roses (R), planted by Judge W. E. Noyes, along a stone wall of his estate.
The house, built by Dr. Richard Noyes in 1814, has an unusually broad
open pediment porch of graceful lines and fine detail.

Traversing fertile valley farm lands, US 1 passes through the hamlet of
LAYSVILLE (Town of Old Lyme), 39.6 m., once the center of a small
woolen industry.

The Stone Ranch Military Reservation (L), 41.9 m., bordering US 1 inter-
mittently for about 2 miles, was formerly the property of Fred Stone, the
comedian, and was outfitted by him as an example of a typical western
ranch. Now State-owned, it is maintained as a Civilian Conservation
Corps camp and public shooting ground. Pataganset Lake (L), 43.9 m.,
has an unusual number of aquatic plants.

TOUR 1: From New York City to Westerly, R.I. 345

EAST LYME (town pop. 2575, inc. May, 1839), 45.2 m., a rural village.
On the side roads of this district are many well-preserved homesteads of
early settlers.

At East Lyme is the Colonial Inn (open), built at the height of the Greek
Revival, and at the rear of the small Baptist church is the Justin Beckwith
House (private) (178$), with an elaborate facade exemplifying the begin-
ning of the Greek Revival.

East, US 1 takes a somewhat winding course keeping well inland, ex-
cept for two glimpses of the upper reaches of the salt inlet known as the
Niantic River.

At the northeast corner of the junction with State 161, at the village cen-
ter, stands the remodeled Calkins Tavern, of about 1700, where both
Washington and Lafayette stopped.

At 50.3 m. is the junction with State 156 (see Tour IF), the shore route
between Old Lyme and New London.

NEW LONDON (town pop. 29,640), 52.3 m., a historic maritime town
(see NEW LONDON). At New London is the junction with State 85
(see Tour 3A) and State 32 (see Tour 9).

At New London US 1 crosses the Thames River on a steel bridge that is
sufficiently high to afford a view straight down New London harbor
(R), one of the deepest on the Atlantic coast with more than three miles
of navigable water frequented by seagoing vessels of many types. The
view (L) up the tidal course of the Thames River extends about 2 miles
over a part of the course of the annual Yale-Harvard crew races. On
the west bank are the modern brick buildings of the U.S. Coast Guard
Academy (see NEW LONDON), and on the hilltop farther north, the cam-
pus and native granite buildings of Connecticut College (see NEW LON-
DON). On the east bank is the Atlantic Base of U.S. Submarines (see
Tour IG).

US 1A, the new road, by-passes the main street (R) of GROTON (town
pop. 10,770) (see GROTON), 53.7 m., reached by turning right at the east-
ern end of the bridge). At Groton is the junction with State 12 (see Tour
IG) and State 84 (see Tour IH).

This route follows US 1 Alt., a new cutoff and at 54 m. intersects with
State 84 (see Tour IH). The road ascends to a hilltop at 54.6 m. from
which a wide view extends over the countryside southward to Long
Island Sound.

At 55.3 m. US 1 Alt. rejoins US 1. At the intersection is a dignified shaft
in Avery Memorial Park (R), marking the Site of the 'Hive of the Avery s,'
the homestead which from 1656 to 1894 was occupied by seven genera-
tions of the descendants of Captain James Avery. The shaft, topped by
a bust of the original settler in Puritan costume, was a gift of the late
John D. Rockefeller, a descendant, and was designed by the sculptor,
Bela Lyon Pratt, another descendant. The old homestead, destroyed by
fire on July 20, 1894, had been enlarged by the addition of the former

346 High Roads and Low Roads

Blinman Church of New London to the older structure in 1686. From the
Hive many mariners, soldiers, and substantial citizens went forth to make
America. At home, the Averys were farmers and civic leaders. An old
well-sweep with an oaken bucket stands invitingly beside the tall memo-
rial shaft.

At the head of the small salt inlet of Poquonock River is the hamlet of
POQUONOCK BRIDGE (Ind. : ' cleared land ') (Town of Groton), 56.4 m.

At the Poquonock Bridge is a junction with a side road.

Right on this road, 3 m., is the Governor Winthrop House, Bluff Point, set among
rocks at the top of a hill. The interesting features of this peak-roofed frame dwell-
ing built about 1700 are an underground exit, tunneled about three hundred feet
from the cellar to the barn, and a large brick chimney, arched in the basement,
where it forms a room-like space paved with a stone floor, reputedly built as a
shelter for women and children during Indian raids. The staircase to the second
floor is encased in featheredged boards and has a high hand rail without spindles.

At 58.1 m. (L) is Fort Hill where Pequot reinforcements encamped when
Mason burned their stronghold at Pequot Hill. The remnant of the tribe
was pursued by Mason to Fairfield and there perished in the Great Swamp
Fight.

East of Fort Hill, the highway runs inland crossing low hills which, sev-
eral miles to the south, level into peninsulas, notably cottage-covered
Groton Long Point and Eastern Point with its wealthy summer colony.

At WEST MYSTIC (Town of Groton), 59.6 m., the 'Galena' (1862),
first ironclad warship laid down in the country, was built by the Maxon
Fish Co. The 'Monitor,' widely known because of its spectacular battle
with the 'Merrimac,' was designed while the 'Galena' was under con-
struction and was truly a floating battery rather than a ship adapted to
sea duty.

Left from West Mystic on Elm St. is Pequot Hill, 0.9 m., on which the Mason
Monument marks the spot where Captain John Mason with a force of 77 men
burned a Pequot fort in 1637.

Early reports of the Pequot War describe the main fort of the Indians as a long
palisade, with two entrances, enclosing the wigwams of the tribe. Captain John
Mason, with a force of some 90 men from Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield,
made his celebrated attack on this stronghold in 1637, following Pequot depreda-
tions on the outskirts of river and coastal towns. Mason was assisted by about 400
friendly Indian allies under Sachem Uncas. The combined forces of Mason and
Uncas swooped down on the warlike Pequots about daybreak, and set fire to the
stockade. Some 600 or 700 Pequots were burned alive; only 7 were taken captive
and about 7 escaped. The returning Colonial soldiers were each given a bonus of
several acres of land, Captain Mason became a hero, and the Boston divine, Cotton
Mather wrote : ' The greatness and the violence of the fire, the flashing and roaring
of the arms, the shrieks and yells of men, women and children within the fort,
and the shouting of Indians without, just at the dawning of the morning, exhibited
a grand and awful scene. It was a fearful sight to see them frying in the fire, and
the streams of blood quenching the same, horrible was the stink and scent thereof;
but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the praise thereof to God.'

Right from West Mystic, State 215 runs along the shore of Mystic Harbor past
numerous old houses and new summer homes to NOANK (Ind. : ' point of the
land'), 2.5 m., home of sword-fishermen, lobstermen, and boat-builders. Their
gear-laden wharves and motley craft fringe the water front, and their dwellings

TOUR 1 : From New York City to Westerly, R.I. 347

cluster on the hillside of the seagirt point, where the old lighthouse beacon has
guided home generations of seafarers.

US 1 crosses the Mystic River to Mystic.

MYSTIC (Town of Stonington, pop. 9019), 59.8 m., is an old maritime
community of trim white houses on the green-fringed irregular Mystic
Harbor, the tidal outlet of the Mystic River. For generations Mystic
was the home of daring mariners and fishermen and was feared by the
British during the Revolution as 'a cursed little hornet's nest.' The
village teemed with shipbuilding activity during the 1849 gold rush
days. Then the Mystic River echoed with the pounding of hammers
* knocking away the shores and spurs,' as the graceful hulls of swift
clipper ships slid down the ways to make world records on their thrilling
runs around the Horn to California. Here was built in 1860 the ' Andrew
Jackson,' a modified clipper combining cargo space with speed, which
hung up a record of 89 days, 4 hours, breaking by 9 hours the record of
the famous 'Flying Cloud' (1851) (89 days, 13 hours). In succeeding
passages the ' Andrew Jackson' made the best average time of any ship
sailing to San Francisco.

Left from Mystic on State 169, a short distance, is the Marine Historical Museum
(adm. on application to curator), an old wooden mill building (L), which houses one
of the finest collections of clipper-ship models in America, in addition to old figure-
heads and paraphernalia of whaling and sailing days.

On the museum grounds is the hull of the famous small sailboat 'Annie,' designed
by D. O. Richmond, which defeated all-comers in the sandbagger class from 1870
to 1880. Its designer was one of the most successful yacht builders of the era pre-
ceding ballast keel construction.

At 60.9 m. is the intersection with a paved side road.

Right on this road to Mason's Island, 0.8 m., which commands an impressive view
of Fisher's Island. Mason's Island, edged with rocky ledges and sandy beaches, was
presented to Captain John Mason of Windsor in appreciation of his victory over
the Pequots. It is now occupied by summer homes. Though the island is accessible
by a private road over a causeway, sightseers are not welcome.

From the bridge crossing the long and narrow Quiambog Cove, 62.3 m.,
is an excellent view (R) of Fisher's Island, three miles offshore, one of
the numerous islands northeast of Long Island, which are part of New
York State. Crossing a broad neck of land that terminates in LORD'S
POINT, a summer colony on the Sound, the highway parallels the north-
ern shore of Stonington Harbor and skirts, at 64.6 m., the northern end
of the village of STONINGTON (borough pop. 2025) (see STONING-
TON}. The greater part of the quiet old whaling port is on a peninsula,
undisturbed by the rush of traffic. To reach the town center turn right
on East St.

WEQUETEQUOCK (Town of Stonington), 66.8 m., on the long salt in-
let known as Wequetequock River, was named from the Indian word
describing the district.

Right from Wequetequock, at an irregular crossroad, opposite the small iQth-
century meeting-house, on a dirt road that leads across Wequetequock Cove and
branches sharply right past an old graveyard, 0.2 m., the earliest in the town of
Stonington; here are 'wolf stones,' heavy slabs of rude stone which, according to

348 High Roads and Low Roads

tradition were laid over graves in primitive settlements as protection against the
bold and numerous wolves which then ravaged the countryside. The oldest stone
is dated 1690.

At 69.3 m. US 1 crosses the Rhode Island Line at the Pawcatuck River
which separates the village of PAWCATUCK (Town of Stonington)
from Westerly, Rhode Island (see Tour I/).

TOUR 1 A : From DARIEN to FAIRFIELD, 17 m., State
136, West Way and Harbor Rds.

Via South Norwalk, Saugatuck.
Macadam-surfaced highway.
Limited accommodations.

STATE 136 follows the shore with frequent views of Long Island Sound,
picturesque harbors, and sail-dotted inlets.

Leaving US 1 (see Tour 1) at the railway underpass in DARIEN, State
136 passes in the block of stores (R), at 0.1 m., an old-fashioned country
hardware store, formerly the original parish edifice unsuccessfully fired
by the British during the Revolution. To the south, at 0.6 m., is the resi-
dential district of TOKENEKE (Town of Darien).
Crossing Five-Mile River, State 136 passes through Rowayton.

ROWAYTON (Town of Norwalk), 1.9 m., is an old landing place on the
Five-Mile River which basks sleepily in daydreams of the past when ships
ran alongside the rock ledge at full tide to load and unload their cargoes.

At 2.3 m. is the intersection with a macadamized road.

Right on this road to Roton Point Beach and Amusement Resort, 0.4 m.
Past the peninsulas of Roton Point and Wilson Point, State 136 veers left
across a railway siding at 3.3 m. and beneath a railway overpass at 4.1 m.
to SOUTH NORWALK, 5.5 m., the manufacturing center of Norwalk
(see NORWALK).

Across the Norwalk River at EAST NORWALK (Town of Norwalk),
7 m., is the junction with Ludlow Parkway.

Right on Ludlow Parkway to Calf -Pasture Point, 1.3 m., once used as a pasture
ground by the Indians, but now developed into an attractive city park. Offshore
are numerous large islands famed in legendary tales of pirate gold, privateers,
British raids, and smuggling. On Cedar Hammock Island, Nathan Hale stealthily
lingered as he waited to be picked up by the sloop * Schuyler ' which carried him on
his fateful mission to Long Island to obtain British military information for General
Washington.

Proceeding right beneath a railroad underpass, at 8.3 m., this route fol-
lows the Saugatuck River for two blocks past a settlement of fishermen

TOUR 1A: From Darien to Fairfield 349

and lobstermen to the old shipping port of SAUGATUCK, 9.3 m. State
136 crosses the Saugatuck River to the junction with Compo Rd., at
10.6 m.

At the junction is the statue of a Minuteman which commemorates the
heroism of the defenders of Compo Hill (L), where Westport patriots at-
tempted to halt Tryon's retreat from Danbury.

Right on Compo Road to Compo Beach, where, on the point, two cannon pre-
sented by the United States Government mark the spot where Tryon landed a
force of 2000 British to raid the Continental stores at Danbury. 'The House
on the Pond ' (L) is the home of Lillian D. Wald, founder of the Henry Street Settle-
ment, New York City. Passing the Compo Yacht Basin, the side road rejoins State
136.

Skirting the landscaped Estate of Arnold V. Schlaet, State 136 turns sharp
left, then right, and after circling inland comes to a junction with a paved
road, at 13.3 m. (sharp right on a curve).

Right on this road to Sherwood Island State Park, 0.8 m., where a sandy beach
and adjacent acreage are equipped with free dressing-rooms, parking space, tables
and benches for picnickers.

At 13.5 m. is the intersection with a side road.

Left on this road for a short distance to the Greens Farms district, 0.6. , where
there are many spacious estates. The many windmills here were, at one time, used
to pump sea water into the pans and evaporation tanks of an early salt works.
Here just beyond the railroad station on a triangle of the old Green, stands the
Machamux Boulder with a tablet that records important events in the history of the
early settlement which was called Machamux by the Indians.

The highway parallels the shore for a short distance, affording a splendid
view of Long Island Sound. Beside the road, at Frost Point, is a towering
elm, with a circumference of 25 feet, three feet above the ground. On the
left are the beautiful landscaped gardens and extensive greenhouses on
the Estate (open, free), of the late E. T. Bedford, oil magnate. The Bedford
residence and those of Laurence Craufurd and Johannes Schiott, sur-
rounded by spacious lawns, stretch along the water front (R).

East of Sasco Creek is a junction with West Way Rd. (R). Across the
street (L) from the junction is the Pequot Library (open weekdays 9-5),
containing one of the most complete American genealogical collections in
the United States.

At the junction, this route, leaving State 136, turns right on West Way
Rd. to SOUTHPORT (Town of Fairfield), 16.2 m., at the mouth of Mill
River. After the burning of Fairfield, Southport became the business
center of the town. Most of the influential citizens lived here and erected
the many dignified substantial homes bordering its hilly, elm-shaded
streets.

The historian Barber, writing in 1836, said, 'More shipping is owned here
in proportion to the size of the place than in any other port between
Boston and New York.' The igth-century 'Pedlar' ships, which carried
on a lively trade with both those cities, and the marine shops that once
lined the water front have given way to the moorings of the large yachting

VI A S S A C

H U S E T T S

s o

KEY 10

CONNECTICUT
TOURS

See table of contents

4and4a

MAIN TOURS ,
SIDE TOURS _
MERRITT PARKWAY

(under construction)

352 High Roads and Low Roads

fleet and clubhouse of the Pequot Yacht Club. Here in Revolutionary
days, many crews were organized for the unofficial whaleboat warfare
carried on in retaliation for the numerous Tory depredations suffered by
settlements along the Sound. One such expedition, commanded by Cap-
tain Amos Perry, sailed in the sloop ' Racer ' one stormy night. At dawn
it was sighted by the British fleet, apparently drifting helplessly. The
commander of a Tory sloop came alongside, boarded the 'Racer 7 and de-
manded surrender. Captain Perry stamped his foot and immediately his
crew swarmed up through the hatches, surrounded the boarding party,
and captured the British vessel and its cargo.

Near the southwest corner of West Way Rd. and Harbor Rd. is the Wil-
liam Bulkley House which was spared by the British invaders in 1779.
Close by the end of the bridge over Horse Tavern Creek is the Old Store,
built in 1765, which served Bulkley as store and warehouse. At the north-
west corner of Old South and Willow Sts. is the Sheffield House, the birth-
place (1793) of Joseph Earle Sheffield, founder of the Sheffield Scientific
School of Yale University.

The Perry Houses (1845 and 1850) (L), are imposing examples of the Clas-
sical Revival period.

Bearing right on East Harbor Rd., this route parallels old Southport Har-
bor, and passes at 16.8 m., the Tide Mill Tavern, which was operated as a
mill until 1915 and stands on the site of a succession of early gristmills.
Some of the mill structure has been retained, although extensively re-
modeled. Beyond the tavern the road leads across a bridge over Mill River
and turns left to rejoin US 1 (see Tour 1) at Fairfield (see FAIRFIELD),
17m.

TOUR IB: From BRIDGEPORT to JUNCTION WITH
US 202, 18.1 m., State 58.

Via Easton.

Macadamized roadbed.

Tourist accommodations at intervals.

STATE 58 branches northeast from US 1 at Bridgeport (see Tour 1)
and runs through a shady countryside.

Passing the Samp Mortar Reservoir, the highway meets a side road at
2.8 m.

Left on this road is Samp Mortar Rock, 0.4 m., a natural formation scooped out by
glacial movements, which was used by the Indians to grind their corn. The great
stone pestle, fashioned by the local tribe for use with the mortar, has been removed

TOUR IB: From Bridgeport to Junction with US 202 353

to the Peabody Museum in New Haven for preservation. From the summit of
this hill are splendid views of the surrounding countryside.

This unusually attractive route passes Hemlock Reservoir, its banks
thickly planted with evergreens.

At 9.9 m. is the junction with State 106.

Right on State 106 is EASTON CENTER (alt. 360, town pop. 1013), 1 m. Here
set high above the road in traditional New England manner, is the Congregational
Church (1817), its flat facade surmounted by a steeple of two octagonal stages,
crowned with a short, conical spire. In an appropriate setting of old trees and with
an adjacent wellhouse is the Parsonage (before 1800) with a square pillared portico
and an unusual hall which passes through the chimney.

On the right stands the Staples Academy (1797), one of the first free secondary
schools in the country, founded in 1781, and now used as a community center.

Left of State 58 in the underbrush, at 11.2 m., are Primitive Ruins,
locally known as 'crows' nests.' Not yet classified by antiquarians, they
are believed to be foundations of the first homes built by settlers in this
district.

At 14.4 m. is the junction with a side road.

Right on this road which leads, 0.6 m., to a crossroad, a right turn crosses a little
wooden bridge spanning an impressive 5o-foot cascade. At this point the Aspetuck
River is confined between the walls of a rock gorge, called the Devil's Mouth.
The road continues for i mile along the Aspetuck Valley.

Ascending a long hill, State 58 enters REDDING RIDGE (alt. 705,
Town of Redding, pop. 1599), 14.8 m., from which a wide view extends
eastward. The present Episcopal Church is the successor to that which
during the Revolution was under the rule of the Loyalist, the Rev.
John Beach, whose pastorate endured 50 years. On the west gable of
the church structure is the damaged weathercock from which the legs
were shot by one of Tryon's men as his force marched through this
district en route to Danbury. Next door to the Episcopal Church was
the home of Squire Heron, who pretended that he was a Tory in order
to spy upon the British for the Continental Army.

Passing several old houses in a thickly wooded district, State 58 reaches
Israel Putnam Memorial Camp Grounds (L), 16.9 m., Connecticut's
'Valley Forge,' where General Israel Putnam's troops, the 'right wing'
of the Continental Army, endured the rigors of the bitter winter of
1778-79, when they camped here in order to be in a strategic position to
march to the defense of West Point or the towns on Long Island Sound.

Guarding either side of the entrance are reproductions of Revolutionary
block-houses. Within the park are several attractive drives leading past
the granite obelisk commemorating General Putnam's impassioned
speech to the poorly clothed and scantily fed soldiers who threatened
to desert and had already formed in line to march to Hartford to demand
redress.

Right on 'Company Street' are tumble-down stone piles, the remains of chimneys
of the soldiers' huts, lying exactly as they fell when the troops burned the cabins
after they evacuated them in May, 1779.

354 High Roads and Low Roads

A short distance farther on (R) to the Colonial Museum (open from Decoration Day
to the end of Sept., 1-5), which includes in its collection many Revolutionary relics
found on the grounds.

The main driveway leads past Philip's Cave, about which many legends have been
told, to a reproduction of one of the army cabins, and beyond to a little circular
driveway (L), the site of the camp fire, where Joel Barlow, one of the celebrated
'Hartford Wits,' entertained the soldiers. Down the hill is the old camp oven.

At 18.1 m. is the junction with US 202 (see Side Trip off Tour 2, sec. a), 3.3
miles east of Danbury.

TOUR 1C: From NEW HAVEN to NAUGATUCK, 16.5
m., State 67 and State 63.

Via Bethany.

Macadam and concrete surfaced highway.

Limited accommodations.

LEAVING New Haven (see NEW HAVEN and Tour 1), on Whalley
Ave. (State 67), this route passes through the Westville district of New
Haven, at 1.3 m.

Beside the road at 4.9 m. (L), is one of the few stone tanbark mills,
powered by oxen, ever used in New England. The great circular crush-
ing stone, rigged with an ox yoke and pole, stands as though ready for
work on the stone trough in which the bark was laid. This mill, used
before 1720 in a swamp near Foxon (town of East Haven), is of the type
commonly used in the arid districts of Asia. On such a mill Samson
ground corn for the Philistines.

At 5.9 m. is the junction with State 63 (R) which this route follows to
Naugatuck.

BETHANY (alt. 520, pop. 480), 10 m., is a hamlet on a hilltop. Origin-
ally the site of numerous small mills, the town is now devoted to dairy-
ing and agriculture. The Congregational Church (L), built in 1832 and ex-
tensively altered in 1851 and 1866, was designed by Ira Atwater. The
Episcopal Church (R), with arched gallery windows, reminiscent of New
England Georgian, was designed by David Hoadley and built in 1809.

Eastward, steep fields slope down to Lake Bethany; to the south, the
valley merges into the foothills of the West Rock range. Roadside
pastureland is fragrant with sweet fern, juniper, and bayberry.

At 10.2 m. stands the Darius Beecher House (R), built by David Hoadley
in 1807, with a delicate Palladian window and a hooded porch sheltering

TOUR ID: From New Haven to Providence, R.I. 355

a finely designed doorway. The interior includes a ballroom with a
spring floor, and a wide hall spanned by two arches.

An Aviation Field (L), at 11 m., maintains planes for brief sightseeing
trips. At 11.3 m. is (L) a mink farm.

Descending a long hill, brook waters splash over a small stone dam (L)
at 11.8 m., though the mill for which it supplied power has long since
crumbled.

At 13.2 m. the highway passes below scrub-grown Beacon Hill (L). On
the summit an air beacon flashes through the night, and a huge boulder
40 feet in circumference and 20 feet in height is a vantage-point from
which the church spires of several Naugatuck Valley towns are visible.

Beyond the ravine of Cotton Hollow Brook, at 13.5 m., in the little com-
munity of STRAITSVILLE, 13.7 m., the long Collins Tavern (1811),
with a two-story colonnade across the front, stands, like a roadside
Mount Vernon, close to the road (R). The symmetry of its lines supports
the tradition that it was designed by David Hoadley, Connecticut's
most versatile early architect.

Across the road are the Laurel Lodge Trout Pools (L), operated by a
private club. An old shear-shop formerly stood beside the stream.

At 14.7 m. State 63 passes the deserted track of the Beacon V 'alley > Fair
Grounds, site of former country fairs and previously the home site of
Chief Two Moons, Indian medicine man, who amassed a fortune bottling
questionable cures for gullible white men in the days of torchlight sales-
men. State 63 continues past the factory-lined Naugatuck River to
NAUGATUCK, 16.5 m. (see Tour 5).

TOUR ID: From NEW HAVEN to RHODE ISLAND
LINE (Providence), 76.2 m., State 15, 80, 9, 82, 165, and 138.

Via North Branford, Deep River, East Haddam, Norwich, Preston City,
Voluntown.

Macadam-surfaced highway.
Limited accommodations.

A MORE direct route between New Haven and Providence than
US 1, this route travels an excellent highway through a sparsely populated
inland area with many unexpected and delightful vistas, abounding^ in
lakes and ponds, entering dense stretches of upland forests, and opening
suddenly upon well-cultivated fields separated by sturdy stone walls.
It is a less-traveled highway, free from the annoyance of interstate and

356 High Roads and Low Roads

local busses and trucks with their attendant roadside stations. As the
highway was not completed until 1936, few gasoline and service stations
have been erected, and they are often many miles apart.

State 15 leaves US 1 at New Haven on State St. and at 2 m. turns
sharp right, following the car tracks over a bridge and crossing the Quin-
nipiac River at 2.6 m. At a double underpass, 2.8 m., this route turns
right from State 15 (see Tour 7 A) onto State 80.

State 80 now passes through a flat and colorless countryside which offers
little indication of the general beauty of the miles ahead. Many small
truck gardens in this district have wayside stands for the sale of produce.
Beyond, at 8 m., the Totoket Mountain trap-rock quarry lifts its steep
bare walls high above the roadway.

NORTH BRANFORD (alt. 100, town pop. 1329), 13.2 m., is hardly
more than an old-fashioned New England crossroads where (R) the
Zion Episcopal Church (1819), and (L) a white Congregational Church
(1908) stand primly along the wayside.
At 11.7 m. is the junction with State 77.

Left on State 77 to a sign 'To the Churches,' which directs the traveler to the
hamlet of NORTH GUILFORD. Many of the old roads are closed, houses are
deserted, or only the cellars remain. Two churches, however, are well preserved
and furnish an interesting comparison, for they were built within a year or two
of each other. Both show early Greek Revival influence, but the Episcopal Church
(1815) shows its allegiance by pointed Gothic windows. The steeple of the Con-
gregational Church (1813) rises in two stages, a square belfry with Doric entabla-
ture, surmounted by a circular lantern. Between the churches is the Congrega-
tional parsonage (1821), Doric in detail, with a fine doorway and porch of slender
free-standing columns.

State 80 leads by Shelley Lakes, 15.4 m., in the forested hill country

which distinguishes this route.

At the rotary intersection with State 79, 17.5 m., is North Madison's

little Congregational Church (1837), notable for its beautiful fluted

Doric columns.

At 18.9 m., State 80 crosses a high cement bridge over the narrow gorge of

Nineveh Falls, in the Hammonasset River, banked with a heavy growth

of hemlocks and laurel.

As the new highway bridge passes directly over the falls, the best view

is obtained by following the foot path (R) down the stream a few yards.

Just across the bridge is the junction with a country road.

Right on this road, which parallels State 80 and rejoins that route at the Killing-
worth crossroads, 3.4 m., to the Killingworth Images on the bank of a stream. This
collection of hand-carved and painted figurines, which once performed amusing
antics actuated by power from a water wheel, continues to attract hundreds of
tourists although the bright colors are faded and the water wheel has long since
been carried away by spring freshets.

East of the falls, State 80 cuts through sheer rock formations and wild
forest growth to the junction with Kelsey Drive, 20.3 m., a dirt road.

Left on Kelsey Drive to Camp Roosevelt, a former Civilian Conservation Corps
camp in the Killingworth section of the Cockaponset State Forest where pleasing

TOUR ID: From New Haven to Providence, R.I. 357

drives and picnic grounds have been provided. Kelsey Drive joins Chatfield
Hollow Rd. at a bridge which spans a new dam, constructed by the Civilian Con-
servation Corps at Shroeder Pond, an artificial body of water surrounded by pine
trees. Along the shores, beaches have been created, and a roped-off cove provides
a safe bathing place for children.

North of Camp Roosevelt, in the Pine Orchard section of the town, is Sacketfs
Cave, 1 m., long a haunt of archaeologists and collectors who have unearthed many
valuable Indian relics, some of which are preserved at the Peabody Museum, New
Haven. Unfortunately, dynamiting has blocked part of the main entrance to the
cave.

At 21.7 m. is a rotary intersection with State 81.

Left on State 81 to the rural center of KILLINGWORTH (alt. 425, town pop.
482), 0.3 m., named for Kenilworth, Warwickshire, England, in 1667. Local mis-
spelling and mispronunciation have resulted in the present corrupted form.

Amid rocky meadows overgrown with huckleberry bushes and patches of thick
forest watered by cool narrow streams, Killingworth, chiefly devoted to dairying
and poultry-raising, lies serene and undisturbed by the turmoil of modern indus-
try. Despite its isolation, the community has twice been the center of wide
interest. First, in pre-Revolutionary days, Abel Buell (1742-1822), a silver-
smith engraver and one of the most inventive geniuses of his time, who engraved
the first map of America made in this country after the Peace of 1783, was
detected altering five-pound notes. Buell was imprisoned, cropped and branded,
but because of his youth and previous exemplary reputation, suffered what the
stern justice of those times regarded as light punishment. Only a small piece was
cut from one ear, and that he was permitted to keep warm on his tongue so that
it might be replaced. The brand 1 F' (forger), held on his forehead until he could
say 'God Save the King,' was placed high so that it might be covered by his hair.
While in prison, Buell invented the first lapidary machine ever made in this coun-
try and secured commutation of his sentence when he presented a handsome gem-
studded ring to the King's Attorney.

Years later, wide attention was again concentrated on this village when the poet,
Longfellow, after a visit at the Ely House (private), 0.2 m., built in 1782, wrote his
poem, 'The Birds of Killingworth,' in protest against the local practice of organized
shooting of birds by the farmers who considered them pests.

On State 81, at 0.5 m., set back (R) from the highway on a slight incline, behind
large trees, is the Killingworth Congregational Church (1817), whose graceful tower
and domed belfry are admired from hilltops many miles around. It owes some-
thing, obviously, to Hoadley's United Church in New Haven. As in the best period
of early church architecture, the tower rises on the front axis of the church with
a projecting pediment below, repeating the lines of the gable.

The red Josiah Parmalee House (private) of 1752, a notably good example of mid-
eighteenth-century construction, stands (R), at 2 m.

Left here on a macadamized road, 1.5 m., is an old gristmill, still in operation.

At 24.6 m. is one of the most beautiful of all Connecticut's roadside
parks (L), in a landscaped clearing opposite Lake Menunketesuck (R).

In densely wooded country, is the tiny settlement of Winthrop (Town
of Saybrook), at 25.6 m. Passing ponds and falls (R), at 28.9 m., the
highway crosses and recrosses the sinuous course of the narrow black
stream for which the village of DEEP RIVER (Town of Saybrook)
(see Tour 8), 29.5 m., is named.

Left at Deep River on State 9 (see Tour 8) to CHESTER (see Tour 8),
at 31.2 m.

358 High Roads and Low Roads

Right at Chester on an oiled dirt road to the Chester-Hadlyme Ferry Dock, 0.6 m.
(ferry operates only between 7 and 7; 25^ for car and driver; 5j each additional pas-
senger). From the boat can be seen the quietly flowing river, the wooded shore
line, and, on the Hadlyme side, one of the steel trestles of a miniature railway
spanning a rock fault. This railway was built by the late William Gillette, noted
actor, on the estate where he spent his declining years. At the ferry landing on the
E. bank is a small settlement of well-kept houses clustered on elm-shaded lawns
along the river bank. A colonial Shipyard Office (R), and the Mansion (private),
built about 1805, on the river's bank, once owned by Captain Henry T. Comstock,
shipbuilder, stand by the remains of his old dock, from which hogsheads were
easily rolled into the capacious cellar of his house.

At 0.8 m. is the entrance to a private highway (L) which ascends to Gillette Castle
(private), Mr. Gillette's former home. The building is perched atop a high cliff like
the medieval strongholds which inspired its design. Mr. Gillette, who died in 1937,
specified in his will that he hoped the executors would see that the property did
not get into ' the possession of some blithering saphead who has no conception of
where he is or with what surrounded.'

The road nearly parallels the course of Whalebone Creek and leads east through
the old shipbuilding village of HADLYME (Town of Lyme), 1.7 m. This road,
following an old route once worn by laden ox-carts, winds through a Colonial
district little changed since that bygone era, to Brockway's Corners, where it re-
joins State 82, at 2.2 m.

At 35.5 m. is the community of TYLERVILLE (Town of Haddam),
where a large turkey farm (R) at the road junction caters to a select
clientele. At the turkey farm, State 9 (see Tour 8) continues north.
At this point is the junction with State 82 on which this route crosses
the East Haddam bridge over the Connecticut River, at 35 m., from which
the view up and down the stream is exceptionally beautiful. The bridge
terminates in the town of East Haddam.

EAST HADDAM (alt. 20, town pop. 2114), 35.2 m., established as a
trading post, became a bustling center of fisheries, shipping, and the
manufacture of marine hardware and muskets. Today it is an old-
fashioned river town. In the tower of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church
hangs an ancient bell, inscribed 'Corrales me heso . . . 815 A.D.,' that
was brought to this country from Spain, where it was salvaged from a
monastery destroyed during the Napoleonic Wars. On a knoll overlooking
the river, in the cemetery, stands the little red Schoolhouse, where Nathan
Hale taught in 1773-74-

Still standing beside the river bank are the great rambling hotels that
served the river-boat passengers, who, before the construction of the
shore railroad, here made connections with Sound steamers to New
York.

At 36.6 m. is the junction with a dirt road (marked) to the East Haddam
Fire Tower.

Left on this road to the East Haddam Fire Tower, 2.3 m., from which there are

excellent views of the river valley.

At Brockway's Corners, 40.4 m., is the junction with the 'alternate ferry
route' (see above). Left at Brockway's Corners, State 82 skirts along the
northern boundary of the town of Lyme, passing 'Roaring Brook,' a
roadside picnic park (R), 41 m., and intersecting with State 86 at 42.5 m.
(see Tour IE).

TOUR ID: From New Haven to Providence, R.I. 359

At 43.8 m., State 82 passes through the district of NORTH PLAINS
(Town of East Haddam) in its rustic setting of wooded hills and ravines.

Left from North Plains, a gravel road leads to the Devil's Hopyard, 3 m., a State
park of 860 acres on the Eight Mile River. Here are Chapman's Falls, in one of the
loveliest gorges in the State (picnic grounds with tables and fireplaces). On a rock
at the top of the falls, the Devil is said to have sat, playing his violin as he directed
the East Haddam witches who brewed black magic potions in the potholes beside
the tumbling waters. Above the northern end of the Hopyard is MILLINGTON
GREEN (Town of East Haddam), once a thriving lumber town.

East of North Plains, at 46.4 m., near a pond surrounded by weeping
willows, is the Trowbridge Homestead (private), home of a grandfather of
Donald G. Mitchell (1822-1908), a Connecticut author who wrote under
the nom-de-plume of 'Ik Marvel' (see Literature}. A dirt driveway (L),
46.7 m., leads to the Old Bailey House (private), built about 1790, a small
gambrel-roofed house where Ik Marvel wrote his fantasy 'Dream Life,'
and south of the highway, at 47.3 m., can be seen the red Mumford
House of 1769 (private), owned by another grandfather of Mitchell,
and often referred to in his 'Reveries of a Bachelor.'

At 48.7 m. is the junction with State 85 (see Tour 3A) at Salem Four
Corners.

At 49.4 m. (R) stands the Dolbeare Tavern (private), built about 1780,
a gaunt, plain relic of the past.

State 82 now passes through forested country interspersed with wide
valleys and rocky ridges.

At 51.4 m. is the gambrel-roofed Bland Tavern of about 1820 (private),
encircled by two-story piazzas.

At 51.5 m. is the intersection with a dirt road.

Left on this road to Gardner's Lake, 0.1 m., not visible from the road. Minnie
Island, a pine-grown knoll rising from the lake's depths, the State's smallest park
(i acre), is accessible by boats for hire here.

At 54.5 m. is the roadside picnic area By the Brook (R).

Passing through the outskirts of Norwich, the highway crosses (R) the

Yantic River to Norwich.

NORWICH (alt. 100, town pop. 32,438) (see NORWICH), 59.5 m., an

industrial city.

At Norwich is the junction with State 12 (see Tours 9 and IG), State 32

(see Tours 9 A and 9), State 2 (see Tour U), and State 87 (see Tour 2C).

Leaving Norwich on State 165, this route, paralleling the Shetucket River,
proceeds through the village of Long Society.

LONG SOCIETY (Town of Norwich), 60.7 m., has a name that is descrip-
tive of the physical character of the land apportioned to the early
ecclesiastical society. Here lived many of the earliest settlers of the town
of Norwich. The plain white Long Society Congregational Church (L),
originally built in 1726, is the most primitive religious structure in
Connecticut. In 1817, the building was moved a few feet forward and
repaired. It might easily escape attention, for it is boarded up and

360 High Roads and Low Roads

looks today like a modern dwelling-house, but inside it has the old box
pews of Colonial days.

The small brick structure with stone trim (E), across the road, is reputed
to be the Oldest Brick Building in Connecticut. The exact date of con-
struction is unknown, but records show the building was standing in
1744. According to tradition, the bricks were supplied by one of the three
brickyards which were in operation in the vicinity in the early days.
The building, 14 X 20 feet, to which a white wooden ell has been added,
once contained a large fireplace which was uncovered when repairs were
made. The Old Yellow Building (R) was once a toll house in the early
turnpike days.

PRESTON CITY (alt. 180, town pop. 3928), 64.5 m., is a village with a
misleading name. The 'city' is but a small hamlet, consisting of the
Baptist Church (1815, 1832), and a group of neat white houses amid the
rolling fertile fields and upland pastures of an agricultural district;
the scattered settlement is scarcely noticed by the hurried tourist. On the
east corner stands the Treat Tavern of 1730 (private), and on the south-
east corner, surrounded by a high picket fence the Calvin Barstow Home-
stead (private), built in 1785, with a projecting front pediment fre-
quently found in the eastern part of the State.

Bay Mountain* (alt. 560 feet), 69.6 m. (R), is one of the highest points in
this southeastern Connecticut lowland. Eastward, the road crosses the
southern end of the main expanse of Pachaug Pond, a sizable body of
clear water.

At 70.3 m. is the intersection with a tarred road.

Left on this road a very short distance, to the unkempt village of GLASGO
(Town of Griswold), named for Isaac Glasko, of mixed Indian and Negro
blood, who developed an extensive business in marine hardware (1806)
and furnished whaling implements to all New England ports.
State 165 crosses an arm of Pachaug Pond and enters the village of
Voluntown.

VOLUNTOWN (alt. 260, town pop. 651), 72.4 m., is in an area originally
divided into homesteads for volunteers of King Philip's War; it later
became active in the manufacture of cotton thread. With the decline
of the textile industry in New England, only one small silk braid factory
has survived, and the village has become an isolated countryside com-
munity.

At 72.9 m. is the junction with State 95 (see Tour 9B).
Here (L) at the junction stands the Robbins Tavern (open), where Wash-
ington stopped. The old ballroom, along with much of the interior, is
now despoiled of its paneling.

From Voluntown this route continues east on State 138 and passes
through the timber and brook region of the Pachaug State Forest, the
largest area in the State now undergoing reforestation. Excellent trout
brooks run through this district. The highway crosses the Rhode
Island Line at 76.2 m., at the southern end of Beach Pond (L), 32.7 miles
southwest of Providence, R.I.

TOUR IE: From JUNCTION WITH US 1 to JUNCTION
WITH STATE 82, 8.5 m., State 86.

Via Hamburg, North Lyme.
Macadam-surfaced highway.
Usual accommodations.

STATE 86, branching north from a junction with US 1 (see Tour 1) at
Old Saybrook, traverses a rugged area in the town of Lyme, where much
of the tranquil life of the past has been preserved, where noted artists
sketch beside the country roads, and writers rejoice in place names such
as Blood Street, Tantomorantum Brook, Whalebone Creek, and Cape
Horn. Many tidal inlets indent the bank of the Connecticut River to the
west, furnishing anchorage for pleasure craft and fishing boats in season.
Along the old landings, nets are often hung to dry during the shad run.
A dealer in raw furs hangs his shingle beside the road. Duck guns boom
in the marshes when frost comes to the lowlands and the pungent odor of
wood smoke hangs in the air.
At 3.4 m., is the junction with an oiled gravel road.

1. Right on this road to BILL HILL, 0.7 m., where many old houses have been
carefully restored by new owners, who include Dr. Frank Schlesinger, Director of
Yale Observatory, Frank Bell, lecturer of the Christian Science Church, and
Henry Hull, stage and screen star.

The road leads to Rogers Lake, 2.2 m. t where numbers of summer cottages have
been built along the pleasant shore.

2. Left at the junction, 0.2 m., to (R) the Deacon Richard Ely House (private), built
in 1710, of simple construction with the exception of a fluted pilastered doorway
with rosettes, cross panels and elaborate mouldings, an unusual feature for a door
of such age. At 0.7 m. is the House of Ely's Son, Richard (private), built about 1790,
with an odd scroll design over the door. Just beyond is the Samuel Ely House
(private), built in 1750, with a handsome leaded fan and Palladian window of later
date. At 2 m. is Ely's Landing, once a busy shipping point.

State 86 climbs a northern slope of Bill Hill, where from the summit is
seen a wide view of the Connecticut and Eight-Mile River valleys, with
a group of hills Grassy, Brown, and Nickerson and Mt. Archer and
Candlewood Ledge in the middle distance, and the highlands of East
Haddam across the cove in the background.

HAMBURG (alt. 60, town pop. 546) (Town of Lyme), 4.7 m., is a com-
munity little changed since early in the igth century when, in this busy
center of shipping and shipbuilding, 100 yoke of oxen and their sturdy
carts often crowded the wharf to unload railroad ties and ships' masts
cut by scores of sawmills whose shrill whir resounded over the now quiet
countryside.

Overlooking the cove from the farther end of a broad spacious Green is
the plain little Congregational Church (1814), topped with a hip-roofed
cupola.

362 High Roads and Low Roads

River trips in power or sail boats can be arranged here with any of a dozen
boat owners, down the g-foot channel of the Eight-Mile River past Josh-
ua's Rock, scene of the Indian massacre of Captain Stone and his crew,
probably the first Englishmen to sail up the Connecticut River; and be-
yond up the broad sweep of the Connecticut River past Selden's Neck,
largest island in the 'Great River/ covering 122 acres. Here, exten-
sive ledges and a heavy stand of timber reach to the water's edge; the
western shore of the island, beyond which are abandoned island quarries,
wide level stretches and high hills, has been purchased for development as
a State park. North of the Neck is Selden Cove, once an active fishing cen-
ter and widely known for the lotus lily, or water chinquapin, which occa-
sionally blossoms here. South of Eight-Mile River, in the Connecticut
River, beyond Lord's Cove, the State has acquired a considerable acreage
of marsh land, providing excellent duck and rail shooting for the benefit
of sportsmen.

Left from Hamburg on a country road, crossing the cove on an antiquated wooden
bridge that has been reproduced in the paintings of many prominent artists who
have been summer residents of this district. The second house beyond the bridge
is (R) the Captain Johnson House (private), built in 1790, a story-and-a-half gam-
brel with elaborate doorway and three dormers. Within, an arched central hall
passes through the large chimney. The south room upstairs, with a vaulted ceil-
ing, was designed as a main assembly hall for the first Masonic lodge in this region.

State 86 continues past two old houses built by the Marvin family. The
plain Captain Elisha Marvin House (private) at 5.7 m. (R), with four win-
dows to the left of the door and three to the right, and an off-center stone
chimney, was built in 1738. At 6.1 m. is Captain Timothy Marvin's House
(private), an even plainer but symmetrical dwelling. In the cellar is a huge
fireplace with a wooden lintel about 15 feet long and 15x17 inches thick.
The house is now occupied by the school of Guy Wiggins, the artist; during
the summer, his pupils, with their easels, are often seen in neighboring
fields.

State 86 continues to NORTH LYME FOUR CORNERS (Town of
Lyme), 6.7 m., where on the northeast corner stands a tall, unrestored
Red House (R), dating from 1770, with a double overhang. Opposite is
a Hip-roofed Dwelling (1787) with a huge brick chimney. Near-by is a
Schoolhouse built in 1760, once red but now painted white.
At 8.5 m., 1.3 miles west of North Plain, is the junction with State 82
(see Tour ID).

TOUR IF: From JUNCTION WITH US 1 to JUNC-
TION WITH US 1, 15.3' in., State 156.

Ma Old Lyme, Niantic.

Macadam-surfaced roadbed.

Accommodations of usual kinds at short intervals.

THIS route passes through numerous coastal settlements between the
Connecticut River and New London that are not visible from US 1.

At 0.5 m. beyond the eastern end of the Connecticut River bridge, this
route turns right from US 1 (see Tour 1) on State 156, locally called
Rope Ferry Rd. because it connected with John Winthrop's rope ferry
at the Niantic River. Passing the Trowbridge Estate, one of the first in
Connecticut to plant a roadside garden on the highway outside its walls,
the highway crosses the Lieutenant River, once crowded with the towering
masts of clipper ships and square riggers, and enters the village of Old
Lyme.

OLD LYME (see OLD LYME}, at 1 m., an elm-shaded village steeped
in the seafaring tradition, is a rendezvous of many famous artists.
East of Old Lyme, the road proceeds through an underpass at 2.1 m.
and crosses Black Hall River, which takes its name from a cave on its
bank occupied by a Negro servant of Matthew Griswold in 1645, and
originally called Black Hole later Black Hall.

State 156 continues through OLD LYME SHORES, where many artists
have built homes along the fine sandy beaches.
At 8.6 m. is the intersection with a side road.

1. Right on this road is Rocky Neck State Park Bathing Beach (558 acres).

2. Left, this side road wends its way over and along Bride's Brook to the small park
by the same name situated on the property of the State Farm for Women, a correc-
tional institution for delinquent women. A tablet on a boulder perpetuates the
traditional origin of the brook's name, commemorating a marriage ceremony per-
formed here in the winter of 1646-47, when Governor Winthrop, who had no
jurisdiction outside of New London, stood on the east bank of the swollen stream
and united in marriage a couple standing on the opposite bank. The legality of the
brook boundary was later questioned by the people of Lyme, and in order to save
the expense of appealing to the courts in Hartford, both New London and Lyme
agreed to abide by the result of a fistic combat between two representatives from
each town. As Lyme's champions proved doughtier men, the boundary was moved
east to the Niantic River.

Eastward, State 156 borders, then traverses Rocky Neck State Park.
At 8.9 m. is the weathered Thomas Lee House (open Wed. and Sun.
11-6, July and August, and by appointment; adm. 25ff, children under 12,
free) (R), one of the most important 17th-century relics in the State.
Among the notable early features are the projecting window frames,

364 High Roads and Low Roads

the cellar steps hewn from solid logs, and traces of an early casement
window. Built in 1660, this staunch old house, restored and consistently
furnished in keeping with its period, is now maintained by the East Lyme
Historical Society. Exhibits include old china, pewterware, and kitchen
utensils. Adjacent, and also maintained by the society, is the Little
Boston Schoolhouse (1734), which was so celebrated for its high scholastic
standards that it was named for the early center of culture and learning
in Massachusetts.

State 156 passes a roadside picnic area (L), at 9.6 m., and follows a
distinctly scenic route, crossing the Pataguanset River at 11.4 m.

At 11.6 m. is the junction with Lake Avenue.

1. Left on Lake Avenue to Dodge Pond, 0.5 m., habitat of a variety of aquatic
plants.

2. Right at this junction on a road skirting Crescent Beach, admired for its very
white sand. At the southern end of this beach, Black Point, 3 m., the coast abruptly
rises to a rocky cliff, presenting an unusual contrast. Balancing on the edge of this
height is a huge rock, 17 feet long, of which the natives have for generations
observed, 'A mighty no 'caster would topple it into the bay.'

NIANTIC (Town of East Lyme), meaning 'point of land/ 12.1 m., at
the western end of a long bridge over the Niantic River, is the center of
many summer colonies scattered along the beaches and banks of the
river, and of an active scallop fishing industry, which, since the iyth
century has been the means of livelihood for many of the townspeople.
During the cold and windy winter days these hardy fishermen present
a fascinating picture, dragging the bed of the estuary with their heavy
nets from dawn until dusk. At low tide, sand and silt flats excellent
clam beds are visible along the sides of the channel.

Left at the hotel, on Oswegatchie Hill Rd., is the Stale Military Camp, 0.3 m.,
which maintains a landing field for airplanes.

East of Niantic, State 156 passes a sheltered yachting anchorage, and
crossing the Niantic River, reaches the village of Jordan at 14.8 m., at
the head of tide water on Jordan Creek. On the country roads south of
the village are a number of lyth-century houses. In contrast is the ex-
tensive Harkness Estate with its famous gardens (private) on Great Neck
Rd. State 156 rejoins US 1 (see Tour 1) at 15.3 m. (1.7 miles west of New
London).

TOUR 1 G : From GROTON to NORWICH, 14 m., State 12.

Via Gales Ferry.
Macadamized highway.
Limited accommodations.

TOUR 1G: From Groton to Norwich 365

STARTING from Groton, at the junction with US 1 and State 84 (see
Tour 1; see Tour IH), this tour traverses the Thames River Valley from
Groton to Norwich.

At 2.5 m. is the U.S. Navy Atlantic Submarine Base (open daily; guides
provided upon application to the sentry at the gate), a Government reserva-
tion where 130 officers and 636 seamen of the Navy receive special training
for submarine service. A conspicuous feature of the reservation is a 135-
foot tank where submarine crews are instructed in methods of escaping
from disabled submarines by the use of the mechanical 'lung,' a device
which supplies air to the escaping man as he floats upward to the surface.
At the base of this tank, which contains one quarter million gallons of
salt water, is a compartment resembling the conning tower of a submarine
from which future submarine crews make practice 'escapes' up through
100 feet of water.

From this point is an unobstructed view of the Thames River as it winds
northward and widens southward to its mouth. Opposite, on the crest of
the ridge on the western bank, are the granite buildings of Connecticut
College (see NEW LONDON), and south of the college, the red brick
buildings of the U.S Coast Guard Academy (see NEW LONDON). The
annual Yale and Harvard boat races take place along this section of the
river in the month of June.

Beyond the Submarine Base is Long Cove at 5 m. and Mill Cove at

5.1 m.

Left at 5.8 m. is a group of buildings called Red Top, the training quarters

of the Harvard crew.

At 6.1 m. is the Gales Ferry crossroad.

1. Right on this road, past the Community Church (L) and around a curve (R), at
0.3 m., stands (R) the Trout Brook Cottage (private), built by Jonathan Stoddard in
1796, on the slope of a high wooded hill. Up a slight rise on a driveway (R) at
0.7 m., is the Lawrence Minor House (private), with unpainted shingles, lean-to and
front porch, shaded by elms and a beautiful juniper. Numerous legends linger
around this old dwelling, popularly known as 'Ruddy Gore.' The date of its con-
struction 1785 is marked on the chimney.

Left from this Gales Ferry Rd. at 1.6 m., on a macadamized road, and again left
at 1.8 m. on a gravel road. A few feet up the gravel road a steep driveway leads
up a hill. A sign directs the visitor to park his car and proceed on foot to the
Larrabee Oak. At the end of the driveway is a large white house (private), Birth-
place of the Hon. William Larrabee (1832-1912), twelfth governor of Iowa and
a pioneer in railroad legislation. Through a turnstile in the yard, down a woods
path, 0.3 m., an enormous oak stands alone in a clearing. This giant, known as the
Larrabee Oak and 'Friend of Lafayette,' with a spread of 182 feet, a height of 85
feet, and a girth of 25 feet, is one of the oldest and largest oaks in Connecticut.

2. Left at the Gales Ferry Crossroads is the riverside village of GALES FERRY
(Town of Ledyard), 0.1 m., named for the proprietor of the first ferry across the
river at this point. Neat white houses and shady lawns stretch along the embank-
ment overlooking the Thames River. Two shipyards were located here in the i8th
century, using timber from the near-by forests.

Two houses west of the railway underpass is (R) the Ichabod Cottage, said to have
been used as a training school by Decatur when he was blockaded here in 1812.
A left turn at the end of the main street leads past a long, low building (R), the

366 High Roads and Low Roads

Training Quarters for the Yale University crews, who spend several weeks here
each spring in preparation for the Yale-Harvard boat races which are held on the
Thames River, late in June.

At 6.6 m., on a sharp curve, is the junction with a steep path.

Left on this winding path to the hilltop where Fort Decatur stood, now marked
with a stone tablet. On this site Commodore Stephen Decatur, naval hero of the
war with Tripoli, built a fort (1812) to protect his blockaded ships from bombard-
ment by the British.

Decatur and a prize ship, pursued by a British fleet, had sought refuge in New
London Harbor and retired up the river for safety. Months passed, but the watch-
ful British frigates constantly patrolling the mouth of the river seldom relaxed their
vigil. Finally, after careful planning, Decatur's ships, stripped for action, were
ready one dark night to steal quietly down stream on a fair wind in the hope of
surprising the British. But 'anchors aweigh' had not yet been ordered when
mysterious blue lights gleamed from the eastern hills and a large British fleet
hastily stretched out across New London Harbor, cutting off all possibility of
escape. Thereafter, 'Bluelights' became the local nickname for Tories.

At 7 m. is the junction with a dirt road.

Left on this road, 0.5 m., on the river bank is ALLYN'S POINT (Town of Led-
yard), once an important shipping center before the days of the shore line railroad,
although nothing remains to indicate the fact except coal docks.

State 12 reaches a junction with a dirt road at 8.2 m.

Right on this road is (L) the oldest house in Ledyard, the Avery Homestead, 1.9 m. r
built by Deacon Morgan (about 1700-25), a salt-box house with a rear roof so
high that there is room beneath it for tiny second-story windows. The wide 1 8-inch
cornice overhang of this dwelling is similar to that of early houses in Lebanon and
New London.
At 3 m. is a junction at a crossroad.

i. Right from the crossroads a few yards is the hamlet of LEDYARD (alt.
190, town pop. 1144, sett. 1653, i nc - 1836), named for Colonel William Led-
yard, commander of Fort Griswold at Groton, who was slain by the British
at the battle of Groton Heights.

On the short, almost deserted main street are the white Congregational Church
(1843) an d the Bill Library, which is open only one hour a week (Sun. directly
after church services), when the townsfolk gather from their scattered farm-
houses. Within the township live about 100 descendants of the original
Rogerine Quakers, a group organized in 1674 under the leadership of John
Rogers of New London, who established themselves in the southeastern part
of Ledyard. In the early days, this group asserted violent opposition to the
Congregational Church and in the i8th century were so zealous that the Con-
gregationalists were seldom able to conduct a service without an interruption
by Quaker hecklers. The Quaker men stood beneath the windows making
loud noises, and the Quaker women often carried their spinning wheels into
the church and proceeded to work in the midst of the service as a protest
against the established sanctity of the Sabbath.

The descendants of the group still live apart from the life of the community,
adhere to their own views even when they conflict with the law, and have an
inherited distrust of the world and worldly things. Intermarriage has been
general.

Many strange tales have come out of this region. One about Jemima Wilkin-
son, who founded Penn Yan, N.Y., is the most interesting. Jemima, an ec-
centric lady with a mind of her own, died sometime between 1770 and 1790.
Her Ledyard neighbors dutifully gathered about the coffin to pay their last
respects to the departed vixen. The weeping was loud and insincere, as a friend
lifted the lid of the coffin to let relatives and friends gaze a last time on the

TOUR 1G: From Groton to Norwich 367

face of one whom they were not sorry to see pass on to another world. Jemima,
however, had other plans. As the coffin lid was raised, the slender lady arose
from the pine box and announced to the startled congregation that she
would do the preaching herself that day! Claiming that she had passed
through the gates] of a better world and had been sent back to earth as a
second Redeemer, the impassioned Jemima preached that the day of her
resurrection was to mark the regeneration of the world.
When the news spread throughout the surrounding countryside, work was set
aside; farmers hitched up their wagons and with their entire families rode into
town to see for themselves the living proof of a miracle in their midst. For
some time Jemima's exhortations attracted large congregations, until her
neighbors began to whisper that 'Jemima always had been queer.' Then she
and a few converts moved on to fresh fields in Tioga County, Pa., where an
enthusiastic sect of 'Jemimakins' gathered around her standard. Impelled
to spread their tenets, the entire colony later moved to New York State,
carrying Jemima through the woods in a resplendent chariot drawn by her
proselytes.

Settling in Yates County, they called their first community 'The City of
Jerusalem.' When a post office was needed and a shorter name for it seemed
desirable, they chose Penn Yan, for the two factions who made up the con-
gregation, the Pennsylvanians and the Yankees. Thus a Connecticut woman
preacher named a New York State town.

2. Left from the crossroads on a road alternately graveled and macadamized,
stands a well-preserved example of an early igth-century Store, 0.8 m. Across
the street is the Tavern of Henry Bill (about 1800) whose popularity is attested
by the large number of hitching-post rings in the stone wall. Beyond the
store, a lane at 1 m. leads (L) through an old stone wall to a cellar that marks
the Birthplace of the Rev. Samuel Seabury (1720-96), first Episcopal bishop in
America. The future bishop graduated from Yale in 1748, was admitted to
orders by the Bishop of London in 1753, an d was the first minister at St.
James Episcopal Church, New London, where he is buried. Like most of the
Episcopal clergy, he was a Tory and at the outbreak of the Revolution, be-
came a British army chaplain. At the close of the war, his fellow clerics asked
to have him consecrated as bishop, but the Archbishop of Canterbury refused
because of the required oath of allegiance to the King, which Mr. Seabury
dared not take. He finally obtained consecration from the non-juring Bishop
of Aberdeen, at Aberdeen, Scotland, November 14, 1784.

Right at the next fork on a gravel road that leads up a steep hill to the old
Grey House (1750), 1.4 m., from the dooryard of which stretches one of the
finest views in New London County. Numerous Indian graves have been
found on this farm.

At 10.8 m. are the landscaped grounds of the Norwich State Hospital (L).
Opposite is the junction with a macadam road.

Right on this road which follows the shores of Poquetanuck Cove, is the village of
POQUETANUCK (Town of Preston), 1.3 m., a single street with a few old houses,
which still retains the aspect of affluence inherited from the bygone days of its
thriving maritime prosperity.

The large, red frame Chapman House (R), which has a one-story stone foundation,
was an inn in Revolutionary days. In the west side of the stone basement two
grated windows look out from a dungeon where indiscreet tipplers were imprisoned
until able to continue their journeys.

Passing through the village of HALLSVILLE, 2.6 m., a small cluster of houses

opposite the Hall Woolen Company, this road intersects with State 2 (see Tour I/).

Beyond the Norwich State Hospital, this route passes the Norwich

County Home (R) and, skirting Laurel Hill (R), crosses a bridge over the

Shetucket River, near its confluence with the Thames River, to the city

368 High Roads and Low Roads

of NORWICH (see NORWICH) at 14 m. At Norwich are the junctions
with State 165 (see Tour 1Z>), State 2 (see Tour I/), State 32 (see Tours 9
and 9.4).

TOUR 1 H : From JUNCTION WITH US 1 to RHODE
ISLAND LINE, 16.6 m., State 84.

Via Center Groton, Old Mystic.
Macadamized roadbed.
Accommodations limited.

THIS highway, completed in 1936, is a shorter, though less interesting,
route than US 1 between Groton and the Rhode Island Line. Through a
sparsely populated region thickly covered with underbrush and third-
growth timber, it passes but a few isolated farmhouses and two small vil-
lage centers, and enters Rhode Island, 39.1 miles southwest of Providence.
North from US 1, 0.3 m. east of the eastern approach to the Thames River
bridge, State 84 crosses through the small rural community of CENTER
GROTON, 3.4 m., little more than a crossroads, with many old weather-
worn houses in a distinctly Colonial atmosphere.

At the village four corners stands (L) the Smith Tavern (1781) with fluted
pilasters and excellent raised paneling.

At 3.6 m. is the Nathan Daboll Homestead, where the famed almanacs, still
printed, were first issued in 1772, and where three generations of this
energetic family conducted the Daboll School of Navigation from 1805
to 1873. The one-room ell with a bay window was used as a practice
pilot house.

OLD MYSTIC (Towns of Stonington and Groton), 7 m., is at the head of
navigation on the Mystic River. Once a busy center of trade and shipping,
Old Mystic is now a serene, almost forgotten little village, with many
charming old houses, the only remnants of once prosperous seafaring days.

Built against a hill, on a small triangular plot bounded by roadways, is the
Dudley Woodbridge Tavern (1750) with a gambrel-roofed ell toward the
street. In the early i9th century this building was the foremost tavern
on the old New London-Providence turnpike.

At the center is an interesting group of small old houses. Across a field
(L) is the stone Hatter's Shop of Daniel Williams (1798). Close-by is an
old wooden structure once used as a tannery. Its date of erection is un-
known, but the hewn timbers and hand-made nails indicate its age. Some
of the crude machinery for grinding bark is in good working condition,

TOUR 1 J : From Pawcatuck to Colchester 369

including the great stone crusher, propelled by a long hewn beam to which
oxen were yoked. Some of the planks in the flooring are over two feet
wide.

Right from Old Mystic on Main St., and second right (opposite a brick
factory) on a lane, to the Christopher Leeds House, built about 1800,
with a gambrel roof and overhang. Near-by is the site of the Leeds ship-
yard.

On the side streets of Old Mystic (R) are the remains of the old shipyards
which flourished here, launching sloops, three masted schooners, small
steam ships, and later 1500- ton vessels for European and California trade.

At 9.8 m. stands the Road Congregational Church, on a high stone founda-
tion, with its back to the road and entrance at the pulpit end away from
the road. Beside it are the old stone hitching-posts and carriage sheds.
The present building, erected in 1829, replaced the original building of
1764 which, sighted by the British warships attacking Stonington in
1775, an d believed to mark the center of the town, drew their fire, so that
cannon balls fell in the woods beyond the village.

Cutting across the town of Stonington, State 84 follows the Pequot In-
dian trail.

At 13 m. is the junction with State 2 (see Tour I/).

At 13.3 m., State 84 crosses the Shunock River and traverses an agricul-
tural region, entering Rhode Island at 16.6 m. 1.7 miles southwest of Hop-
kinton, R.I.

TOUR 1 J : From PAWCATUCK to COLCHESTER, 33.6 m.,
State 2.

Via Norwich.
Macadamized roadbed.
Limited accommodations.

QUARTERING northwestward from the Rhode Island Line, this route
crosses stony, rolling pasture lands and brush lots, once a part of the
old hunting grounds of the Pequots, and passes through Norwich at the
head of navigation on the Thames River. West of Norwich, the route
passes mill sites along the Yantic River and climbs out of the brush lands
and stony meadows to emerge in Colchester. At Colchester is a junction
with State 85, which connects with the northern section of State 2 to
form 'The Governor's Road' (see Tour 3 A).
Near the Rhode Island Line, at the western edge of Westerly, is the vil-

37 High Roads and Low Roads

lage of PAWCATUCK (alt. 20, village pop. 500), 0.1 m. Within the
Connecticut township of Stonington, this village is really a suburb of
Westerly, R.I., separated from the smaller State only by the slowly
flowing Pawcatuck River. Its main street, a busy, thrifty thoroughfare,
is a lively trading center.

STILLMANVILLE, 0.7 m., is a roadside hamlet of frame dwellings.

State 2 passes through open country with scrub woodland along the
edge of the highway. At 1.6 m. the route rounds a curve where the land
falls away eastward toward the Pawcatuck River. Views at this point
extend over several huge sand pits, winding country roads, and the low
hills of Rhode Island.

Descending a long grade, State 2 becomes a maple-shaded roadway and,
beyond, threads its way through a sparsely wooded section, long ago
depleted by the loggers who cut oak knees, planking, and masts of pine
and spruce for the Mystic River shipyards. The countryside is unpopu-
lated today, except for the occupants of an occasional farmhouse.
Ascending a hill by a long curve, at 3.4 m., the route passes the Deacon
Get -shorn Palmer House (private}, at some distance back from the road,
a two-story weather-beaten structure dating from 1720, in an elm-
lined garden. The elaborately molded door leads to an unusually broad
hall. The double summer beams in some of the rooms, the ' tombstone '
panels, and slave-dungeon show this to have been an unusual house for
its day.

At 3.5 m. the highway passes beneath arched maples, planted in uniform,
well-spaced rows, which are sometimes tapped for the sap by country
children who make their quills of elder and sumach. In early spring these
trees are bright with shiny tin buckets hung in soldier rows just below
the quills. No commercial maple sugar output is attempted here, but
every farm family has ample sweetening for buckwheat cakes throughout
the year.

At a large, landscaped rotary, 3.9 m., is the junction with State 84
(see Tour 1H).

NORTH STONINGTON (alt. 140, village pop. 600), 5.6 m., is a cluster
of houses close to the road on a series of sharp curves. Just below the
center (L) is the Wheeler House (private), dating from 1820, with odd
swags beneath the cornice and between the posts of the veranda. Beyond
the center (L) is the white Congregational Church (1846), with an open
portico and an unusual tower in three stages decorated with bull's-eye
paneling. Adjoining the church are the Wheeler School and Library,
two large granite buildings given to the town in 1889 by the Wheeler
family.

Known as 'the town with 98 cemeteries,' largest number in the State,
many of which are on the isolated farms of early settlers, North Stoning-
ton, settled in 1668, is still one of the least traveled towns in the State,
and has many dirt country roads. The district is now chiefly occupied by
the scattered farms of the hardy descendants of old Yankee stock.

TOUR 1J: From Pawcatuck to Colchester 371

Actually the town was named for the stony character of the hilly coun-
tryside, but an old legend regarding its name persists. Three brothers
named Palmerstone, according to the story, fled to this country after the
marriage of one brother to a member of the British royal family had
provoked royal disapproval. Beset by the ill will that followed them,
they decided to change their family name. With solemn ceremony, each
of the three, in the presence of the other two, buried a stone on his home
property, thus symbolizing their decision to drop the suffix * stone'
from their family name and thereafter to be known as Palmer.
Winding through farm country, the ascending highway affords an im-
pressive view of the ridges to the north. Passing a delightful rustic
spot known as Pine Plantation (R), 8.7 m., which includes an artificial
pond encircled with weeping willows, the route traverses a wooded coun-
tryside dotted by many attractive summer homes.
At 9.1 m. the maple-lined highway passes the Hewitt Estate, beautifully
situated on high land surrounded by dense foliage. One house (1811)
of the three on the estate, which stretches back from both sides of the
highway, is still owned by descendants of the original Hewitt settlers.
At a roadside park, the Rockery, 11.1 m., is the junction with a side road.

Left on this road, at 1 m., Lantern Hill (alt. 520) rears its glittering summit of
quartz rock. The crystals, sparkling in the sunlight, are seen from the sea, and have
been relied upon to guide sailors to ports in southeastern Connecticut. The hill's
name is also derived from the fact that Sassacus, the Pequot sachem, maintained
a lookout here; and in the War of 1812, a watch that manned the summit lighted
barrels of tar to warn the defenders in Stonington of the approach of British vessels.
The view from the summit, accessible by footpaths, overlooks Long and Lantern
Hill Ponds, and extends east and south to the Atlantic Ocean. At Long Hill, to
the south, quartz was mined in the early days.

The winding side road leads past Lantern Hill to Lord's Pond, a summer resort
(R). On the left is an Indian Reservation, home of eight half-breed Pequots .

At 12.5 m. is the William S. Merrell Company (L), a birch sawmill on
Indiantown Brook. The highway passes an occasional farm with well-
tilled fields and a sign swung from the brackets of crude posts offering
'Eggs for Sale' or 'Home Baking to Take Home.' When out of stock,
these roadside merchants usually hang a burlap bag over the sign. Sweet
corn and berries in season are offered for sale without even a sign to
attract the passer-by. A barefoot boy sits in the shade of a giant maple
with a bunch of pond lilies, hopefully awaiting a customer, or two little
girls hold up a pail of huckleberries and smile at the motorist who applies
brakes and backs up to price their wares.

At 13.6 m. is the junction with a road (L) to the Pequot Reservation,
3 m. (see Indians).

The highway passes two picnic areas; the White Pine Grove Highway
Park (R), at 15.3 m., and the Preston Highway Park (L), at 15.5 m.
At 15.6 m. the view of brick factory buildings housing Hall Brothers
Woolen Mills (L), in the distance, marks the beginning of the textile
area.

At 15.9 m. is the junction with a macadam road which branches left to
connect with State 12 (see Tour 9).

372 High Roads and Low Roads

Again passing through brush land the route enters the city of NORWICH
(alt. 100, town pop. 32,438), at 18.6 m. (see NORWICH: Tour 9, Tour
ID, Tour 1G, Tour 94).

West of Norwich, State 2 crosses the Yantic River, at 21.6 m., and enters
the small mill village of YANTIC (alt. 120, village pop. 100), at 22.3 m.\
here is the junction with State 32 (see Tour 9 A).

At 22.7 m. are fine Views of the Lebanon Hills to the north.

FITCHVILLE (alt. 180, village pop. 200), at 24 m., is a neat and pro-
sperous mill town built up around a quilt factory. This village is named
for its founder, Colonel Asa Fitch, distinguished patriot of Revolutionary
days and a noted philanthropist. The stone schoolhouse, still in use,
was one of the Colonel's gifts to the community. In 1750, the old Hunt-
ington Iron W T orks were established here by Nehemiah Huntington and
Captain Joshua Abell.

The highway crosses the Yantic River, at 24.1 m., and passes the large
Mill of Palmer Brothers, manufacturers of quilts and comfortables.
Built of native granite, shaded by large trees, these mills have an air of
unusual permanence.

At 26.1 m., OILMAN (alt. 200, village pop. 100) is a streamside hamlet
formerly known as Bozrahville where an old (1814) stone mill furnishes
employment to the villagers for a part of the year. The mill workers
piece out their income by working the land as part-time farmers.

The only blocking dummy made in the United States that will do a
'comeback' after being knocked down is the product of the Marty
Oilman Sporting Goods Company of this village. A young man with
considerable football ability, Oilman went to the State College and
attained stardom. During the summer months he had difficulty in
finding enough youngsters in the little mill town to offer him an oppor-
tunity to practice football, so he devised the first Oilman ' Pyramid/
made of leather and stuffed with shoddy and cotton waste from the Oil-
man mill. Coaches saw the contraption and liked it; Oilman realized
the commercial possibilities, kept his eye on costs, peddled the dummy
from coast to coast, played professional football to finance his one-man,
backyard industry, and today serves all of the better clubs in the country.
Oilman uses the tactics of the Yankee 'pedlar' in his salesmanship, the
water-power and shrewd ability of the Yankee mill operator in his
manufacturing, and his one-man office is in a building formerly used as
a hotel by the owners of the big stone mills on the Yantic River.

At 28.5 m. the route passes the Lebanon Country Club (L), and enters a
rolling upland where farms are of larger acreage and Devon cattle are
often seen grazing in roadside pastures. This area is rural Connecticut
unspoiled and, although buildings and fences do not show much paint,
the country is pleasant and interesting.

At 30.3 m. the Old Bank Highway Park (R) offers picnic facilities and
views of rugged hills at the right and left of the road.

TOUR 1 J : From Pawcatuck to Colchester 373

Residents of this district often participate in barn dances, especially just
before haying or after the fall harvest. Dimly lit by kerosene lanterns,
the great barn floor, smoothed through the years by the thousands of
shuffling feet, is alive with merry dancers doing the old-fashioned square
dances. Prompters are enthroned in the loft, or stand atop an old fanning
mill. Music is furnished by violins, banjos and harmonicas, and the
musicians often crowd into a feed or harness room just off the main
floor. The Lancers, the Quadrille, Paul Jones, Captain Jiggs, Turkey
in the Straw, Pop Goes the Weasel, and many other dances, offer en-
tertainment and pleasure for the customers as well as exercise for the
leather-lunged prompter who shouts: 'Get your partners for a quadrille!
Four more couples! Two more couples!' until the sets are filled. Typical
calls through a number are: 'Right and left six! Salute your partners:
first couple lead up to the right, swing four hands halfway around, and
right, and left six with your opposite couple! Lead to the next, ladies
change, up to the last couple and swing four hands halfway around, and
right and left six with your opposite couple! Balance your partners and
swing your corners and promenade all!' Commands are given with all
the authority of a drillmaster. The prompter taps the floor with his
foot and counts the beat of the music. Hayseed and very dusty cobwebs
fall from the ceiling onto the perspiring couples, fair faces are flushed,
slick hair becomes dark with moisture, and the males rush for the cider
jug the moment the last wailing note of the fiddle dies away.
Square dancing 'comes natural' to the Connecticut Yankee. He will
dance until dawn and then work in field or woods until darkness and the
call to the next barn dance.

COLCHESTER (alt. 340, town pop. 2134), 33.3 m. Entering Colchester
the highroad passes through the Jewish quarter of the town, a settlement
that has preserved its communal life and religious unity in a way char-
acteristic of Old- World Jewish colonies, but rare in the average American
rural town.
At 33.6 m. is the junction with State 85 (see Tour 3A).

MERRITT PARKWAY

The MERRITT PARKWAY, when completed, will be an alternate route
from the New York State Line to a connection with Nichols Avenue in the
town of Trumbull, a distance of 38.1 m. A by-pass at this point will con-
nect with US 1 at the Washington Street Bridge in the town of Stratford.
This extensively landscaped parkway, a continuation of the Hutchinson
River Parkway in Westchester County, New York, will parallel^ US 1
traversing an unspoiled, rural countryside. Safeguards and restrictions
have already been provided which will preserve the natural beauties
along the right of way against many of the objectionable features of the
Post Road (US 1).

374 High Roads and Low Roads

This project is being financed by a Fairfield County Bond Issue of
$15,000,000. The Parkway right-of-way now (1938) extends through
the towns of Greenwich, Stamford, New Canaan, Norwalk, Westport,
Fairfield, and Trumbull, with the exception of some four and a half miles
not yet purchased. Grading and paving is progressing over that portion
of the Parkway which has been purchased and surveyed. Of the 68 pro-
jected structures along the Parkway, such as bridges and crossing elimina-
tions, all but twenty-five have been built, designed, or contracted for.

TOUR 2 : From NEW YORK LINE (Brewster) to RHODE
ISLAND LINE (Providence), 114.6 m., US 6 and 6A.

Via (sec. a) Danbury, Bethel, Newtown, Southbury; (sec. b) Woodbury, Water-
town, Thomaston, Plymouth, Bristol, Hartford; (sec. c) via South Manchester,
Coventry, Andover; (sec. d) Willimantic, Brooklyn, Danielson, R.I. State Line.

Alternate sections of water-bound macadam and concrete highways.
Accommodations of all usual kinds.

Sec. a. NEW YORK LINE to JUNCTION WITH STATE 14, 25.2 m.

ENTERING Connecticut from New York State 4 miles east of Brewster,
New York, over US 6, this route passes through level country to Dan-
bury, winding up hills to Newtown with its fine views over valleys and
rolling hills from the hilltop main street. Passing the northern end of
Lake Zoar on the Housatonic, it follows streamside to the Pomperaug
and the junction with State 14.

At I Am., the white wooden M ill Plain Union Church (L) stands beside
the road. An old yellow wooden railway station, of the usual American
Gothic design, now serves as a filling station.

At 3.5 m. (R) are the Danbury Fair Grounds (see DANBURY) with
yellow barns and exhibition buildings covering a green meadowland
bordered by soft or swamp maples. (Fair, first week in October.)

DANBURY (alt. 375, city pop. 22,261) (see DANBURY), 5.6 m., is a
hat manufacturing center.

Beyond the State Normal School (L) on White St., is the junction with
US 7 (see Tour 4) at 6.7 m. At Danbury is also the junction with State
37 (see Tour 4,4).

Right from Main St., Danbury, on US 202, the winding, twisting road of alternate
sections of cement and asphalt, posted at frequent intervals with 20 miles per
hour signs, enters BETHEL (alt. 400, town pop. 3886), 2.8 m. Named in 1759
for the Hebrew 'house of God,' and incorporated in 1855, this town had four small
hat factories as early as 1 793 and hat making is still the principal industry.

TOUR 2: From Brewster to Providence, R.I. 375

At 21 Grassy Plain St. the Peter Barmcni Place (L), a pre-Revolutionary salt-box
house, has been sympathetically restored and is the best preserved of the town's
old houses.

As the Bethel Parish of Danbury, the village took an active part in the Revolu-
tionary War. When Tryon's British force marched through on April 26, 1777, en
route to raid the military stores at Danbury, a local patriot made a single-handed
attempt to block their progress and almost succeeded in stampeding them when
he fired on the advance guard and shouted orders to an imaginary force in a road-
side woodlot.

The Farnam Tavern (1760) (private), high on a bank, 245 Greenwood Ave., is
a rather modernized, ! white, two-chimneyed house in which the ballroom and
fiddlers' box are still intact.

The Bethel Library, a simple, tall-columned Greek Revival house, at 189 Green-
wood Ave. (US 202), was the birthplace of three college presidents, Julius Hawley
Seelye (1824-95) (Amherst), the Rev. Laurenus Clark Seelye (1873-1910) (Smith),
and Laurens P. Hickox (1798-1888) (Union). This building is locally known as
the Seelye Place.

At 55 Greenwoods Ave. is the Birthplace of Phineas T. Barnum, premier showman
of his day, who was born here July 5, 1810 (see BRIDGEPORT).

The small village Green has the usual soldiers' monument. Along the narrow
main street many assorted shops cater to a rural trade and to the commuters
who park their cars on the quiet side streets and entrain for New York every
morning.

Beyond Bethel, the rolling terrain on both sides of the highway supports many up-
land game birds and white-tailed deer. The highway passes several typical one-
room country schoolhouses, their windows usually gayly decorated according to
the season, with yellow pumpkins, black witches, Christmas wreaths, or spring
flowers.

Along the way are many kennels and nurseries that cater to the passing trade and
to the new ruralists who have bought Connecticut homes to escape high metro-
politan taxes. The toy breeds and medium-sized dogs are favored hereabouts;
cocker spaniels and wire-haired fox terriers are most in demand. Nurseries grow
dwarf evergreens, lawns are green blankets of velvet, houses usually have a fresh
coat of paint, and the countryside is clean and free from billboards.

At 7.7 m. US 202 enters DODGINGTOWN, a crossroads hamlet named for the
many drovers, horse-traders, and peddlers 'on the dodge,' who congregated at the
crossroad taverns. Beyond, at a rotary traffic circle, 10.2 m., the route turns left
into Newtown and climbs the hillside main street past the Parker House (L), where
meals are served in a low-ceilinged dining-room profusely decorated with antique
glassware, harnesses, old prints, and hardware.

At 10.6 m. in Newtown, is the junction with US 6 (see below).

US 6 proceeds to the top of Snake Hill, with views of hills where stone
walls separate upland pastures from huckleberry lots and snake fences
enclose meadows. The land is not fertile, but there is some charm in its
rough, bushy, stony slopes; the stone walls testify that early Yankees
had to clear stone from most of these fields before even an ordinary crop
of buckwheat could be raised. The usual day's work of a layer was two
rods per day, the farmer furnishing a team'and helper. These men never
picked up a stone unless they had a place to put it; their work was usually
a side line, handled after the crops were gathered or before the spring
plowing.

On the hills above Newtown, plantings of evergreens (R) shield country

376 High Roads and Low Roads

mansions from the prevailing (NW) winds. At 13.1 m. are fine views
of the western hills.

At 14.1 m. t US 6 enters NEWTOWN (alt. 560, town pop. 2635) on
Main St. Purchased from the Indians in 1705, named a 'New Town/
incorporated in 1711, the area soon attracted settlers from near-by
villages. Although notorious for its Tory leanings during the Revolution,
Newtown entertained both Rochambeau and Lafayette.

On the rural main street lined with many sedate country homes, are
several public buildings given to the town by Miss Mary Elizabeth
Hawley. Among them is the Edmond Town Hall (1930), which includes a
moving picture theater, an auditorium, a completely outfitted kitchen,
a post office, a probate court, bowling alleys and a gymnasium, as well as
offices for public officials.

At the Center (R) is the Congregational Church (1818), topped by a bullet-
pierced weathercock preserved from an earlier structure. French troops
who passed through the town in 1781 and 1782, used this weathercock
as a target. The parish of the shapely stone Episcopal Church (L), was
built in 1870; it is one of the earliest in this part of the State and was
served by the Rev. John Beach for 50 years from 1732.
Turning sharp left at the Center, US 6 passes the country printing estab-
lishment of the Newtown Bee, a rural weekly that carries more adver-
tising than any Connecticut publication in its class.
At SANDY HOOK, 15.6 m. is the junction with State 34 (see Side Trip
oj} Tour 5).

Across the bridge at Sandy Hook, this route turns sharp left and passes
through a hemlock glen at 16.8 m., where the Pootatuck (L) splashes
over a ledge and a milldam, on its way to join the Housatonic. White
cottages with blue shutters border the highway, half hidden among the
hemlocks. In this glen are many mills, some of them manufacturing
fire hose, others producing molded products of phenol resin composi-
tions. Here Nelson Goodyear, a brother of the discoverer of the process
of vulcanizing rubber (see NAUGAI^UCK), manufactured rubber coats
as early as 1851.

Across a steel bridge, 17.2 w., which spans the waters of Lake Zoar, is
the junction with an oiled dirt road (L), which within 2 miles becomes
very rough and narrow.

Left on this narrow dirt road, following the east bank of the Housatonic River,
this streamside, wilderness route follows a Pootatuck Indian trail through a beauti-
ful area seldom visited except by fishermen, hunters, and the rural mail carrier.
Flint or quartz arrow-heads are often found in the freshly plowed fields or on the
river bank.

Over this route traveled the first white settlers who coveted the rich bottomlands
and traded more or less worthless trinkets for them. Stages used this road and ox
teams rolled southward over it bringing freight from the back country to tide-
water.

At 0.2 m., Muskrat Plains, across the river (L), fertile flats, formerly productive
farmlands, are irrigated during dry weather, and during winter months produce
muskrats which furnish a marketable fur crop.

TOUR 2: From Brewster to Providence, R.I. 377

At 1.1 m. is the junction with a foot trail.

Right on this trail to a fork, 0.5 m., where a Cellar Hole marks the site of the
first white settlement in the Pootatuck lands. Here a Mr. Mitchell built a
great log house in the wilderness and traded with Indians who passed by
on their way to the Pomperaug Valley. In the brush beside the trail, half
hidden and elusive, is a pile of small round stones that marks the burial place
of an unknown chieftain. Every warrior who passed along the trail placed a
stone on the mound as a token of respect and white men have left the pile
undisturbed.

At 1.2 m., on a bluff (R) beside the road are the bleached limbs and trunks of a
Pootatuck Indian Orchard. Iron chains have been effectively used to brace these
dead trees against the winter winds that bluster down the valley.

At 1.5 m., under a sycamore tree (L), and now partly washed away by the river,
is the only known Pootatuck Cemetery in Connecticut. The red men picked a bend
in the river for their burial place, where there are open stretches of water to the
north and south. The Mitchell family, first white settlers, agreed to keep this
ground inviolate, but a representative of the Peabody Museum, New Haven, dis-
covered the cemetery and removed many valuable relics during the dark of the
moon. Discovered, this gentleman refused to leave the work of excavation. The
community rallied in defense of the spot, posted sentries with shotguns around the
area, and finally secured a restraining order on the technical grounds that it is
illegal to open a grave. The museum thereupon abandoned excavation and towns-
men immediately carried in many tons of stone to protect the burial place. Only
the spring freshets and ice from the river violate this ground today, but a skull or
leg bone is occasionally seen when the river undercuts the bank. Probably the best
collection of Indian relics in the Peabody Museum came from this spot; a skull,
a stone war-club head, and a tiny stone pipe were found here after the flood of 1936.

At 1.7 m., shaded by giant sugar maples are the three comfortable homes (R) of
Poota tuck's present day inhabitants. The Warren Mitchell House (1787) (R), has
been remodeled and improved until little remains of the original except the massive
oak timbers and the Roxbury granite of the foundation. In front of the great
house, a carefully groomed lawn extends across the road to the very river's edge.
On the other side of the river, towering high above the laurel, are giant hemlocks
that have probably seen many flotillas of birch-bark canoes float past, en route to
the salt-water shellfisheries on Long Island Sound. Today, a snug, self-sufficient
little community is surrounded by productive acres of deep, rich loam. Squire
Mitchell, respected citizen and thrifty farmer, directs a State-wide milk producers'
co-operative from his office in the old house.

Along this stretch of river, fishermen often net German carp, which are shipped
in large tank-trucks for the Jewish trade in New York City. The carp boats are
sturdy craft, propelled by oars, with big three-legged derricks at the stern to
handle a large dip net.

Nate Everitt is a local trapper who carries his gear and raw pelts on his back. Nate
always has time to relate tall tales of the habits of mink and otter, or he may invite
the visitor to inspect the huge bullfrogs he keeps in his cellar.

Passing the Mitchell Farms, the gravel road, protected by an old rustic guard rail,
enters a wooded gorge. From the river rapids and deep pools, a good string of
trout may be caught in season.

LITTLE YORK, 3.9 m., was the scene of considerable activity when eel racks
were operating here and the mills were busy. Only one house remains, although
a few woodsmen and trappers have cabins in the area.

At 4.1 m. the road parallels a series of great cut-stone mill-races. A rusted iron
flume leads to a Stone Dam (R). There is no record of either the mill owner or the
origin of the placename. The brook that fed the millpond is locally known as the
'Jack Smith Brook' but nobody in this neighborhood remembers Mr. Smith or
any of his family.

378 High Roads and Low Roads

At 4.3 m. is an Old Tavern (R), now a summer residence. Open carriage sheds stand
just off the wheel track, square and ready for use.

At 4.8 m. the Shepaug River flows beneath a narrow iron bridge and joins the
Housatonic. There are miles of State-leased trout waters on the Shepaug, where
brown, rainbow, and native brook trout are plentiful. Along the river bank trailing
arbutus buds beneath the snow and blooms with the first warm spring sun.

At 5.5 m., just across the Housatonic (L), lively Pond Brook splits the very center
of a hemlock glen, roaring in with spray-flecked waters from Hanover Springs, and
The Dingle, a beautiful wooded spot to the west. Trout run up this brook from the
river to spawn in the quiet pools of The Dingle.

At 5.8 m. black-and-white signs are tacked on tree-trunks to inform the traveler
that he is passing through 'Private Lands.' Masked by a grove of evergreens at
the hilltop is the main house of Three Rivers Farms (R), a secluded retreat that
produces milk for the New York market. A cable car swings over the Housatonic
at this point, transporting live stock to the opposite hill pasture in a manner sug-
gestive of the old cash-carrier systems in city stores. The car is lowered to ground
level, a cow steps aboard and is fastened in, the car is then raised and pulled across
the river where green pastures await. Cattle seem to enjoy the ride to the far bank,
but visitors gasp as the bovine ferry is raised high and then coasted down the slack
cable. Farmhands are refused transportation on the cableway, and have to travel
north to cross the river at the Southville Bridge.

The valley broadens at this point and many stone walls among the second-growth
timber indicate former agricultural efforts. An occasional stand of sugar maples or
a lilac bush beside the road marks the site of a former farmhouse. Exploration at
such points usually uncovers an old cellar hole and a neglected herb garden or berry
patch. An iron kettle or even an ancient crane or huge door latch is sometimes
found in the trash in the bottom of the cellar hole. Along some of the grass-grown
walks are decorative borders of pure white silica or rose quartz; residents of this
area once enjoyed a part-time income from the mining and grinding of silica. Per-
fect garnet crystals are often discovered in the wheel tracks, where refuse from an
old dry garnet mill has been used to fill the chuckholes.

At 7 m. is SOUTHVILLE, a ghost town where hats and paper were manufactured
until the late igth century. Several rickety houses remain, tenanted by poor Negro
and white families who anticipate new activity in the valley when the power com-
pany builds its Southville Reservoir. Only the foundations and the flumes remain
on the millsites; quail whistle from the neglected meadows and a weatherwise
groundhog fattens on wild clover.

At this point is a junction with State 25 (see Tour 4B). Straight ahead the rocky
old Indian trail continues through an amazingly beautiful countryside to Lovers'
Leap at Stillriver, but cannot be followed by a modern car. Hikers, riders, and
owners of Model T Fords still travel the winding road and report good fishing and
hunting to the north.

Lake Zoar stretches along the right of the highway for a mile and a
half. A forested cliff across the water dips down to the shore where
hemlocks rise from the water's edge. This lake is a widening of the
Housatonic River made by the backing up of waters from Stevenson
Dam downstream, where a hydroelectric plant produces current for
the industrial area in the valley of the Naugatuck, just over the ridge to
the east. There is fine fishing here in season, and cottage colonies spread
along shore among the hemlocks. Boating is a popular summer pastime;
many bright canoes are to be seen, and only a few noisy motors are
heard.

At 19.1 m. is the junction with a dirt road where a sign points the way
to CHURAEVKA (Russian village).

TOUR 2: From Brewster to Providence, R.I. 379

Left on this road, 0.2 m., is a hillside colony of 35 landowners, who, prior to the
Russian Revolution, were members of the Imperial Army. The late Count Ilya
Tolstoi with Grebenshchikoff, novelist and lecturer, founded this colony about
1920.

A red-gabled building of curious construction, visible from the main highway and
standing a short distance from the Russian village road, is the Latas Printing
Establishment, headquarters for the publications written by White Russians in this
country.

A small Church, characteristically Russian, stands among the trees almost at the
top of the hill, its dome and colorful facade alien to the New England countryside.
The buildings of the community are of simple construction and living conditions
are extremely poor as judged by American standards. Gathering around their
samovars, these people relive days of former Russian glory in their little homes on
the Connecticut hillside.

At 19.9 m. (R), easily seen from the highway, is a large trap-rock boulder
or Glacial Erratic, evidently brought down from the trap-rock ridge to
the north during the Ice Age. On the eastern hilltop at this point, in
a section known as Kettletown, the German-American Bund purchased
wooded acreage in 1937, with the object of establishing a camp. The
proposal created such a stir in the peaceful little community that even
the newsreels took note. The town council passed an ordinance prohib-
iting military drilling in that section, and the camp project was aban-
doned.
At 20 m. is the junction (L) with State 172.

Left on this road is SOUTH BRITAIN, 1 m., a tiny riverside community ap-
parently without an industrial, political or economic worry. Facing a small green
stands a graceful white church (1825) with a tall spire rising in three stages above
a pedimented facade. The Pomperaug flows through the center of the town, the
village forum meets at any one of three stores, the town preacher stands by to act
as umpire over the checkerboard, and youngsters fish for trout from the bridge at
the edge of the town.

At 20.8 m. the highway dips across Cedar Hollow with views of hemlocks
and the Pomperaug River (L). Riverside cottages are clustered in an
area known as Cedarland.

Just off the highway in a cottage (L) beside a glacial knoll, encircled with
a cedar fence made without use of nail or wire, an old Indian fighter,
veteran of campaigns against the Sioux and northern Cheyenne, spends
his declining years. This old, one-eyed cavalryman still talks reminis-
cently of Tongue River Reservation and winter campaigns in the Powder
River country. He has served the town well as constable, and today
can cut the spot out of an ace with a service pistol at twenty-five yards.
At 21.7 m. is the junction with State 67, which combines with this
route for 1.5 miles.

Right on State 67 past the Southbury Town Pound (L), 0.2 m., a railed enclosure
where stray livestock is impounded until bailed out by its owner. Near-by is a fine
example of an undershot waterwheel (L), at 0.4 m., that turns a generator for a local
resident who refused to purchase electrical energy 'as long as there is water in
South Bullet Hill Brook.'

The mass of Kettletown Hill (alt. 600), rises (R) at 0.5 m., a surprisingly large hill
when the purchase price one kettle is considered.

380 High Roads and Low Roads

SOUTHFORD (alt. 490) (Town of Southbury), 3.1 m., is a cluster of houses and
a store, where the milk truck's arrival every morning is the event of the day.

Right from Southford, 0.5 m., on State 188 to the Southford Falls State Park
where the site of the former Diamond Match Company factory has been
purchased by the State and converted into a recreational area of exceptional
charm. The fire that destroyed this plant left the hamlet without a payroll.

Southward on State 188, 3 w,, is QUAKER FARMS (Town of Oxford),
settled in 1680; here the stately Episcopal Church (1812) thrusts its white
spire through the treetops. Its windows, including the Palladian over the
entrance, are pointed in the Gothic fashion.

On the hilltop (L), from which wide views are obtained, the Oxford Fire
Tower is seen across the fields. The highway itself, at the crest, is an excellent
vantage-point. Dutch roofs are conspicuous through this locality. At 4.7 m.
a wind-twisted, gnarled oak shades the roadside, and the very old Tomlinson
House (R), with an exceptionally wide cornice overhang, tops the hill at road's
end, 4.8 m., where there are fine views north and west.

Straight ahead through Southford; State 67 passes through RED CITY, 5.2 m.,
in which every house was formerly painted a bright red. Ambrotype and daguer-
reotype cases were produced here for many years.

OXFORD (alt. 360, town pop. 1141), 6.1 m., is a village in an agricultural town
where rough land makes farming difficult. Yankee farmers are gradually giving
way to Poles who are apparently able to obtain better results from submarginal
land. Woolen yarns were once manufactured here, and considerable export trade
was carried on with the West Indies. A Congregational Church (1795) modernized
about 1840, a small old Episcopal Church, and several early 19th-century dwell-
ings give Oxford a sleepy, old-time atmosphere.
At 8.3 m., on State 67, is the junction with Moose Hill Road.

Right on this road, 0.1 m., is an old sawmill (R) that still operates in a pic-
turesque setting on Little River.

Several old stone dams at former mill sites are along State 67 as it follows Little
River into SEYMOUR, 10.2 m. (see Tour 5), at the junction with State 8 (see
Tour 5).

SOUTHBURY (alt. 260, town pop. 1134), 22 m., was settled by pio-
neers from Stratford, who came up the Housatonic and Pomperaug
Rivers in 1673, and incorporated in May, 1787. Many of the houses
built by early settlers are still in good condition. An air of quiet and
comfort pervades the village. Residents sell their land only after careful
consideration of the qualifications of the buyers. Having been admitted
with such caution, the newcomers soon feel the community spirit and
are thereupon absorbed into the local picture. The main street is simply
a thoroughfare lined with homes, as there are no industries in this part
of the town. The district school still functions here; there is but one
physician, and one regular clergyman; the rural fire department has a
pumper too large for use in the average brook in the vicinity. Devon
oxen are often seen along the roads drawing loads of hay from the fields
to the great barns.

The first of the group of large iSth-century Hinman houses/that line the
broad Southbury street, stands behind heavy trees on the right just after
making the turn. It was built about 1770 by Charles Hinman, one of
four brothers who built their houses at intervals of half a mile. This is a
central-hall house with double overhang and notable for its excellent
paneling, a little of which can be seen in its unusual door frame.

TOUR 2: From Brewster to Providence, R.I. 381

The Congregational Church Parsonage (R), built about 1805 by Harry
Brown, drover, has gouged flutings in the cornice that are a good example
of the decoration of the period. This building and the almost identical
Timothy Hinman House, opposite, have broad paneled open porches
which are among the best of the type for which Southbury is famous.

The red-brick Bullet Hill School House (L), one of the oldest school
buildings in continuous use in New England, was built of brick baked
in a near-by meadow. A sign on the masonry is marked 1778, but local
records indicate that the building was completed before the outbreak of
the Revolution. Cass Gilbert, the architect, regarded the walls of this
building as the finest existing example of early brick work.

Near the center of the village are the Methodist Church (L), a plain white
building which was built in 1840, the stone Episcopal Church opposite
(R), dating only from 1858, and (L) the Congregational Church (1844),
with a recessed Ionic porch and floral scrolls in the pediment.

A Field-stone Tower (L) marks the site of the first church in this area,
now known as White Oak. Across the way are the substantial homes
of the Hinman family, painted chrome yellow with white trim.

Poverty Hollow (L), 23 m., backed by the ridge of Bates Rock, offers
vistas of fertile meadowlands reaching to the very edge of the Pomperaug
River. Wallace Nutting, author and photographer, sketched and
photographed here; the rail fences and apple trees of the district are
pictured in his book, ' Connecticut Beautiful.'

At 23.2 m. is the junction (L) with State 67 (see Side Trip of Tour IB
for connecting route to Roxbury).

Opposite the junction is the Colonel Increase Moseley House (R), described
by Cass Gilbert as the most perfect house of its period (about 1805)
that he knew. Colonel Moseley, a lumber merchant of Sullivan, Maine,
is said to have brought the wood from that State. The open pediment
door is the most graceful feature of the house, although all of its detail
shows originality.

The brick Peter Parley House (R), 23.4 m., was built by Benjamin
Hinman for his son Sherman in 1777. It takes its name from the nom-
de-plume of Samuel G. Goodrich (1793-1860), editor and writer of juvenile
literature who lived here for a time. The dwelling is a broad gam-
brel-roofed structure displaying a very early Palladian window, and
under it a segmental arched Dutch doorway with a circular leaded tran-
som and sidelights. It is now a German Lutheran home for the aged.

At 23.5 m. is a shaded Common known as the King's Land (L), believed
by local people to belong to the British Crown because the town failed
to confiscate the property after the Revolution, as was done in other
towns; no taxes are paid on this land, no title to it is found in the town
records. The land is misnamed, however, because it is within the territory
placed under sovereignty of the United States Government by the Peace
Treaty of 1783.

382 High Roads and Low Roads

Two of the houses of this section are still occupied by the Stiles family,
whose ancestors built them. Their finest dwelling is the spacious and
dignified Benjamin Stiles House (1787) on the bank opposite the King's
Land (R). Its hip roof has an indefinable spirited French line, attributed
by tradition to an officer of Rochambeau's army who camped near-by
six years before the erection of the house and drew up the plans for the
builder. It was once the home of President Ezra Stiles of Yale.

At 23.8 m. (R) is the large, yellow, gambrel-roofed Nathan Curtis Tavern
(1754). The barn is one of the few octagonal structures in this area.
Beside the house is a stone milldam, which, according to tradition, was
in the process of construction when the men were called away to serve
in the Continental Army; when the war was over the men returned to
work on the massive dam.

At a triangular Green, 25.2 m., is the junction with State 14 (see Tour 2
Alternate).

Sec. b. JUNCTION WITH STATE 14 to HARTFORD, 37.1 m.
Poor asphalt roadbed, except between Bristol and Hartford where the surface is
of concrete. Speed limits strictly enforced.

Tour 2 Alternate, via State 14, avoiding the heavy traffic in Hartford, is recom-
mended for a smooth, speedy, and scenic cross-State route.

US 6 passes directly through Woodbury and Watertown, two of Connect-
icut's proud little country communities. The terrain is rugged and rather
heavily wooded over a portion of the route. Along the way are both
quiet and peaceful villages and industrial communities where ball bearings,
locks, and clocks are made. Some stretches of the highway are narrow
and slippery in wet weather. The tour by-passes Bristol and Farmington,
except for a brief turn through the very northern edge of the former, and
enters Hartford over the new 'Farmington Cutoff.'

North from the junction with State 14, 4 miles north of Southbury, US 6
proceeds to the junction with an asphalt road at 0.2 m.

Left on this road, which passes a native Cranberry Bog (R) at 0.1 m. t through a
community of rundown mill-type houses to the Falls of the Pomperaug, 0.6 m.
The wooden mill at the Falls (L) is a former pioneer silk mill converted into a rural
machine shop. Beneath the stone dam, the Pomperaug plunges over a series of
boulders and between laurel-clad banks into pools and eddies where giant trout
lurk. A one-armed game warden keeps tally on the creel. From the hills beyond,
guns boom during the upland gamebird season. Children gather baskets of trailing
arbutus in the spring, and nuts in the fall, for sale to travelers.

At 0.3 m. stands the Curtis House of 1754 (L), a much enlarged hostelry
of considerable local renown still operated as a hotel. The original sign
swings over the walk, as it did when stage drivers pulled into the yard for
a mug of flip and a change of horses.

WOODBURY (alt. 350, town pop. 1744), 0.4 m., was originally settled
by white men in 1672 and chartered in 1674. Chief Pomperaug was the
town's first proprietor and is now believed to rest beneath a boulder on
Main St., where a tablet and a 'Private Property' sign have been erected.

TOUR 2: From Brewster to Providence, R.I. 383

The quiet main street, shaded by giant maples and elms, is bordered by
many beautiful houses of the Colonial period and five churches. Dairy
farming today provides practically all the income enjoyed by Woodbury
farmers, but the summer residents furnish part-time employment for lo-
cal labor not employed in agriculture.

Woodbury contributed freely to the Revolution. Many members of
Ethan Allen's force at Ticonderoga came from homes along the banks of
the Pomperaug. In all, some 1500 of Woodbury 's sons served with the
Continental Line and great stores of rations and funds came from this
valley. Two noted Civil War generals, Grant and Sherman, traced their
lineage to Woodbury families.

On the Hollow Rd. (L), is the Jabez Bacon House (1762) with separate
slave quarters at the rear. This great white gambrel-roofed mansion has
been carefully restored and appears as it did when Mr. Bacon, local mer-
chant prince, lived here and amassed a fortune of some $500,000 during
the Revolutionary War. In the small red store beside the Bacon House,
Daniel Curtis made German silver trinkets (1806 to 1840) that were sold
by the Yankee peddlers. The same building was later used by a tinsmith
and the youths of Woodbury congregated there and begged to see his
'tinker's dam.'

Beyond (L), on Hollow Rd., the Glebe House (custodian in an ell at rear;
open weekdays 9.30-5.30; winters 9.30-4.30; Sundays 9.30-11, 1-5.30;
wluntary contributions), built by Nathan Hurd in 1745-50, was the home
of the Rev. John Rutgers Marshall, a Tory. In this large gambrel-roofed
house Dr. Samuel Seabury (see Tour 1G) was elected first bishop of an
Episcopal diocese in America, March 25, 1783. The Rev. Mr. Marshall,
at odds with local patriots, used a secret passage opening into a tunnel
that led to the hill, a feature of the Glebe House that seems to indicate
that the good man was an engineer as well as a preacher.

The Glebe House, itself a house of unusual distinction, has been care-
fully restored and is maintained as a shrine by the Seabury Society for the
Preservation of the Glebe House. Many of the original furnishings, docu-
ments, and fabrics are preserved here, including even a Colonial mouse-
trap in the kitchen.

At the south end of the Woodbury Green is King Solomon's Temple, the
Woodbury Masonic Hall (R), dating from 1839. This simple wooden
Greek Revival structure is impressively perched at the top of a fifty-foot
ledge of traprock.

St. Paul's Episcopal Church (1785), the oldest and, unfortunately, the
most remodeled of the Woodbury churches (L), shows a fruitless attempt
to make it Gothic with an applied half- timber effect; incongruous stained-
glass windows detract from its Colonial appearance. The large house
(1771) beside the church was, after 1785, The Rectory of the Rev. John
Rutgers Marshall. The small ell to which the Tuscan columns were
later added is said to date from 1700 or earlier.

The First Congregational Church (1817), at the center (L), is an even finer,

384 High Roads and Low Roads

simpler example than its neighbor churches. It has a closed octagonal
second stage in the belfry, and a steeple instead of the shorter bell-shaped
lantern. The balustrades have a lattice pattern of alternating diagonals
that lend a lightness to the design. All in good scale, it is one of the best
old churches of the State.

At North Woodbury, 1.6 m., is the junction with State 47 (see Tour 2 A).

North of the junction on a slight eminence the Congregational Church
(1814) is in unspoiled condition, an excellent example of the finest period
of church building. The tower, in three contrasting stages, projects half-
way beyond the front wall of the church. An entrance pediment is faced
with four reeded Doric pilasters. Conspicuous features of the building
are triglyphs repeated in every cornice and four cylindrical reeds with
flutes between, in a style frequently found throughout Woodbury. The
interior is rich and unspoiled.

Left from Woodbury Green with its cannon and Soldiers' Monument, on an im-
proved road to Orenaug Park, 0.4 m., a wooded traprock ridge donated by a former
resident as a town park. A steel tower, rising 60 feet, provides a view of six town-
ships. Bethel Rock, a natural stone pulpit on the east side of the park, was the
worshiping place of Woodbury's first settlers before they erected a church.

At 5.6 m. is the junction with State 61. US 6 turns sharp right, leaving
the valley of the Nonewaug River.

Left on State 61 to BETHLEHEM (alt. 880, town pop. 544), 4.1 m. Known as
North Purchase when it was bought from the Indians in 1710, the territory was
settled in 1 734. This typical Connecticut hill town, sequestered from the rush of
modern traffic, retains much of its old-time charm. On the Green (L) stands the
Brick Church (1829) opposite the Isaac Hill House (1759), an old post tavern.
Here on the Green, one of the first theological seminaries in the country was estab-
lished by the Rev. Joseph Bellamy in 1750. The Rev. Bellamy (1719-90), born in
Cheshire, was pastor of the Congregational Church (Bethlehem) from 1740 to
1790. He wrote many books and was surpassed in influence only by Jonathan
Edwards.

At 6.4 m. is a large Cut-Stone House (L), with a queer observatory atop
the hipped roof. Set in a hollow, this house has no view to any point of
the compass and the observation tower seems to have been added merely
to satisfy the whim of some country squire.

WATERTOWN (alt. 600, town pop. 8175)^ 8.7 m., dating from a 1780
incorporation, is another one of Connecticut's * parlor towns.' On Water-
town's rolling uplands General David Humphreys (see Tour 5,ANSONIA )
grazed a part of his flock of imported merino sheep. The strain that he
developed came to be regarded as superior, in some respects, to the orig-
inal stock. Connecticut Red draft cattle, bred in Watertown, found a
ready market in other communities. A Watertown factory that grew up
in answer to local needs still produces bull rings of superior strength and
quality.

John DeForest manufactured palm-leaf hats here in 1825 and, until a few
years ago, Watertown Wool Dusters flaunted their varicolored plumes in
many New England general stores. Stephen Bucknall began producing
hand-made locks in 1840, and the Wheeler and Wilson Sewing Machine

TOUR 2: From Brewster to Providence, R.I. 385

Company, which later moved to Bridgeport to serve world markets from
the seaboard, was organized here in 1851.

The Watertown terrain does not lend itself readily to the developing of a
long elm-shaded main street as does that of near-by towns, but her citi-
zens have carefully improved the natural advantages. Grouped around
the central Green are several interesting houses of the period from 1772
to 1800, some of soft gray Roxbury granite, others of white clapboards
with green shutters, each set in landscaped grounds.

At Watertown is the junction with State 63 (see Tour 2B).

Left from Watertown on Echo Lake Rd. is the Bishop Tavern (1800), 0.5 m., now
remodeled and distinguished by two rows of dormer windows. This famous old
tavern, which formerly stood at the foot of Academy Hill on the Litchfield-New
Haven turnpike, was conducted by the spectacular James Bishop, whose activities
were once discussed at every fireside in New England. Among his hobbies was the
cutting of his 5o-acre meadow in one day. Runners were sent throughout the
county to notify farmers of the date for the mowing, and few men or boys failed
to be on hand. When the sun rose over the eastern hills, long lines of mowers,
scythes in hand, stood ready for the rousing blast of the horn. The tedders followed
the mowers, with the rakers fast on their heels. By sunset, the field of waving grass
was smooth stubble, dotted with great rounded hay cocks. Five meals were served
during the day, and plenty of cider, switchel, and New England rum.

Bishop, who also owned a tavern in New Haven, determined one year to cart all of
the hay from that meadow in one load to New Haven. An enormous wagon was
built for the purpose, bridges along the route were repaired, trees were cut down,
and one small building was moved to widen the highway. Twelve yoke of oxen,
their yokes decorated with scarlet streamers, pulled the load, on top of which sat
a band that played enlivening tunes. Preceded by outriders, and Bishop himself
in a shining barouche drawn by a pair of beautiful grays, the cavalcade was greeted
by admiring crowds whose accounts of the event have been handed down for
generations.

US 6 passes the buildings and campus of the Taft School for Boys (L).
The original grounds are protected by strong fences and stone walls, but
the newer buildings and the golf course are separated from the road only
by carefully trimmed hedges.

From Watertown US 6 is a narrow, asphalt highway that twists through
mixed hardwood forests following the route of an Indian trail. Grades
are gentle and there are frequent curves.

Black Rock State Park (excellent bathing facilities} , at 12.3 w., has many
fine woodland trails leading through carefully patrolled acres of forest.

THOMASTON, 13.3 m. (see Tour 5), is at the junction with State 8
(see Tour 5). From this point US 6 joins with State 8 for 1.2 miles.
At 14.5 m. US 6 turns right, leaving State 8, and ascends the sharp grade
of Plymouth Hill which requires cautious driving, but a roughened con-
crete surface partly eliminates the hazard.

PLYMOUTH (alt. 700, town pop. 6070), 15.4 m., is a quiet village at the

top of Plymouth Hill. Its streams once turned mill wheels in early clock

factories.

Plymouth was first settled as Northbury in 1728, incorporated in 1795,

386 High Roads and Low Roads

and named for Plymouth, Mass., probably because the first settler, Henry
Cook, was a great-grandson of one of the Pilgrim fathers.

Facing the triangle at Main and Maple Sts. is a brick house (1817), once
a blacksmith shop that was the original Blakeslee Ives Toy Factory, fore-
runner of the present-day producers of toy electric trains.

Clustered around the Green (L) are: the Congregational Church (1838), a
rather heavy Ionic building, which contains an original Eli Terry clock
whose wooden works often swell and stop after a driving rainstorm; the
Soldiers' Monument', the Town Signpost', the old white clapboarded Acad-
emy (1820) with an open octagonal belfry; the District Schoolhouse-, and a
new stone Episcopal Church (1915).

TERRYVTLLE (alt. 700) (Town of Plymouth), 17.7 m., is a manufactur-
ing village where Eagle locks are made. The wooden wheels of an original
Eli Terry clock still tick off the minutes in the gable end of the Congre-
gational Church (1838) on the left.

The second house west of the church was the Home of Eli Terry, Sr., in-
ventor of the shelf clock (see Industry, and Tour 5, THOM ASTON), a frame
building with exterior walls of vertical smooth sheathing. It is an early
attempt to express the Gothic style in wood, an effort that seems artificial
today. Here in Terry ville, Eli Terry, Jr., for whom the village was named,
engaged in the manufacture of clocks (1824). His son, James, developed
the first cabinet lock in America, and the Eagle Lock Company, formed
by him, long held a^monopoly on the product. Another son, a pioneer in
the manufacture of malleable iron, organized the Andrew Terry Foundry.
These two firms, still in operation, are the main industries of the village.

Right from Terryville on South St. and left on Tolles Rd. to a junction with
Wolcott Rd., 2.5 m.; left on Wolcott Rd. to the first intersection and left on that
road, 4.1 m. Here, to the right of the road in the region known as Indian Heaven,
is Jack's Cave, once inhabited by three old Indians who lived here as late as 1830.
The cave, named for the leader of the group, has an- entrance corridor 20 feet wide
and 10 feet long that leads into a rock chamber used by the Indians as sleeping
quarters. Near-by is Jack's East Cave, used by the same group of Indians.

At 18.8 m. is the junction with the combined US 6A and US 202, which
this route travels; it is the better road.

In Baldwin Park (L), at the junction, is a memorial to Dorence Atwater,
who, taken prisoner during the Civil War and assigned to work in a Con-
federate hospital, compiled a secret record of 13,000 dead Union soldiers
that proved of great value to the War Department for identification pur-
poses.

At 19.6 m. is the junction with an improved road.

Left on this road, 0.8 m., to the extensive plant of the Bristol Nursery Company,
where an annual chrysanthemum show is held in early October; the nursery gardens
blossoming in great blocks of brilliant color are visible from many vantage points
on the neighboring hills.

US 6A climbs and descends Chippens Hill, the secret gathering-place of
Tories in Revolutionary days and scene of the book 'Tories of Chippenny
Hill,' by LeroyB. Pond.

TOUR 2: From Brewster to Providence, R.I. 387

BRISTOL (alt. 240, town pop. 28,451, sett. 1727), 20.2 m., now an indus-
trial city, early made history with its clock production. As early as 1790,
Gideon Roberts was making clocks here and peddling them on horseback.
Jerome, Rich, and Ingraham were other early Bristol clock manufac-
turers, and Joseph Ives, in 1832, produced an eight-day clock with rolled
brass works. Jerome's clock shop was the largest in the country and, in
1842, he exported his wares to England. The E. Ingraham Company
clock manufactory is conducted by grandsons of the founder, and the
Sessions Clock Company is an outgrowth of a business started here by
J. C. Brown in 1833. Bristol early expanded as a manufacturing village;
clock springs, saws, fishing rods, ball bearings, bells, coaster brakes, silver-
ware, castings, and heavy machinery were soon produced for world trade.
At one time a Bristol plant manufactured a very high-priced, high-grade .
automobile, the Hupp-Rockwell. In the back-country, inaccessible by
road, about four miles to the north, a copper mine produced some
$200,000 worth of ore between 1847 and 1854.

Moses Dunbar, a Tory resident who provoked local animosities and was
charged with high treason, was tried at Hartford and found guilty on
January 23, 1777; he was hanged near the spot where Trinity College
stands.

At the Forge Plant of the New Departure Manufacturing Company (L),
developers of the coaster brake and now a division of General Motors,
cherry-red bars of high-carbon, high-chrome steel are fabricated into bear-
ings for automobiles.

The Congregational Church (1832), on Maple St., opposite Prospect Place,
is a combination of Greek Revival and slightly gothicized elements, such
as the finials on the square tower. The two-chimneyed Miles Lewis House
(1801), at 100 Maple St., and the Hooker House (about 1815), on Hooker
Court, off Riverside Ave., are the best remaining early houses in the
center.

At 10 King St. is the Ebenezer Barnes House (1728), a former tavern. It
is an inconspicuous but interesting house with early side-lights and, with-
in, some rooms with feather edge boarding on walls and ceiling. The
original stone-chimneyed house was enlarged by salt-box additions at both
ends, and became the Pierce Tavern, an important stop on the Hartford-
Litchfield Rd.

Right from Bristol on West St. (State 69), along which are views of the industrial
sky line of chimney tops surrounded by a circle of wooded hills. The highest of
these hills is Johnny Cake Mountain, so named because, according to tradition,
residents there lived on 'johnny cake.' At the top of Fall Mountain lies Cedar
Lake (R), 3 m., noted for its fishing. From this point, hunters, working to the east,
sometimes stumble onto the lost Pike's Hill Cemetery where early settlers from
Wolcott were buried. Nothing remains of the cemetery now except a few leaning
headstones, overgrown by underbrush, in the dense woods.

At 5.7 m., at the top of a hill, is an excellent vantage point for a view of the Mad
River Valley and distant hills to the west.

Traversing heavily wooded, rolling country, this route reaches a country cross-
roads, at 6.6 m. Here, screening the Mad River Falls from the highw